It is the morning of the fourth of July for me...so Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans! Dalton slept through the night, for the most part...except that he woke up at 5:30. I nursed him, put him back down, nursed him again and maybe he went back to sleep now (this was over an hour span of time, though). I guess I'll know in a bit when big Bubba wakes up. Nope...D's still up...just heard him shout. His ears must've been ringing as I typed that.

We have a little bit to catch up on since I didn't blog yesterday. So, we'll travel back in time to post-quiet time on Wednesday...when Easton decided to finish his art project: a foamie frame. I really liked this project...and it was the one Easton seemed least excited about. Oh well. He made this for G-ma and July:




As soon as he was done, he was done. And he and G-ma put together some cereal box airplanes and flew them around:


Dalton joined them in simply spinning around and making airplane-ish sounds. Doesn't he look super cute in his new outfit from The Maws?


Next we moved into the backyard for a bit...I think it was in order to fly the planes but it quickly turned into other things...catch...






Easton practices a "Great Catch!" for the highlight reels:


So much for being a "Real Goal Getter" like his shirt says...looks to me like he's just contemplating a goal:




Easton pulled up some large flat weeds from the patio and then decided they were umbrellas:

He even went as far as to pretend he was squirting G-ma with the "hosey".

That's not a purse, it's a football bucket:


After quite a bit of hide and seek between G-ma and Easton, he started to be a "bad listener" regarding climbing our tree and we had to come inside. But he impressed me with his initiative...I heard the Dust Buster going and he was in there tidying up some of the debris he'd brought in with him and his shoes. All on his own...noticing the mess, climbing up for the Dust Buster, and then putting it away:


After that, though, Easton became a bit of a challenge...maybe from all the excitement of The Alabamaws being here, his routine being ever so slightly different, he seemed tired. And therefore his ability to behave decreases as well. He was a bit of a pill and we had plans to go get ice cream. Easton knew that he was at risk for losing his ice cream eating priveleges and still chose not to listen to mommy. So, when we went out for ice cream he couldn't have any. He had some fruit snacks instead and then we took him to swimming lessons.

He cried again for all of one minute before Stephanie took him out for his turn. I'm sooooo not understanding this from him. It really makes me dread preschool next month too. I know he'll be okay eventually, but gosh, it's hard.

Anyway, bedtime couldn't come soon enough that night...Easton was being difficult and even Dalton was starting to get cranky. Boo. Thankfully Easton slept till nearly 8:00 the next morning.

Jason took yesterday off for an even longer weekend and to spend more time with his mom and July in town. We picked them up around 11:00 yesterday and then headed to the "cool park" for a bit:








Then we went out for a smoothie lunch and came home. I had to put Dalton straight down for his nap...he'd been trying to fall asleep on the car ride home. While Diddles slept Easton did a bit of quiet time and then he busted out some of his games. We played Elefun, and Hungry, Hungry Hippos:


He got out his jumping game from Grammy, and then as it was time to wake up Dalton we let Easton get out his drums to show his skills to The Maws. And Dalton still didn't wake up but I did go in to find him with his Cuddles on his head as if trying to drown out the noise:


We hung out around the house for a bit longer before heading to Olive Garden for an earlyish dinner (we'd had only smoothies for lunch, you see). Easton who always gets macaroni when possible decided that he wanted pepperoni pizza. And he ordered it himself anytime he got the chance...from the hostess, from the waiter when he took our drink order and again when he took our food order. Then the poor fella had to wait through our salad and breadsticks before they finally brought it to him. He did well, although he got cold and I wrapped napkins around his arms like sleeves to help:


Dalton apparently ate quite well with Jason on the other side of the table from me. And they enjoyed some peek a boo and tug of war with the napkin:


We made the short drive across the parking lot to Target after dinner because our family pictures were ready. I'll share them soon, but first we like to give them our moms (who read the blog) before they see them on the blog. G-ma and July have seen them and then my mom will get hers tonight. But since we're not really giving this one out, I'll let you have a preview:


We got a couple things from Target, including a small Elmo for Dalton to keep in his crib. Elmo is his most favorite thing these days. We hid the Elmo from him in the store (because of his obsession) and then we made the mistake of presenting it to him just before bedtime. And he was so excited that he couldn't go to sleep just saying, "Elmo! Elmo!" over and over and playing with his new bed buddy. Eventually he fell asleep but as you know, he was up early today...a very short night for him.

After the boys fell asleep last night The Maws and us sat down to play a new game we bought at Target, "Scene It 2". We played Scene It when we visited Matt, AJ, and Adam in Arkansas...and then Easton got a Scene It Jr. DVD from a happy meal toy The Maws brought. When the game was over J took The Maws back to their hotel.

Now you're all caught up again...hope everyone enjoys the holiday and I'm sure I'll catch you up on ours soon!

I mentioned our mall and Red Robin plans...and that's what we did. Easton was thrilled to get to ride along on the scooter with July again:


Diddles was stuck in the stroller:


The Maws let the boys pick out something from the Disney Store. Easton chose an Ariel toy (???) and Dalton chose a Disney princesses phone. Okay, boys. But whatever. They're very happy with their new stuff, and thank you as always, Maws!

We headed to play in the dinosaur soft play area...but it's gone! Okay, good thing it's summer and we can play outside because the two malls closest to us now have a.) limited hours that don't work well for us or b.) no play area at all! I know they're going to be re-doing it at the nice mall but good grief. What's a kid supposed to do? Shop???

Good thing Daddy called right around then and we headed to meet him at Red Robin. The boys both got balloons and then we saw that "Red" would be making an appearance and had the manager send him by our table. It went exactly the opposite of how I expected. Easton was friendly and outgoing, he didn't get clingy or pretend to be shy. He gave Red a high five. All was well:


Then Red moseyed over to Dalton and I think the boy left claw marks on the table. He was terrified:


Zoomed in on D:


It was sad and cute and we all had to laugh. And Diddles just kept going even once Red walked away:

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While Easton and The Maws happily moved on to their hot fudge sundae:


They shared the waffle straw or whatever it's called with Diddins:


On the way home Easton asked if G-Ma wanted to give him his bath. And she agreed. How fun! The boys went to bed and after awhile J took The Maws back to their hotel.

We didn't have plans to meet up with G-Ma and July until 10:30 today so first the boys and I went to the grocery store. I knew they'd need breakfast before our 10:30 IHOP date. So we snagged them some doughnuts and a few other things I neglected to get at Wal-Mart:




Clearly from the pictures we came back home to eat and then we eventually went back out. We went to the library for a bit before going to pick up The Alabamaws and heading to IHOP. I only fed the boys snacks for their "brunch". Easton kept taking pretend pictures with Dalton's new Disney princess phone so I whipped out the real camera for a shot of him and July:


Then he took the camera over and took this one of me and G-Ma:


As well as a bunch of blurry ones of everyone and his own face too. So I won't share those. I'm not sure why they're so blurry.

We came home and I got D down for his nap and tried to engage Easton--who was now Buzz--in an art project. He barely got started before he decided he was done and wanted to do his quiet time. What the heck?


I left it out because I'm hoping he'll want to finish it later. He's always game for art projects. Hmmm. And it's not like he's up there taking a nap or anything.

I'm actually not sure what our afternoon plans might be...only that we have swimming tonight. I think this is the last class of this session. And somehow I forgot to mention how Monday's session went. Just The Maws and I took Easton and he cried at first before moving on and having fun and being a brave swimmer. Sometimes I just do not get that kid. You just never know what you can expect with him sometimes. Good thing there's no art class this week. I need some time to gear up. :)

Swimming with My Fishes

So you thought yesterday was a fun day with The Maws? Well, wait till you hear about today's plans: Swimming! July and G-Ma had plans to watch us.

The boys and I had a Pop-Tart breakfast...Easton was all ready for swimming by wearing his goggles the entire morning:


And Dalton showing us what Easton looks like in goggles:


Easton wore his goggles all the way to pick up The Alabamaws at their hotel and our 45 minute drive to Gramoo's pool. It was nice and sunny today, and we thought it would be warm enough for Easton not to be completely miserable from cold. And we were right...as long as he was in the water he was mostly okay.

We started out in the baby pool:


Diddles did great too! He's never been able to wade before (except for the whale pool, I guess), he's always been held in the water previously. So this was fun for him. And yes, he went under a handful of times but he'd recover fine. Plus I was counting on washing the PopTart out of his hair while we swam:




After a while we moved over to the big pool which meant floatation devices for both kids:


Me feeling a little fancy:


Easton went down the slide with Lauren, then me, then Gramoo. Watching Gramoo go down was a hoot. Diddles had fun floating about in his tube:

I also took him out of it to swim for a bit which he loved as well. Both my boys are total fishes.





We moved back over to the baby pool after awhile and then Easton threw up. So I made him get out and I had to clean up the chunks. People totally saw and didn't yank their kids out or anything. But I still felt bad...because that is disgusting. So I made Easton be all done at that point and we had some snacks and warmed up in his towel:


Diddles warmed up with Gramoo and went to town with some watermelon:


Check out the cute little quad chairs my mom got the boys:


After we snacked and dried we packed back up in the car to get Diddles home for a nap. I also had to make sure to pay Easton's school tuition today. We opted to pay it all at once in advance because we'll save 8%. Yippie skippy!

Once I wake Dalton up this afternoon we're going to head up to the mall to mall around and probably play a little bit before meeting Daddy for dinner at Red Robin.

Yet another fun filled day, am I right?