Birthday Party and Stake Conference

James went to a friend's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese and had a blast! All the kids had so much fun and even Rett got into it. He loved running around and putting coins in things. Anthony and I took turns being with each kid and when we got home and I told Anthony that it was actually an outing where I felt like things went well. No meltdowns or crazy behavior. Just fun all around!

He will only smile if I tell him I don't want him to smile. Punk.

These four are all classmates in James' preschool class. When the mom was taking the picture she was telling them to smile and then laughed when she realized it didn't matter what they did because of the masks!

Trying to squeeze in together on the rocket ship ride.

After this outing, we discovered that Rett can't say "Chuck E Cheese". Instead he says "Sucky Cheese". We die laughing every time he says it!


Our stake is trying out broadcasting stake conference to different ward buildings for the first time, so when we came in and sat down, this is what we saw. I guess they couldn't get the contrast right or something? Anyway, as soon as we sat down, Rett looked up and said, "A Ghost!" It was pretty funny!

This one was even harder to get a picture of, but the speaker was basically a white blur with dark circles for eyes. Very creepy.

I was very proud of the boys, they lasted a little over an hour in the chapel before they needed to take a break and walk around the building. We had never been to this building before, so they had to check out every nook and cranny. At one point my mom took them outside for a walk and they discovered a large amount of baby grasshoppers...which they just had to catch.

So yeah. There is an old lifesavers container full of dead grasshoppers in James' room right now. I try not to think about it too much :)

March Fun

Since I am in the stake primary presidency now, it means that I had a lot to do for the stake pinewood derby. The president was out of town, but she gave me all the materials for it, including a set of thrift store trophies. I hot glued some hot wheels cars on the top and spray painted them gold. The cub scouts were so excited about those trophies! The stake center is about 45 minutes away from us, so the Saturday of the pinewood derby, the boys and I left the house around 10:30 and we didn't get home until 5pm. It was a long day! The boys were great, very good helpers and very well behaved. I was so glad because there was a lot of work to do coordinating everything. It couldn't have gone better, so I was really happy about it. James brought his own car to race. He even weighed it and hot glued some pennies on it to try to make it faster.

Finally! Right at the end when it was time to clean up, the siblings who brought cars could race theirs. James lost all of his races, but he was a good sport about it. He said he didn't mind since he still got to take one of the extra participation trophies home.

Superman car racing the Batmobile!

Some family friends sent us a belated Christmas card with a Toysrus gift card for the boys. When I told James how much he could use for his toy, he got so excited and ran to tell Anthony that he could pick out "even an expensive toy!". I think his love language is toys. Seriously.

So we took a trip to Daytona to the nearest Toysrus. They had such a blast checking out every little thing.

Rett liked everything, so we decided to get him a Cars race set and some new Lightning McQueens. He loves Lightening McQueen! Now he has four of them in different colors and he can't sleep unless he has all of them with him in his crib.

James wanted a remote control boat, so he picked out this one. When we checked out, the cashier got Anthony to add on some batteries from the checkout for the boat and when Anthony handed me the receipt I saw that the batteries were $18!! In what world does anyone spend that much on batteries?? We returned them right away and got some from the dollar store later.

One night before bed Rett and I were playing with puzzles in his room and he surprised me by knowing almost all of the numbers in the puzzle! I promise I put no effort into teaching him. He must have soaked it up from the tv shows he watches. It is so interesting to keep discovering how different he is than James. James had no interest in any of this stuff for the longest time and Rett just loves it! He also loves to color, which James has never liked so I have to think of all new things for him to do that I never thought of with James.

Grandma came to visit and brought Rett a big lollipop. Don't be fooled by his face, he was actually really excited about it.

My awesome sister sent me a Harry Potter vintage wand necklace and I happened to be wearing my 9 3/4 t-shirt the day it came in the mail. Too perfect.

On St. Patrick's day, we had so much going on that I hadn't planned on doing anything cute for the boys. When I took James to school and told him it was St. Patrick's day, he was so excited about leprechauns! He kept telling me all about them and that they play tricks and have a pot of gold. When he got to school he noticed a house across the street that had always been blue, but now it was yellow (I guess they painted the day before). He was so excited! He said that leprechauns must have painted their house! So after I got home from dropping him off, a few sneaky leprechauns visited with things I had around the house.

James found this map on his bed that leads to the leprechaun's treasure.

When we followed it, we found out we were tricked! He left us candy instead of his pot of gold!

Then James started to explore the house to find what else the leprechaun did. He put four leaf clovers on his door!

James found these toys on the floor in Rett's room and said, "Man! That leprechaun came in here and made a mess!" Ummm. Yep, sure he did.

His favorite was discovering that the toilet bowl water was green! He kept laughing and hitting his head. Rett kept pointing and saying, "green! green!". James insisted that nobody use the toilets because he wanted the water to stay green. He even told Anthony that he would have to go potty outside in the backyard behind the shed :)

Looking in the garage and insisting that things had been moved by the leprechaun. Hey, why not? Sure he did! That sneaky guy :)

For the rest of the day, James kept asking, "Hey! Was that like that before? (about anything looking out of place) I think the leprechaun did that!". We also watched Darby O'Gill and the Little People so he could see what real leprechauns look like. We really had a blast with St. Patrick's day this year!

The next day was the last day of school before spring break, the Easter egg hunt, and pizza party in James' class. Since my mom was in town, I stayed at school with James to help out. The kids were wired! Here they are lined up for their Easter egg hunt.

James was very excited that it was his turn to be door holder. He holds the door and holds his hand out for everyone to give him a high five when they walk by. So cute!

Saying hi to the Easter bunny before going in to get eggs. James kept saying, "I know it is a person in a costume because I can see their arms and their neck."

James didn't want to get right next to the Easter bunny for a picture, but he was cool with standing on the fire truck near him.

Birthday Weekend

I had a wonderful 30th birthday this year!! It started with taking James to school and then going to the gym for Zumba. The instructor surprised me with a birthday tiara and a present and another gym friend baked me cupcakes. We had a blast!! Everyone told me how young I was, so that made me feel good :)

After I picked up James from school, he and my mom went to the store and picked out flowers for me and my birthday cake. James was very opinionated about what they purchased. He was dead set on getting me a kids Mario and Luigi sheet cake, insisting that it was my favorite. My mom vetoed it and got a chocolate cake instead and James was very let down by it. :)

For dinner we went to a Japanese steakhouse where they cook the food in front of you. James and Rett were very impressed by the fire and by his knife skills. James' face says it all!

Rett looked a little scared, but when you asked him if he liked the fire he would say, "Cool! Fire!"

I had to get a picture of James' plate because it is so typical of meals with him. Every time the cook tried to put something on his plate (noodles, rice, chicken), James would hold his plate back and tell him "no, thank you". At one point he asked, "You not hungry?" and James had this pathetic face and said, "Yes I am". I whispered in his ear that he needed to be polite and not say out loud that the food was "gross" or "yucky" so that he wouldn't hurt the cook's feelings. I promised him that we would stop and get him chicken nuggets on the way home if he did that and he kept his word! He was very polite.

The next day we decided to visit the botanical gardens and check out the dinosaur sculptures. The boys had a blast! They loved checking out every nook and cranny of the place.

These two pictures made me laugh because if you look at James' face you can see how quickly he can go from calm to furious! He wanted to go around the gate to get close to the dinosaur and we told him that he couldn't. We joke with each other all the time that you will always know exactly what James is feeling because it shows on his face so dramatically.

We were amazed by the size of the leaves on this vine. Both of the boys could fit underneath it! Of course, they ran out of it before we could get a picture.

Making them pretend they love me :)

The next day we went to a park to watch a local model boat club race their boats. It was so interesting! The club mostly consisted of older, very serious men but James was oblivious to their worried glances. It always surprises me how the hobbyists at this sort of thing seem to have completely forgotten how fun it looks to little kids. We had the same experience at the model train expo, there too they seemed very grumpy that kids would get close to their prized possessions.

We walked by the sailboats first. James was not impressed.

Then we got to the other side of the lake where they had all sorts of remote controlled boats. There were huge battleships like these two, small battleships, a lobster boat, a yacht, and speed boats.

They were practicing putting their boats up to this miniature dock. It looked very difficult!

We found a spot by the water and sat and watched for awhile.

We went for a little walk and found some other boats under the pavilion. James was dying to explore all the parts of the boats and see how they worked. Then he said he hopes Daddy has the materials at home to built a boat because he wants to build one when we get home.

It was a fun filled weekend, a great way to celebrate the beginning of my thirties!