More December Fun

On a Saturday Anthony had off of work, he wanted to go to St. Augustine to pick up some materials for his new tank set-up. Once we got them, we decided to go a few more minutes down the road to climb the St. Augustine lighthouse! James and Rett were both really excited, but unfortunately Rett wasn't tall enough to climb it. Rett was sad at first, but then he kept telling me, "I do it when I grow bigger?". So cute! Rett and I played on the playground and checked out the exhibits while Anthony and James climbed to the top.

It was very windy that day, so James tried to crawl underneath the open window to avoid the draft. He thought it was hilarious!

Checking out the view:

After climbing back down, it was James' turn to play on the playground.

Rett giving Daddy snuggles before he goes to work.

A traveling store came to James' school so that kids could buy Christmas presents for their family. I sent James to school with an envelope of money with a budget for each family member and he came home with wrapped presents for all of us. We have been having fun wrapping up random things and putting them under our little 25 days of Christ ornament tree, so the rule has become that if the present is under the little tree you can open it that day (presents under the big tree have to wait until Christmas). As soon as James got in the car he declared, "These presents go under the little tree!", so we opened them that night.

He was most excited about giving Anthony his gift. I think because he couldn't wait to borrow it :)

He picked out a measuring tape with a place for post-it notes and a small pencil.

Showing Daddy how it works:

Then it was my turn, James got me a ceramic ring holder!

Showing me that you can also use it as a tiny umbrella:

Rett's turn! He got a small stuffed horse. He hugged it and immediately named it "Fluffy".

I didn't want James to be the only one not to open a present, so I texted Anthony before we got home and he went out and got him a present to open: navy seals boats and action figures!

One of the local u-pick farms that I follow on Facebook announced that they were opening up for strawberry picking for one day only. Considering how many strawberries we go through in our house, I definitely wanted to be there! Rett and I got there right after they opened and it was a good thing because they were picked out of ripe strawberries in a few hours!

My helper dumping his small basket into the big one.

Look at these beauties!

After we got our strawberries, we walked over to the vegetable patch to check out what they had. We got some huuuuuge eggplant, peppers, and broccoli. They had a patch of green tomatoes, and when Rett saw them, he said "Look! Apples!"

The haul! We ended up with a little over 10 pounds of strawberries and we ate them all in about 2 weeks.

James and Rett got a Kiwi crate subscription for Christmas from my mom, and James' box had an activity where you assemble your own grabber claw. James' first thought was that it would be perfect for picking up trash at the park, so the next time we went to the park that is what we did!

For our 11 year wedding anniversary Anthony had to work, so to celebrate we all went bowling. This was our first time at the local bowling alley (every time we tried in the past they were booked), and it was great! They had automatic bumpers that went up for the boys and down for us. Rett lost interest in the game a few frames in, so James took over and played for him.

James had been shivering at the bowling alley and I thought it was just because of the air conditioning. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and he was really shivering in there, and I again thought it was just the air conditioning. Then we got home and started getting him ready for bed and realized that he was burning up! When I took his temperature it was 102! He was pretty sick for the next few days, tired, fever, congestion. Rett caught it a few days later and was sick for a few days. I had a little bit of a cold throughout all this, nothing too bad but after a week I caught it much worse and ended up with a middle AND outer ear infection. I was soooooo miserable. I am on the second round of antibiotics and it still hasn't completely cleared up and I pretty much can't hear out of that ear at the moment. The end of the year sickness hit us pretty hard.

Being sick together: