Father's Day

For Father's day this year, a friend gave me the idea to go to the new paint your own pottery place in town and make a special plate for Anthony. I went with the boys while Anthony stayed home and I told James that we were going to make a surprise for Daddy. It was killlllling James to keep this a secret for a week!

I've never been to one of these places before, so I wasn't sure how it was going to all work out. Once we got everything set up, I had both boys do hand prints on the front and then I stenciled "Happy Father's Day" on the back while trying to keep Rett in his seat...Not easy! Once we got to where they both could help paint the rest of it we had a few moments of peace:

Once we were all done, I started to clean everything up and I lost track of Rett for a second. When I looked up, he had picked up a pottery monkey and as I rushed toward him the lid fell off and shattered everywhere! I looked at the price tag and it said $26!! The owner only charged me half since she could reuse the bottom part, but I was still a little frazzled. I kept telling myself that in the end it would be worth it and hoped that Anthony would appreciate all the effort :)

Father's day morning I got up early to make Anthony blueberry pancakes on his new plate. Rett wanted some too. Isn't he just the cutest, smooshiest thing?

James had been hinting to Anthony about "the surprise" all week, so Anthony had figured out that we had decorated something for him, but didn't know what exactly.

James wanted to get his own picture of Anthony's face :)

While I was getting ready for church, I saw Anthony snuggling with Rett and thought it was a perfect picture for Father's day. Our kids have a pretty cool dad!

I also gave Anthony this interview I did with James about him. I love these things! My favorite is the last question about what Anthony teaches James. He looked at me and said, "To be bad!" then he smiled and said, "just teasin'. We fix things together". Giving me a fake answer and then saying he was just teasing? That is such an Anthony thing to do!

For dinner Anthony couldn't decide what he wanted, so I made an olive garden copycat recipe of steak and shrimp with spinach alfredo. It was a hit! Afterwards we had Anthony's favorite: cookie cake although nobody had very much because we were all stuffed. It was a great day celebrating a great father!

This week

I decided to tackle my pile of fabric, iron it all and organize it. It has been so much easier to make my bow ties and headbands now that I can just grab the fabric I need instead of sifting through a huge pile. I started putting some listings up on my Etsy store and I already had my first sale! It was so exciting! My goal is to put 10 new listings up a week, so I've been working on making some 4th of July ones recently.

Saturday we spent the morning in New Smyrna downtown. First we went to the farmer's market and looked at everything there. James loved looking at all the fruits and vegetables and figuring out the ones he knew. Of course, when I tell him that something is really tasty (like a squash for example), he always says, "Wellll, it's not yummy for me!". So even though he knows what most fruits and vegetables are, don't be fooled. He won't eat them to save his life.

After the farmer's market we walked over to the New Smyrna Beach historical museum. It is a free museum run by volunteers, full of information, pictures, and artifacts about the town. It originally started as a colony in the 1700's so there is a lot of history to look at!

Right as we walked in, one of the volunteers was starting a scavenger hunt tour with a little girl so we did it with her. She and James had a card with pictures of things throughout the museum and when they found it they got to check it off and learn more about it. James was racing around and wanted to touch everything in reach, so I got a little frustrated with him, but the volunteer was really patient :)

At the end of the tour they had a little gift shop and one section had an entire line of Datil pepper products! Datil peppers are basically only found around this area of Florida and were a main ingredient in the New Smyrna and St. Augustine colonist's diet. We had a Datil pepper plant in our garden but one of the few frosts we had killed it and Anthony has been wanting a new one ever since. I bought him some pepper jelly and a packet of heirloom datil pepper seeds. When I told him about it, you should have seen how happy it made him! Who knew he had such a farmer streak inside of him? He seriously loves planting things in our garden.

After the museum we had a picnic by the park. Rett was so happy to be eating food finally :)

James always insists on being silly/goofy when I take pictures of him. Also, we are back to wearing the Optimus Prime costume every. day.

Sunday I was getting ready for church when I spotted this weird short hair sticking straight up from the top of my head. When I looked at it closer I realized it was a gray hair!! Holy cow!! I'm not even 30 yet! I told Anthony I should name this hair "James". If anyone is doing this to me, it's him :)

Anthony went with us to the pool for the first time in forever and it was soooo nice having a parent for each kid. James eventually let Anthony take him into the deep end and pull him around while he kicked his legs. Now he tells everyone that he is an "awesome swimmer with my daddy". Rett tried out one of the Y's puddle jumpers for the first time and he loved it!

While we were there, about every 15 minutes Rett would walk out of the water and go towards our things on the beach chairs to eat some crackers or raisins. Anthony noticed and asked me what he was doing. He couldn't believe it when I told him! He isn't as bad at home, but for some reason when we are at the pool or the beach, his appetite goes into overdrive. It takes a lot of fuel to maintain this cuteness!

James has discovered that he loooooves popsicles. He has such a cute way of saying it, when he asks for one, he says, "Can I have a pox-ill?" He has discovered that his favorite type of popsicles are the long skinny ones in clear plastic from back in the day. Usually he lets it melt so that he can drink the "pox-ill juice". 

For a few days James had been asking to ride his "motorcycle" (big wheel) on the road, so yesterday we went for a walk around the neighborhood. He refuses to use the pedals because he says they are too hard, so he just pushes his feet on the ground. The only other time we have taken his motorcycle on a walk, he got tired and I had to carry the huge thing all the way back home. I warned him that I wasn't going to do that this time...

Of course, when we got about 1/2 mile away from our house, James stopped and said, "Whew! I'm tired!". I took pity on him and let him sit while I pushed him from behind with Rett's car. It actually worked pretty well as long as James remembered to steer :)

James and Rett were both invited to a birthday party for one of his friends from church. We played at the pool and then had pizza and cake at the park next door. The birthday boy loves bunnies, so as a present his parents borrowed a bunny from a friend so that it could visit their house for a few days. It was the hit of the party! They all loved to touch him and investigate him while he was in his cage, but then they let him out and everyone chased him around. It was awesome!

Rett loved running around with the big kids, but I caught him playing by himself on the playground and took a picture. All I have to say to get this face is, "Boo!". I love this handsome boy!

Beginning of June

 I am still getting used to driving around the minivan, so we have been sticking closer to home lately. It takes me awhile to get used to a new car, and parking is definitely trickier with the van.  I just found where the button is to open the gas cap today, so every day I learn something new! It is so nice to have keyless entry again, not to mention being able to open the doors with the remote. The keyless entry to the Civic broke a long time ago, so I had to unlock the doors with the button on the driver's side, then I had to physically reach in and unlock the back passenger door because something made it relock when you tried to open it. Not easy when you have two crazy boys running around and you are trying to herd them into the car. The van doesn't have a dvd player installed, so we are planning on hooking up a tablet on each of the boy's seats for our trip to the keys this summer. We are going to be so comfortable on this trip!

The city has been doing some construction on one of the roads and leveled out this big hill that James loves to drive over. We usually try to go a little faster over it and everyone says, "Wheeee!". They just finished leveling it out and James is not a fan. Every time we drive on that road and we get to where the bump used to be, James talks about how he doesn't like it. Yesterday we were driving down it and James said, "I don't like that they took the bump away!! I need to tell them (the construction workers) that, but are they there? No they are not!!"

James has a slight hoarding problem. I don't know if it is normal and if all kids do this, but James hates to throw anything away. Broken toys, candy wrappers, you name it. Stuff that I wouldn't think anyone would care about, he will dig out of the trash and get really mad at you for throwing it away. He also likes to save things like candy or treats and just have them for long periods of time without eating them. A teacher in primary brought all the kids these gummy lollipops that have four or five gummies on a stick. James ate Rett's and then wanted to save his for later. Anthony wanted some, so later that day during naptime he ate two of them. Oh. my. word. Disaster. James was so upset, he walked around saying, "Who did this?? Who ate some of my lollipop??" When he found out it was Anthony, for days he would randomly say, "I don't like that Daddy ate some of my lollipop. That was bad!" He put what was left of the lollipop on top of his dresser and it stayed there for weeks. That is until a few days ago....

Rett was being really quiet after bathtime, so we called his name to get him to come into the living room. He walked in eating James' gummy lollipop!! He looked so happy eating that thing and was so pleased with himself for finding it, that I didn't have the heart to take it away from him (especially since James ate his). James was still in the bathtub and didn't see it, so we let him finish it and then hid the evidence. So far James hasn't noticed that it is missing. Whew!

Rett has started to become ipad/device obsessed. If someone is on one, he will come and try to take over it. If you don't let him, he cries and throws himself on the floor and pitches the biggest fit! He has taught himself how to get to the different apps he likes and he will sit there for the longest time playing with it. We might need to do an electronics intervention for him in the near future :)

The pool at the YMCA is officially open for the summer. Even though we love the beach, the pool is so much cleaner, easier, and closer for us to go to. If I plan enough ahead of time, I like to bring our swim stuff when I go to my exercise class and then afterwards we play in the pool. I used to think Rett didn't like the water because he never wanted to play in the shallow kid area. I realized that what he really wants to do is for me to take him into the deep water and catch him as he throws himself off the side of the pool! After I did that the first time, he wouldn't stop, he wanted to do it over and over and over. He is almost too brave and will just fall in without looking to make sure I am ready to catch him.

One of the benefits of school being out for the summer is that now there are a lot more kids at the pool to play with, so usually James is occupied while I keep my hands on Rett. It will be fun to see if Rett is more willing to learn how to swim than James was. I certainly hope so!