All about Alan

Here is the post about Alan, as promised. Here are some things that Alan loves:
1. He loves to mow the lawn with our toy bubble lawn mower.
2. He loves to play in the sandbox
3. He loves to swim with water wings, so that we don't have to help him.
4. He loves to have me hold Conner a few feet from him and then let Conner walk to him. I think Alan feels so big when Conner walks to him.
5. He still loves the color pink.
6. He loves to draw, write, cut and paste. He has just started to actually make pictures that look like more than scribbles. For example, he just brought me a picture that he drew of a spider, and it actually looks like a spider. He is interested in letters. I have been telling him that letters have sounds so his new thing is to say "B-b-b car" or "B-b-b spider" He really likes the B sound.

Alan and Conner driving around our backyard

Alan dressed up as a super hero (superman cape and knight armor - he is ready for anything!)
Showing Conner how to mow the lawn.

A few weeks ago we decided to spend some one on one time with the boys so I played with Conner and Alan spent some time with his Daddy. Reed told him they could do whatever Alan wanted so Alan chose to go jump in puddles. He came home soaking wet and very happy.

Showing off his big muscles.

Alan says the funniest things sometimes. Here are a few quotes:

"Mom, watch this famous trick" while he does something like balancing a bite of food on the wrong side of the fork and gets it to his mouth while tapping his head with his other hand.

Reed was reading the newspaper while he and Alan were eating breakfast and Alan said to him "Dad, could you keep an eye on me?"

I dropped Alan off at a friend (Zachary) house while I went to the store with Conner. After I left Zach asked his mom why I had taken Conner with me (I sometimes leave him there too). His mom replied that I had taken Conner with me so that I wouldn't be lonely. Alan had been listening to this exchange and he piped up with his own matter-of-fact explanation: "No, my mom took Conner to the store because she doesn't want Shadow to eat Conner." Shadow is their friendly but big dog that barks at us everytime we come over. Alan does not trust that dog at all, apparently.

A change of heart

Remember a few posts back when I said that Conner didn't really like icecream? Well, Conner has officially changed his mind. He was fussing in his high chair so Reed handed him a bowl of icecream and his own spoon to see if it would entertain him for a while. He gobbled the icecream up! He absolutely loved holding his own spoon and feeding himself although he made a HUGE mess.

The final result...looks like he enjoyed himself.

To explain the picture below: we were trying to feed Conner lunch but he was apparently too tired. Everytime he opened his mouth to take a bite his eyes would close. Then Reed or Alan would yell "Peek a boo" or "Hey!" and he would open his eyes again and give them a big smile. Well, that worked for a while but then he just started to smile, without opening his eyes. He looked like he was sound asleep and Alan would yell "Peek a boo" and he would get this silly smile on his face for a second, but he wouldn't open his eyes.

ps. Don't worry we haven't stopped taking pictures of Alan. The next post will be dedicated to Alan.

Getting to know Conner

Reed and Alan are out at a Father/Son camp out tonight so Conner and I are hanging out. For those of you that live far away (which is everyone that reads this blog) I thought I would publish a post to help you get to know this funny, cute little boy better.

Conner is normally a very happy, cheerful little boy (see picture below). He has the cutest smiles and his laugh makes me laugh. Unfortunately I haven't seen much of his smiley side the last few days because he has been sick with an ear infection. For those who are counting this would be his 4th ear infection in the last 4 months. To say the least he seems to be very prone to ear infections, and maybe slightly resistant to antibiotics - not a good combination.

Conner ADORES his big brother. Conner has been crying a lot the last few days due to the ear infection but if Alan walks up to him and starts to make funny faces Conner will break into a smile. Conner loves to play with anything that Alan plays with. Below is a picture of Conner sitting in Alan's dump truck.

He loves to put things in his mouth and then crawl off as fast as he can. Not the safest past time but I guess he needs his hands free to be able to crawl. Below, he has a toy umbrella sticking out of his mouth.

Conner loves, loves, loves balloons!

Conner took his first shaky steps between Reed and I on April 30th. Crawling is still his main mode of transportation but he will take a few steps between things like my leg and our couch. I had forgotten how incredibly accident prone they are at this stage. Conner has various bruises across his forehead from different falls. It doesn't help that he instead of crawling right up to something and then pulling himself up, he will stop a foot of so from the object, then get up on his knees and lunge for it. Last week he crawled until he was a foot from one of our kitchen chairs, then he got on his knees and lunged and tried to grab the seat of the chair. He missed and he ended up hitting his mouth so hard on the bars of the chair that his gums started to bleed. I thought he had knocked out one of his teeth, but luckily all 8 teeth are still there.

Conner also loves baths (sorry, no pictures). His new favorite thing to do in the bath tub is fill up one of his toys with water and throw it at me. Then he laughs hysterically when I say "Hey, you got me all wet!"

I took Conner to the doctor for his 1 year old well child check up on Monday. He now weighs 20 lbs and 8 oz (hooray, he can sit forward in the car now!) and he is 31 inches tall. So he is still long and skinny. The other girls at playgroup laugh when they see him stand and try to walk because they say "how can such skinny little legs support that long body?"

Well, I hope you enjoyed getting to know our newest 1 year old a little better.

ps. This isn't about Conner but I wanted to post it anyway. Most of you probably already know but Reed was laid off at work. Today was his last day. So please keep us in your prayers and let us know if you know of any business type job openings.

Happy Birthday Conner!!!

Wow, it is hard to believe that Conner is a year old already. This last year feels like it has gone by at the speed of light. We celebrated Conner's birthday with a little family party last Friday night. I decided to make a dog cake, because Conner really likes dogs if they keep their distance. He also sleeps with a little stuffed dog that he is super attached to. Conner didn't know what to make of the candle but he tried to grab the cake while we were singing to him. Alan blew the candle out for Conner (you can tell from the picture that Alan was pretty excited about the whole party thing, even if Conner wasn't)

Conner kept touching the cake and then making a disgusted face and then he would wipe his fingers off on his high chair liner. Then he would do it all over again. He did not like getting his hands dirty!!

I finally put a piece of cake in his mouth and then he ate a few bites and licked his fingers off. He only ate a few bites and then decided it was more fun to feed his cake to mom. After that he dropped the rest of it on the floor.

We tried giving him ice cream for the first time - you can see from the picture what he thought of ice cream. Too cold!!!
The one thing that Conner REALLY liked about the party were the balloons. He kept pulling them down and smiling really big when they touched his head.

Conner had fun looking at all the presents but he wasn't really interested in opening any of them. Alan on the other had was only too happy to help Conner open his gifts. Conner really liked playing with the torn wrapping paper afterward.

One of his presents was a little slide, which he absolutely loves. He will pull him self up on it and then bang the top, which is intrepeted as "put me up here please". Then he lunges forward and zooms to the bottom with a huge smile on is face. The he crawls around and does it again.
Alan quite likes the slide too, we have to remind him sometimes that this is Conner's toy and that he needs to share it.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Yesterday was our 6th wedding anniversary. In some ways that feels like forever ago - so much has happened since then. It has been a good six years. We got a babysitter on Friday and went out to eat at Chili's. It was so nice to get out without the kids - when Reed and I got to Chili's there was a half hour wait so I thought that we would have to leave but then I remembered that we didn't have the kids with us so we actually could wait. I'm glad we did - the food was yummy.

On Sunday we had a "birthday party" for our family with the kids. It was an idea that I got from another family about how to explain an anniversary to young children. We got out the photo album of our wedding and told Alan about our wedding day. Then we had cake and icecream. Alan loved blowing out the candles.

German Chocolate Cake - Yum

Grandma and Grandpa's visit

We had a blast with my parents while they were here. Here is a quick recap of the fun.

We all went to visit Chimney Rock historic site on the Oregon Trail. They had a visitor center there that had a small wagon that kids could load up with pretend bags of flour, beans, sugar, ect. as well as blankets and other items. The wagon had a light that showed when you were half full, full, and overloaded. Alan thought that was the coolest thing ever so we loaded and unloaded the wagon twice. I will send pictures of that when I get some from my parents.



We also went to the Riverside Zoo here in town. It was nice weather for a walk. Below is a picture of Alan comparing his "wingspan" to some bird wingspans. He has a smaller wingspan than a red tailed hawk (blue bird on board).

Then Reed was able to get Thursday and Friday off. We did Easter on Thursday morning and then we all packed up and headed north to Rapid City, South Dakoka. The weather turned nasty that day - it was cold and snowing. We had some adventures finding our hotel and then the hotel messed up our reservation. That was frustrating but we found another hotel to stay at and it worked out all right. The next day we went to an indoor water park called WaTiki resort. Reed and I had a ton of fun but I don't think the boys liked it as much as we were hoping. They had a fun kid area (shown below) but every 5 minutes a HUGE bucket of water poured on top of the play area - it totally freaked Alan out and he didn't want anything to do with it after that.

Luckily they had a lazy river that both boys enjoyed. The lazy river had a walk in entry that Alan enjoyed wading in.

Conner and Alan both enjoyed playing at the edge of the kid play area (out of reach of the big bucket of water)

The adults had fun on the slides. Below is a picture of my parents wiping out at the bottom of one. We finally convinced Alan to go down a slide in a tube with me. He seemed to have fun until we tipped over at the bottom and Alan got dunked. After that he didn't want to go on anymore slides.

While we were in Rapid City we enjoyed eating at a Pirate restaurant and then at Boston Pizza - Yum!!! Then for breakfast on our last day together my parents took us out to a delicious breakfast at IHOP. Can I just say that I love going out to breakfast? Anyway, then we headed to the main attraction: Mt. Rushmore. It was pretty impressive. It was interesting to visit the museum/visitor center.
My parents in front of Mt. Rushmore.

Reed and Carissa

Alan and Conner

After that we had to say goodbye to my parents and head home. Thanks for the visit!

Easter eggs and baskets

My parents came to visit us last week so we did Easter on Thursday so that they could be here for it. Alan enjoyed coloring Easter eggs but Conner was too tired and grumpy to want anything to do with it.

The next morning Alan was excited to learn that all of the eggs were hidden outside. He did a really good job this year finding the eggs and he would get SO excited to find one.

I helped Conner find a couple of eggs - he thought they made interesting chew toys.

After we found all the eggs we came inside to find our baskets. Conner found his in the tub and was interested in the candy.

Alan was VERY excited to find his basket. He was grinning ear to ear as he pulled out his loot.