4th of July Weekend

We had a great 4th of July weekend!! It started Wednesday afternoon when we drove to Orlando to pick up my mom from the airport. She had been in Ohio visiting my sister since our Myrtle Beach vacation and was going to stay with us for the weekend before heading home. I was excited for James to experience the airport for the first time! He loved the escalators and the elevators and seeing the planes take off. Fun fact: he calls the gates that go up and down at parking garages and railroad tracks, "Do-ti-do's". We have no idea why, but it is so funny to hear him say it!!

My mom's flight arrived right as we were pulling into the parking garage and she even had a celebrity on her flight! She met Abby Lee from the reality show "Dance Moms"! My mom asked her for a picture and she told my mom that she would do it after the flight once she had her makeup on. After they arrived and got off the plane, my mom didn't see her and assumed that she had left, but then she tracked my mom down so that she could get a picture. How nice is that?

 Since Anthony had off of work for the holiday on Thursday, Wednesday night his dad came to spend the night so that they could go fishing at 5am! James was in heaven having Grandma and Papa come visit him, although he still calls both of them Papa :) Anthony hasn't had a lot of luck lately on his fishing trips, so I was worried that he wouldn't catch anything. Luckily, they did well! They caught a total of 4 fish between the two of them and they had a great time out on the water. They left around 5am and didn't get home until the mid afternoon.

My mom, James, and I spent the morning playing with trains and made a visit to the produce stand so that we could make fruit salad to bring to dinner. Our landlords (a really sweet older couple) invited us over for a barbeque and I wanted to bring something yummy! Everyone was really impressed that I actually cut up a pineapple for the fruit salad and it was a big hit :) James loved exploring their house, although the amount of breakables they had did make me a little concerned. They kept assuring us that "he couldn't hurt anything!", and I was thinking, "Oh buddy, you haven't spent time around this kid! He can do way more damage than you would think!". We had a great time talking with them and their friends, even though there is a big age gap between us and everyone else. I think they think of us as surrogate grandkids :)

After dinner we came home and put James down for a late nap, hoping that he would sleep a little bit before the fireworks. This was our first year braving our town's fireworks and I was worried about how James would act since they are so late. He napped for a little bit and then was up at 8pm ready to go! For a few days I had been showing him videos on youtube of fireworks and talking to him about how fun they were and telling him that they were loud. I didn't know if it would work, but the preparation seemed to pay off because he loved them!! He seemed a little scared at first, but it quickly passed. We had such a great time, I was really glad that we decided to go.

He started out in Anthony's lap to watch. Our spot was perfect, right in front of where they were setting them off:

 About halfway through, he wanted to get a little bit closer, but not too close so he moved to right behind my mom. He kept his hand on her shoulder almost the whole time, it was so sweet!

Friday morning Anthony went off to work and we stayed home to get ready for my brother Daniel to come and visit! It is hard to tell if James likes his grandparents or my brother Daniel more, it is a close call. He loves his Uncle Daniel! Sometimes when he is playing with a toy phone and chatting away we will ask him who he is talking to and most of the time he says, "Naniel, abunchofgobblygookwedon'tunderstand....boat". James was so excited when Daniel arrived with his bassett hound Henry! He would laugh and giggle and call him "Henry dog". We had a great time hanging out, watching TV, and catching up Friday night.

For even more fun, as part of the weekend festivities we got to celebrate Daniel's birthday on Saturday! While everyone else slept in Saturday morning, James came up to me in the morning right after breakfast and brought me a book. When he wants to read something, he usually gets a book and brings it to me and says, "read it!". Of course, I can never say no to that!! He started out wanting to read "If you give a pig a pancake", and after each book he would say, "more" and would go get another one for us to read. We ended up reading 13 books in a row for about 45 minutes! Here are all the books we read:

I had to finally tell him that we couldn't read anymore, my voice was giving out!

Saturday night my brother requested a local Mexican restaurant for his birthday dinner. It is a really yummy place and whenever he visits we usually get takeout from there. James did great in the restaurant, Anthony and I both got to eat our food at the same time!! My mom took this picture of us sitting at the table. It seems like James does the best in restaurants when he can sit next to us instead of in a separate highchair. (As a side note, do you see my shirt? It says "Does this baby make me look fat? :)

We told our waiter that it was Daniel's birthday in case they did anything special for birthdays. He kind of shook his head apologetically and said that they didn't...he lied!! After we finished our food, the entire staff came out of the kitchen with sombreros for everyone, singing a song (something in Spanish, I am assuming birthday related), and gave us free ice cream. It was such a fun surprise!

James loved the hats and didn't want to give his back when it was time to go. He dug right into the ice cream with his spoon, but didn't seem to care for it. He sure liked the whipped cream though!

Sunday morning we all went to church and after we got home, my mom and Daniel left for home. It was so sad!!! I told James that Grandma and Daniel were going home to their house and he yelled out, "No!!!!". That's the way I felt :) We had such a good time, we will have to do it again soon!