Taking the Plunge!

We bought a pool! 

Anyone want to guess what the first words out of James' mouth will be tomorrow morning??

Missouri

We are home again from a whirlwind trip to Missouri!  We drove up on Thursday, visited on Friday and Saturday, and drove back on Sunday! Phew!  I will let some pictures tell the story!

We all visited Grandma at the nursing home Friday afternoon, and she loved meeting Allen!  She was an old pro, holding him, rocking him, catching his toys, and talking to him.  Allen did well with her, too, thankfully!

Allen started to get fussy with Great-Grandma because he was hungry!  I tried to take Allen so I could feed him, and Grandma turned him away from me!  I ended up just sitting down next to them and reaching over to feed him his bottle!  That bought us some more precious time with her.

 "Come on, mommy!  Let's go swing!" We always have to swing with Old Grandpa!  We did this every day, several times a day!  It's fun to see James enjoy it as much as I did when I was little!  So many generations have enjoyed that swing.

 On Saturday evening, we went over to my Uncle Terry's house to play with his grandson, my cousin, Allison's, son, Brandt.  Brandt is around 6 months older than James, and they had a blast together!  Here you can see both the boys playing with Allen, and Allen having a blast!  LOVE this picture!

We enjoyed a fun evening out on Friday at Eagle Pass Winery, not too far from town, with our older sister, Megan!  We enjoyed a wine tasting, delicious dinner, and hilarious conversation!  I have some awesome sisters!

One Terrific Tuesday

Yesterday, sweet baby Allen developed an ear infection.  We spent yesterday morning, in the rain, running to Dr. Edwards' office and to Publix to get a prescription.  By the time we finished all that, it was time for lunch and naps.  I decided to spend some sweet cuddle time with my sick baby, and we enjoyed a lazy afternoon of napping together that ended abruptly when James woke up from his nap.

Am I spoiling him?  Probably.  But I know I will miss these sweet times when he's "too big."

The nap was obviously the perfect cure because Allen played the rest of the afternoon!  Look at what a big boy he is, sitting up and playing!

One of his favorite toys!

So, today was back to normal and digging into some summer fun!  I have Pinterest boards full of things I want to do this summer with James and Allen, and today we accomplished one!  It was one of the first ideas I pinned, and it was SO much fun!  Take a look at the pictures to see what we did:

We mixed different colors of vinegar in with baking soda to make it bubble!  We did this once this morning, and we did it a second time after dinner to show daddy how AWESOME it is!  James loved watching the colors bubble, and we practiced naming our colors.  I am not a preschool teacher, but we simply talked about what colors we were using, what colors to use, and pointing at the colors as they bubbled up.  I am sure we will be doing this again!

After that, we lounged around the house for a bit while Allen enjoyed his morning nap, and we went to story time at the Monroe library, checked out some train books, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Laura and her kids.  James asked all day yesterday when he could go to Laura's, and he is already asking again...

One thing that has happened overnight is James' ability to do his Thomas the Train puzzle.  It quickly flipped from him watching us do the puzzle for him to him piecing it together himself!  He completes the puzzle several times a day (especially since Allen wants to "play puzzle" with him and ends up breaking it apart!).  Check it out:

He is doing this with NO help from me!