Christmas Is Over

That's what Connor kept telling everyone as I was taking the decorations off the Christmas tree. Yes Connor yes it is. I loved the Christmas songs on the radio, the Family Christmas cards that filled our refrigerator seeing family and getting help with the boys and most of all seeing how excitted the boys were when they opened another present.

Making cookies

Ryan didn't want to sit down for the Christma pic

First look at presents under the tree

 

First snow of the year, perfect for snowmen making

The Grand Parents came to celebrate the birth of Jesus with us!

We're Ready

For Christmas that is. Suppose to snow an inch tonight, know that our Iowa relatives and Colorado friends have a lot of it, we shall find out when we wake if it is a white Christmas (week).

On Sunday we took the boys to Niederman Farms (where we get our Pumpkins each year) for a beautiful tribute that the Niederman Family has made to the bible. You walk around a mile square with differt holiday lights and bible passages. Then at the end you go into a big barn for free cookies, hot coco and a live band. Very festive!

Heather told Connor it is going to snow and he is very excitted. He said "Heather said we can eat the snow". We told him about sleds and got the one we bought last year out and rode around in the basement.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I know it's not the 24th you Silly Billy...I'm talking about the story. My Grandma, the Boys Great Grandma found THEE Cutest Bear that moves around and sings the song and the boys press the botton over and over and over again. Glo's hope is that they can sing the whole song to her on the phone on Christmas but I don't think they view the bear so much as singing a song but more as a performance.
Also I'd like to make a complaint, in our version of Twas The Night Before Christmas one page has Santa smoking a pipe. Connor always ask me what it is, I always say I don't know. Tonight I over heard Connor asking Ray, "what's that" and he responded, "I think a candy cane" glad to know I'm not the only liar over here.

Ryan Ear Tubes

Ryan had his 4 month follow up at Childrens Hospital for his ear tubes. After the horrific news today of the CT shooting I want to take a second to share some stranger goodness. These two adorable girls let Ryan touch their books, eat their chips and talk to them as they too waiting to see the doctor. Thank you to that Mom for being understanding of a 16 month's lack of personal space knowledge.
The tubes look great, thanks Doc.

Last night I took the boys shopping for a few last minute Christmas presents and a I was popping a wheely over the curb with the stroller while holding Connor and the front wheel rolled away. A stranger ran right over without pausing, reattached the wheel and gave a smile and kind word. Then another stranger grabbed the heavy entrance doors to the store and remarked about remember how hard it was with kids and no door holder...I think the Christmas Spirit was with me this week. Thank you Lord God for the kidness of some strangers. I don't know how the Holy Spirit can comfort those CT familes but I hope he can.

This is a shot of Ryan touching the girls book while she is trying to do her homework.

What a week

Ray is traveling more and more these days. This week while I was a single parent Connor was throwing a fit and while doing so peed his pants. That night he peed his bed, then he peed his bed again last night. While I was upstairs changing the sheets this is what Thing 1 and Thing 2 got into. They threw an open yogurt out of the fridge which went ALL over everything, so that was fun.

timer

Right when Ryan was born I bought a tri-pod in hopes of taking more timer shots of the whole family. Well we took like 5 shots right before my work Christmas party. Ray was the smart one that said we better look at them before we go....umm yea I didn't angle the tripod high enought. Then the kids were over it and so were we.

 This fake tree actually looks pretty good.

 would have been so cute....where is ray's head?

changed the settings and it whited us out too much...grrrr

Nanny

I feel snobby saying Nanny but in home care person sounds weird too so I guess we have a Nanny or babysitter or whatever, but she is A-Mazing! She not only comes to my house and watches my kids and loves them she also does crafts with them and drum roll....leaves my house cleaner than it was. She has also been known to make us dinner and her biggest extra roll is she makes cute crafty things for my house. See by the pictures how neat the stuff is that Mother Hen is making my me and the boys?
Love you!

 The flags were her idea

 The jar with stuff and ribbon she did

Ornaments

This year the whole Christmas Season is AMAZING seeing it from a 3 year olds eyes. The lights, the ornaments the nativitiy everything to him is "so cool". He was on a "Christmas High" decorating the tree.

Busy November

I NEVER have to go back and read previous blog posts but we have been so busy I actually had to hop on the blog before logging in and see what we have been upto and where I left off.
We took the boys to the Cincinnati Festival of Lights (found out from the Mom who knows all aka Stef that it was opening night and for members only). We thought it would be like one set of lights and really just going to the zoo at night. In reality it is a million people and ten million lights and zero animals. We all loved it and big boy Connor even went pee in the potty at the zoo. If you live in Cincinnati I 100% say you have to go see these lights.

So long story version of the potty story:
Right before we walked out of the Zoo Connor said "I have to go potty". Ray walked him into the mens bathroom. There were three urinals and 1 occupied stall. So he walked back out and we continued walking to the car (duh we are new to this but DUH) Hello Parents your newly potty trained boy told you he had to go potty. So we get to the car, I go to put him in his car seat and he says "Mommy I have to go potty" ohhhh yea, shoot. I pull his pants down and say, "Connor pee on the car tire" (Mom of the year). He laughed and said "no". So I picked him up ran like I has running a 5k, yelled as I ran for people to let me cut in line as I had a little boy who had to go potty. Got let back into the Zoo got to the womens bathroom andddddd.....A LINE. (Duh, there is always a line to the womens bathroom). So as I sweat and pant Connor stays cool and just kind of stands there. Nobody let's us cut which really irked me, I was thinking great this poor kid just held it for all this time and now he is totally going to pee his pants here in line.
We made it to our turn, I pulled his pants down threw him on the potty and...he went! I look down only to see he had dropped his little gingerbread man onto the bathroom floor. I didn't want a scene so I (mother of the year) handed it back to him. Then he tried to wiggle off the potty and dropped it again. This time I couldn't ignore the cooking hitting the bathroom stale floor twice and it went into the trash can. Then I didn't wash his hands or mine because they didn't have papertowels and it was like 30 degree's out. Don't jude, I purelled in the car.
So he did it, even with these dumb dumb parents who don't ask or listen to our kid about having to go potty. Way to go Con-man!

Turkey Lurkey

Thanksgiving is a close second to Christmas for me. A game my side of the family has always played is called "turkey-lurkey". What my Grandma does is hides presents (usually little things like our yearly ornaments) and wraps them in adorable turkey paper. Then she gives us rhyming clues to help you find your gift. With us not being with GLo this year she mailed them. In the begining of the video Connor was really excitted because he thought the phone on the box was a transformer, then I told him it was a phone. You can watch the video from here...Enjoy!

Crazy weekend. Why do we make the bed, Connor just makes pillow piles.

Sunny Days

Why don't we live in San Diego where it is 70 and sunny everyday? Today it was 60 and all this weekend it is going to be the same. Have I mentioned that I love having a "Hanny"? (A Heather-Nanny). I get to come home two days a week and eat lunch with my boys. Today in my 60 minutes we took the four kids to the park.
Here are pictures from today. The cousins in-law Isabella 2.5 and Greyson 6 months.

Halloween 2012

It was 35 degrees out, raining and windy but I actually thought it was AWESOME! Back in September I decided that Ryan could re-wear Connor's "Woody" cowboy from Toy Story costume from last year and I bought Connor a "Buzz Light Year" from the movie Toy Story costume for this year. How cute right? I even had a "Jessie" costume for me!
Well for over a month now every time Ray or I would talk about Buzz Light Year Connor would say, "No I'm Woody". So my guess was he was not going to wear the costume. Telling THE WORLDEST BESTEST NEIGHBOR EVER about my dilemma, what did Stef do? Sewed Connor a Knight Costume, with a dragon on the front and everything. It was super cold out so many layers could easily fit on under it and out the door we went. I let Ryan wear Connors costume from two years ago because it was essentially a full body suit of warmth (skeleton) .....hoping next year the boys will want to be Toy Story. (and yes, yes I did still wear my Jessie costume).
Points of amusement to take away from Halloween

• At the first house Connor gave the lady the one and only piece of candy out of his bag and put it in her bucket
• The two "scary" mask guys he saw his only comment was "Hey Mom look at that Silly Billy"
• He also kept up to 5 yr old pal Abby no-problemo
• At some houses he would "pass" on the candy which actually was kind of awkward for me

 

i'm surrounded by studs

Leaves and pumpkins

Sorry uncreative title, we've been busy and I need to get these pictures uploaded.
I'm going to post it so that means the good times will stop rolling....but with the acception of #2 I'm calling Connor potty trained! It's been a good week of no accidents and him always telling us not the other way around. Yay! Can't believe last year at this time I thought I could do "potty training camp" and get him to do it.
Here is the big 3 year old with his #3 Mama made for his birthday party. The second picture is of him scooping out the pumpkin seeds. He was amazed at how many there were and we were surprised that he wasn't into the goo. The next day he had a mini melt down that we threw them away and didn't save them. Oops, we didn't get that memo.

Niederman Family Farms

Kept up the family tradition and went to Nierderman Farms again this year for pumpkins.

Cousins Lindsey & Dan made the trip down from Columbus to share in the Fall Festivities with us. Thanks for coming down and caring the camera, pumpkins and kids around the farm!

Stats 3 year check up

Ryan & Connor had a Dr. Appt this Wednesday. It was for Connor's 3 year check up but turned into a sick visit/well visit as Ray & I both had Strep throat and we wanted the kids tested to make sure we were not in for a horrible week. Both kids are happy and healthy. Ryan is up to pounds to 23lbs and they said his tubes look great still!

The pediatrician was asking me all these questions about Connor to make sure he was hitting milestones. They were so basic and he was so beyond all of them I kept asking her "wait are we talking about Ryan or Connor". I might have been delerious from the medicine, sickness and having two kids in a 10x10 room for 1 hr but we made it through it.
Weight: 30 pounds, 36 inches tall
Yes Connor knows atleast 3 colors (he knows like 10)
Yes Connor can count to 3 (on a good day he can count to eleven-teen)
Yes Connor can say 3 word sentences (I can get him to stop talking so mommy can talk)
Pedeling a tricycle is the only one I would say he has perfected in his age category.

1 little pumpkin

Adorable! I only wish this little guy had had some siblings. I have big plans for next year of how to have greater success. I 100% recommend planting your own if you have toddlers. So neat to see Connor's reacation to this little guy as it grew and changed color.

Family Photo Session

Last year I thought the kids were at a bad age to do family pictures. This year Connor was HORRIBLE but Nikki James is amazing so we got a few we can get printed for the wall.

My baby is getting big

After last year us getting zero by ourselves, one of us is a big step in the right direction

Hi Cutie!

 

Crafty Jill

Isn't that what you call me? Um yea, so I just bought my first glue gun and am on a mission to be more crafty-ish. For Connor's birthday I made his cupcake toppers and a number 3 for the wall.

 To make the cupcake toppers I took some $.99 Toy Story stickers, cut a piece of card stock with fancy scissors, put a tooth pick in between and the matching sticker on the back.

Saw this cute and easy idea on Pinterest. Cut out your number with cardboard. Take coffee filters and glue them onto the board. Then take spray paint and fade it onto the number.

THE birthday party

Got a bounce house, the sun came out and we had a great day with all the people we love (wish you could have been there Mimi & Popi)!

 At the end of the day we had two worn out boys who watched "Bolt" on top of Connors new Spiderman Sleeping Bag.