Weekend Wrap Up

This past weekend I was able to attend the Ladies Retreat for our church. It was held out at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort which is always a fun place to be! We ate lots of great food, listened to some amazing speakers, and even had a fashion show at lunch on Saturday.

Cole and Connor had a fun weekend with just the boys. Saturday morning Cole made Connor pancakes (his favorite!) :) and then they headed out to run a few errands. While they were at Wal-Mart they picked out this new Handy Manny toy that has not been put down since Saturday! If you push Manny's belt he talks and Connor loves putting all the tools in the tool box. Here are a few pictures Cole sent me from his phone so I could see all the fun they were having.

After his nap they headed out for a walk around the neighborhood. I thought these pictures were so cute!! You can tell Connor definitely loves hanging out with his daddy!

I made it home just in time for dinner on Saturday. Cole had surprised me by doing all the grocery shopping while he was out. How amazing is that?! Taking Connor grocery shopping is no easy feat. After dinner we headed down to South Park Meadows for dessert at Amy's Ice Cream.

We made it just in time for Connor play on the playground for a few minutes before it got too dark. He mainly spent his time watching all the older kids running around, but he made it down the slide a few times.

Up next: Sesame Street Live!

Snow Day!

This morning we had a nice surprise when we looked out the window and saw snow! They were huge snow flakes and are still coming down even as I type this. I quickly bundled Connor up and took him outside to see this rare sight in Austin. He was not so sure what to think about it, but absolutely LOVED being outside. We have not been in the backyard much recently because of the cold, rainy weather. Hopefully, spring will be here soon, but for now we will enjoy our day of snow!

He kept looking at me to make sure it was ok for him to be out there. :)

What a fun treat!

We are staying home today so hopefully I will get a chance to post some pictures from our busy weekend.

Play-Doh

Our Valentine's Day

We are about to head out to get Connor a hair cut, but I wanted to quickly post some pictures from this past week. Friday night Cole's parents came over and watched Connor while we went out for a Valentine's dinner and a movie. It is was such a treat to have the evening with just the two of us. Thank you Nana and Poppa!

On Saturday, Cole had to work so Connor and I decided to make him a strawberry cake while he was gone. Connor is really starting to enjoy helping in the kitchen.

After he helped me decorate it I looked down and noticed that he had helped himself to a little cake. :)

We headed to church on Sunday and had a nice lunch with Cole's family and Grandmommy afterwards at PokeJo's. This was Connor's last Sunday in his current class and he will be promoted next week. I am so thankful that he enjoys going to the nursery now. He gets excited as soon as he sees the doors and starts waving and saying "hi" to everyone as we walk in. Such a difference between now and a year ago! We are very thankful for teachers that love him and take such good care of him!

Over the past week Connor has been one lucky boy! He has received multiple presents and Valentine's from family and friends. Thank you to everyone who made him feel so loved! Also, thank you for all the surprises that Cole and I received too. I think we were just as spoiled as Connor. :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Sweet Singing

For the past few weeks while we are putting Connor to bed we all sing Jesus Loves Me. Usually Cole and I will sing it and Connor will chime in on a few parts. Well, tonight after we sang it once I told Connor it was his turn to sing. To our surprise he actually did! All by himself he started singing. Connor had another song on his mind to sing though. He sang Zacchaues complete with hand motions! It was so cute I had to attempt to get it on camera. You will see in the first video what usually happens when I get the camera out, but he ended up singing some towards the end.

2nd attempt with a little help

Valentine's Cookies x2

Earlier this week we headed to Mimi's house to bake cookies for Valentine's Day. Connor was a big helper! :)

While he took a nap we finished baking and had them ready to decorate. Once we iced them we let Connor attempt to cover them with sprinkles. I will let the pictures show you how that went...

The decorating quickly turned to eating which quickly turned to tears when he found out he couldn't have all the cookies!

We had a great time baking, but were disappointed that the new Southern Living recipe we used wasn't as good as we hoped. (Connor didn't seem to mind.) :) The next day mom brought over some cookie dough that she had made and we started on the second batch of cookies. (Martha Stewart did not disappoint!)

We ended up decorating these cookies without our little helper, but we made him his own special cookie on a stick. Connor loved his "pu-tay" (cookie)

Love & Marriage Conference

Last weekend we attended a Life Way event that was hosted at our church. Dr. Gary Chapman (5 Love Languages) and Dr. Les Parrott were both there with lots of great insight and advice on relationships and marriage. It was great to have a day to just focus on us. Thanks to Mimi, Connor had a great weekend as well. I think he would have stayed all week if we would have let him! :)

We arrived early to help with registration and a lady quickly called us over to take our picture. We were in such a hurry that I didn't even stop to look down at what the sign said. So it was a fun surprise when I received this. I thought it was very fitting!

The Super Bowl of course was that Sunday and we had a quiet afternoon with just the 3 of us. It was nice to be able to just stay home and relax. I had to include this couple of pictures of my boys watching the game. I love these two so much!

"Sweep Ma, Sweep!"

Almost daily you can find me using my swivel sweeper (LOVE it!) to clean up all the crumbs and dirt that my two boys and I make. Connor has always wanted to help and will watch so intently until every little speck of dirt is up.

He use to want to "help" so much that I finally bought him his own broom that was just his size. For the past week every time he sees me start to clean the floor he runs to the play room to grab his broom. Then he runs back to where I am shouting "Sweep Ma, sweep!" He continues to announce what we are doing ("sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep") until it is time to put the brooms away. It has almost become part of our morning routine! Hopefully, his love of sweeping will last a long time! :)

P.S. - Connor has lots of names for me, but "Ma" tends to be used the most when he is excited. Apparently his heart is overflowing with joy when he gets a hold of that broom!

Happy 20 Months Connor!

Can you believe we are only 4 months away for his 2nd birthday?!

While I took this picture this morning he smiled once and then told me "all done momma." At least I got one cute shot!

Now that Connor is 20 months...

He loves to wear our shoes around the house.

Focuses really hard while he plays and is very determined to figure out how things work.

Loves to be silly!

Plays with his "Choo Choo Train" every day!! This boy LOVES trains!

Fun new game he has learned to play is Hide and Seek. He will go and count on the sofa while we hide, but he always peeks to see which direction we head. It is so cute! Lately, we have heard a lot of "hide seek please." This morning I even caught him playing with his rubber ducks. He went and "hid" them then laid on the floor and counted. Before he went to "find" them he said "Not...here...come" (Ready or not, here I come!) So fun!

Enjoyed a piece of pizza without having it cut up. (This was great for both of us!)

Started laying down on the ground to throw a fit. The funniest part is that he very calmly will sit down and assume the position before he starts to cry/scream. He usually lays on his stomach, but he had rolled over to see if I was reacting yet. :)

Continues to increase his vocabulary. Has started making short sentences. There are a few words that he constantly says all day:

"apple juice"

"choo choo"

"up and down"

"ready, set, go"

Connor also is starting to learn his colors. He can name several, but we are still working on correctly matching them up. A lot of things are "red" and "bue"

Happy 20 months, Connor! We love you!