What a Crazy Week of Vacation with Daddy!

Well, today is the end of Matthew’s vacation. It was a wonderful long week with him and the boys.  I just know the boys will be devastated to see Daddy put a tie on tomorrow morning!  We had a great week of lots of family time just the four of us, and some time with my brother and his oldest son, cousin Alexander, this weekend.  The fun part of this trip with Alexander is that the boys can communicate better, so they had fun terrorizing their older cousin.  Double teaming can be intimidating if you are not used to it for sure!  Here is a link back to the first visit from Uncle Tommy – previously Uncle Buck, but he has lost so much weight that we really cannot compare him to the late, great John Candy.  Way to go Tom!!!

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We spent a ton of time at Busch Gardens this week. The first trip was with just friends as Daddy had a bit of work to do mid-week.  The boys went to their first show with just me and sat still the entire time.  From the look on their faces, you can see they were not quite sure what to make of the large singing and dancing stuffed animal-like creatures!
 

Alexander had never been to Busch, so we took him with Nonnie, too.  The boys had a great time, and I had a great time taking the backseat while Daddy took the boys on a few rides and helped out.  I also got to play with my brother’s camera, so I was in heaven!  Here are a few pictures.


 

           

 

I cannot believe it, but Daddy even agree to go to the beach with us.  He hates the sand.  We truly thought the boys were taking after him, but they were all about the beach this week.  Augustus did not want to leave the water.  Raleigh really wanted to dig, lay, and play in the sand. He did have fun in the water, don’t get me wrong, but he was nothing like he is when he is in the pool.  We had a great time.  We will definitely be doing that again this summer.

 

Yesterday the boys go their first official fire station tour.  Although, they have been several times, so they were old pros.  Raleigh was the first to try everything, from the fire hose, to sitting in the truck.  Although, I am starting to see them be a little more apprehensive walking into new situations with strangers.  Even with Uncle Tommy, they were not too quick to walk over and hug him.  The last time they saw them, they were just 17 months (click here) so it is understandable that they might not remember him.  I have to say it is a bit of a relief after so many instances of them just walking over to random strangers and sitting down with them.  The fire station was awesome for everyone, particularly for the moms…hello hot fireman, but of course, most of us had our hubbys with, so we had to behave;)  After Raleigh was the first to turn on the fire hose, he got impatient with waiting in line, and was pushing Gus to the front to take his turn.  It was quite sweet to see him care about his brother, even though it was rude to the other twinkies!

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What else is new?  Well, Augustus has really started using words together in simple sentences.  Raleigh continues to improve his sentence abilities and puts things together in very cool ways.  Seriously, I am just so intrigued to watch them develop their language.  I am sure if you have been reading this blog for a while you can tell; I write about it often. Today, Rals finally got his hands on a new toy I had been holding out on and brought it to Daddy; he told him to open it, please.  Then proceeded to tell him to get some scissors since it was wrapped.  Too much!  They have really been great independent players.  Raleigh is usually the first to separate and take his toy to another part of the playroom.  They will play for a while, and then usually Augustus moves over to Raleigh to check him out and they play side-by-side for a while.  Both boys have had voracious appetites this week.  It probably due to the increased activity…is that possible…and the heat.   Raleigh even started to eat pizza.  Yay!  Mommy’s favorite!!!  The naps this week have been challenging again.  We ended up moving Raleigh to the spare bedroom a couple times when they just would not settle down. I really don’t want that to be the norm because I would hate to lose the space or have to continue that when we go on vacation.  We have not done it the past two days with success, but we also got them down to bed earlier and that seems to always help since they are not in that over-tired goofy stage! Below is a picture of Raleigh, asleep in the pack and play, where he turned the floor piece completely around and has pulled the sheets off.  The bed next to the pack and play was all disheveled as well.  However, he did fall asleep, so it worked for all of us!

Oooh, another bonus of this week was going shopping at Ikea with the boys and Matthew.  We found this great storage area for the playroom/living room.  It is perfect for many reasons, like, it matches our decor, it bolts to the wall without additional hardware, it is durable, and best of all it was cheap.  Love it!!!!