Anthony's 36th Birthday

Anthony's birthday was pretty laid back this year. We had a busy day planned on his actual birthday, so we scheduled the family party with his parents a few days later. The morning of his birthday I got up earlier than usual so I could make him blueberry pancakes: his favorite!

I made extra for the boys. Rett got blueberries all over him!

After Anthony got home from work, it was about time to get James ready for his soccer game. It just so happened to be picture day, so we had to be there a full hour earlier than usual. It was a mad house! They schedule all ages of soccer teams for pictures in the same room, 15 minutes apart from each other. It was so crowded! The photographers have to take individual pictures of each kid and then a team picture in just 15 minutes. Yeah. Not happening. When it was finally their turn, James' team lined up on the wall outside of the room. They looked so cute in their uniforms!

James was very cooperative for his picture and smiled every time they asked him to. The only problem was that when he does a camera smile, he always closes his eyes! They kept asking him to smile and keep his eyes open and he would open his eyes, but drop his smile. Then they would tell him to smile and he would, but his eyes would be closed again. I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out :)

After the pictures we rushed over to the soccer field where the other team was waiting for us to start the game. This was the first game of the season since the one the week before was canceled due to bad weather. James did pretty well, he only pushed one kid (blah. Could have been worse I guess), and he only ran off the field twice. The last time he ran off the field he was in the middle of playing and all of a sudden I didn't see him anywhere. I looked and looked at all the different kids with green uniforms and I couldn't find him. Finally Anthony spotted him playing on the bleachers. When he went to get him down, James was in the middle of asking an older couple to move so that he could run around on the back row :)

After we came home from the soccer game, Anthony opened the present my mom and James picked out for him. First he got a Spanish greeting card...it is our new tradition:

Then James helped him open a mortar and pestle for making his spice mixes. He dries the peppers from our garden to make his own hot spice mix, but he has a hard time grinding them fine enough. Problem solved! Funny enough, I also ordered him an electric spice grinder for his birthday. Now he has both :)

The night of his birthday party celebration with his parents, we decided to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant. Of course, Anthony got the birthday sombrero and complimentary ice cream :)

Happy Birthday Anthony!

Everett is 1 year old!!

We made it! Rett is officially a 1 year old!

Taking pictures of him was sooooo hard. I'm glad that this was the last of the "onesie" pictures. He will not sit still for one second!! He couldn't look at the camera, there was just too many other things to check out or explore.

James tried to help me take the pictures and he even brought his own toy camera to use. He requested a picture with the two of them together and this is the best I could get. Rett kept trying to crawl away and James was getting mad that Rett wouldn't sit still in his lap.

We came inside and I tried to get a few of Rett smiling by putting him in their new favorite toy; a long narrow box from the package to our new TV. It fits both boys and they like to be pushed or dragged around in it. James calls it his "canoe".

A few days later, I decided to give in and finally trim Rett's hair. It was looking sooo scraggly, but I didn't want to part with his curls!! I saved them and his hair is still noticeably curly when it isn't brushed like in this picture. I love that I have a curly haired little boy! When I was pregnant with him, I remember telling a friend that I hoped he would have dark curly hair.

He is such a happy little baby and is quickly turning into a little boy! He stands on his own for a few seconds now and is in motion almost all the time. His top two teeth are slowly making their appearance, so sometime soon he will be the proud owner of four teeth! He loves leaning on people or putting his forehead on them. If you put your head near his, he automatically leans in. He also loves to take things out of places and put them back in: drawers, boxes, bags, cabinets, you name it. He bounces and dances when he hears music, but also when he is happy about food :)

He isn't bothered or scared by loud noises, when I vacuum he crawls around and follows me and tries to check out the vacuum cleaner. He loves playing with James and watching him run around. Sometimes he gets excited and tries to keep up with him, but most of the time he just sits and watches in awe.

We love watching our sweet little baby grow up, he is such a joy to have in our family!

Making Daddy proud

This morning James was helping me clean up our back porch. When I went to shake out the rug that was rolled up, I saw an interesting looking worm. James loves worms and lizards and anything like that, so I told him to catch it so we could put it in his critter cage. It was fast!! He came close a couple of times and it dropped its tail so I figured it wasn't a worm after all but some kind of lizard. Finally James was able to catch it!

When we looked closely we could see small legs, but I still had no idea what it was. So we sat down on the couch and looked through Anthony's book of Florida reptiles and amphibians. Anthony has had this book since he was a kid and he would spend hours as a little boy reading it and memorizing it. Which is a big deal because Anthony does not like to read unless it is absolutely necessary.

We finally found a picture of it in the skink section. It is a Florida keys mole skink. (What is it doing so far north??) it says that they are a species of concern, so they are pretty rare and it even pointed out that they are hard to catch.

I wish Anthony was home at the timeso he could have seen it. To see how excited James was and interested he was in the book was so cool.

While we were doing that, Rett discovered some unattended graham crackers and was happily attempting to put them all in his mouth at the same time. He loves to eat, just like his Daddy!

People say all the time that the boys favor me with their blue eyes and lighter skin, but they definitely have a lot of Anthony in them too :)

Cousin time & Rett's Birthday Party

My sister and her family drove down from Ohio for our family vacation and we had a blast together! James loved playing with both of his cousins. He ran around a lot with Savino and he loves his rainbow bracelet that my niece Haley made for him. Of course, my sister also got to experience the squishableness of Rett for the very first time :) Since everyone was in town, we decided to have Rett's 1 year birthday party a week early and we had a houseful of people ready to celebrate! He was a little overwhelmed at first and unsure about what was happening and why so many people were watching him (and taking pictures).

After a few cautious taste tests, he got down to business!

We were enjoying watching him take his time with the cake, so we hadn't cut pieces for anyone else yet. James couldn't wait any longer and decided to "help" Rett with his. When we tried to get him to stop and back away from the cake, he would insist, "But we're shaaaaring!"

After about 10 minutes everyone sort of drifted away to do other things, but I couldn't stop watching him eat his cake. Why is it so fun to feed this baby?? I guess because he eats everything with such joy and gusto!

 Giving me frosting kisses:

 Me and my baby :) Where did the time go??

Anthony keeps accidentally catching seahorses in his crab trap and when he does, he brings them home to put them in the aquarium (we still have two small aquariums). Right now we have four seahorses in one tank! It takes a lot of work to feed them, Anthony has to go down to a dock to net sea grass and then has to pick out tiny little shrimp for them to eat. We have two males, one female, and one that is too small to tell, so it is possible that we could eventually have baby seahorses! The last time we had seahorses years ago we couldn't keep them alive, so Anthony is really excited that they are doing so well. They are definitely fun to watch!

My sister and her family spent half of the week at my mom's house and then on Wednesday everyone came over to our house for the rest of the week. James and Rett took a bath Tuesday night and didn't take another one until Saturday night. That is a sure sign that we were having lots of fun everyday and staying up late every night :)

Thursday afternoon we met up with everyone at the beach and it was the best time I've had at the beach in a looooong time. Rett was taking a nap, so he stayed home with my mom and Anthony and I took James. It was so relaxing having both of us there to watch James and he is old enough now that he just plays and we don't have to chase him or wrangle him. We spent a full 3 hours there and we could have stayed longer if we didn't have anywhere to be. James played in the waves, dug for snails, chased birds, and dug sandpits with his bulldozer.

Anthony's parents were driving back from their trip in their RV and stopped in New Smyrna to celebrate Rett's birthday and to visit. Friday morning everyone else was sleeping in, so I took the boys to visit Mimi & Papa and play at the RV park playground. It was the coolest place! They had all these custom wooden play structures, like a huge tractor with an actual gas pedal you can push, a two story play castle, a two level pirate ship with a fireman's pole to slide down to the bottom level, and a play cabin. James ran around with Anthony's dad the entire time, yelling, "Papa! Come on!". Then he got to help Papa unhook the RV and get it ready for driving. He is the most dedicated and willing helper when it comes to doing tasks like that. Rett was a little fussy and I couldn't figure out why until we got home and I realized I forgot to feed him breakfast in the rush to get out of the house. This little one cannot skip a meal. This is an angry face, fyi. We don't see it that often.

We tried to get a picture with the grandparents and these two were the best of the bunch. I was laughing looking through all the outtakes because in every single one James had his "camera face" on. When I first told him we were going to take pictures he immediate did his camera face, before we even got ready or got the phone out. He is definitely a Lagana!

 Friday afternoon after Anthony got home, we drove up to Daytona to my sister's hotel and explored the shops and attractions there. We had fun playing the games in a dated arcade and laughing at the weirdness. We played one called the "stinky feet" game where you sit on a fake toilet and shoot water from a faucet onto targets on the feet of a person in a bubble bath. So strange! James won a few tickets, but then a sweet little girl came over and gave James all of hers, so he was able to some cool toys with it. He was definitely excited about that! For dinner we decided to check out the nearby Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant and we realized it was the first time taking both kids to a sit down restaurant since Anthony's birthday almost a year ago! Luckily, they both did surprisingly well. James was uncharacteristically patient and Rett was happy as a clam, as usual.

Of course, this kid is always happy when there is food involved :) He ate two packages of applesauce, a small tupperware of raisins, pieces of my garlic bread, and half a ziplock bag of goldfish.

Saturday morning we relaxed and visited at our house and then decided to check out the park nearby that usually has lots of dolphins and manatees that swim by. Anthony and I took the boys fishing there earlier in the week and had so much fun! We caught a lot of little fish and James reeled in this whiting that we used as bait for the crab trap.

 Rett stayed in the stroller and enjoyed a granola bar. Thoroughly.

On the way home we stopped and baited the crab trap with the fish and put it in the water. Anthony always sees so much wildlife in the water by the dock and this time he got close enough to a manatee that he could have touched it!

We are so grateful for our wonderful family that make our life so richly blessed! The only thing that could make it better is if we could spend time together like this every day!