End of May

James got invited to two birthday parties on the same Saturday, so we had a non-stop party filled day! His favorite part of going to his friend Kylie's house was playing on her trampoline. It had a homemade sprinkler attached to it and he loved it. We have been thinking about getting one for our house, but this kind of clinched it for me. I actually ordered one as a summer surprise!

The two birthday parties were for two girls, and James insisted on getting them birthstone necklaces. (He has been really into gems and birthstones lately). Kylie loved hers and her mom told me that she woke up the next morning and it was the first thing she put on.

The next party was a country themed party complete with a petting zoo, pony rides, and a bouncy house! I'm so glad my kids get invited to these kind of parties because I can guarantee I will never throw one like that for them :)

One of the birthday parties gave out homemade slime as favors and Rett took his and promptly put it in his hair! Since one of the main ingredients was glue, he earned him self a super short haircut. He cried during the entire haircut, but afterwards he was fine and said that he felt handsome.

During one of our bee inspections, we noticed that the bees started building honeycomb and honey in the space between the frame and the cover to the hive. So we scraped it all off and put it in a jar and got ourselves some of our very own honey!

Our first honey harvest!

I grabbed some peanut butter out of the pantry to make myself a sandwich and opened it up to find this! Anthony forgot to throw it away and I guess just put it back. Evil!

My sister surprised us with this random gift from amazon. The kids love it and Anthony hates it! LOL!

One of Anthony's friends caught a frog fish off of his mother's dock and didn't know what to do with it. It was so cool, he didn't want to just throw it back so he offered it to Anthony. Do you think Anthony would ever say no to something like that??

Since he eats other fish, we have been going to catch small minnows from the inter coastal every few days. Anthony got a video of him eating a fish. It is pretty cool to watch!

All three white silkie hens sitting in a row. These girls are so determined to become mamas!

Doing some snake holding:

James had his end of the year awards ceremony and I got the perfect seat right on the end in front of his row. He mostly made mad/crazy faces at me the entire time.

This is their song and dance that they prepared for the ceremony. The person next to them was their partner for the dance part of the song and they took turns being each other's "puppet master". His friend Kylie was so excited that James was his puppet master (according to her mom). James never once mentioned anything about it. Boys!!

Getting his yearly awards:

I don't know how, but for the second year in a row he got a specials award! Each specials teacher gives one or two awards for the entire grade. Last year he got the Yoga award and this year he got the Music award. Sometimes they just call their names up, but this time the teacher had a few things to say about James. She wrote on the award (and said) "James is a young man that comes into music with a smile and a fabulous attitude. He sets a fine example for all his classmates and learns the materials quickly and thoroughly". When she started talking and said, "James" I starting thinking "wait, is there another James in his grade?" but sure enough it was for him!

Climbing trees:

Snuggling our horse/dog. He is getting so big!! I can't believe he is going to be more than double this size by next year!

Beginning of May

Anthony had a weekend conference in Orlando at a fancy hotel with lots of fun amenities, so we decided to be brave and take the kids! The company paid for the hotel and the parking, so we got to just sit back and enjoy everything while Anthony was in the sessions. The boys loved getting to watch tv in the hotel room. For some reason watching tv in a hotel is so much more fun than at home!

This is the view of the pool/water park area from our hotel window. Once Anthony finished for the day, we all went downstairs to check out the pool. It was a lot of fun, but we didn't stay very long. We were all starving for dinner!

The hotel had different atriums with areas meant to replicate different parts of florida. This was the St. Augustine area, complete with a replica of the fort and a moat with alligators!

They had an arcade, so we had to go spend way too much money to play games :)

Since the hotel was right next to disney, we decided to be brave and go to Disney Springs for dinner. As soon as we got there, we saw the Rainforest Cafe's volcano erupt into fire and everyone voted we go there for dinner!

There was also an amphibious car that gave people rides. It was so cool to see, it would drive right up on land, load people in the car and then drive right into the water!

When we finally made our way through the crowds to the Rainforest Cafe, the wait for dinner was 1 1/2 hours. So they took our cell phone number and told us they would text when it was ready and we walked around while we were waiting. The first thing we did was let the boys do a carousal ride, which the operator almost had to stop because these stinkin' kids kept trying to stand up during the ride. It was a perfect time to pretend we weren't their parents!

Finally at 9:30pm it was our turn to eat! The boys loved the cool decorations in the restaurant, but every 30 minutes or so, the lights would dim and the ceiling would darken and you could hear thunder. Rett was not a fan of that!! Afterwards he kept saying that he hated this restaurant...

We came home early from Orlando so that we could take Baymax to his final day of obedience class. The instructor gave all the dogs the AKC Canine Good Citizen test. Until we started the class I had no idea what that was, but it is an official certification that he has passed a 10 step test proving that he is is well mannered and at least minimally trained. A lot of insurance companies and hoa's are starting to require passing this test for dogs, at least for known aggressive breeds. These are the 10 tests they have to pass to receive the certification:  accepting a friendly stranger, sit politely for petting, allow someone to check his ears and feet, walking on a loose leash, walk through a crowd on a loose leash without lunging at anyone or another dog, sit and down on command and stay in place, coming when called, behave politely around another dog, react calmly to loud distractions, and will handle separation from owner calmly. When I saw the list of what he would have to pass at the end of the class, I thought there was no way that he would do it. But he did!! Now he doesn't always do those things when we are at home, but we are working on it.

The instructor had a new chew toy for all the dogs as a graduation present. Baymax started chewing on his immediately!

Everyone in the class:

Anthony and his parents had a great night shrimping! Finally the weather cooperated and shrimp were everywhere. It only took them one hour to get their limit (5 gallons)!

A lot of them were really small, but some where huge!

Sunday morning I looked over and the boys were playing some kind of game with all the toys they found under the couch. So rare to see them playing nicely together!

Teacher appreciation week kind of snuck up on me this year, so a friend gave me the idea of giving James' teacher eggs. We also decided to walk around our yard and pick a wildflower bouquet for her. Aren't those some gorgeous flowers?? We picked an extra one for me, but then James really wanted to give some to his old kindergarten teacher as well, so I let him take mine to school too.

After Rett saw the fuss James' teachers made when he gave them their flowers, he really wanted a turn to do it. We were going to story time at the library later that day, so I suggested we pick some for the children's librarian. He was so excited to give it to her!

Pretending to be Bumblebee flying in the air:

Muffins with mom at James' school. We were almost the last table that got to go up and get our muffins and they were all out of the chocolate chip muffins that James had his heart set on. It was not good for his already bad mood, so I was feeling a little bummed about the "special" mom event that he was a grump at.

But then we got home and I found these in his backpack and it just made everything better. I love stuff like this!!

He said that my favorite food is salad!!! Although to be fair, I do make some amazing salads :)

On mother's day, Anthony got up early to make me breakfast in bed and get the boys ready for church. He got Rett to make me this card that says "I love you" and brought it to me with my breakfast. James didn't want to make a card, but he did sing me Happy Birthday before I ate my breakfast :)

At church, the primary children sang two mother's day songs and then during class they made these cards that the bishopric had done with pictures of the primary children in it. The week before they went around and got pictures of all of them to print and put in the cards. Wasn't that thoughtful? James' picture didn't get printed for some reason and that really upset him, so he refused to do a card. After he got over his bad mood about it, he was really sweet to me and gave me lots of hugs and kisses for mother's day. Rett couldn't stop hugging me and kissing me all day, it was the best!!

I had to play my flute in a church concert in Daytona at the same time as the boys' last soccer game, so Anthony and I split up so they wouldn't miss it. Their games were at the same time, so Anthony stood in the middle between the two fields so he could try to keep an eye on both of them. Since it was the last game, after it was over they all got together for pictures, pizza, and to get their medal. Rett's team decided to dog pile on their coaches :) Their coaches were such good sports this season! They don't have children of their own, they just coached out of the goodness of their hearts.

James' team had their after season party at the patio of Chick-fil-a so after Rett got his medal, Anthony rushed over for James' party. The coach called up all the kids one by one (he coached two soccer teams with a total of 18 kids this season!) to give them their medal and tell them how proud he was of them.

James' turn!

Anthony sent me this picture and I knew immediately what he was talking about. Every single season his coach tells the story about how James ran off the field during a game during his first season as a 3 year old and how the assistant coach ran after him and carried him back. Can't break tradition now can we???