First Beach Trip

Carterman’s first beach trip was this weekend.  We headed down to Cantonment, Florida to celebrate Justin’s grandmother’s 80th birthday.  It was actually a surprise.  We told her that Justin and I had some friends that lived in Pensacola that were having a wedding shower that we needed to go to, so that was why us and Carter were coming down to visit (Cantonment is about 15 minutes away from Pensacola).  She thought it was just the three of us coming.  To her surprise, almost an hour after we pulled up to their house on Thursday afternoon, Jen and Debbie (MIL and SIL) and the twins pulled up too.  Grandma was so surprised!!  About 3 hours or so after that, Gordon and Aeron (FIL and BIL) pulled up and joined us.  She was so excited that the entire family was there to visit her and Paw Paw.

On Friday, we all got up and headed to the beach with the kids.  This was the first time any of them had ever been to the beach.  We were all so sure that we would be there about 10-15 minutes and then would have to leave because they would be done with it.  We felt like they wouldn’t like the sand and that they’d be scared of the waves.  That ended up not being too far from the truth, but they actually really did like it.  The girls preferred to stay in the sand and play with toys.  They dug holes and sat in them and built sand castles with buckets.  They aren’t huge fans of water in general anyway.  Carter, however, LOVES water and loved when someone held him over the water.  He didn’t really want to get in the water on his own because I think the waves scared him.  And once his feet were wet, he didn’t like the feeling of the sand sticking to his feet, so he preferred to be held.  Also, I think mommy may have kind of ruined his first beach trip for him because when I was putting sunscreen on his arms, I got it on his hands and then he wiped his eyes and got sunscreen all in his eyes so they were really red and were bothering him.  Mommy fail.

Here’s some pictures we took while we were there:

   

I know he looks like he’s screaming in these photos, but he was actually liking it.  He loves to be “showered” with water :)

We went back to Grandma’s house after staying at the beach for over an hour.  And the kids weren’t even really itching to leave at that point…the adults just figured it was time.  We drove back to Cantonment and gave the kids a bath and put them down for naps.  Carter slept for a whopping 3 hours and 15 minutes.  A record for him.  Must go to the beach more often.

We went to dinner that night to celebrate Grandma’s birthday.  This was the night that Grandma thought that Justin and I were going to a shower, but really we went to a restaurant to meet over 25 of Grandma’s family members and waiting for Debbie and Gordon to bring Grandma and PawPaw there to meet us.  They had no idea we had gotten everyone together.  Such a great night.  I didn’t have my camera so the few pictures I had were on my phone:

This table wraps around on both sides because there was so many Skelton family members there!

This one is kinda blurry but I wanted to include it because I was so proud of Carter.  See me holding that small thing of applesauce?  He used the spoon and fed the entire thing to himself, no help from mama!!  So proud of his improving skills!!

 

And this was kind of funny.  The thing Justin is sitting on is a chair with wheels.  He sat in it while we were all in the garage and the kids thought it would be fun to push him around the driveway.  It was hilarious.  They had so much fun doing it!  I just love when these three play together.  They are going to be so close growing up and it makes my heart happy since Carter’s other cousins on my side don’t live in town.  Cooper is closest to his age (4 months older than him) but he lives in Tampa.  Anderson and Lydia are much older (7 and 5) and they live in Tuscaloosa.  I’m just so glad Carter has cousins within the same age range (the girls are also 4 months older than him) that are close so that he can see them on a normal basis.

The next day we hung around the house until about noon and then Justin and I headed back home with Carter and Papa in tow.  Carter was so excited to have Papa back in the backseat with him.  Carter is a GREAT sleeper at home, but he isn’t so great in the car.  The longest he’s ever napped in the car was about an hour and 15 minutes.  On the way to Florida, he only napped 40 minutes and on the way back it was almost an hour.   But he kept himself entertained with Elmo of course :)   Before leaving their house, however, we had to have one more playtime in the backyard with the waterball.  Grandma, in anticipation of Carter coming to visit, bought a huge blowup beachball that you could connect a hose to and water shot out of it.  Carter was LOVING it.  She also bought a water table that he liked too, but he has one of those at home so it wasn’t near as cool to him.  The girls pretty much used the water table the entire time we played.  They don’t love water being “poured” on them but instead preferred to sit in the water table. 

This is why the adults LOVE Grandma’s house.  It has a HUGE even backyard with very little trees and is fenced in.  The kids run wild and we know they’re safe :)

LOVES water.  LOVES.

Love Cynthia’s face in this picture!!

Also, a HUGE thing happened on the way back.  He said his first sentence!!!  I was in the front so he couldn’t see me (his carseat is still rear facing).   I turned around backwards in my seat and peeked my head over his carseat to look down on him and said “hey baby!”.  He turned around, looked up at me, pointed towards me and said “I see Mama”.  I was FREAKING. OUT.  He says a huge variety of words for his age, but this was the first time he’d said a sentence (even though it was only three words).  I was so shocked and looked at Papa and said “did he just say that?  Did I hear that right?”.  Papa agreed and said that was exactly what it sounded like he said.  I was ecstatic y’all.  His first sentence and it involved Mama :)