We were so excited that Sarah Peck, a good friend from college, and her boyfriend Klinton, also from college, were able to come down and visit us for a few days this weekend. We had a lot of fun having them in our home playing games, watching movies, and doing all sorts of fun activities. One day we took them to the zoo and had lots of fun seeing elephants, watching the giraffes and playing in the water. Klinton got us all some snow cones which was definitely a highlight of the day, cooling us down immensely. It was soooo HOT!!!!
We went to the beach with them on Saturday. Daddy and Klinton went and got a nice tent for the beach to keep Mason and Grant out of the sun so much and it helped make the day much more bearable since we weren't in the sun so much. Mommy likes the beach much better when she doesn't get so extremely hot! Grant loved the tide pools mostly as the ocean itself tended to scare him quite a bit. Although mommy did take him into the ocean for a little bit. The entire time he kept looking into the water and saying, "Nemo?" with his hands shrugged in question as to where Nemo was. It was cute. He is beginning to associate life with things he's seen. It amazed me that he'd make the connection between a movie and real life. He also loved playing in the sand. Mason slept under the tent pretty much the whole time. It was a fun day.
Today I pulled out some art supplies for Grant to play with. He always enjoys it, and I should do it more often. It just makes such a mess! So we had fun today exploring with arts!
I mentioned yesterday that I had joined a group on the internet called "Jacksonvillemommies.com." Through this group, I had been e-mailing back and forth with another lady. We had arranged to meet this morning at the Orange Park Mall Play area for our kids to play. She has a daugher, Reagan, who is 20 months old (Grant is 24 months old) and another little lady, Addison, who is 2 months old (Mason is 3 months old). Since our kids were so close in age, we thought it'd be fun to get them together to play. Grant and Reagan played very nicely together, and
I really enjoyed talking with Jennifer. She was very sweet, recommended a few churches, and we shared stories about our husbands. Her's is a pilot in the Navy, which was interesting to me because Chris is really considering flight surgery. I think our families have a lot in common. So I really enjoyed my time. Today, I made a friend, and it made me smile.
Grant and Reagan sharing peanut butter crackers
I joined a group on the internet called "JacksonvilleMommies.com". Today they went to the zoo, so we decided to join them. There were 4 other moms and their kids that went. It was nice to meet some other moms in the area, and Grant always loves the zoo. I let him play in a fountain as we were waiting on a couple of other moms, and he got soaking wet! Can you tell who's grandson he is??? He just can't keep himself from getting his head from under that water!! Since he was so wet and Mason was sweating and was as red as a lobster because it was so hot out, I decided we'd go home before we all got too overheated. All three of our cheeks are back to their normal colors now that we've cooled down. Boy, is it a hot day!!!
I walked into the kitchen the other day and this is what I found...Emma Lou is such a trooper!
Since moving here, Grant has discovered the Wolf Hat that daddy got to wear as the "Wolf King" in the Beutler version the the Nutcracker. Every now and then, we'll hear him howl, which indicates that he wants to play with it. He and his daddy have a blast playing with this silly hat!
Grant and his daddy have been playing in the castle bouncer that Grandma and Pa-Pa Beutler gave him for Christmas. Grant has been having so much fun with the balls, and has learned to throw them pretty well. He had perfect aim this day, and as hard as I tried not to laugh and to correct him when he threw the balls right at Chris' head, I laughed every time it hit daddy right in the face! Such a bad mom!
We couldn't let Grant's birthday go by without a celebration (even though we already had his party when we were in VA a couple weeks ago). So we took Grant to Chuckie Cheese's for the first time! We had a ball! Grant was enthralled with Chuckie, who he called "Chuck-on" all night long. He was so excited and his attention span was less than perfect. We'd put a token in for a ride and he'd sit there for all of five seconds and then on to the next thing!
The one thing that did hold Grant's attention was Chuckie. He LOVED him. I told him before we went in that we were going to see Chuckie Cheese, and from that point forward all we heard about was "Chuck-on." He was so excited when "Chuck-on" came out in person, and he ran over with excitement to meet him.
Grant wasn't too into the games, so Chris used most of the tokens on the basketball shooting game. He scored 90 points in 30 seconds! Yeah, Chris! I scored 48. Go me!
Grant dancing at Chuckie Cheese's
We came home after a few hours and had birthday cake. I didn't know if he would understand the concept behind blowing out the candles, but when we said to blow them out, he stood on his chair like an old pro and blew them both out in a single breath! I was so impressed! He was so fast I couldn't even get any pictures! He couldn't keep his hands out of the cake, though. He wanted to go right at it, succeeding in making a huge mess, which Emma Lou relished cleaning up for us. Silly dog.
Grant blowing out his Birthday Candles
Since we'd already had a party for him, we just had one gift from his daddy and I to open up, and Chris' parents (who were in town on their way home to KY) brought him a couple of fun monster trucks. We gave him the Fisher Price Medical Set since daddy's now a doctor and one of Grant's favorite things is to "take our blood pressure" (something he picked up on his own at one of my doctor's appointments with Mason). He had fun opening gifts. He sure is getting the hang of life and figuring out all of our weird traditions!
We went to the beach with them on Saturday. Daddy and Klinton went and got a nice tent for the beach to keep Mason and Grant out of the sun so much and it helped make the day much more bearable since we weren't in the sun so much. Mommy likes the beach much better when she doesn't get so extremely hot! Grant loved the tide pools mostly as the ocean itself tended to scare him quite a bit. Although mommy did take him into the ocean for a little bit. The entire time he kept looking into the water and saying, "Nemo?" with his hands shrugged in question as to where Nemo was. It was cute. He is beginning to associate life with things he's seen. It amazed me that he'd make the connection between a movie and real life. He also loved playing in the sand. Mason slept under the tent pretty much the whole time. It was a fun day.
