Beginning of February

James' school held a walk-a-thon to raise money for their new gym and I stayed to help with the kindergarten and 1st grade. They had a course laid out with obstacles for the kids to do and each kid got a punch card to keep track of how many laps they did. The goal was for them to get 10 punches for doing 10 laps (the equivalent of 2 1/2 miles). James ran almost the entire time and did 7 laps! Only a few of the older 1st graders ended up doing all 10 laps. When time was up, all the kids got to line up and get a necklace with a charm for every 2 laps they did. James wore that necklace every day for a week!

On a walk down our street we encountered a gopher tortoise! After we played with him for awhile, we put him back and watched him go inside his home.

The tortoise lives right next to the goats, so we had to say hi to them.

Playing zoo animals with Rett:

The feed store had chickens in stock, and I couldn't resist!! They are all girls so we don't have to worry about having to get rid of any of them as they get older. I got four different varieties that lay 4 different colored eggs so in 6 months we will definitely know who is laying and who isn't.

We bought the previous owner's riding lawn mower from them, but we realized that it needs some work done to it. James doesn't care that it doesn't cut the grass, he just loves to ride it around!

We took James to pick strawberries with us this time. There were so many big strawberries! We ended up just walking around and only picking the super big ones.

James "spying" the perfect strawberry:

Rett would pick them, put them in his container, and then immediately get it out and eat it.

The highlight of strawberry picking was playing in the freshly tilled dirt. There were large compacted pieces of dirt that looked like rocks, but when you threw them they would explode. It was the best part of their day!

The mom of one of James' friends from his VPK class last year messaged me on Facebook to say that Ethan had been wanting to play with James for awhile. We set up a time and went over to their house a week later. Every time I mentioned it, James wasn't happy about it and kept saying that he didn't want to. I think he was just nervous about playing together when he hadn't seen in him a long time. Once we got there, they had a blast and played for over 3 hours!! They played nerf guns, legos, and ate popcorn.

Rett has been fighting naps during the day, but if he does fall asleep he is so difficult to wake up! When I get him up to go get James from school, he groans and rolls over to go back to sleep.

Poor James caught the sickness that was going around his classroom. At least 6 different kids were out at different times last week! I ended up having to go pick him up from school in the middle of the day for the first time ever. He spent the rest of the day lying on the couch like this. It was so strange to see him so still!

We were going to the store and we called to Rett to get his shoes on. We didn't know what he was wearing, assuming he had his clothes on. He got James shoes on and then told us he was ready to go...at some point he had taken all of his clothes off, then put his underwear back on inside out and backwards.

I tried to get some better pictures of the chicks. It wasn't easy! I decided to give them Harry Potter-themed names: Hufflepuff, Bellatrix, Buckbeak, and Ginny.

James got a new primary teacher and on her first Sunday she asked Anthony to dress up like King Benjamin and visit his class. He did a great job!

James loved it! Anthony tried to convince him that it wasn't him, it was really King Benjamin. On the way home from church James insisted, "I know it was you because of your hair and your glasses...it was you right? Tell the truth!!" We loved that he still had a little uncertainty about it :)