11 months!

 

I can’t believe that my baby is already 11 months old.  He is so fun to have in our family.  He LOVES to laugh.  I can’t wait till he can start to talk, I’m sure he will be telling jokes and will always be trying to make people smile.  I tried to take some pictures of him and here are a few of my favorites…

 

You can always catch Connor with his thumb in his mouth, that this picture was perfect.

He also loves to scruntch his nose and make sniffing noises.  It is adorable and then laughs afterwards.

Things that he is doing now:

• crawling
• pulling himself up onto everything
• he loves to pull all the books or movies off the shelf.
• he will walk if you hold his hands, but not holding onto a walker.
• he loves to eat table food
• he has 4 teeth now (2 bottom, 2 top)
• he LOVES to laugh, but if you get him laughing too hard he will get the hiccups and spit up.  (Megan’s really good at getting him to do that.)
• He likes to cuddle and suck his thumb
• he will grab any cloth (burp cloth, clothes or soft toys) and suck his thumb.  If he feels any of those things he will stop and stuck his thumb

The day before he turned 11 months Connor had his first surgery.  He had to get his tear ducts probed on both eyes.  Here he is before the surgery.  (I don’t know why they put him in a purple gown when they had blue and purple.  I had a couple of nurses call him a girl.)  We were able to  have this surgery at our new Children’s hospital.  It was nice to go to a hospital that was less crowded, all new and a lot closer to home. 

All of the love and support he had as he went in for the surgery.  While we waited for him to come out of surgery Megan and Bryson got pampered with toys, coloring sheets, sticker sheets & slushies. 

Once Connor was done with his surgery and in recovery they came and got me to come and sit with him.  It’s heart breaking walking down the hall listening to babies cry and trying to figure out if one of those babies is yours.  Then coming to the room and seeing your baby crying in the nurses arms with blood coming out of his nose, a bloody rag sitting on the bed  and his hand all taped up with an IV coming out of it.  His eyes were very swollen and he didn’t even look like himself.  After he finally drank some juice they took his IV out of his hand.  Of course they put his IV in his thumb sucking hand, which didn’t help in trying to comfort him.  (that was my only complaint) 

Luckily his eyes seem a lot better now, and I hope that they don’t get bad again cause I don’t know if I could put him through that again. 

End of the Season

  Megan and Bryson finished their soccer season the beginning of June.  They both had a great season and seemed to improve by the end of the season.

Here is Bryson’s team picture

Bryson loved to run after the ball and even almost scored a goal in one of his games.  It took a few games before he complained that no one was giving him the ball.  We had to explain to him that he had to go and get the ball.  After he understood that he did a lot better. 

And of course we have to give a shout out to Bryson’s coach who did a great job.  He was so cute with all the little kids and helping them all out.  He really has a talent for coaching kids.

Here is Megan’s team picture…

 Megan did a great job this season.  She did a great job playing goalie and loved playing offense.  Even though she never scored a goal she always did a great job getting the ball down the field.  We also had a great cheering section to cheer our team on.  Mainly Emma’s Mom.  It was always fun to watch them play. 

The kids did great and we look forward to the next soccer season.

Utah

I was able to travel out to Utah with Connor to visit my family for several events. (Hold on tight since there are a lot of pictures, and a really long post.)

Lil’ Sis Graduation:

The day that we flew in was the day of my little sister, Tosha’s, graduation. She is the baby of the family and I was glad that I was able to be there. Tosha really grew up since we have moved away and I feel like I don’t even know my little sister anymore. So it was really nice to be there and to meet her first boyfriend and see what a beautiful girl she has grown up to be. Even though Connor and I were extremely tired we made it through the ceremony without falling asleep. Connor did eventually give in and fell asleep at the very end. Tosha looked so pretty and I’m glad that I was there to share in her graduation. Congratulations Tosha, and welcome to life!

The next day my Mom, my older and younger sisters, Connor & I all left for our 1st Girls Weekend and we went and stayed at my Uncle’s lake house at Bear Lake.

Girls Weekend:

We started the weekend off by getting pedicures. This was my first pedicure ever. I love how it felt and the massage chairs, and my toes looked so cute. They painted them so cute… and they still look cute 3 weeks later.

We had a lot of great food while we were there. We ate at a yummy Italian restaurant before we drove to the lake. My older sister also brought some yummy cupcakes with us, unfortunately we didn’t eat them until we came home. I’m sure they would have tasted a lot better if we ate them fresher, but they were still good. We also found a great little pizza and deli joint that was so good. We ate sandwiches there for lunch and then went back for some pizza for dinner.

The house:

Here is the house that we stayed at. It is adorable. My Uncle and his family are renovating it and making it look so cute. I forgot to get pictures of the kitchen that they have finished but it looked so good. It was perfect for our time away and we are so grateful for a place to escape to, even if there was not electrical in the bathroom. We made due using the reflection on the microwave and helping each other do our hair.

Chilin’:

We did a lot of driving and spent most of our time driving to and from the lake house and then driving around the lake. We did some shopping/browsing, sleeping and sight seeing.

The View:

This was my first time at Bear lake and it is beautiful! This really is only a select few of the probably hundred of pictures that I took. I would have liked to be there on a warmer day since it was pretty chilly outside.

Pictures Around the Lake:

The group

Connor & I

Just Connor

We had a great trip and would have stayed longer but Tosha had to get back to Church to give a talk. She spent the whole ride back writing her talk. She did a great job, a lot better then I would have. Thanks Mom for a fun weekend. I look forward to our next trip so that I can get to know you guys better. I always feel like the one that is left out since I don’t live nearby and don’t hang out all the time.

Memorial Weekend

Our weekend was stuff full of events. Sunday was my Brother-in-law’s birthday and we celebrated with a family BBQ and some duck duck goose. My cute niece and nephew would always pick Connor to be the goose. Someone would have to pick him up and run around the yard.

Memorial day morning my Dad, my little bro & sis (BJ & Tosha) & I all went up and hiked the “Y”. It was a lot of fun since I hadn’t done it since Megan was born. It was REALLY crowded that day, but it didn’t seem that crowded as we hiked. It was a beautiful day and I’m glad that we were able to do it.

We came home and helped my Mom clean up the house and get it ready for our big family Memorial Day party, which was later that day and I realized that I didn’t take any pictures. I was too busy talking and catching up with all my cousins, 2nd cousins, my Mom’s cousins, & Grandpa. But it was really nice to talk to all my relatives and to meet some of them that I haven’t ever met before.

Later that night I was able to go over to Josh’s little sister, Kandis’ house and eat dinner with her, Nic and Nixon. It was my first time meeting Nixon and he is adorable and so little. Connor and him are the same height. We tried to get a picture of them standing next to each other but they wouldn’t have it. Even trying to get a picture of the 4 of us was difficult. But it was really a lot of fun to be able to spend some time with them. Thanks Dis & Nic for dinner.

Tuesday I was able to go up to the Salt Lake Temple and do a live session. It was my first live session and it was really cool. Afterwards we had a Temple worker show us the Sealing Office. There was a beautiful stain glass mural of the First Vision in the office and on the other side of the mural is the Holy of Holies. It was a great experience. I’m glad that I was able to share that with my parents and my older sister. Thanks Tosha for watching Connor for me so that I could go. The temple looks so amazing and beautiful. I can’t believe that the pioneers built this, there are so many small details. The Temple worker had told us that mostly everything inside is the original. They have replaced carpet in places. But it is an amazing building.

I had a great visit and Connor was such a great baby. It is always fun to visit family, a week is never enough.

Connor and I had one more adventure going home. (It’s a little lengthy, I just want to remember, so skip if you want and just check out here to see all the people that I met.) We were flying from Salt Lake to Houston and then Houston to Louisville. But on our flight to Houston, they shut down the Houston airport, due to weather, and so we circled around until we were running low on fuel so we landed in Austin to refuel and wait till we could actually leave to get in to Houston. I had a 2 hour layover so I wasn’t too worried. Once we finally landed I had 5 minutes before take off. I found out that there was a band that was sitting behind me that was also flying to Louisville so of course they would hold the plane for all of us…. Nope! I got off the plane and booked it across the airport, on the train, and to the terminal and found out that the plane did leave and that that was the last flight out of Louisville that night. So I checked flights to Cincinnati and luckily there was one more flight out that had seats so I got on that flight. Josh called the neighbor and he came over to stay with the kids while Josh came up to get me. The band that I traveled with before was also on this flight.

Once we were on the flight luckily it wasn’t a full flight at all. I had a whole row to myself. A couple of the band members were sitting by me so I was talking to them trying to find out more about them. They were all very nice. I heard them talking about their luggage getting transferred over and should be going to Cincinnati. They said that they told her that 7 bags got transferred and they only had 6 so we figured my bag got transferred as well. I asked what type of music they played and they said Pop. Since I’m not good with names or anything and I’m sure I wouldn’t know any Pop singers I didn’t keep talking. The lady that I was talking to asked if I knew the song “Hey, hey we’re the Monkeys!” I said “Yeah!” Then she pointed at the guy sitting behind me and said “That’s him.”

The flight took off and conversation stopped. Connor would play peek-a-boo with the guy behind me and we enjoyed watching the lightening dancing across the sky as we flew. Once we landed I joked with the guy behind me about playing with Connor. He just said sarcastically “I would never do that!” Then he handed me a CD and said “Stick this in your bag, you’ll like it.” I thanked him and stuck it in my bag not really looking at it. After we got off I was finding out where they were playing, which was about 40 min south of us. She told me to check out Davyjones.net and I could check everything out. As I walked to baggage claim I overheard two guys talking how they use to watch Davy Jones’ show. (yes, I was still clueless at this point of who Davy Jones was. I just figured at this point that he must have been someone big since he had a show.) At baggage claim I was excited to see my bag there and thanked the lady I had been talking to for calling and getting the bags switched. Then another band member that I had talked to on the plane came over and shook my hand and to say bye to Connor. Once I was in the car I asked Josh if he knew who Davy Jones was, and of course he did. So we listened to his CD that he gave me on the way home. Then I have been teased since that I didn’t get a picture with him. Nope, no picture just a CD & a story.

The Little Things Inbetween

I'm always writing about the big or bigger events that happen in our lives and sometimes the little things in the middle get missed. It's in the middle where the fits are, the funny things are said, leisure time is spent, tears are cried, singing and dancing happen & laughs fill the air. And of course there is cleaning, laundry and cooking too. So here is a little bit that I wanted to talk about.

Megan LOVES to read. She has been getting into chapter books, she is currently reading 3 books at this time. Which might explain her personality a little since she is always doing several things... a great multi-tasker... we just need to control it a little more. She is always taking anything that we are going to throw away and she can imagine anything to make it into. She is quite crafty and loves writing books. Maybe someday she'll publish one!

The kids will play on the swing set constantly, which is great. The only bad thing is once Bryson sees a spider he will stop playing. I'm still trying to get him to be the hero and kill it. Someday!

Bryson is constantly saying funny things. Some of the things that I am remembering are:

While eating dinner...
B: I'm full (with most of his dinner still sitting on his plate)
Dad: Well I guess you don't have room for a cookie then.
B: uh-huh! this spot right here (drawing a circle on his belly) is for the cookie.
Dad: Then eat some of your peas.
B: There's no room, just enough for the cookie.

His favorite phrase... "Mom, when I was a baby and was in your belly and came out I... (whatever Connor is doing, like ate baby food, spit up, crawled, you get the point)

We recently moved him to a booster seat in the car and he watches the cars behind us and is always telling me to go faster cause the car is going to get us. I have to explain to him that the car won't hit us and that I can't go faster cause there is a car in front of us.

He has also been obsessed with taking pictures. He is always wanting to take pictures. Maybe cuz we are always taking pictures.

Connor's favorite thing to do is jump in his johnny jump up. He loves it!

He has finally got his crawling down and now he can go all over the house in just a few seconds. We are constantly digging stuff out of his mouth that his brother and sister leave on the ground. Here is a short video proving that he crawls.

Connor also is good at copying things. He will pat his head if you pat your head. He LOVES to laugh and the kids are constantly trying to make him laugh.

Connor is also going to have his tear ducts probed, we were suppose to do it this week, but he got a cold, so we had to reschedule.

I feel like that is it, since I can't think of anything else right now, but I'm sure I'll remember something else later. I need to be better about posting about the little things and not just waiting till the big things.

Dog Training

Megan & Bryson went to a dog training class where they got to help train a dog. The kids (more Megan) have been asking for a dog and so we figured that this would be a good class for the kids to attend so they can understand the responsibility of training a dog, and also for when we eventually get a dog we will know how to train it. I wasn't able to attend, but Josh took the kids and took these pictures. So the rest of this post will be from the words of the kids...

(Megan) The night was very fun we got to train a dog to heel
and to sit and to come and to stay.

I (Bryson) got to train Spotty. He tried to jump up on me. I trained Spotty to play games and I got to give him a treat. I put the treat in my hand and I dropped it on the ground and he tried to eat my hand, but it didn't hurt.

Bryon's favorite part was giving the dog treats.

Here my (Megan) dog wouldn't sit down so the trainer had to come and make him sit down.

Megan's favorite part of the night was teaching the dog to heel, and taking the dog through an obstacle course.

We will hopefully be able to go to more of these classes (which are free) to help the kids learn the responsibilities of a pet and also to get their "dog fix" in.

Over the Weekend

We went to our gym's 10th anniversary party where the kids played lots of different games, jumped in bouncers and Megan even got her face painted as a bunny.

We also added some flowers to our landscaping.
We put some Double Impatiens & Calibrachoa in the planter box, wave petunias by the mailbox & Geraniums and Salvia in front of our bushes. Hopefully everything will grow as expected and in a few weeks they will all look amazing. I'll have to post another picture later.

We also planted our garden! I am most excited about this. It was our next project after the swing set and we finally got it finished. We are growing slicing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, red peppers, green peppers & zucchini. Hopefully our garden will grow well this year and then we can make another box for next year and double our garden.

Around the World

We had a ward activity a couple of weeks ago (I'm finally catching up) that was for adults only. We were all split up into tables and each table was a different country. We were Puerto Rico. Josh and I were the table captains and were in charge of organizing our dinner for our table and an activity that the whole ward could participate in. The Riveria's on our table are from Puerto Rico and did a wonderful job with our main dish and our beautiful centerpiece. The night was a lot of fun. I didn't take many pictures but got a lot of videos.

Here is a video of Josh participating in a noodle eating contest...

For our table's activity we got ideas from the new "Minute to Win it" TV show and did a big competition.

We started with "Suck it up" where you have to transfer M&M's from one cup to another by sucking them up to the end of a straw, without using your hands. (we varied it from the actual game)

The top 4 players moved on to "Dizzy Mummy" where they had to unroll a roll of toilet paper by spinning around without it breaking.
The top 2 players moved on to "On the nose" where they had to move cottons balls from one bowl to another only using their nose with Vaseline on it.

It was a great time. Some of the other games that we did were a grape throwing contest, hot pepper eating contest, sumo wrestling contest, making tulips out of paper, word scrambles, hula dancing and other ones that I can't think of right now.

80's Flashback!

A couple of weeks ago we had a surprise b-day party for one of my friends here at our house. It was a blast! We all dressed up in 80's outfits to celebrate her turning 30.

Here is the whole group looking awesome!

All the girls from our ward, minus the b-day girl, we took plenty of pictures while we waited for her to show up.

We all had a blast taking pictures, playing "name that tune" with 80 songs, and playing a get to know you trivia for the b-day girl. We all got to know "tramp-o-line Monique" better and enjoyed having a whole night in celebration of her. She is a great person, a wonderful example, fun friend & is beautiful inside and out.

Highlights from the night:

• Rene (Monique's Mom) undressing once they got downstairs into her 80's outfit.
• Learning more about Monique especially about her "Trampoline" dance.
• Seeing every one's 80's outfits
• One of the girls seeing a mouse and screaming which brought the party to a close and Josh on a mouse hunt. (we caught it that night)

Gotta love time out with the girls!

Derby Bingo

This is our 2nd year doing Derby Bingo. We started doing it since I miss my family bingo parties, so we started our own on Derby day. This year we started a hat contest. The idea came from a friend, but it was perfect since the Kentucky Derby is all about hats. So everyone was invited and had to wear some kind of hat... fancy, funky, silly or cute. So here are our families hats.

All the groups...

Everyone that came

Playing B-I-N-G-O!!

After we played bingo and all the prizes were gone we had a pot luck BBQ and watched the Kentucky Derby race (you can watch it here.). I do have to say that my favorite part was when all the kids were sitting down at the table eating and one little girl started to sing a primary song, the rest of them joined in and started to sing, then once that song was done they sang another. So cute! We had a great time and were glad to share my family tradition with our "family" out here! Can't wait till next year! I already have an idea for a hat.

He's a Big Boy Now!

He did it!

It took a long time, a lot of patience, lots of loads of laundry, some puddles, stubbornness & did I mention patience? But he finally filled his potty chart and is wearing big boys every day, and even some nights. We are so proud!

And since he filled up the chart we took him (and the family) to Chuck-E-Cheese!

(I don't know who that little girl is... Megan was looking for tokens on the floor and got her to join her, then they did everything together, so she is in all of my pictures with Chuck-E-Cheese.)

We all had a great time. Connor loved riding the rides, Bryson loved doing everything, he especially loved riding the roller coaster rides, which is weird since he didn't really like riding the roller coasters at Disney World. Megan became very good at skeeball, and Josh set the record (a couple of times) on the basketball "Hoops" game.

We are so proud of you Bryson!

Now we just have to work on nights. If we put him in a diaper he stays dry, put then when he wears his big boys he has an accident almost every time. A little frustrating, but he'll get there. One step at a time!