More catching up...

Where does the time go, anyway? Wasn't Christmas just yesterday?

We went to Chuck E. Cheese last Wednesday with Grandma Willy, Grandpa Mark, Uncle Ben and the boys. They all had fun! Here's Logan with his pizza :)


Ben, Jonathan, Christopher


We also took them to the WOW museum! Here's Connor in the sandbox


Playing Christmas songs on the piano with Daddy


Logan's right hand and Connor's left hand on the piano


Jonathan, Christopher and Logan in the play kitchen


Christopher and Connor in a bubble


The four boys....

Christopher, Connor


Jonathan, Logan


Connor had a great time tap dancing. It's probably hard to tell in the picture, but he was wearing two right foot shoes and they're different sizes :) It didn't slow him down at all though!


Even Logan wore tap shoes and had a great time stomping around!


Jeremy and Ben took the boys sledding twice on a small hill in our neighborhood


Christopher, Connor and Logan at the table


The boys left on Saturday and we were sad to see them go. Hopefully they'll move here soon, though (pleeeeaaase!).

It didn't really seem like it when they were here, but now that they're gone I'd have to say that the last week was really LOUD. :) With four small boys and three or four adults in the house someone was always whining or crying or talking or laughing or shouting or playing with a loud toy (oh yeah, and the kids made some noise too! haha). Now that things are back to "normal" it's so very quiet in here! I can't remember them all, but there were some cute and funny things said by little boys this week that stick in my mind like "Jonathan, I love you" or "Logan, you're my best friend" or "I don't want a hole in my bread! It's yucky!" But really I just feel lucky to have spent a week with family and to have helped the cousins make some Christmas memories. They'll never be 4, 4, 2 and 1 again so it was fun to have spent this holiday with them!

We went up to Grandma Sue and Papa's today for Christmas part 2 and Santa spoiled our boys again with more fun presents! It snowed the whole time we were up there and it was beautiful - like we were in a snowglobe!

I'm not sure how or if we'll celebrate the new year but I can tell you that it won't be by resolving to blog every single day in 2008! The people behind NaBloPoMo are proposing that people blog 365 days next year (February 29th is a free day - wooo) but, sorry, that's just waaaayyyyy too much of me for you to handle! 365 days? Nope. Not me! :)

catching up

We have so much to catch up on but I'll start with a bunch of pictures...
First, Connor and Logan with the big guy last week. Logan's not smiling but this is a big step up from the tears last time!


A long overdue (and blurry) picture of Connor's new bed configuration. The toddler bed is set up just to Jeremy's left in this picture for Jonathan to sleep in and Christopher has a blowup bed underneath


The boys in their Christmas shirts - You can't read them, of course, but Connor's says "No coal in my stocking" and Logan's says "I ate Santa's cookies"


The 4 boys in Connor's room on Sunday morning


Ben and the boys rode on the train in the mall on Sunday night


Monday meant more preparations for Christmas including Connor and Christopher decorating cookies for Santa!


Posing in their jammies


We sprinkled oats in the snow for the reindeer to snack on while Santa delivered the toys (their expressions are hilarious in the picture on the right!)


The living room was full (and the elves were very tired) by the time Santa was done emptying his sack


So far I'd say Connor's favorite gifts are the train table, Leapster and kids digital camera. Logan likes the train table too and his new baby doll but he took an immediate liking to Christopher's new keyboard.

Unfortunately Naomi had to fly home tonight but Ben and the boys will be staying a few more days. More posts soon :)

Merry Christmas!

We have a house full of people but I wanted to just quickly say Merry Christmas everyone! I'll have lots of pictures and stories to post soon. By the way, it's SNOWING! YAY! :)

So in the words of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band...

"But all along the rockies you can feel it in the air
From Telluride to Boulder down below
The closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere
Is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow...."

:)

Connor's 4 year appointment

Connor had his 4 year check-up on Monday and he's doing well! He weighs exactly 34 pounds (25th percentile) and is 41 inches tall (3 ft 5 in, 70th percentile). He's in the same weight percentile and just slightly lower on the height percentile from his 3 year appointment. He had to have a shot, which for the life of me I can't remember what is was, and also a blood draw. He was so very brave for both - no tears but he did want to snuggle after the shot :)

They don't usually do a blood draw at 4 but I asked for a lead test since we did have some of those recalled toys. I was reassured that our doctor has done many of these lead tests over the last few months and has yet to have one come back positive. We'll have Logan tested at his appointment in January too since he is much more likely to have chewed on those toys than Connor!

More Christmas party pics

Here are a few more pictures from the Christmas party on Friday night!
Looking so very grown up...


With his teacher, Mrs. Weldon


With Rhyann


And here are a couple of pictures from Saturday night. We usually have movie night but we skipped the movie this week in favor of decorating a gingerbread house. It wasn't from scratch but I don't think any of us has the patience for that :) Connor really just wanted to build something, anything, out of gingerbread so I picked out a gingerbread train kit.
Before...


And after...


I wouldn't say the finished product is at all edible (in fact, blech comes to mind) but it was fun to make! That's what's important, right?

Connor's School Christmas Party

Last night was the Christmas Party for Connor's school. It was a potluck held at a local church and it was lots of fun! The highlight of the evening, of course, was that each class (3 year old preschool through 6th grade) performed one holiday song. Below is the video of Connor's class! Connor is the second from the right :)


Ever the ham, Connor had to say thank you into the microphone afterwards. Jeremy wasn't expecting it, though, so he just got a bit of it before he stopped recording :)

The big FOUR!

4 years.
1461 days.
35,064 hours.
2,103,840 minutes.
126,230,400 seconds.

Yep, that's how long it's been since Connor was born. It's so hard to believe. I'm sure that just last week we were setting up his crib and laughing at how tiny those newborn diapers are. But no, it's really been 4 years. Think he's changed much?


So, just like I did for Logan's birthday, I'll do an All About Connor section :)

Connor is incredibly active and is always on the go. He loves to ride his bike, drive his Jeep (especially with Logan in the seat beside him) and play outside. He is almost always happy and has a very positive outlook on life. He is definitely an extrovert - he loves being around people, meeting new people, and being the center of attention. He laughs a lot and likes it when other people are laughing too. He is a very loving and protective big brother. He loves school and learning new things. He knows the Pledge of Allegiance, his address and phone number, colors, letters, numbers by sight through 10 and counting to 20 though occasionally 14 throws him off a bit :) He gets better at writing his name every day and likes for us to write someone's name and he tries to copy it - he's pretty good at it! When he draws people they still have really long legs, no body and no arms, a very round head with a big nose, tiny eyes and a scribbled mouth and hair. He is very independent and doesn't need help with much these days - he gets himself dressed and undressed and gets in and out of the car and his car seat by himself. He has an amazing memory, everything from what activities we did a year ago to which road to drive on to get to the library. He eats pretty much everything but loves pizza, gogurt, peanut butter and jelly (though he still calls it "peanut and butter and jelly"), spaghetti, and celery. The crazy kid would rather have celery and peanut butter than any other snack. He likes some funny tv shows for a 4 year old - Wheel of Fortune, Unwrapped and Double Dare 2000 - but also likes kid shows like Fireman Sam (a favorite for a couple years now), Word World, Curious George and Little Einsteins. Just this year he's started liking movies so he gets to watch one for special big boy time with Mommy and Daddy on Saturday nights. So far his favorites are Shrek, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Curious George and The Incredibles. He wears jeans most of the time and likes to wear hoodies - especially the one with his school logo on it. He wears mostly 4T shirts but pants are a problem for him - his waist is so tiny that he could really use pants that are 2T in the waist and 4T length. Right now we're settling for 3T pants that are just a tad too short or 4T pants with a belt. He has an incredible imagination and particularly likes "playing trucks" where he has a truck, he gives you a truck and then the two have a conversation about what they do and what job site they're going to next. He still has his imaginary friend "Boy" who has been with him for as long as we can remember. He used to just tell us about what boy was doing or where he was (never in the room with us, he had always just gone upstairs or was sleeping or something) but now he talks to Boy in front of us sometimes and tells us what Boy says back. He likes to sing and likes substituting the words in songs to make you laugh (just the other night we heard "twinkle, twinkle little cocoa" coming from the back seat). He loves Christmas and would ride around looking at Christmas lights and listening to Christmas music all night if we'd let him. Actually, he just likes holidays in general! The length of his eyelashes is still the first thing most people notice about him. Though he was never cuddly as a baby he loves to touch now - giving hugs to everyone he can and laying ON Jeremy or me when we're on the couch.

That's a pretty thorough snapshot of Connor at 4 years old! :) I can't wait to see what the next year brings!

Connor's birthday party

We celebrated Connor's birthday this morning at the WOW Children's Museum in Lafayette. There were 11 kids in our party and I think they all had fun! There's so much to do there - a huge Pirate ship to climb on, science, music and art rooms, a stage for dancing, lots of costumes to try on, a train table, sand box, bank, grocery store, bubble machine, wind room, egyptian maze and more! There was definitely something for everyone :) The actual party part started with a craft set up by the museum - the party had a pirate theme so the kids got to make their own eye patches. Well, ok, it was probably a bit over the heads of most of the kids there (it was even hard for the one seven year old guest!) so the parents ended up "helping" a lot. Then it was time for cake, presents and more playing!
Connor wearing his birthday crown while Daddy worked on his eye patch :)


Smiling while we were singing Happy Birthday


Blowing out the #4 candle


Frosting face!


With Rhyann, showing off their colored tongues from the frosting


On top of the pirate ship


There was no getting a group shot with these kids so this is as close as I got :) Here are six of the party guests!


The bubble machine was a huge hit with Connor and Rhyann - they spent quite a bit of time in there trying to get a big bubble to come up around them!


Logan was there too but he spent most of his time either in the jeep or playing with the train table :)

For our first "big" birthday party I'd say it was a great success! Connor had a great time and was really tired afterwards - he napped for over two hours! We haven't been to the WOW museum much since Logan was born but we'll have to go back more often now. Connor and Logan both had so much fun :)

It snowed A LOT today. I think there's about six inches on Connor's picnic table outside but I'll measure it tomorrow. Anyway, even though it was snowing hard and reallllly cold out (19 degrees I think?), Connor and I still wanted to go to the Longmont Holiday Parade and fireworks. We bundled up to brave the weather condidions and roads and I'm so glad we did! We had so much fun watching all the floats and bands. Later we met up with our neighbors and some of their friends and watched the fireworks together from Roosevelt park. It was great!
Waiting for the parade to start


Watching a float go by


Great smile - this is my favorite picture from the whole day!


Tree hugger :) I'm not sure why, but he felt the need to hug this decorated tree in Roosevelt Park!


We came home to find Connor's big birthday present from us - while we were gone Jeremy and Logan converted Connor's twin bed into a low loft. I'll have to post pictures tomorrow, but it's only about 4 feet off the ground and provides some fun space below for playing. Connor LOVES it! We purposely bought this brand of bed because it can be converted (fairly cheaply) into so many different options - low loft, high loft, bunk bed, with or without slide, angled or straight ladder, options for underneath a loft like a desk, bookshelves, chalkboard, grocery store, the list is huge! And it's nice that you buy the bed once and then if you want to change it you just buy the things you need - not a whole new bed. Anyway, he was really excited about it even after we told him the rules:

Rule #1: No jumping or bouncing on the bed
Rule #2: Absolutely no jumping or bouncing on the bed
Rule #3: No one should ever jump or bounce on the bed
Rule #4: You have to use the steps to get on and off the bed
Rule #5: Jumping? Bouncing? On the bed? NO. :)

He laughed but seemed to get the point. The space underneath makes the idea of three boys sleeping in his room over Christmas not so hard to imagine now! :)

Tomorrow is Connor's actual birthday and, given the weather, I think we're just going to spend the day at home playing with new presents, playing in the snow and having some great chili.

This is my 200th post :)

Can you believe it? 200 posts?! That's nothing to most bloggers but it's exciting for me :) Anyway...on to the update!

Last Sunday we went to Santa's House. Did you know he lives in a Sorority house in Boulder? Neither did we :) It sounds funny but it really was fun - Santa and Mrs Claus were there and they had games, crafts, music, stories and a puppet show.
Connor asked Santa why he puts his finger on the side of his nose to get up the chimney but doesn't do it on the way down (yes, we've already read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas MANY times)


Apparently Santa had never been asked that question before - he eventually came up with that it's magic that he fits down the chimney which didn't answer Connor's question at all but oh well. What do you expect from a Santa with a fake beard? :)


This was Logan's first experience with Santa and let's just say it didn't go too well. This is as close as he would get without shrieking!


Tonight we went to Longmont Lights at Roosevelt Park. It was snowing and really cold but still fun!


They had Santa's Workshop in the St. Vrain Memorial building with lots of things to do - coloring, getting fitted for reindeer antlers, pretending to make toys on the play tool benches and making candy cane ornaments.


Here's Logan looking out of a wooden cutout of Santa


Logan is the elf and Connor is the reindeer


We ran into Rhyann and her grandparents outside. Connor and Rhyann hugged each other so hard they fell to the ground :)

This weekend is going to be so busy! There's Connor's birthday party tomorrow morning, the Longmont Holiday Parade and fireworks tomorrow night and Connor's actual birthday on Sunday. I should be wrapping some birthday presents but instead I'm off to watch the Christmas episodes of Monk and Psych :)