Sunday, July 31, 2011

Today...

After a long weekend working & with little time with my #1 munchkin,



I've been feeling pretty emotional & have been missing him terribly!



I thought I would take a minute to reflect :).



Although I've experienced some 'turbulence' over the past few years,



there are a few people that have helped me through it all.



Today (and always) I am very very grateful....







For my precious little boy that will forever have my heart...





For my amazing, selfless parents that I will forever owe for all their love and support...





And for this good looking gentleman, that taught me that 'gentlemen' really do exist :).




I love you all very much! :)

xoxoxoxoxox

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

An afternoon on the causeway...

A trip to the beach sounds thoroughly exhausting with a 2 year old. All that runs through my mind is...

1.Packing ridiculous amounts of sunscreen, snacks, lunch, drinks, change of clothes, toys, camera, chairs, towels, etc etc etc.

2. Fighting for a parking spot

3. Lugging everything listed in #1 a good mile from your parking spot to the beach

4. Sneakily trying to apply sunscreen on a child that HATES sunscreen.

5. Trying to not let your child roast in the sun by applying sunscreen oh-so-sneakily every half hour.

6. Peeling your child out of their wet clothes & swimmie diaper, and into dry clothes for the ride home.

7. Trying ever so hard to leave all the sand at the beach and not tracking it in Mommy's car.

So when all those lovely images run through my mind, I decided to opt for a trip to the causeway where you can park right by your beach spot and reduce some of the beach day stresses with a child. Matt's cousin, Sarah, was in town, so we had her join us. Connor loves him some "Sare-sah," so we all had a great time together! We were very successful & had a wonderful afternoon throwing shells, watching nearby water skiers, and splashing.











Its been a while since I've had dog company in my house, so we had the pleasure of having Emma & Lily visit (Sarah's pups). Connor loves to be the controller & make the dogs chase him around the house. My tiny child was able to run these pups to pure exhaustion as proven below :)

Connor the Comedian

Let me just tell you that my child is hilarious.


I'd like to think he got that fabulous gene from me :). He is quite the parrot, repeating random things at random times. Here is a list of some of my favorites...

--A saying I hear about every day (ever since its been raining so often) is:
"pwainin' na'more....Niiiiice daaay!"
(translation: "It's not raining anymore. It's a nice day!" My favorite part of this saying is that "niiiice daaay" is done in the best lispy, Australian accent you've ever heard!)

--Connor likes to announce anytime he "toot toots" or when anyone else "toot toots." He also likes to announce anytime you go "poo poos." His favorite place to broadcast that is usually in a crowded public restroom, so he can echo throughout the room. Beware if you use the potty in his presence.

--Connor will miss a basketball shot or drop something, then he'll say "Awww Man!"

--Connor will point out your best blemish on your face & let everyone know you have a "timple."

--Connor loves to sing the Wonder Pets theme song. The original version begins like "Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets, we're on our way, to help baby animals & save the day"...where Connor's remix goes a little like "Under Pet, Under Pets, on Bombay, help bebe amimals, on Bombay!"

--Connor is an excellent counter from 1-20, although his thirteen through nineteen go a little like..."tin, leleven, pwelve... boobeeen, boobeeen, boobeeen, boobeeen..." :)

I know he has many more adorable sayings, but this is all I can come up with right now. I'm sure there will be many more to come! He's a hoot!



Saturday, July 23, 2011

Happy happy happy happy...

Happy Birthday Mom (aka Nana)!



We love you so very much!


Hope you had a wonderful day!


XoxoXoxoXoxoXoxoX!

Happy Homecoming!

Guess who's officially done with college & living in the same area code as muah?!



Congratulations my Love for kicking some college pat-tootie!

Yay for no more long distance stuff!!

"Distance is not for the fearful, it is for the bold. It's for those who are willing to spend a lot of time alone in exchange for a little time with the one they love. It's for those knowing a good thing when they see it....even if, for a period of time, they don't see it nearly enough.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

ALL boy!

My blogger friend, Danielle, and I have been trying to get the boys together for a playdate for over a year! We always seemed to tell eachother that our boys had so much in common & we were interested to see them together in action! Well this past week, we got our schedules to align & had a long, awaited playdate. Boy, were we right! Our precious little monsters had a good time together, although we are at a stage where sharing is not our strong suit! Connor randomly had his end-of-the-world-devastating tantrum when he noticed that Ryder had the same monkey tube that he has at Nana & Papa's house. Keep in mind, Connor could really care less about the tube when he's at Nana & Papa's, but since Ryder had it, Connor had-to-have-it. Distracting and removing ourselves from the scene seemed to help and we tried to get the boys involved in activities that didn't involve sharing :). Ryder and Connor made great 'racing' buddies, as they flew around the living room and kitchen area after one another. They are definitely all boy with their not-so-gentle handling of one another, but they both seemed to tolerate it well! This Mama was able to sneak in a little baby time with Ryder's new baby brother, Landon. Overall, we had a great time and look forward to getting the boys together again in the future!




You have no idea how much bribing and wrangling it took to get these two busy bodies to sit still next to eachother for a picture!







This picture makes me laugh, because this face is Connor's hulk face! He clinches his teeth together and appears to want to hurt someone, but I'm pretty sure its harmless ;). Its more like his I-love-you-so-much-I-could-squeeze-you face!






The little jailbirds at the top of the stairs






"Racing"






Thanks again for having us over, Danielle!

Movie adventure with a 2 year old!

First off, I'd like to apologize for my blog slacking. I used to be really good at every day or every other day postings and now I'm lucky if I get more than two a month! With that out of the way, here's a posting :).

Connor is funnier than ever lately, with the funny sayings he's repeating and his little smurfy antics. He's recently become very interested in movies. The excitement began with Toy Story (he refers to it as "Buzz"). Since that craze, he's fallen in love with other Disney faves like Dumbo, Monsters Inc, Nemo, and Cars. He would watch them all day if I let him.


"Mama, Mooovies, TV."

I hear it often :).



With his attention span getting a little better and his loves for "mooovies," I planned to venture out to see either Cars 2 or the Winnie the Pooh movie that just came out. A few days leading up to the movie outing, I'd randomly ask Connor which one he'd want to see & his answer went back and forth each time. The morning of the movie, we agreed on Winnie the Pooh. The showing was at 11:30am, so I got him up and decked out in his Pooh attire, we headed to the park to burn off any energy (to hopefully help him sit still for a whole movie), and we got to the movies around 11:00am. I wasn't about to take him in early, so we did some walking around the strip mall & went back at 11:30am. It was then Connor had a massive change of heart. He saw beautiful Lightning McQueen on the Cars 2 billboard and starting chanting "Cars." I tried to help change his mind, but he had decided! Good ol' Cars 2 wasn't playing until 1:30pm! I had 2 hours until showtime & my child was set to see it NOW. It took all my Mom diversion magic to get him into the car to leave the movie theater. We commuted on over to McDonald's to help distract him while I looked up every movie theater in town on my phone. The next showing in all of Cape Coral and Fort Myers was at 12:50pm all the way across town from where we were, but thats where we were headed for my little munchkin! We got in, grabbed our booster chair, found our theater, and plopped down in our seats. Connor was cute as a button, as he turned to a little girl and said "HI boy!" She was clearly a girl, head band, dress, etc, but Connor thinks everyone is either a "kid" or a "boy." We were good to go watching the pre-previews, until I remembered that the pre-previews show non stop ads for the concession stand. This little boy decided 5 minutes before movie time that he wanted "pop pop popcorn." Since I was all about making his first movie trip about precious memories for him (and I), we bolted to the concession stand where we purchased the smallest popcorn bag they had (which cost the same as our movie ticket...but we're creating memories...so I went with it!) :) We found our seats again, the lights went down, all for Connor to have about 10 pieces of popcorn then turned to me and said in his best outside voice, "Share, Mama, popcorn." My precious little pea was all done with his $7 popcorn and handed the bag over to me. Super cute and totally predictable! :)


We survived about 20 mins of previews and the movie was about to begin when a good rush of parents and their little ones rushed in to find their seats. Connor thought he would take on the duty of theater greeting committee, hopped down from his booster seat, walked up to the crowd of people and said "HI kids!" as he waved with his flopping hands! I nicely "Sssshhhh" 'ed him then wrangled him into my lap, praying a tantrum would not surface at this time! He sat for a good 45 mins before he got good and antsy. He insisted on walking up and randomly saying "HI kids" at this point! I wrangled him into a seat closest to the aisle in case we needed to make a quick exit. We made it about 10 mins longer, when Connor hopped up, said oh so loudly, "Bye Cars! See you soon!" and walked out of the theater. I guess he decided he was done with the movie! I laughed out loud as we headed out the door.


He did great and better than I expected! Now all I have to do is plan to attend movies that are only about 45 mins long and we're golden! :)





Not the greatest of pictures, but its not the easiest task snapping shots in a dark theater :).



Sunday, July 10, 2011

Annual Grandma Beach Memorial Family Vacation

We look forward to getting together with the Whitaker-Sherman-Andreasen family every July and somehow it comes & goes too quickly every year. Although weather wasn't ideal, we still managed to squeeze in a few days on the boat, beach, and in the pool. We had a wonderful time and I'm sure next summer will be here before we know it!

***Beware of photo overload :)

Welcome to the Round House. Connor liked to refer to it as "Nana Papa's house two."


Connor & "Tee Tee"


The start to our 1st family fishing tournament...








Captain Connor enjoying his "sammich."




Getting a close look at Papa's fish


"The catfish hunter"


The party boat...


Checking out the Mama & baby manatee at the dock





Day two on boat...already napping :)




Turned out to be a nice beach day :)




Connor was content just sitting on the boat


The Sherm boys


My waterbug




Mom & Dad




Bran & Bran :)




Connor working on his swimmin'




Watching the manatees with Papa


Sunset with my beach boy


A nice, buggy walk with the gang




It was great seeing everyone and looking forward to our trip in 2012 :)