Take Your Child to Work Day

I can't wait until Connor is old enough to come to work with me!  He's nowhere near ready to be able to spend even a few hours hanging out in my cube, but maybe in a few years.  For right now, we'll have to settle for just a few minutes when we popped in to visit Daddy on Thursday before his work dinner.  He loved drawing on the white board, but I had to keep a close eye on him as I was worried those markers might not wash out of clothes very easily!

He sat on Daddy's ugly yellow chair.

He played with Daddy's big "book" of store plans.

After he got a little more comfortable, he wandered around the halls and surprised people at their desks when they turned their heads and noticed him walking by.  We definitely don't visit often enough and we used to do it more when he was a baby.  I promised we'd stop by again soon!

Best Buy with Connor

Shopping with Connor is always a fun experience.  I usually put him in the shopping cart to keep him out of trouble, but Daddy wanted to carry him while we looked at speakers.  Connor loved trying on the glasses at the 3-D display.

Connor loved looking at all the big tv screens and playing with the remotes. I tried to get him to watch Toy Story on one of them, but he could hardly sit still when there was so much to look at around the store.  Daddy bought some new fancy speakers for the basement, so he was happy! 

Instagram version

Learning to buckle

Connor's new interest is learning how to use the buckles on his highchair and car seat.  He started trying to do it himself one day so we've been showing him how to do it.

He gets so proud when he clips it himself!

And then I caught him trying to buckle his stroller...

Saturday Play

A few more pics from last weekend...

We stopped at the park on the way home from the furniture store.  This park is pretty close by and it had a lot of activities for Connor to play on.  It also seemed to be a popular spot because we probably saw at least 15 other young kids stop by.

After dinner, we did a little building.  My little master builder is working on making towers taller than he is!  It's adorable how he will separate the blocks and only use certain kinds on his towers.

Connor's First Art Class!

I was so excited about this!  I signed Connor up for his first art class called Artsy Doodlers for 20-36 month kids.  Last Tuesday, we went to the class and he seemed to be one of the youngest there.  I was a little nervous about how he would do with his concentration, but it was nice to see he wasn't the most wild kid there.  He actually did awesome and I think daycare had helped him learn to concentrate more on little projects.

We started out doing a little cycle of different activities at little tables.  He colored for a little bit and then played with the shoelace and beads.  He did really well with stringing the beads on the shoelace as I handed them to him.

For the middle part of the class, the teacher had all the kids sit down in a circle and she read them a story about jelly fish.  He was more interested in taking off his smock, but he stayed right by me.  The art project was based on the book so we painted jelly fish in a Jackson Pollock style.  (Art history minor mommy was impressed!)  The jelly fish were a little too complicated for him, but he painted like a big boy!  I was so proud of him for not making a huge mess and painting a masterpiece for the fridge!

After painting, he went to the play-doh table and this seemed to be his favorite part of the class.  They had some different tool and cookie cutters he could use and he loved them!  At the end of the class, they did a little presentation where every child got to show their painting and the others would clap, but Connor kept leaving to go play with play-doh.  Who knew?  So we actually picked up some play-doh for our house this weekend too.

I was so proud of him and how he acted in class!  Most of the kids were older than him, but he fit right in and adapted for his age.  I'm excited to sign up for a few of the summer classes too!

Our visit to Bass Pro Shop

Not really my kind of store, but it was a reason to get Daddy to come to the outlet mall with us!  Connor and I have never been there, so I was interested to see what the fuss was all about.  You probably know I'm not into camping, hunting, fishing, etc, but I love shopping.  It was actually pretty adorable to see how Connor loved looking around at everything.

I've always said I wanted Connor & Daddy to have matching Carheart suits when they're out in the snow.  I found them!  It's not like I'm going to spend that much on a suit he'll outgrow in 2 months, but the hat was pretty cute.

We stopped by all the fish tanks to show Connor the giant fish.  He was actually kind of scared of this one because the fish were huge and right up in his face.  Someone brought their dog into the store (??) and he really enjoyed that.

So all in all, a very interesting place with lots to look at.  I told the boys I would support them going camping or fishing while I stayed at home in my comfy bed.

20 months!

The kid is growing up way too fast!

20 Month Stats:
Weight: ?  (approx. 23 pounds based on our scale at home)
Height: ?

20 Month Milestones:
• Added some new words to his vocabulary such as monkey and monkey sound (ee), basketball (ba-ball), stuck (guck), paci, I do, banana (nana)
• Learning to serve himself from the family style meals at daycare
• Loves going to the park on the warm spring days
• Still obsessed with basketball!  When the neighbors are playing basketball outside, he refuses to come in without a fight because he wants to watch.  His new foam basketball is a favorite inside the house. If he sees a basketball anywhere, he will point it out to you.
• Has 4 molars now
• Went to the shoe store for new shoes and found out he should be wearing a 5.5 and not 4.5 (Mommy fail!)
• Getting better at repeating words when we ask him to
• Still working on saying "please" and "thank you" and will sometimes use them on his own
• Says "apple" when he wants food (we're not sure where this came from, but we think it means food)
• Loves spaghetti and marinara sauce!
• Had his first ice cream from Dairy Queen
• Loves giving kisses and hugs to his friends and Miss Catherine when he leaves daycare every night
• Works so hard trying to get his socks on every morning, but he can't quite do it yet
• Still sleeping from 6:45/7 pm - 6 am on weekdays when I wake him up and 7 or 8 am on weekends with 2 hour naps at daycare
• Loves looking out the living room window at doggies
• A lot of interest in brooms and vacuums
• Had his first nosebleed when he fell at the furniture store over the weekend, but he was a champ and let me clean it for him. 
• Make friends wherever he goes with his big smiles and waving.  He always says "Bye-bye" when we're paying at stores. 

Photos from the week

Grocery shopping with Grandpa

Hanging out in front of our house on a nice evening

Sad that it was raining so he couldn't go outside to play basketball

Being silly in the bath

We keep catching him like this.  He wakes up and then just stands in his crib without making noise for awhile!

Snow Boots in April

I think these got used about one time during all of winter at daycare.  I brought them home this week and Connor couldn't get enough of trying them on in the house!  We did get snow over the weekend...

Adventures with a Broom

I will never understand where he got his fascination with brooms from.  It's definitely not from us because we don't sweep nearly as much as we should.  I'm guessing they must do it a lot at daycare and he probably insists on helping out.

Mommy's Birthday Brunch

To celebrate my birthday with the family, we went to Wildfire for brunch on Sunday.  Everyone was in love with his little hipster preppy outfit of a white polo, gray sweater vest, jeans and Converse chucks.  Everyone took turns taking photos with him when we got there.

He did a pretty good job of being patient and reading his "book" while we waited for food.


After we ate brunch, Great-Grandpa kept him busy by giving high fives across the table.

He also moved around the table so everyone could get a chance to spend a little time with him.

We had a really yummy chocolate cheesecake and Mommy's special chocolate coffee cake for dessert and Connor loved trying them!