James' first talk in Primary!

James had his very first talk in primary on Sunday! I asked him a bunch of questions about the topic and used his answers to make his talk, so it mostly in his own words. We practiced a lot at home about using the microphone, but I still wasn't sure how it was going to go ;) Luckily, once he decided where he wanted to stand, he got into his groove. We were all so proud of him! Here is the video of it:

He had quite the cheering section, my mom was visiting so she got to see it and Anthony's parents drove up to go to church with us just to be there. He is one well-loved little boy!

I'm trying to be more consistent about getting James to do chores everyday. I made a chore chart for him where he can move pictures of his chores over to a "completed" section once he does them. Every day he does all of his chores, he gets a small coin to add to his piggy bank. He generally doesn't mind doing his chores, but some days he needs extra encouragement. One morning he said he needed to be in his transformers costume before he could do his chores. Once he put it on, he did everything really fast, "like a superhero", so it actually helped!

Anthony's parents visited us on their way back home from a weekend trip with James' cousins. James loooooves to play with his cousins and he looooves Mimi and Papa's RV, so he was one happy little boy to play with them all.

James just got over a persistent cough that he had for at least two weeks. He seemed fine in every other way, but the coughing sounded so terrible! On top of that, James has the most sensitive gag reflex, so a bad coughing fit would often lead to vomit. Not fun! I tried to limit our outings and stay home as much as possible with his cough, but after awhile we both were getting restless and grumpy. I decided that we needed to do something fun to get us out of our funk, so we decided to visit the sea turtles at the marine science center and play at the park by the lighthouse (his cough was mostly gone by then). It was a beautiful sunny day and we all had a blast! Rett is hard to chase around at these type of places and he won't stay in his stroller anymore, so it was hard to get many pictures. James did get to pet the sting rays and watch them get fed. We also saw them feed an octopus and we saw all the of the sea turtles that are there for rehab.

The playground outside of the lighthouse had a lot of fun equipment, including a seesaw. They both loved it!

February Fun

Even though it was cold and overcast, we decided to go play at the beach one morning. James really wanted to test out his new beach shovel and we got to work digging the biggest hole we could!

 Eventually it got so deep that James couldn't get out of it without help.

 After digging the hole, it was time to fill it back in:

Rett was having fun walking around, but he got too close to the waves and after he got wet he was a little cranky. He loved playing in the sand though!

Our strawberry plants are growing some big strawberries! It looks like we are going to have a lot of them this year. Anthony even built a screen cover for them to keep the animals from nibbling on them before we can pick them. James loves to eat the strawberries that we grow, but he doesn't usually eat the ones from the grocery store. Go figure!

James had a little valentine play date with some friends from church, so he helped me make these superhero valentines for them. Rett got really upset while we were making these because he was dying for a tootsie roll pop. He gets so mad when he can't have what everyone else is having!

The boys were actually playing nicely together without pushing, shoving, or taking each other's toys so I tried to get a picture of it. They were jumping on the mini trampoline and every time Rett would fall down, James would purposefully fall down with him. Then they would laugh and laugh and laugh!

 Look at my big boy!

Rett has become such a climber! He climbs up on chairs, couches, anything he can get his hands on. Thankfully he hasn't tried to climb out of his crib yet! I took a picture of him trying to get one of the light switches above the couch. He climbed onto the couch and then up the back of the couch all by himself!

Finding little boy dress shoes has got to be the hardest thing in the world! Well, to be fair, finding little boy dress shoes that are less than $25 is the hardest thing to do. If I didn't mind spending that much, then I could just go and get them at Payless. However, trying to find them on sale at any other type of store is so hard! They either don't even carry them or they don't have small toddler sizes. I've tried buying a few pairs for Rett online and each time I can't even fit his toes in the shoes. Somehow the shoes are meant for narrow, dainty footed little boys. And Rett is not one of those little boys. Do you see these rolls? He even has rolls on the top  of his foot. So for now he wears socks to church because we just cant find him dress shoes that fit!

James is 4!

The day of James' birthday party I did a yearly interview with him:

I am this old: 4
The best show on TV is: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
My favorite thing about school (Mommy school) is: Play beards (mustaches)
The thing I am best at is: cleaning up and helping with dishes
If I could change my name, it would be: Rett (he was looking around the room for answers and he saw Rett :)
My favorite color is: Green
My favorite toy is: gripper/picker upper from the dollar tree (one of those long poles with a grip they make for people who can't bend over. He got attached for some reason :)
When I grow up I want to be: firefighter
I like to take these to bed with me at night: flashlight, toys, elephant
My favorite book is: We're going on a bear hunt
My favorite movie is: Bambi
My favorite season of the year is: Fall because of Halloween
A food I really like is: apples
My favorite animal is: giraffes
My favorite sport is: ghosties (tag)
My best friend is: mommy (awwwww!)
My favorite holiday is: Halloween
My favorite thing I did this year: go to the beach

The original plan for James' birthday party was to go to a go-kart place with family so he could ride go-karts for the first time. I just knew he would love racing around in them! The only one I knew about was in South Daytona, which is a bit of a drive for all of Anthony's family since they would already be driving 45 minutes just to get to our house. South Daytona is another 30 minutes away, so I thought we would do it at a place closer to Cocoa. Since we would have to drive for 30 minutes or so either way, I thought it would be better to drive down closer to everyone else. Anthony really liked that idea and said we should do it at a place in Cape Canaveral that has been around for years. I really should have called the place, but I hate calling people on the phone and we figured it would be the same as when we were there 10 years ago. I was so glad that we didn't tell James what we were doing, because when we got there, they didn't have go-karts anymore! All they had was mini-golf and a small arcade. James was happy and excited just to be having fun with everyone but I was a little disappointed. We also underestimated how cold and windy it was going to be, so for some reason I didn't think to bring jackets for us or the boys. James refuses to wear them anyway. He says, "I'm a tough boy, I don't need a jacket".

James loved hitting the ball. He would hit it, run to his ball, pick it up, place it right next to the hole and then hit it in. Sounds like a good strategy to me!

 James was so excited to see his cousins Dallas and Nevada. He followed them around the entire time and wanted to do everything they did. It is so fun to see cousins love each other!

 My mom volunteered to be on Rett patrol. He wanted to get down and climb around on everything, even the tall rickety wooden stairs.

 We let him play with the balls while we waited for everyone else to catch up to us. He would collect everyone's balls and then bring them over to Dallas. It was so funny! We tried to point to the hole so that he would put them in there, but he really just wanted to hand them to Dallas.

Anthony took his mini golfing very seriously and tried to line up each shot and keep track of how many strokes. 

 James carefully hitting his ball in at the last hole:

My mom was worried about Rett being cold, so she bought a sweater at the gift store and wrapped him up in it:

After mini golf we spent some time in the arcade playing games and collecting tickets. James wanted to play every game, regardless of what it was. He wouldn't even look at it, he would run up and say "Let's play this!". He really liked this shooting game where you shot robbers in a store. As I watched him I realized I'm not much of a fan of the shooting games where they shoot realistic looking people, even if they are bad guys. I would much rather he shoot aliens or something if he is going to play a shooting game!

After the arcade we drove down the street to an Italian place for pizza and cupcakes. While we waited for our food, James opened all of his presents and he was so excited for each one. The restaurant was pretty dark so I didn't get any good pictures, but I took some pictures of him with his presents a few days ago to put in his thank you cards.

From his Aunt Robin and his cousins he got a ball and bat set, a bath time safari kit, and a kite. We are saving the kite for the next time we go to the beach!

From Mimi and Papa he got a hooded towel that looks like a fox, complete with paws and a tail. He also got a unicorn towel that he decided to share and make Rett's :)

From Grandma he got a tiny train set and a Spiderman ball and glove. It goes perfectly with his bat!

From Aunt Happy (who wasn't there, but sent him a present in the mail) he got a toy chain saw. He was so excited to add that to his toy power tool collection! He loves to take it around outside and pretend to chop things down with it.

From Mom and Dad he got a Magic School bus science kit and batman spy set with a flashlight, a compass, and binoculars. He calls them "noculars".

I forgot his candle for his cupcakes at the party, so at home the next night he got to have another cupcake and blow out his candle.

A very sweet woman from church volunteered to do all the birthday cards for the primary children, so James also got a birthday card in the mail. I had no idea she was doing this, but she also taped a Sacajawea dollar coin inside the card. James was sooo excited to get a piece of "golden treasure". What a good idea!

He loves being 4 and being "big" now. He will randomly mention something like, "I am 4 now, so I can do (fill in the blank with what he wants to do)". We have talked about how after he turns 4, he will be old enough to go to preschool, so he keeps asking me when he gets to go to school like his friends. I told him after the summer he gets to go, but he wants to go now! We love our sweet, goofy, smart little boy!