last trip to the orchard

Here are some pics from our final trip to the apple orchard for this season. I mentioned to Mark the night before that we were going to the orchard the next day and Connor heard me. He got so excited! He was saying apple orchard! Swing! Slide! Slushie! lol all his favorite things...

Harbert fall festival

We have invited ourselves to be a part of the Harbert family (Poppy and Moo-Moo are Justin's parents), so when they have their annual fall festival, we are invited! Connor had so much fun at it this year. He rode a horse for the first time, took a hayride, drove a tractor, found a pumpkin, painted a pumpkin, and got a boat load of fun Halloween goodies! He had a great time! Mark and I were AMAZED that he rode the horse. He asks all the time to ride the "neigh" at meijer (the penny pony) but only actually makes it on the horse about half the time and has only once made it through the whole 60 second ride. He gets pretty nervous about a lot of things, so when Mark asked him if he wanted to ride and he said yes, we were shocked! And when he actually went through with it and didn't want to get off, we were speechless!! I am having a hard time downloading a picture of it, but just imagine the cutest little boy ever riding on a horse with a little red helmet on. Adorable!!

Poppy and Moo-moo are so generous to include Connor as one of their own grandchildren, so when Lily, Violet and their cousins got their Halloween goodie bag, Connor had one to match. He cried the first couple days because we wouldn't let him take the little cars they got him to bed. I made him a little bag for all of the cars because he has to take all of them (and there are 9) everywhere we go. It is so cute to see him carrying as many as he can in one hand and then telling me to pick up and carry the rest of them. He was so excited to drive the tractor he actually squealed with delight! He loves tractors! And he is wearing his new pajamas to bed tonight - they have firetrucks on them, so Connor is pretty excited about it!

We are headed back to Poppy and Moo-moo's tomorrow for a MOPS family play date and he will be riding the neigh and the hayride again, so I will get some pictures and post them soon.

We are so blessed to have such great friends that adopt us as part of their family and a sweet little boy to love.

Train Rides and Hayrides Playdate

Our friends, the Lahrmans, had a family play date and Connor had so much fun!! He rode the train, took a hayride and got to see the horses eat carrots. Now, everytime he talks about horses (neighs he calls them) he points to his teeth and says eat, neighs eat. It is so cute.

Here he is driving the train! Clearly he is thrilled.

He doesn't show his excitement, but everytime the train would stop he would say more train! more choo choo! He probably rode it 15 to 20 times!

The picture is kind of blurry, but you can see Connor with his arms raised in the air. I have no idea why he started doing this, but all of a sudden he just raised his arms while going around on the train. Other moms were saying he thinks he is on a roller coaster! haha!

Here he is on the hayride with Daddy!

There is a lot of noise in these videos, but I had to include them. He was just riding the train and all of a sudden I looked at him and he was saying choo choo and pumping his little choo choo arm! It was adorable!

Zoo, fingerpainting and Santa...

We went to the zoo last week with Katie. It took Connor until we were about half way through to start getting excited and talking about the animals, but he had a lot of fun!

The giraffe was eating a leaf off of the tree and Connor said, "Giraffe eat cracker!" Always thinking about crackers!

The rhino was laying down and he said, "Night night rhino."

Joshua along for the ride.

Cutest picture ever...

Connor messing with Abby and Abby laughing...

We did a little apple tree handpainting with Katie earlier this week and Connor LOVED the paint!! He threw a huge fit when we were all done. So (obviously) I ran straight to the store and bought him some paint. Here he is painting (without me putting his hands places to make shapes) for the first time! He had so much fun!

Story of Santa:

We were at Walmart today and saw an elderly gentleman that resembled Santa. So what did Connor do? Yelled ho ho ho at the man for 2 minutes straight while we were checking out. He thought it was so funny and I was red faced and sweating from embarrasement. Thankfully "Santa" thought it was funny, too, because he was laughing when I was finally able to make eye contact.

Big boy bed!

We put Connor in his big boy bed this past Friday night for the first time! It was a little rough at the beginning, but he is doing so well we are amazed! Friday night he stood by the door and cried and screamed for an hour and a half. Mark REALLY wanted to go in and rock him, but I stayed firm and we didn't go in (except for about 30 seconds after we left the first time - he was crying so hard he couldn't breath and was choking - and screaming mama just to make it worse for me... so we went in and laid him down one more time, but didn't go in again after that). Looking back I have no idea how I got super mommy strength to not go get him when he was crying. I was thinking about it and made myself sad...
Anyways - Saturday nap time was also rough. I basically stood outside the door for an hour staring at the monitor and everytime he got up I opened the door and he would lay back down. Eventually he stopped trying to get up and fell asleep.
Saturday night went amazingly well! He laid in bed and didn't fall asleep for over an hour, but didn't cry and didn't try to get up!
Everytime he lays down, nap or bedtime, he always says, "no cry". It was cute at first, like he was reminding himself and telling me about it, but now it just makes me sad! Mark reminded me he is not putting on a brave face, if he wanted to cry he certainly would, but he just remembers me saying it on Friday night, I guess.
Obviously it is still a work in progress - it took him 2 and a half hours to fall asleep for his nap today, but I think overall he is doing awesome!

So we have all the nursery furniture in Kate's room and I am READY for her to arrive!! 6 more weeks! We have a lot to do before she arrives, but we are marking things off the list all the time. Mark painted Connor's blue night stand pink yesterday! And we got a vinyl application decoration thing to put on her wall in the mail. Hopefully we get it up soon!

Connor's birthday celebrations

Connor's birthday was a week ago today, and we were supposed to go to the park and get ice cream with Katie and Heather, but it was raining, so we went to Incredible Pizza! Connor had a great time! Here he is riding the red car.

I think this was his favorite game. It didn't cost any money because all he wanted to do was move the steering wheel, and he couldn't reach it from the seat, so he sat on the floor.

You can't have a birthday without ice cream, right?!

We had his birthday party yesterday, Sunday, and it was great! He is such a blessed little boy to have so many people that love him! The party was a dumptruck theme, and I did go a little crazy with it... but oh well...

food for the kids (served out of dumptrucks of course)

Dirt cake for the kids (more dumptruck usage) and regular cake for the adults - although half of the kids ate the regular cake and their was (to my dissapointment) only a small amount of dirt cake left at the end of the party... who knew dirt cake was so amazing?!

Big bite of dirt cake for the birthday boy! Presents were pure chaos (like at most children's birthday parties every child has to help open) and to quote myself, "Everybody needs to sit down! Momma is getting stressed!" lol - not my proudest birthday party moment, but what can ya do when 10 kids are sitting at your feet and trying to open one gift at the same time?

Giving Poppa (a.k.a. golf cart - that's what connor calls him because everytime we visit he takes him for a ride on the golf cart) a kiss thank you for the cute clothes!
OK - confession time. I spent approximately 12 hours making these jello cups. They were adorable. Six different layers of jello stacked on top of each other in a see through plastic cup. How awesome is that?! Well, let me tell you it was worth every second when I saw Connor throw his spoon to the side and dig his whole arm into the cup to get some jello! Then he looked at me and said, "cold!" lol! And he ate the whole cup! I love him!

Connor got a bowling set from Grandpa James and Sheryl. Here he is in action!

Who knew how much fun helium balloons could be at the end of a long birthday party day?

Grandpa and Gammy got Connor a super hero cape - here he is being Super Connor with Super Daddy!

Listening to a story read by Grandpa before bedtime. What a great birthday!!

Oh my gosh we have a 2 year old!!!

Connor turned 2 years old today! He is such a big boy! Here are a few things that he does that we think are just adorable!

*If you ask him his name he says Caca.
*He rarely says yes - it is always OK!
*He calls firetrucks woos - because a firetruck says woo woo, so he likes to shorten it to just woo
*He calls the mechanical horse at meijer a neigh, and any time we pull up to any store he starts yelling, neigh! neigh!
*Everytime we ask him if he needs a diaper change (no matter how obvious it may be) he always says no stinky and runs away
*If we leave a room, even for a minute, he says bye mama, bye dada, and usually bye to whatever toy is nearby
*he says hi and bye to random strangers in stores
*If you tell him to do something he doesn't want to do, or not do something that he wants to do, he waves to you and says bye bye - as if to say, you can leave, I want to do what I want to do!
*His favorite show is Caillou
*He loves Baby Joshua Land - he loves to kiss him, rub his face, hold his hand, give him toys, anything to do with Baby Joshua!
*Everytime he walks by Kate's room he says Kate's room! And it is one of his favorite places to play.
*His favorite toys are cars and trucks - he is having a dumptruck birthday party on Sunday!
*He likes to wrestle and play hide and go seek with Daddy.
*If he is ready to leave he will say "ready to go" over and over and over and over and over
*He is a terrible eater - the only thing you can 100% guarantee he will eat is McDonald's chicken nuggets, a breakfast bar, crackers, and banana pudding. All other food is hit or miss. Good thing he eats a vitamin every day! lol
*If he is not ready to go to bed and it is time he says, "play!"
*his favorite songs to sing and do the motions to are wheels on the bus and the itsy bitsy spider, he sings wheels on the bus everytime we turn on the windshield wipers in the car.
*He knows the colors red, blue, orange, green, yellow, white, and purple

There are probably a thousand more things we could write, but this is enough! Our little boy is two and we can't believe it! He is so much fun and we couldn't imagine life without him.