a few Connor tidbits...

Just sharing a couple interesting things Connor has said or done recently...

- His new favorite show is the Discovery Channel's six part video series titled "When We Left Earth: The NASA missions." The sixth part won't air until this Sunday but we've been watching the first five portions On Demand. It's not something I thought Connor would really be into - it's almost all black and white with lots of narration that seems like it would be hard for him to follow but he is completely enthralled every second. I was worried that some of it might be tough to explain or hard for him to handle - like the three astronauts killed in the fire of the command module that came to be known as Apollo I for example - but he takes it all in, asks a few questions, and wants to watch more. Every afternoon between the time he wakes up from his nap and when Logan wakes up from his we watch a little slice of space history :)

- I don't actually remember requesting this, but we got a packet in the mail from www.mcgruff.org with McGruff's safety tips for kids including how to deal with bullies, how to stay safe on the internet and general tips on how to stay safe. This has lead to many conversations about strangers and who you can share certain information with (like our address, name of his school, etc), and who is allowed to pick him up from school. We let him choose his own code word for who is a safe person and have talked about how he can't say this code word - the safe person has to! He seems to be getting it and likes to talk about how to stay safe....a lot!

- At dinner tonight we were talking about the story they read and the ceramic piece he painted at the Crackpots preschool storytime earlier today. The book had a pirate theme and he painted a parrot which reminded him of this birthday party last year. He said that this year he wants to have a pirate theme again but "NO GIRLS are allowed to come. We're going to put up a sign that says NO GIRLS ALLOWED." I asked, "What about me?" "Oh, I guess you can come to my party cause you're a mom girl." "What about Grandmas?" "I guess they can come too." "What about Sailor?" (Sailor is his new best friend at summer camp) "Oh alright, I guess girls can come. But I'm still putting up the sign so no other girls sneak in." :)

- Our recent rains have made the weeds grow like, well, weeds. :) Connor has been a big help getting rid of them! He puts on his gloves just like mine, pulls a few weeds here and there (especially the tall ones - he loves those), waits for me to fill up the big orange Home Depot bucket and then empties it into a wheelbarrow. He then pushes the wheelbarrow over to the other side of the yard where he helps Jeremy put the weeds in trash bags. It's really a lot longer process than it needs to be, of course, but he loves being "the trash man" including making trash truck noises along the way.

- Connor's first t-ball game was last Monday and he had a great time! He got to bat 4 times and did a great job running the bases. The whole team took a bit to understand what to do when the other team hit the ball, but with only one practice before their first game and no prior t-ball experience, what do you expect? :) Pretty much everyone ran for the ball, one boy picked it up and then they all ran to first base. They don't keep score but a good time was had by all! Connor had a big cheering section with Papa, Grandma Willy, Grandpa Mark, me and Logan watching from the outfield and Daddy helping out on the field. Here are the kids running through the parent bridge after the game...

Wish me a Happy Birthday!

As of approximately 5:49 Thursday morning I will be 1,000,000,000 (yes, that's one billion!) seconds old. And I'll probably sleep right through it :) Don't ask me why but I went to this site a few months ago, noticed that my 1 billion second birthday was quickly approaching and set a reminder for it in my phone! It alerted me a few hours ago so I thought I'd share it with you...don't you feel special? :) And just because it's fun here are some more - Logan will be 100 weeks old this Sunday, Connor will hit his 40,000 hour birthday on July 1st and just 3 days later Jeremy will be 36 years old! Maybe Jeremy would feel better if I told him he'd only be about 4 years old on Jupiter? :) haha

Last weekend

We had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather last weekend! On Friday afternoon we spent three hours at our neighborhood pool. We all slept really well after that!
Connor taking a break from the water


On Saturday Connor had swim class and then we went to the Pet and Doll Parade in Roosevelt Park. There were dogs, cats, dolls, kids and even some crazy adults dressed up in as much red, white and blue as possible since it was Flag Day and that was the parade's theme. We walked around the park and then enjoyed some free popsicles - yummy!
Connor pulled Logan and his elephant most of the way





Logan fell down on the way back to the car and big brother was right there to console him. He didn't even lose the balloon in his hand!


For Father's Day we just had a bbq here with Papa, Grandma Sue, Grandma Willy and Grandpa Mark and played some t-ball with Connor in the backyard. It was fun! :)

The joys of having boys

Connor has been attending a Vacation Bible School at a local church in the evenings this week. They've been following a science theme and he's in the Beaker's Squeaker's Preschool class. One of the projects they did on Tuesday night was making blue slime. Each child got to bring their slime home in a small plastic flask (technically an Ehrlenmeyer flask). What's Connor's favorite thing to do with it? You guessed it, take it out and shove it back in so it makes fart noises. It's apparently the most hilarious thing ever. :) Oh boy....

Connor's friends (real and imaginary)

Ok so you probably remember that Connor has had an imaginary friend for about as long as he's been able to say the word "boy." Boy still comes around now and then and just today Connor was invited to Boy's birthday party by one of Boy's friends. He told me all about the invitation - it was purple (Connor's favorite color) and said that Boy was sick today (throwing up, in case you care) but that Connor should bring a gift for Boy and come eat cake. He wasn't sure when the party was going to be but I have a sneaky feeling it will be on the same night as a girls only birthday party I was just invited to! :)

Today when I got to the daycare/preschool place where Connor and Logan are going to "summer camp" two mornings a week they were both playing with friends and having a great time. This is just their second week there so I'm still learning all the new friends' names. When we got in the car I asked Connor what his friend's name was and he said "Sailor. She's my girlfriend." Sailor? Yep, her name is really Sailor. Girlfriend? "Yeah, we were going to nap together." Uh oh! :) I asked him if he's friends with anyone else in the class and he said, "Yeah, I like the boy with the Captain on his underpants. He brought cupcakes last week." Hmm...Andrew? "Yeah, Andrew." And he had what on his underpants? "Captain....umm...you know, Mom. Like Spiderman in my game?" Ohhhh...Captain America? "Oh , right! Captain America! Can I have Captain America underpants?"

So, our son has two friends at summer camp - a girl named Sailor and a boy with Captain America underpants. Lovely :)

Drenched

It's been raining almost constantly since last night and so far today (as of the 11:08 a.m. update on our local newspaper's website) we've gotten .93 inches of rain. For many areas of the country that wouldn't be a big deal but for us it's A LOT of rain. We've only had 5.84 inches of precipitation so far this year and our average yearly precip is just under 13 inches so an inch pf rain in a single day is crazy! And, of course, today was supposed to be Connor's first tee ball practice. Yeah, I don't think that'll happen....

Logan had his post-op check-up today with the ENT and everything is looking good! I got to see the tube in his left ear which the doctor said "looks great" and I said "ewww." Connor really wanted to look too but the doctor let him be in charge of moving the chair up and down instead. Both boys got a Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie from the nurse when they were done so I guess it was a pretty successful visit!

Connor is in the midst of the apparently common 4 year old name-calling phase. We try to keep him from calling people names so he's started renaming objects just to be silly. He noticed that we have a broken sandbox shovel in the garage and said "I'm going to call this 'broken digger wonga wonga'." Or when eating waffles the other day he decided to call them floofy pancake waffle-amas. It's pretty funny :)

mobile blogging

Just trying out mobile blogging for the first time so I am sending this from my cell phone! Logan's surgery went wonderfully yesterday! More later...

Look! It's a new post!

Can you believe it? So much has been going on in our lives lately that blogging has fallen off the to do list! We've had lots of sickness, two deaths in the family, the end of school and beginning of summer camp and so much more. Here are some pictures and updates...

Enjoying the recent warm weather



Here's the drawing Connor made for Teacher Appreciation week



Last Friday was Connor's last day of preschool and they had a school wide field day at a local park. Here are Connor and Rhyann peeking out from behind a tree with Logan looking on.


Logan relaxing for a few minutes during field day

Part of Memorial Day weekend was spent in Kansas attendng a service for Jeremy's grandmother, Aileen Swisher, who passed away on Thursday May 22nd. It was a nice memorial and the boys weren't too terrible during it. When Jeremy's mom was done with the eulogy Connor said "Great job, Grandma Willy" as she sat down. Then later when the pastor was speaking he was going over the ten commandments and asked something about if anyone had stolen anything and Connor blurted out "Not me!" :) Oops. Logan sat in the pew while the music was playing but as soon as people started talking he got bored and we went to play in the cry room. Luckily I could still hear the speakers but they couldn't hear Logan banging the toys too much!

This look says "What do you mean I shouldn't get watermelon all over my nice clothes?"

Notice how short his hair is here! (Go back up and look at the field day pics for comparison) We got the boys' hair cut on Friday night and Connor wanted Logan's hair to be cut just like his and we said it was fine. Bye bye baby, hello little boy!

This is the best picture I could manage of the four squirmy cousins all dressed up. From left: Christopher, Logan, Connor, Jonathan


And what would a wedding or funeral be without a family picture? Well, it didn't happen when we were all dressed up but here you go...


The other big news is that Connor can now ride his bike without training wheels! He's such a big boy!


We took off the training wheels and pedals from his smaller bike two weeks ago so he could learn to balance by pushing with both feet and coasting along. He did this maybe five or six times over the last two weeks and then yesterday when Jeremy put the pedals back on he took off! Much like our potty training experience, he basically taught himself to ride a bike :) Woo hoo! Here's a video of his first few times!


We watched our friends' three boys Tuesday night while they went to a movie to celebrate their anniversary. We had fun with five (yes FIVE) small boys for a couple hours :)






Keep Logan in your thoughts early Friday. He's having tubes put in that morning. I guess he'll only be under for five or ten minutes and will be able to leave the hospital just a couple hours later. We're looking forward to getting it over with and hope it helps him hear and speak better! :)

Ok maybe he is mine after all! Haha!

For the first couple years of Connor's life I joked that he wasn't really mine because he didn't like sweets. He didn't like chocolate and went through a phase of not liking ice cream and that's just....wrong! :) In fact he once asked for more broccoli after dinner when there was dessert available! He's been liking dessert more and more lately, though, and yesterday proved it. First he went to Dairy Queen with his class and was very excited to tell me that he had both chocolate and vanilla on the same cone! Then we went to ArtWalk and had some ice cream there too (yeah, I'd forgotten about his earlier trip to DQ). On the way home I asked Connor if the ice cream was a yummy dessert. He replied, "Mommy, ice cream is NOT a dessert! It's a CELEBRATION!" I laughed and he said, "Why are you laughing? Ice cream rocks the world!" :) I couldn't agree more!

Catching up...again

I've been neglecting the blog lately, huh? Amazingly a bunch of you still visit every day hoping I posted! :) Thanks for not giving up on me! We joined the Y a few weeks ago and I guess I've been spending a lot of free time there instead of blogging! Jeremy's enjoying playing racquetball again, I like their water aerobics classes and the track and the boys have fun in the child care. :)

Here are a few pics from my cell phone camera. I'll have some from the regular camera later when I get around to downloading them!

Connor being a good big brother at Noodles and Company


We watched Chance for a few days while his family went on a trip

We went to an ENT last Thursday to make sure Logan's ears were ok after many ear infections this winter. Logan's right ear still has lots of fluid in it even though he hasn't had a cold for quite some time. That, combined with his speech delay, leads the ENT to want to put tubes in. He left it up to us and is fine with waiting a month and seeing how Logan's speech progresses and how the ears look but he's guessing that we'll do the tubes before the summer's done. Sigh. Logan's speech therapist has seen good results in kids who get tubes so she's in favor of it. And Jeremy had many sets of tubes as a kid so he's ok with it too. I'm stuck in the "why do both my babies have to go under general anesthesia so young? It's so unfair!" phase. I've been reassured that he'd only be under for five or ten minutes but still, he's my baby! :) Anyway, we'll keep you posted.

Next week is the last week of preschool for this school year! The boys will go to the same "summer camp" two mornings a week and Connor will also go to farm school one morning. Then in the fall both boys will be at the same school together (Logan for two mornings, Connor for four). Connor's class is going on a field trip on Friday to Dairy Queen :) It's within walking distance of the school and he is very excited to eat ice cream with his class before lunch!!