Air Show & Healthy Kids Day

Lately there have been a lot of festivals and special events around on the weekends, so I've been taking advantage of them and braving them by myself with the boys. The first one was the annual hot air balloon festival and air show. We love going to this every year, but it is always hot and crowded! The parking was a little sketchy when we first pulled up, so I was a little worried that I would end up blocked in, but it all turned out ok.

James loved seeing all of the airplanes, helicopters, and cool trucks on display. There were a few this year that you could actually go inside of!

This is the cockpit of one of the big airplanes we walked around in. After we saw this part, James said, "Let's get off in case it flies away with us inside!".

This is James next to the wheel of the plane we were just in. See how big it was?

This one was pretty cool, I've never seen wings folded up like that before.

They were handing out free samples of beef jerky and I had to get a picture of this truck. A beef jerky truck!! Why not?

One side of the festival was set up for a carnival, so we went and rode some rides. We all rode the carousal first, with me next to Rett. James was too scared to get on a horse for some reason, so he rode in the stationary sled meant for kids in wheelchairs...oh well. At least he had fun. Then we went down the line so James could ride a few more.

After we were done with the carnival, I debated going home. We had been there for over 2 hours already, but the airshow was scheduled to start in about 40 minutes and I knew James would love it. We decided to have a picnic and eat some lunch while we waited for the airshow to start. Rett was ready to get out of the stroller, so he spent some time dancing to the music they had playing.

I hadn't planned for sitting for some reason, so I just sat in the grass. The boys sat in their stroller with the shade over them and ate the food I brought in my bag. It was so hot, I ended up buying a bottle of water to pour into Rett's bottle so that he wouldn't get dehydrated. I really need to get that kid to start drinking from a sippy cup or a water bottle. Suggestions?

I looked over at Rett eating his banana and he was doing his "attitude" face where he scrunches up his eyes and nose, purses his lips and blows out loudly from his nose. I'm not sure what prompted it, probably a shove from James :)

To start the airshow, a plane when up with a skydiver in it. The sky was so beautiful while we were looking for them, so I got a picture. It really was a pretty day.

The opening act was pretty spectacular! The skydiver parachuted down with an American flag while four planes did loops and circles around him, with someone singing the national anthem over the loudspeaker. So cool!

James loved watching the planes do their loops and tricks, although Rett really didn't like how loud they got. I told James that he used to hate the loud noises too, but I don't think he really believed me :)

After the first few acts, they put everything on hold for a veteran's ceremony that lasted about 30 minutes and you couldn't even see what they were doing since it was all on the other side of the platform from us. Rett was getting pretty antsy by this point, and James told me he needed to go potty (which was all the way on the other end by the entrance). So we packed up, hit the port-a-potties, and made our way back to the car. We ended up spending four hours there, we really partied hard!

Rett loves to watch James play his preschool games on the Ipad. He gets this dazed look and can't look away. Such a guy!

Last Saturday we went to a healthy kids festival at our YMCA. They had music, a few booths, and a bunch of dogs and puppies for adoptions. They were so cute and squishy!! They are so tricky, they look like fun, but dang are dogs a lot of work! They had these fun bubbles for the kids to play with, so the boys spent a lot of time with them. It made me want to get some for the house!

They also had pony rides, and we got to sit and watch them set up. We petted the horses for a little bit and James really wanted to ride them. I didn't have quite enough cash in my wallet, but the owner said she would take it anyway. It is hard to resist James' cute face when he looks up at you clutching some dollars and a few coins :)

He kept saying, "This horse is wobbly!"

Rett was not a fan of the horses. He loved the puppies and liked petting them, but any animal larger than that seems to make him nervous. I'm glad because so far I only have one kid begging for pony and carnival rides!

Spring Soccer

James has been enjoying soccer this season, and it seems to have gone by quickly! They only have a few games left in the season. James really likes to go and play with his team and he has gotten much better at paying attention and not pushing or shoving the other kids. He isn't one of the fastest kids, so he doesn't get the ball often, but he tries! He was disappointed that they aren't the green team like the last two seasons, but he got used to it. This season they are Yellow Crush :)

Before the game starts, they line up with their team and wait to start warming up.

 Then they stretch and run laps.

 James loves his soccer chair that Mimi and Papa got him! When it is his turn to sit out, he comes running back to his chair squealing, "I get to sit!!!". Rett has decided he loves the chair too, so whenever James is out there playing, Rett takes over the chair. I think we are going to have to buy another one soon just for him :)

James has gotten the ball a few times this season during the games, but unfortunately he almost always heads the wrong way :) I think he takes advantage of the fact that nobody is blocking him when he goes the wrong way and decides to run for it. Here is a video of him trying to kick the ball into our own goal...luckily the goalie caught it!

James coach hurt his leg racing dirt bikes, in his words, "pretending to be young", so he coached last Friday's game with crutches. All of the kids were very curious about his injury and wanted to touch his crutches. James played defense right next to him and asked him lots of questions (of course!). When it was his turn to come sit with us, he told us, "My coach got hurt riding bikes with no training wheels! He needs training wheels!"

Beginning of April

Anthony and the boys have really enjoyed going out to the garden every day and picking the ripe strawberries and blueberries. Anthony bought four more blueberry plants, so in a few years we should have even more to pick! James and Rett love picking and eating these so much, it is hard to get them to stop.

I almost never ask Anthony to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work, or to do any kind of errands really. He is not the greatest at attention to detail...so when he does do something for me there is a high probability that he will forget something or pick up the wrong thing. One afternoon I realized we needed milk for both of the boys (1% for James and whole milk for Rett) so I figured he could handle grabbing some on the way home from work. Anthony was so happy with himself for making a joke about it, that as soon as he put his phone away he completely forgot that I had asked him to do anything. He walked in the door about 10 minutes later, looked at me and said, "Oh! I forgot to stop at the store!"

We have been finding snake skins like crazy around our neighborhood. James found one in our backyard behind our shed, I found one in the grass at church while I was placing the Easter eggs, and we both spotted this one while James was riding his bike on the sidewalk. James has been keeping them all in his room and I sometimes find random pieces of snake skin on the floor around the house. Anthony's boys for sure!

We were playing in the backyard one afternoon and I got a few pictures of these cute kiddos. Rett loves our small slide and we can usually distract him from things he is not supposed to do by saying, "Rett! Go down the slide!" He will stop what he is doing and run over to the slide. He usually waits at the top for someone to count, "1,2,3, Go!".

James was playing soccer with this big bouncy ball. He was having so much fun kicking it and chasing it. I was glad that he at least had shorts and underwear on so I could get a picture. There are so many times during the day where he ends up naked and I have to ask him, "Where did your clothes go??"

Rett at 18 Months

My smoosh is a year and a half old already! He is still my baby in some ways (he flat out refuses to drink milk from anything but a bottle), but such a little boy now in a lot of ways. A few days after I gave James a haircut, I pulled out the clippers and trimmed Rett's hair. It is shorter all the way around, but is still definitely curly.

He has almost all of his molars now, plus four teeth on top and three on bottom. Not that it ever stopped him before, but he definitely eats any and everything with those teeth. He loves green beans, broccoli, pears, peaches, peas, peanuts, applesauce, yogurt, bananas, noodles, chicken, crackers, you name it. He won't drink anything but milk or water, and doesn't like anything frozen like popsicles or ice cream. Which I wouldn't have even realized except he got an ear infection from all of the drainage from cutting his molars and he refused to drink a single thing for two entire days! I tried popsicles, jello, juice, anything I could think of to get him hydrated but nothing worked. He was barely wetting his diapers throughout the day and I was starting to get worried. After we got him on antibiotics, he perked right up and went back to drinking from his bottle. I was so relieved!

Since we had to measure and weigh him for the antibiotics, I got his 18 month statistics. The software Anthony's office uses gave us really different percentiles than all the other growth chart calculator's out there, so I'm not sure which one is more accurate. Either way, we've got a sturdy little man!

Weight: 26 pounds (Office: 73rd percentile, Pediatrics.com calculator: 50th percentile)
Height: 31 inches   (Office: 8th percentile, Pediatrics.com calculator: 12th percentile)

He loves to talk at us, but we don't usually know what he is saying :) He says, "Here go" and gives you things, "uh oh", "no", "yeah", "night night", "mommy" (me), "mama" (grandma), If we say "bath time!" he runs straight to the bathtub and if we tell him to hand something to one of us (me, Anthony, or James) he will go to the right person.

He loves to copy everyone, so he often does exactly what James is doing. If James is running around screeching, Rett is usually right behind him doing the same thing. If you make a funny face at Rett, he will make it right back at you. It is so funny! He does a really good mean squinty face with half-closed eyes that I can't get enough of. We just love this little guy!

Easter & General Conference

We had a busy, busy Easter weekend! Our ward Easter activity was the Friday afternoon before, and primary was put in charge of the egg hunt. I put a lot of time and effort into it because I wanted it to be fun for everyone, none of that pushing and grabbing for eggs! We planned three separate egg hunts based on age group and Anthony helped make wooden stakes so that we could rope off the different areas in the church parking lot. The missionaries stopped by one night and we got them to help us stuff the eggs. We stuffed over 400 eggs! I figured too many is better than too little right?

The nursery age group went first and had the grassiest spot all to themselves to find their eggs. The 4-7 age group went next and each age had a color egg they were supposed to find (4 year olds green, 5 year olds orange, etc...). That way they could focus on getting their own color and not taking the eggs from the person next to them. I put little color dot stickers on their hands before we went out there, so they could remember what their color was. The 8-12 age group had their own eggs to find that had candy and prizes mixed in with puzzle pieces. Once they found all the puzzle pieces and put them together, it "unlocked" a box full of treat bags for them that had assorted toys and treats from the dollar store. Somehow we didn't find all the puzzle pieces (I think the younger group might have wandered past the rope and gotten the older eggs), but we called it good and opened the treat box anyway. Each egg group had a golden egg that had a gold dollar coin in it, just for some extra fun! The bishop has a little surprised when I told him what my planned budget was for the activity, but it was totally worth it in the end :)

We brought James' Easter basket with us, but when he saw other kids using grocery bags, he wanted to too.

I had fun planning everything for the egg hunt, but the downside of being in charge of something like that is that you don't get to enjoy it with your kids while they participate because you are so busy making sure everything goes smoothly. I didn't get a chance to get many pictures, but in the end everyone had a great time. Many people said it was the best egg hunt yet, and I have to agree, if I do say so myself :)

Saturday afternoon we enjoyed conference at home. Since I spent so much time on planning the ward activity, I didn't do much by way of conference activities. We tried doing Bingo this year with key words and making a poster with stickers for every key word so we could see what was mentioned often. James stuck with the bingo for about half of one session and after that it was all me keeping track :) 

 

 

 

After conference, we made our way to the city's Easter egg hunt. I wouldn't have gone except they advertised this year that they would have bouncy houses and activities for the kids, in addition to over 10,000 eggs. I was thinking it wouldn't be too crazy.... It was really well organized, I just wish they wouldn't allow parents to go with their kids. They are the worst ones!

Sunday morning James was anxious for Rett to wake up so they could open their Easter baskets together. He has been so excited for the Easter bunny to come. For the last few weeks if he finds a candy on the floor somewhere, he will say, "Maybe the Easter bunny left those there for h'us".

The bubble gun was by far the favorite toy.

Rett loved checking out all the goodies in his basket too. Can I just say how long his legs look in these pictures?? He is growing so fast!

After Anthony's parents arrived for dinner, we discovered that the Easter bunny had put eggs in our backyard. Rett would run up to one, grab it, and then run back to his basket. James just raced around laughing and putting everything he could find into his basket.

It was a beautiful and fun Easter weekend. Now I just need another holiday to recover!