Birthday Weekend Fun!

We had the best time last weekend! For my sister's birthday, her husband rented a beach house and invited us to join them. I made the mistake of telling Mac about our beach trip about 2 weeks prior to the actual event and I think he told me 10 times a day that we were going to the beach with B.B. We've taken him to the beach 2 or 3 times before, but he has always been afraid to get in the water. As we were driving down to Galveston, he kept telling us how he was going to go swimming. I was a little doubtful that it was actually going to happen once we got down on the beach, but he couldn't wait to get out there! Mac LOVED splashing around in the ocean. He even liked it when the waves hit him!


My brother in law, Travis, dug a huge hole (Mac referred to it as the pool) and filled it with water. He even caught some fish and put them in there for Mac.


I was a little concerned about taking Ellie out there. I mean it's only 100 plus degrees and she's 6 weeks old. My sister/brother-in-law had a huge tent that we set up and Ellie sat comfortably in her carseat on the tailgate of truck. I think she had the best seat in the house. It was completely shaded with a nice breeze that rocked her carseat back and forth. She slept almost the entire 3 hours we were out there!

Mac has talked about going to the beach ever since, so I see a lot more beach trips in the Bethea family future!
Mac has apparently started a new phase...the "I help Mommy" phase. In theory it sounds great, right? He wants to cook, clean, feed Ellie, etc., etc...the only problem is that a task that normally takes 5 minutes ends up taking 30! Oh well, I obviously am not going to tell him that he can't help me. Everytime he "helps" Mommy, I make it a huge deal and tell him how proud I am of him for being such a big helper. You can tell he is so proud. Last night I was changing the sheets on the bed and I hear him come running in the room yelling "I help Mommy. My turn! My turn!" So I told him to pull the sheets on the other side of the bed. Apparently he interpreted that as "Stand in the middle of the bed, get under the sheets, and jump up and down and count to ten as loud as you can." One day I'm going to ask him to help with the sheets and in return I'll get an eye roll and a snide remark so I should just be happy that he actually wants to help!
I really do like this sweet/helping stage though. We were at Target the other day and as we passed the floral department Mac bolted. He ran straight to the bouquets and screamed "Flowers! Look Mommy, flowers!" I tried to get him back on task so we could get out of there, but he wouldn't budge. He grabbed my hand and said, "Buy Mommy flowers? Please buy Mommy flowers?" Well of course I couldn't break his little heart and say no! I told him to go pick some flowers for Mommy. He stood there with his hands on his hips for a minute scanning the selection and then chose some lovely yellow daisies. He was so proud of himself. I put them in the kitchen when we got home and everyday he goes to see the flowers he got me. Everytime I'm in the kitchen he points and smiles and says "I buy Mommy flowers." So sweet.
He really is a funny little guy. Last night after I made the bed, Mac wanted to put on his shoes. No reason. Just wanted to wear them. So I put his shoes on and finished cleaning. We were getting ready for bed and I told him it was time to take his shoes off so we could go to sleep. He said "No Mommy. I sleep in shoes." I asked him why he wanted to sleep in his shoes. His response, "I sleep in shoes. I go run to the beach. I sleep in shoes." He makes me laugh so hard that I actually let the kid go to bed in his shoes.
Here are a few pictures from our fun weekend: