Christmas 2012

We had one full Christmas holiday! My mom came to visit Friday before Christmas so we were able to get some time visiting with her before the rest of the family arrived Christmas eve and Christmas day. Friday night Anthony and I went out to dinner for our anniversary and it was so strange to go somewhere without James! Dinner was wonderful and it was heaven to be able to eat in a restaurant without worrying about James. He is not a fan of sitting down for meals :)

Christmas Eve Anthony went fishing with his dad and they had a great time! They stayed out all day and caught 5 red fish (but were only allowed to keep 2). Anthony is dying to get back out there soon!

While Anthony was gone, James and I took my mom to check out the dinosaurs at the botanical gardens and find the geocache. The weather was perfect, and I walked right to the geocache! I had researched a little more online and realized that I had been looking in the wrong spot before. Once I got to the right area, it was a cinch!

Here he is, trying to give me a stick he got of the ground so I can put it in the "ash" (trash). He gets very concerned about litter or things he thinks are out of place :)

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At one point, he decided to just sit down and draw in the dirt with his stick. I don't think I have ever seen him do that before:

When we would get to a dinosaur, James would say "whoa!" or "cool!" and then proceed to find something more entertaining to play with. At the triceratops, he found a palm frond on the ground and pushed it around for the rest of our visit. He loved that thing! He cried when I made him leave it. I just think it is so funny that right in front of this HUGE stone dinosaur he would rather play with a stick:

As we were getting in the car to go home, my mom put James down in the passenger seat for a minute so we could put our other stuff in the backseat. Quick as a flash James crawled over to the driver seat so he could play with the steering wheel. When I pulled him away to put him in his car seat, he clung to the wheel like glue, he did not want to let go!

Christmas Eve my brothers made it from Gainesville and we had a great time visiting and playing board games. I love how much we laugh when we all get together! My older brother had to leave real early the next morning to make it home in time for work, but we are glad he got to stay for the time he did.

Christmas morning, I was up waaaaay before James was. I think I got up around 8:30 and finally I went into James room to wake him up around 9:45. Why can't he sleep in like that on a normal day?

After everyone was up, we went into the front room for presents. James had a hard time getting the hang of his stocking...he would get one thing out and then want to play with it and act annoyed when we would want him to keep looking for more. Eventually he got into it :)

For some reason he ended up with three different play microphones. He loves them though!

Anytime I ask Anthony what books James should have (since I can't resist buying him books!) Anthony always says The Poky Little Puppy, since that was one of his favorites growing up. This year he got it!

Another car:

A large car track/set. It is about 50/50 right now between him being really irritated by this toy and loving playing with it. It might need to disappear and come back in a few months...

The grand finale of the morning was his new jeep! He absolutely loved it!

Here is a video of him driving it around. He now has become a pro at pressing the reverse when he gets stuck somewhere and then backing out. Anthony is trying to think of ways to fix the wheels so that they don't get stuck so often in the grass.

Christmas afternoon Anthony's parents and his sister and her family came over for appetizers and desserts. The food was great and we had a blast visiting and opening presents. James caught on to Anthony's parents' names really quickly and he kept asking for "Mimi" and "Papa" all night:

Of course we couldn't leave the dogs out of the fun. They absolutely hated it:

It was a great Christmas, I hope everyone else's was just as wonderful!

Pow-pow-power wheels!

When I was little if you had a power wheels you were the (wo)man!!! Since James is obsessed with all things transportation, I started keeping my eyes out at garage sales for an affordable power wheels. I didn't think I would really get him one, since I didn't want to pay too much. Plus, it still seems like such a HUGE gift like it was when I was little, although it seems like now the prices aren't that bad compared to the costs of other popular gifts. So I wasn't really planning on getting him one, but then I came across a barely used one at a garage sale a few months ago. It was priced at $50, which I knew was reasonable especially considering how new it looked. You could tell it hadn't been ridden much. The owners said they got it for their daughter and she went through a growth spurt and grew out of it almost immediately. I offered them $40, they took it and it was mine!

The only problem was that it looked like this (minus the blonde little girl:):

 Not that James would care of course, but we just couldn't feel good about ourselves as parents if we let his friends see him loving on a barbie power wheels. The embarrassment! :) So we did some googling to figure out the best way to go about painting it and we finally took an afternoon and got it done. I love how it turned out!

His new manly ride:

We are considering adding a few more details, like some bike reflectors for headlights and brake lights and maybe some decals but we might not. It depends on how stressed I feel as we get closer to Christmas :) We spent almost as much on paint as we did on the car, but I love that my little boy is getting something we really put some effort into. I can't wait for Christmas morning for him to start cruising around!!!

Ward Christmas Party 2012

 This past Saturday was our ward Christmas party and it was so much fun! Last year there was a "whoville" theme and we all wore costumes, but this year it was much more low key, just the way I like it! It was just a bunch of people eating good food, visiting, and a visit from Santa at the end. James has been pretty cranky the last few days and we haven't been able to figure out why, so we weren't sure how the visit with Santa was going to go...

 We gave it our best try! I took James up to wait for Santa's entrance and Anthony got a picture of everyone swarming him once he came in:

 He made his way across the room to the chair by the Christmas tree in the foyer:

 Of course, the line to see Santa was really long, at least for a cranky almost 2 year old. At one point I had Anthony hold our spot in line and took him for a walk around the church.

Waiting in line and trying to get the camera adjusted:

 When it was finally our turn, James instantly didn't like the idea of being passed to Santa, so Santa told Anthony to go ahead and sit on his lap holding James. It was a great idea, but it didn't fool James for a second!

 I was standing there laughing and taking pictures when Santa looked over at me and told me I might as well get in on the picture! So I sat on his other knee and couldn't stop grinning, James' reaction was too funny!

"All I want for Christmas...is to get away from Santa!!!" Sincerely, James

A lady in our ward was taking pictures from the front, so I will have to update this post with the straight on picture once she puts them up. I just can't get over how desperate James is in this picture! I was debating whether or not to take him to a mall Santa this year, wondering if he would miss out if I didn't but I guess I have my answer! No Santa for James, at least not for awhile! :)

*Update-here are more pictures*

Weekend Visit to Trenton & Thanksgiving

This past weekend Anthony took Saturday off of work and we headed to my mom's for the weekend. The last time we made the drive to visit them was for Easter, so it was definitely our turn! Anthony and I were excited to have a little mini vacation and a break from the routine. The drive really wasn't that bad. The last time we visited James was so much younger and had a much harder time with being in his car seat so I think that made us feel like it was a much longer trip than it actually was.

Saturday afternoon we met a family friend for lunch at a local restaurant and James was a little cranky. He has become unbearable in restaurants, mostly because I think he hates having to sit still. We realized while we were eating that it was probably the first time in at least 3 or 4 months that we had gone to a restaurant with him just for that reason. He decided that he didn't want to sit in his highchair, he wanted to stand in it so he can see over everything and everyone. I ate my food with one hand on him in case he lost his balance, but at least I got to eat my food and he wasn't screaming so I count that as a win!

Since the restaurant was so close to my mom's house we walked there and back with James in the stroller. Once we got home we put James down for a nap and once Anthony and I got comfy on the couch we were out! My brother took a picture of us:

It was the best nap ever!! Seriously. I am going to have daydreams about that nap. It was so relaxing, I didn't have anything else that I should have been doing since I wasn't at home, James was sleeping so it felt like I didn't have anything pulling at me: no one needing my attention, no housework, bills, or anything else to be caught up on. I felt so refreshed afterwards, I kept thinking, "This feels so good!". I guess when you are tired so much, it is amazing to feel genuinely well rested. Now it has got me thinking about taking vacations that are just about catching up on sleep...mmmm...doesn't that sound glorious? :)

This year was our second time hosting Thanksgiving and it was a blast! The turkey turned out great and no mishaps with the brining or finding mysteriously missing giblets/neck like last time.

The turkey had a little bald spot where Anthony snuck a piece of skin :)

 Here is everyone sitting around and visiting. Anthony and his brother-in-law Michael were in the garage talking boats :)

 The feast is served!

 James had gotten up from his nap right before we sat down to eat, so he wasn't very interested in eating. He was still a little overwhelmed with all of the people in the house since they weren't there when he went to sleep! He kept pointing at things on the table like he wanted something to eat but when I tried to give him some he would instantly try to throw it on the floor...we are having some rebellion/independence issues right now :) He wants things, but he doesn't want me to give them to him. Somehow he wants them to appear on their own I guess.

 He started playing with a spray bottle I use to clean him and his tray after meals. He has pretty good aim with that thing!

 After dinner, we had a birthday cake ready to celebrate Anthony's mom's birthday next week. I didn't have any regular candles, just a bunch of random numbers so we decided to put all of the numbers on her cake as a joke. It was so funny!

 She loved the cake!

 Then she realized how old her cake said she was...

 Here she is blowing out her candles with Dallas' help:

 James observing it all:

 He loves blowing out candles, but he doesn't know how to really blow air yet. He just makes a "shhew" blowing sound and looks at the candle expectantly. I realized where he got yesterday when I watched Anthony let him blow out a fragrance candle I had burning. Anthony leaned him over to the candle and right as James went "shhew", Anthony blew air from behind him so the candle would go out. James totally thinks that is was all him! :)

Thanksgiving 2012 was great, I'm glad that everyone could come and I can't wait to do it again for Christmas!

4th of July 2012

We had a great 4th of July this year! Anthony had the day off of work, so he got to sleep in for the first time in a looooong time. Since he works Monday through Saturday and we have church on Sundays, he never gets to sleep in. Ever since having James, my body just doesn't let me sleep in, I always have to get up so I was happy to let him sleep :)

We planned to go to the big farmer's market that they have every Wednesday at the fairgrounds in Deland and I was so excited to show Anthony since he has never been. I wondered if it would be open since it was a holiday, but I checked the online calendar for the fairgrounds and it was listed...I should never have trusted that thing! I bet someone put it on automatic repeat for every Wednesday and didn't think about holidays. Anyways, when we got there, the fairgrounds were closed up and only a few people had set up tables in the parking lot. So at least we got to walk around a little bit, but it was a tenth of the size it usually is. I had been talking it up all week to Anthony so I was sad that I didn't get to show him everything. We did end up get 13 green peppers for $3, so that was good!

In the afternoon we set up some of the new outside toys that Anthony's sister Robin gave us last Sunday and let him run around in the backyard with them. He loves them!!! He seriously wants to be in the backyard all the time now. I have to be careful if I am letting the dogs out, because he will try to run out too and will cry if I bring him back inside. He gets so dirty when he goes outside that I try to make it so he plays outside right before bath time. I had this great idea to put the new slide we got so that it goes straight into our inflatable pool. James sort of liked it. For the most part, he just wanted us to leave him alone so that he could go back to pulling his wagon around the yard. He loves that wagon!!! He tries to put anything and everything in the wagon so he can pull it all around with him.

Towards the end of the day Anthony and I both ended up feeling worn out and James kept having meltdowns, so we decided not to go to the city's fireworks. They didn't start until 9pm and it felt like we all needed a good bedtime that night! I talked to a friend who went and she said it was a good decision, the mosquitos were horrible and I know I wouldn't have thought to bring bug spray!! Maybe next year :)