Gobble Gobble!

Connor had a "first" this Thanksgiving.

He ran in his first race!

Connor's been unofficially training since he was about 13 months old.

He runs faster than most (including me!), so I thought he'd dominate in this year's Turkey Day Tot Trot.

I had mentioned to Connor he was going to have so much fun in the "race," but he seriously had no clue what to expect. It definitely didn't help that it was somewhat unorganized when we got there!

Once the kiddies started to swarm, we had an idea that the "race" was about to start. We lined Connor up, pumped him up to run towards the big finish line, and thought we were good to go. We then got notice that apparently they were hoarding an entire school bus of bigger kids around the corner, so we needed to relocate our 'starting line.' My little runner was pretty confused on what was going on, since we really didn't know what was going on either. So we lined up again, I kept encouraging Connor with my fabulous Mom face that "You're gonna have so much fun, honey! When the nice man says go, you're gonna run as fast as you can up here and around the corner to the finish line!"...followed with a cheesy, pretend- confident smile.

Connor didn't appear too sure of what was going on...



I plopped Connor right in the middle of the flock of children and hoped he'd take off once he saw where the other kids were going...



The nice man said "Go" and all the kids went...while my precious little one stood there...with his sneakers glued to the asphalt.

I did what any Mother would have done. I shouted in my same happy Mom voice, "Let's go Sugar Bear!" I grabbed his little hand and started jogging to the finish line...in my dress...and sandals.

We crossed the almighty finish line and Connor received his Tot Trot Participation ribbon (or as I like to call it...the WINNING ribbon).

I snapped a picture of my winner.
(Please note that Connor is into saying "Cheese" but will not actually smile...It makes picture-taking kinda tough!)

The winning ribbon :)

Uncle Craig and Auntie Nicole were so sweet to come cheer on our little athlete!
*This would have been super cute if Uncle Craig wasn't being a goober... :)


Once Connor understood what the heck was going on, he wanted to "Race again Mommy?!" I had no problem with pretending to race again, so my funny guy could trot through the big inflatable finish line. We figured out where he'd start his "race," turned around, and found the unthinkable.

They were deflating the blow up finish line and it was now laying limp on the ground.

Connor was officially devastated.

Seriously. It was the end of the world.

So we aborted our "second race" and headed to the car quickly.

It took a while, but Connor recovered and the tears eventually went away. You couldn't dare mention the words "finish line" or reference the "race," or the tears would begin to flow again.

Fast forward to supper time. We had a beautiful dinner at Matt's Mom's house. Connor shared a birthday cake with Matt's wonderful Aunt Debbie & it was super cute...

Connor was loving the fact that his birthday celebration lasted a good week long this year! He even said "Happy Thanks-birthday" when we were leaving. Pretty sure he was confused on what we were celebrating. I seriously don't blame him. We went from his birthday, to putting up Christmas decor before Thanksgiving, then celebrated his birthday at Thanksgiving dinner, then had another Thanksgiving dinner at Nana's 2 days later. Confused or not...Connor's loving all the festivities!

Here's our Thanksgiving dinner Take 2 at Mom's house.

Dinner was followed by a beautiful FSU win over the Gators!
As Connor loves to say, "GO NOLES!"


So to sum things up with us lately...
We've celebrated a 3 year old's birthday, 2 Thanksgivings, put up our Christmas decor, completed Christmas shopping and wrapped 90% of all our Christmas gifts already, and now we're counting down the days until Christmas.

Next on our list...
Naming our Elf on the Shelf and letting him "get to work" in our house.
I'm sure there will be more photos to come. :)

Happy Holidays!

Hello Christmas!

Out goes the birthday decor and in comes the Christmas decor!

My "Go Noles" boy went for a short cruise around the kitchen...

Then suited up in his best Rudolph attire to help me decorate for Christmas!

This is going to be one-great-holiday-season!!

"Mommy, I'm THREE!"

Another birthday has come and gone!
It's so strange to say, "He's three," when others ask.
We had a great, low key birthday this year.
I'll let the pictures do all the talking :)


"Mom, Connor's THREE" (looks down and slowly holds appropriate three fingers up!)


We opened gifts from Mom - tent, Cars sleeping bag, Sesame Street playdoh, Dumbo coloring book, and Christmas jammies. The playdoh was this year's birthday hit!

We went straight to the 'picnic table' to try the playdoh out!

We had a special visit from Nana that morning...

Connor loved his talking Toy Story balloon.

I made a "special breakfast" of cinnamon rolls, which Connor was oh so excited about until he touched them. He kindly says "Don't like these. Too messy!"
He ate them anyway then moved on to the playdoh again...

We got dressed and headed on over to "the bounce house place."

Where we bounced to giggles!

We enjoyed a romantic one-on-one date at McDonald's, full of nuggets, yogurt, and playtime, then headed home to watch "Toy Story One" and nap in our new tent.

After resting up, Matt came home and guests began to arrive for our family "party." Pizza was consumed, gifts were unwrapped ever-so-randomly by the party boy, assembly was done by Matt & Papa (muchos gracias!), cupcakes were inhaled, and playtime with Connor's new stuff was in full force!

"Oooooooo!"

"Toy Story Two!" (Thanks G.G.!!!)

"THOMAS!!"

Fun Christmas stuff! We could have all easily bought Connor a Christmas decoration & he would have been delighted!!

Once all wonderful gifts were opened, Papa and Matt got to work on Thomas, as well as the new wagon.

The funniest gift of the night was by far, Connor's new skates from Auntie Nicole & Uncle Craig. Well, the skate wearer, was the funniest!


Uncle Craig lended a few hands through the kitchen :)

Mr. Big man sang and blew out his candles like a pro!

I'm pretty sure the cupcakes were good too... ;)


Uncle Craig introduced Connor to the wagon box while Papa & Matt were hard at work putting it together!


A few test drives through the house...

And then we rounded out the evening with a cruise down the street!
A few sprinkles didn't stop us either!

We had a wonderful day celebrating!
Connor is by far the cutest three year old out there ;)
Just sayin'!

I'm an official owner...

of a THREE year old boy!!!


Have no fear...
There will be a good amount of birthday pictures coming soon!

Where memories are made...

WARNING!!

Photo overload!!

Below is an overdose of Disney magic!!

If you dare, enjoy the story behind one precious little (almost 3 year old) boy's first Disney experience! :)

We never told Connor where we were going, but he had an idea it was a "fun place."

After we dropped our luggage off, we walked a few steps past our hotel room to see something amazing...

Connor could not believe his eyes! He spotted his buddy, Rex, then could not contain himself when he saw "BUZZ!" (you'll see Buzz a little later)...

We walked through Andy's room to check out the rest of the hotel...

Connor jumped into "Buzz's car" aka "RC."

This is just an example of why Connor has the coolest Nana ever...

Speaking of cool grandparents, Connor's one and only Papa suited up to go for a swim in the Fantasia pool with his one and only Connor!

On our way back to our room, we had to pay Buzz another visit. We got used to paying Buzz at least 10 visits a day (no joke). Connor would take any opportunity to "show you Buzz Lightyear."

Connor was so funny, asking me to "take my picture." Even if I didn't have my camera, he would just ask me to "pretend," so I'd just hold up my hands and take a fake picture :).



We also found it pretty darn cool that the blocks near our room read B-W-L-K
(Papa's business)!

Auntie Katie arrived that night! Once Connor finally pooped out, we got a good night's rest and woke up ready for a trip to the Magic Kingdom.

Since Connor doesn't know any of the princesses, we referred to this place as "Mickey's Castle!"

Connor's first ride was the Winnie the Pooh ride where we all sat in a big honey pot. We were very fortunate to not wait in any line for more than 15-20 minutes. It was so hard hyping up a new, fun ride, then explaining to your little child that they must wait in line! The hardest line to wait in was the Dumbo ride. Nana was so sweet to go stand in line, while we tried to distract Connor. Connor was royally annoyed when I placed him in this stationary Dumbo to take his picture though. His face read, "I am so not fooled, Mom. I want the real thing."

We were overjoyed to find there was no wait for the It's a Small World ride. I recall the wait being at least an hour and a half as a kid!

Check out this precious face taking it all in...

We made our way over to the Buzz ride. While waiting in line, Connor caught a glimpse of the real Buzz...so we had to hop out of line to hop into the real Buzz line!

We hopped on the People Mover after Buzz. It's amazing how one little person makes even the most boring rides exciting! Life is so much better with Connor there!

We made our way around the park and stumbled across Buzz's buddies...Woody & Jessie! We hopped in line to have the nice Disney employee tell us we were too late and that Woody & Jessie needed to get to the character parade and she already let the last family in line. We were thoroughly disappointed, but luckily Connor didn't see what was happening. We walked around the corner to avoid Connor making eye contact with Woody & Jessie, and we tried to come up with a plan B. I let Connor stretch his legs and got him out of his stroller. Just as we were chatting, out from around the corner comes no one other but WOODY! He just strolled by and gave Connor a high five! If only I had a camera to capture the shocked beyond belief look on Connor's face as his hero just happily walked on by! It was a moment I'll never forget! Connor was so cute and was like "Hey Woody!" Before we got over the excitement of that moment, seconds later, Jessie came out from around the corner too. Connor was able to give her another high five as she passed on by to get ready for the parade. Great memory for us and Connor!!

I guess they realized there was enough time before the parade, so Woody & Jessie made it back to their station to greet more kiddies. Auntie Katie got a place in line while we got ice cream bars. Once we made our way to the front, Connor was cute as can be with the world's coolest cowboy and cowgirl!

Kisses for the lady...

And hugs for Mr. Woody!

You best believe this picture will make it's way into a frame in Connor's room!

We then found ourselves a seat and waited for the character parade to begin. While we waited, a cute little band made their way over and started talking with Connor. *Throughout the whole day, Disney staff called on Connor by his name since "Connor" was posted on the front of his shirt. It was fun to see how Connor felt like everyone knew him!

A little Papa-Connor bonding time before the parade began...

The good ol' "floppy wave" to all of the passing characters :)

High five!

The parade was perfect! We got to see some great characters and were able to rest a bit as well!

Connor made a request for the Buzz ride again, so we went for round 2!
Papa dominated and shot the most aliens with his laser gun, while Connor was busy pushing the joystick on our cart (sending Auntie Katie into shades of green!). It was hilarious and by far, the best ride!

A ginormous thank you to Nana & Papa for everything on our trip. :)

This picture makes me laugh. This was on our bus ride back to the hotel. I'm pretty sure Connor was being a booger and either announced that he "tooted" or something else similar that he knows he shouldn't be doing. Why is it that boys find bodily functions humorous?!?!

We were all wiped out from Disney, but one little boy was still full of gusto! He immediately requested we "go see Buzz and Andy's toys."

We cleaned up, met up with Katie's honey, Eric, and headed to Downtown Disney for supper. We were traveling with a little boy that has a busy busy fun-filled day and who opted not to nap, so we were expecting the worst but hoping for the best!

Family photo take #2
(the gang minus Craig & Nicole)

And take #3 (our attempt at a good photo of just the 3 of them).

Connor caught a second wind after supper (its amazing what food will do for this child).
We crashed when we got back to our hotel, packed up the next morning, and headed on over to a nearby resort for our special character breakfast before heading home!

We took a stroll around the resort and tried to kill time before our breakfast.

There was a lot of distracting Connor and waiting to be seated at the breakfast, followed by a heart broken little boy when Minnie Mouse accidentally skipped our table, but all was better when Donald, Goofy, and Minnie made their way around to us!

Hugs...

and smooches...

Although Connor was hoping for Mickey, he settled for Minnie :)
Check out his 'cheese face!'

We had such a wonderful trip! Connor is still asking for "more fun stuff" at the "fun place!" I'm pretty sure I need to invest in a 4-story high Buzz Lightyear for our backyard! :)

Thank you so much to Nana, Papa, Auntie Katie, and Eric for sharing in the fun with us! We can't wait to go again!