FOL Beach Trip 2009

I'm afraid I really didn't get many pictures (again)! I need to improve my picture-taking skills. I didn't get a picture of all of us this year (boo!). But, we only had one full day with all of the guys because they couldn't make it down until Friday. Julie, Jennifer and I packed into a van with all the kids and braved 2 days at the beach on our own. It actually went really well and I think we all enjoyed the girl-time! It was over too short and I am ready for another weekend with the FOL crew. :-)

As I mentioned in the post below, Will has no fear of the ocean and could care less about playing on the beach. I'm looking into a flotation bathing suit or lifevest for him when we go back to the beach with my family because its a little scary when he has no fear. He even got knocked over by a wave with Ellis and they tumbled. Instead of coming up crying, Will came up laughing and saying that was "wee fun!' (His phrase for when something is "really fun".)

Here is one shot I have of all the kids. You have to click on the picture to make it bigger because its awfully small below.

Cate put up with all the boys and their Batman obsession (it was ALL about the Batcave and the Batman action figures this year). It looks as if Charlie might have some competition for her affection because Will definitely put the moves on her this weekend! --

And the Os introduced us to Superman ice-cream (vanilla ice-cream dyed with extremely bright colors), which this extremely tired, half-asleep, sandy, pool boy is eating.

Updates coming - promise!

I will put some new posts up this weekend - promise. Its been a long time since I gave a little update on Will (who is now, incredibly, over 2 1/2 years old) and some updates are needed. Like how sleeping in the big boy bed is nothing short of a disaster and potty training is nonexistent at our house now. Also, I have some pictures from Will's beach trip with FOL where he proved once again that he loves the water. Forget the sand - he just wanted to play in the waves the whole time. (So much for his parents relaxing in a beach chair at any point in time.) :-)

Just call me Martha Stewart

Okay, not really. I'm a long shot from being anywhere near that crafty. But I am pretty happy with my handiwork. For the past few weeks, I've been converting our old guest room into Will's new "big boy" room. To avoid the cost of buying new furniture, I reused Ellis's old bed (that was in the attic) and my old white furniture (that I got in 7th grade). We repainted the walls in the guest room and I bought a few things from the furniture store and Lowe's to touch it up and ta-da:

BEFORE:

The picture below is of a different bed (project for another day) but is the only "before" picture I have of the nightstand.

AFTER:

The dresser and nightstand still aren't finished because I'm still looking for knobs and drawer pulls. The drawers are a funky size so its been hard finding what I want. I've also ordered a big upholstered toy box to go at the end of the bed.

We moved the rest of everything Will had in the nursery (that was age appropriate) into the big boy room. He gets dressed in there, plays, has story time, etc. But the going to sleep in there? Well, its been about as big a challenge as I suspected. He will not stay in bed at night to sleep in there - he has been in the crib the past 2 nights. But he did take a 2 hour nap in it yesterday, after much scolding and fussing because he wouldn't stay in it. Whew! Kind of exhausting. We're trying to let him go slowly - not pushing it until he really wants to.



But he does absolutely LOVE his big boy room. I'm so happy he does. When he came home Friday, it was all ready for the big "reveal." He'd been watching me paint the furniture, take the stuff out of the guest room, paint the walls, etc. So he'd been excited about it for some time. He played in it for a good 30-45 minutes Friday evening - taking all his books off the shelves and getting in his new bed to "read." He was absolutely ecstatic to show it to Bapa and Grandma last night. Here he is Friday night when he first saw it all together:

Update (7/13): Guess who slept in his big boy bed all night last night!? :-) After two long, successful naps over the weekend, he insisted to his Daddy last night that he stay in his big boy bed. It took a little while to get him to stay in there, but he eventually did and slept through the night. I heard him at 6am and got him to lay back down, laying with him for a short while. I don't think he went back to sleep, but he stayed in bed until his usual wake up time of 7am. Hooray, Will!!!

Fireworks on the Fourth

We took it easy this weekend to celebrate the Fourth. Grandma came over for some hamburgers and corn on the cob (Bapa is visiting his mom in Brazil), and Ellis went over to a firework stand and bought maybe $20 worth of fireworks at the last minute on Saturday. We let Will stay up until it got dark and then lit our meager display of fireworks. Will had fun with the sparklers and dad helped him shoot a couple bottle rockets. As I suspected, Will had absolutely no fear of the fireworks at all -- kind of made me nervous because he wanted to hold the bottle rocket with Daddy. argh. But our neighbors all had huge fireworks that we were able to enjoy and Will was in awe.

Blueberries!

Friday morning, Ellis and I took Will to a local blueberry farm to pick blueberries. Will had as much fun as I thought he would! He started off eating one or two and then running around - but by the end he was eating the blueberries by the mouthfuls!

Its hard to see in the picture below unless you click on it to make it bigger - but Will has a whole fistful of blueberries! (And, yes, he has been pooping blueberries for 2 days now - LITERALLY! Small price to pay for the fun he had.) Will knocked out in no time on the way home....

We brought home a good gallon of fresh blueberries. Most of which I have frozen and some I made into blueberry pancakes the next morning - Yum!