Cousin time & Rett's Birthday Party

My sister and her family drove down from Ohio for our family vacation and we had a blast together! James loved playing with both of his cousins. He ran around a lot with Savino and he loves his rainbow bracelet that my niece Haley made for him. Of course, my sister also got to experience the squishableness of Rett for the very first time :) Since everyone was in town, we decided to have Rett's 1 year birthday party a week early and we had a houseful of people ready to celebrate! He was a little overwhelmed at first and unsure about what was happening and why so many people were watching him (and taking pictures).

After a few cautious taste tests, he got down to business!

We were enjoying watching him take his time with the cake, so we hadn't cut pieces for anyone else yet. James couldn't wait any longer and decided to "help" Rett with his. When we tried to get him to stop and back away from the cake, he would insist, "But we're shaaaaring!"

After about 10 minutes everyone sort of drifted away to do other things, but I couldn't stop watching him eat his cake. Why is it so fun to feed this baby?? I guess because he eats everything with such joy and gusto!

 Giving me frosting kisses:

 Me and my baby :) Where did the time go??

Anthony keeps accidentally catching seahorses in his crab trap and when he does, he brings them home to put them in the aquarium (we still have two small aquariums). Right now we have four seahorses in one tank! It takes a lot of work to feed them, Anthony has to go down to a dock to net sea grass and then has to pick out tiny little shrimp for them to eat. We have two males, one female, and one that is too small to tell, so it is possible that we could eventually have baby seahorses! The last time we had seahorses years ago we couldn't keep them alive, so Anthony is really excited that they are doing so well. They are definitely fun to watch!

My sister and her family spent half of the week at my mom's house and then on Wednesday everyone came over to our house for the rest of the week. James and Rett took a bath Tuesday night and didn't take another one until Saturday night. That is a sure sign that we were having lots of fun everyday and staying up late every night :)

Thursday afternoon we met up with everyone at the beach and it was the best time I've had at the beach in a looooong time. Rett was taking a nap, so he stayed home with my mom and Anthony and I took James. It was so relaxing having both of us there to watch James and he is old enough now that he just plays and we don't have to chase him or wrangle him. We spent a full 3 hours there and we could have stayed longer if we didn't have anywhere to be. James played in the waves, dug for snails, chased birds, and dug sandpits with his bulldozer.

Anthony's parents were driving back from their trip in their RV and stopped in New Smyrna to celebrate Rett's birthday and to visit. Friday morning everyone else was sleeping in, so I took the boys to visit Mimi & Papa and play at the RV park playground. It was the coolest place! They had all these custom wooden play structures, like a huge tractor with an actual gas pedal you can push, a two story play castle, a two level pirate ship with a fireman's pole to slide down to the bottom level, and a play cabin. James ran around with Anthony's dad the entire time, yelling, "Papa! Come on!". Then he got to help Papa unhook the RV and get it ready for driving. He is the most dedicated and willing helper when it comes to doing tasks like that. Rett was a little fussy and I couldn't figure out why until we got home and I realized I forgot to feed him breakfast in the rush to get out of the house. This little one cannot skip a meal. This is an angry face, fyi. We don't see it that often.

We tried to get a picture with the grandparents and these two were the best of the bunch. I was laughing looking through all the outtakes because in every single one James had his "camera face" on. When I first told him we were going to take pictures he immediate did his camera face, before we even got ready or got the phone out. He is definitely a Lagana!

 Friday afternoon after Anthony got home, we drove up to Daytona to my sister's hotel and explored the shops and attractions there. We had fun playing the games in a dated arcade and laughing at the weirdness. We played one called the "stinky feet" game where you sit on a fake toilet and shoot water from a faucet onto targets on the feet of a person in a bubble bath. So strange! James won a few tickets, but then a sweet little girl came over and gave James all of hers, so he was able to some cool toys with it. He was definitely excited about that! For dinner we decided to check out the nearby Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant and we realized it was the first time taking both kids to a sit down restaurant since Anthony's birthday almost a year ago! Luckily, they both did surprisingly well. James was uncharacteristically patient and Rett was happy as a clam, as usual.

Of course, this kid is always happy when there is food involved :) He ate two packages of applesauce, a small tupperware of raisins, pieces of my garlic bread, and half a ziplock bag of goldfish.

Saturday morning we relaxed and visited at our house and then decided to check out the park nearby that usually has lots of dolphins and manatees that swim by. Anthony and I took the boys fishing there earlier in the week and had so much fun! We caught a lot of little fish and James reeled in this whiting that we used as bait for the crab trap.

 Rett stayed in the stroller and enjoyed a granola bar. Thoroughly.

On the way home we stopped and baited the crab trap with the fish and put it in the water. Anthony always sees so much wildlife in the water by the dock and this time he got close enough to a manatee that he could have touched it!

We are so grateful for our wonderful family that make our life so richly blessed! The only thing that could make it better is if we could spend time together like this every day!