This is our story...: November 2012

Friday, November 30, 2012

Cuteness from the week

Connor and I have had a weird week with me off work, so we've been extra busy (Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, Christmas light scoping, bike riding, bounce housing, etc). With all those fun activities this week, I've managed to take pictures of none of it.

I'll paint a few pictures for you, so you can imagine C's cuteness from the week.

Example 1:

Connor & I were at a local bounce house place yesterday. For two hours, we bounce, climb, and slide until we reach complete exhaustion! C was exploring an obstacle course on his own, when the 'bounce house guy' turned the lights off & flipped their black lights/glow bulbs on. It's pretty exciting, but at this moment, C was far off on his own in this bounce house tunnel...and all I hear is an urgent, "Mom!! Mom!! Mom!!" I assumed C was a little freaked out to be on his own in the dark suddenly, so I slipped my shoes off & went in to find my little guy. I crawled, slid, and contorted my body through the obstacle course to help rescue my guy. When I found him, he gets his face about 2 inches from my face and exclaims, "Mom!! I'm having such a fun day!!" Really?! This was the urgency. I couldn't help but hug him tight & smile! He's seriously the cutest these days!

Example 2:

In our new neighborhood, we are surrounded by young families. Halloween was wonderfully participated & we knew Christmas would be full of cheer around here too! Connor and I loaded up in the car & went exploring the neighborhood after Thanksgiving to scope out the Christmas decor/lights. This experience I wished I had my video camera running...

C was in the back seat & as we passed each house with lights (they could have one strand around a tree or be decked out Griswold style), C would shout in excitement!

"Oh...my...goodness...gracious...Mom! Look over there!"

"Our neighbors did a wonderful job decorating!"

"Oh, Mom! That house is my favorite!! They did a great job!"

We jam to our Christmas Pandora Radio & cruise the neighborhood. Its, by far, my favorite thing to do with Connor at Christmas time.

Since no blog post is exciting without pictures, I will go ahead & post some of the recent wedding photos I've received from Danielle & Tiffany. Happy viewing!

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

More wedding photos...YAY!

I have a napping boy I need to wake ASAP (or he'll be awake until 1am)...

So no time for fun photo captions.

Just enjoy feasting your eyes on some great wedding pics (again!)

(ok..only a few since my Blog has exceeded photo memory space again...)

To cheat the system of posting too many photos, I made a collage. Ha! Take that Blog!

*I need to bite the bullet & pay for a year's membership on my Blog, so I have enough storage space for my photos. It's officially on my To-Do list!

These are the last of the pictures from Tiffany. I talked to Danielle & she'll be getting the CD of all the wedding photos sometime this week, so I will be giving Shutterfly Photo some wonderful business soon :)

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

'Tis the Season

"Jingles" is back! I'm having so much fun with our Elf on the Shelf this year! It's our first Christmas season where Connor comprehends what Jingles does. Connor is so precious when he explains that Jingles goes to the North Pole while we're sleeping...and then when we find him "in the morning when it's sunny outside, we can't touch him, or he will lose his magic."

With our new house, Jingles has new fun options to hide when he gets back from the North Pole each night. Here's where I found Jingles as I headed to bed tonight...

Christmas is SO fun!!

Thanksgiving (Take 2)

We did some Whitaker family bonding over the weekend.

Nothing says Thanksgiving like the FSU/FL football game! We will happily remember the excitement around the 3rd quarter of the game...but will opt to forget the rest of the game :). Every year its always up-in-the-air on what team will win. We're happy to be Noles, regardless.

After we gained a few pounds with the football game munchies, we made more room in our bellies for our Thanksgiving supper on Sunday. We have lots to be thankful for this year! One thing is for sure--this year is the year for moving in our family. Best wishes to Craig & Nicole as they undergo their move soon. They started their house shopping before Mom/Dad and Matt/I and are the last ones in the bunch to move. So happy to see us all establish our 'fresh starts.'

Thanks for a nice weekend, Mom! Food & company was wonderful :)

Buds

They say there is no greater bond than those between cousins.

My furry nephew & C spent a good 2 hours playing independently in the yard last weekend. Bo loves someone to play with him & Connor loves to be the "boss"...so they were perfect playmates.

Thank you Auntie Katie & Eric for having such a great pup!

Seriously...how cute are these boys?!?

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Trip to the Circus

Three free tickets from a friend landed us at the Circus Friday night! It was a great night to be outside since the weather was beautifully chilly :). While I was slightly creeped out by the "Circus folks," elephants, clowns and a pony ride were among Connor's favorites.

Thanksgiving 2012

Our Thanksgiving was full of wonderful family, way too much food, and quite a few giggles! A big thanks to Debbie for hosting the festivities!

This picture below is the prime reason why I married an older, more mature, man...ha!

For all who don't know Matt well, this is what I usually get when I ask for a picture together. It usually takes a good 5 pictures to get a good one since the first usually looks like this and then the next few are me scolding him, us laughing hysterically at eachothers (which then leads to double chins)...and so on!

Meanwhile, over at the kid table during dinner, there was not much chatter except for little chuckles coming from Connor & Kaylee. They both took turns saying funny sentences that didn't make sense & they both just giggled at eachother! They did a great job entertaining one another!

As we celebrated Debbie's birthday a few days early, Connor was the first to jump up & blow out Debbie's candles. Connor loves birthdays...they don't even have to be his!

Once the food was inhaled, the kids suited up & hopped in the pool. Check out Mr. Cool Guy relaxing...

The cousins could have played in the water forever if we let them...

Suits were off--Jammies were on--Tree decorating was in order!

Connor found quite the fascination in playing with the little Christmas village. Fake snow kept him occupied for a good length of time!

As the night grew later, Connor likes to say that his "tumbly was rumbly" for more food!

Ki was home from the "Go Noles" school & C was enjoying some one-on-one time with her!

By the end of the night, we all had full bellies & wiped out!

Busy week...

It's been a busy week! I'm just finally finding time to blog about the past 7 days or so...and of course its when my Blog wants to tell me I've exceeded my "photo memory space" and can no longer upload photos. I've spent the last hour and a half trying to figure out where my Google Blog account has been storing my photos. I was able to find my way through the system (its not very user friendly) and was able to delete a few old photos that I don't need (if I delete any, they are removed from my Blog). I deleted enough to open up some memory space for the next few blog posts. Once I reach my max photo capacity (you still following me or did I lose you?!), I may have to create a new blog. I won't lose this blog, but you'll just have to visit a new blog address. I'll keep you posted :)

But anyways...the last week or so...

Connor's birthday was last Sunday & we had his 4 year check up at the Dr on the following Tuesday. I was not forewarned that it would be a "big check up"...aka oodles of shots. Yuck. Connor did great at the Dr until it came to the three shots he'd need. It took me and the medical assistant to hold him down to get the lovely meds into his thighs. Poor kid. Once we were done with his visit, we were happy to know he had all of his required shots to enter elementary school. We also did a sight & hearing test, which all came out normal. As far as C's stats:

Weight: 49 lbs (95th percentile for his age)

Height: 42.5 inches (off the charts for his age)

Blood Pressure: 78/40

Everything checked out great. Dr. warned us that Connor's legs would be really sore since the shots went directly into his tissue. I promised C a trip to the park down the street from the Dr as a treat for handling his shots like a pro. All went well at the park until about 20 minutes into playing when the shot sites began to get sore. The tears began to flow & as I quickly aborted our park trip, C was passed out in the car on the way home within minutes.

I grabbed the sleeping giant from the car & he was not waking for anything. I set him up on the couch, hoping he'd wake peacefully through normal noises I made throughout the house...but he just slept & slept & slept. I cooked supper, washed dishes in the sink, watched TV next to him on the couch...and he never woke. I was finally able to get him up around 6pm! The darn shots war him out!

I promised C we would put up the tree when Matt got home from work, so we waited patiently for Matt to get home (around 7:30pm)...and started putting the tree together. Our exciting, memory making evening of putting the tree up went a little sour when we ended up fighing with our pre-lit tree thought wouldn't light. Poor C had his heart set on putting ornaments up right away, but after working with the plugs until about 10:00pm, we called it a night.

I tried so hard to "make jolly memories"...put on some Christmas music, dressed C in holiday jammies, popped in "The Grinch"...but it wasn't long before the tree was a hot mess of lights not working, we had more "female plugs" than "male plugs" & it felt like rocket science trying to get the tree to light up, C decided he wanted to watch "Umizoomi" instead of "The Grinch," and C had a meltdown as the night got later. I decided the happily throw in the towel and try again on a fresh new day...

This morning was our fresh new day! I fixed the lights and my jolly little elf helped put the ornaments up! We sang along to Christmas music and enjoyed every second of it! :)

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Connor's FOUR!!!

Every year I say I will just do "an easy party"...

and every year it seems to be more than I expect!

It took a joint effort of Mom, Matt, Nana & Papa to get everything together, picked up & delivered to our party destination (our community play area), all while entertaining the birthday boy at all times.

Enjoy a recap of our fun birthday celebration!

Matt & I were up early to get dressed & organized for the big day!

Connor woke around 8:00am pumped that it was his birthday! First stop--gifts!

*Please excuse the reindeer undies*

Connor has some great reactions to all his cards & gifts. Its fun to watch him open stuff :)

"Ooooooo a Piggie!"

While I headed up to set up for the Candyland party fun, Nana & Papa swung by shortly after with more goodies for the birthday man!

A scooter!!!

After fighting the wind to get the table clothes & balloons in place, we were almost ready for party time!

I think every child's birthday party should occur within a half hour of them waking, because asking a young child to be patient & wait for their party is just not fair (and results in quite the attitude sometimes...)

Catch a tiny glimpse of the "don't take my picture" attitude pre-party.

Nana did a great job playing with the party guy while I tried to snap a few pictures of C smiling...we make a great team!

Pretty sure Nana was putting a squishy squid toy on my head at this very moment to get C to chuckle...

While we waited for friends to arrive, Nana & Papa joined in on a small soccer game :)

Once Connor's buds started to arrive, fun was had by all! The kiddies enjoyed the playground...

while I enjoyed some sweet baby time with precious CJ (I could eat him up).

I asked Connor to please keep his white party shirt clean until people arrived. Once the kids were there, it was fair game to dive into the cheetos & wipe all cheesiness on his shirt!

While Connor played, I found myself clinging to anywhere CJ was. What a sweet little guy hanging with Auntie Nicole!

We busted out our "sled" to entertain the kiddies (in fear that it might not warm up enough to play in the fountains/pool). The kids had a blast going for rides :)

*These are 3 of Connor's favorites ladies--Makayla, Stella & Peyton. He was thrilled to know they were all coming to his party.

The girls played so great together!

And the "big kids" showed off their soccer skills.

After lunch, we opted to give the chilly water a try. Water blasters were handed out, C expressed a few temper flares (always a good time to be had), and the kiddies enjoyed the water!

Sweet Stella is cute as can be! Connor loves all his girlfriends, but has a special liking to Stella :) She was first to check on Connor when he was crying (during those precious temper flares).

When Connor shows signs of complete meltdown, food is usually very helpful! We found that it was time for some sugar fun! The kids had a ball decorating their own cupcakes. I was so glad I decided to do this at the party, because all the kids seemed to enjoy it! The girls were very patient and precise on where they placed their decorations, while Connor dove right in.

(Notice the plate completely covered by sprinkles...)