Mormon Battalion Commemoration

Last night Peter and I watched our nieces, we also had a slumber party which was quite fun. We went from 1 kid to 4 in a matter of minutes! Boy that's tricky, but we had a lot of fun. This picture was just too cute to pass up.
Today was the Mormon Battalion Commemoration at Old Town State Park. Peter and his dad left super early in the morning to head down. They participated in the Dutch Oven Cook-Off. They made six different German foods: Bread Knodel, Chicken schnitzel, sweetened red cabbage, mushroom gravy, apple strudel, and streuselkuchen. They won first and second place prizes and got the best in show award as well. Everyone else brought one dutch oven, Peter and David had 5 going simultaneously. I swiped these pictures off of Wendy Platt's Facebook.
While the guys were busy with their dutch ovens, I had the camera and us girls were busy doing the fun stuff seen here:
While Peter and his dad cooked all day, Mary and the girls and I explored the activities. We watched the parade, the girls made dolls, bricks, rope, cooked a bun, panned for gold and enjoyed running around. Camille's friend from school and her dad met up with us. It was a fun day. Connor slept for the majority of the time in the Ergo, he's such a good baby.

These aren't from today since I wore him all day and I had the camera it was impossible to take his picture, so here's a couple cute pictures from this past week.

Bass Pro Shop

Here are the pictures from my dad's camera as promised...Cleaning up the kid and the car seat after his diaper exploded-in the parking lot of the Bass Pro Shop.

Trying on the hats

A cool carving

Family portrait in front of a waterfall

We are standing inside the elevator. You can see my reflection and to the right is my dad holding Connor. Through the glass is the store and a fish tank in the middle.

Wildlife in the store

One of the views of the store from behind a waterfall

Another family portrait...I do believe Peter has grown some antlers

Peter practicing his shooting skills. I tried this too, but was so pathetic...out of 25 shots I was able to hit one target.

Another view of the store

So yeah this is a super cool shop, two floors tons of stuff to look at and play with. There was a stream that went through the middle of the store as well with fish in it. In the above picture we ate at the restaurant which is located in the top right behind the sign that says "gifts" and the food there was great! As we headed to the car we realized we didn't even see half of the stuff that was in the store and we totally missed the part with the boats. Oh well maybe next time :)

Connor's 1st Road Trip

Last weekend we took a quick road trip up to the bay area to attend a funeral. My dad was already going, so we went with him. We left Sunday morning around 9 and arrived at Abbie and Rafe's house around 7pm. Connor was the perfect little baby. I fed him before we left, when we stopped for lunch, and gave him a bottle in the afternoon so we could keep on driving. We stopped a few times for gas and when we stopped I always changed him, so that when we arrived at Abbie and Rafe's we had only a minor diaper leak. Then I fed him again as soon as we got to Abbie and Rafe's. Other than that he slept, we played and he only fussed for five minutes while I tried to find him a bottle.
Sunday night Connor slept from 12-5:30 then ate and went back to sleep until 7:30 or so. Monday morning was the funeral followed by a delicious lunch of Greek food and then we went to the cemetery for a graveside service. Afterward we went to my cousins house for a couple of hours and then back to Abbie and Rafe's. Monday night Connor slept from 11-8...yup 9 straight hours! It was wonderful! We ate breakfast and hit the road a little after 9. We stopped for lunch and then kept on driving. After lunch I changed Connor, then he was asleep at the next gas pit stop, so we let him sleep...that was a mistake. We stopped in Rancho Cucamunga to visit the Bass Pro Shop. Peter had been dying to go there, so we stopped and checked out the store. And my what a store it was! Pictures of that will be in the next post (I have to get them from my dad.) When we went to pull Connor out of his car seat I noticed poop all over the side...we had encountered a major blowout!

Laughing at his animal friends

I cleaned up Connor while Peter cleaned up the car seat...it was disgusting! Sad thing though, the diaper wasn't full, it just leaked out the side because of the way Connor sits in his car seat with his feet up-which caused a gap. Once we were all cleaned up we went in the store and walked around a bit, then got dinner there. We arrived home around 9:30 or so. I took apart the car seat and put the fabric in the washing machine along with the poopy clothes while Connor got a much needed bath.

Hello there :)

27 Minutes

So I have been reading "On Becoming Baby Wise." Which was highly recommended from my sister-in-law who has a 5 month old who sleeps through the night and goes to bed without fussing. The book says that there are many things to avoid to get your child to sleep but the three most important to avoid are:

1-Don't let the child fall asleep while nursing.
2-Don't rock the child to sleep.
3-Don't let the child sleep in bed with parents.

Guess how many of those we do?...Yep all three. So I ordered the book and it arrived on Wednesday and Thursday I started following the techniques. Some of which I was already following, but many I was not. What I really wanted to get out of this was that Connor would go to sleep in his crib and be able to self soothe if he woke up early.

So Thursday morning he was up at 5:30. I fed him and then we played a little and then I wrapped him up in a miracle blanket and put him in his crib while he was still awake. I listened to him cry for 27 minutes before he fell asleep. Throughout that time he calmed himself down several times so there were times that he was quiet, then he would cry a little. Once he was asleep he slept for 2 hours. At the end of 2 hours I checked on him (I checked on him numerous times while he slept) and he was awake and happy. I changed him and he threw smile after smile at me. I fed him again and he started falling back to sleep. We had some tummy time and then it was time for another nap. He cried 2 minutes and then was quiet. Was this some kind of miracle? The evening nap was a bit trickier and he ended up falling asleep in the swing and then nighttime was a bit hard too. He cried for 30 minutes and wasn't giving in so I picked him up and rocked him to sleep and then put him back down. He slept in 3 hour increments during the night which is pretty usual for him.

Thursday photo-check out the cute socks. This is a miracle blanket, but we don't wrap up his feet anymore because he always kicks his way out of it within a couple of minutes.

Friday the morning naps went like clock work. He didn't fuss at all when I put him down. He talked to himself and kicked his legs and went to sleep. His evening naps weren't too bad either. Though he really wanted a pacifier and calmed down really fast after having one, but couldn't keep it in his mouth. So I rolled up a receiving blanket and propped it against the pacifier so if he spit it out, he could still reach it to suck it back in. He also took one while in the Ergo while we shopped at Costco. Nighttime he was fed and then rocked and put down. He slept for 5 hours 11:30-4:30 and then was changed, fed and barely rocked and put back down. He slept almost another 5 hours (4:50ish-9:35). He woke up briefly at 8:30 and went back to sleep. I felt great this morning when I woke up.

Friday photo-My ingenious plan to hold the pacifier in. The pants he is currently wearing he was able to kick himself out of. He really hates having things on his legs/feet.

Two Month Check-Up

Monday Connor had his two month check-up and got six vaccinations. Four were shots (one shot had two vaccines in it) and one was a liquid he swallowed. The nurse had me hold him while the liquid was given. At first he wasn't terribly happy as the liquid was very cold, but he got over that quickly and started sucking it down. When it was gone he got very upset as he wanted more. The nurse then had me put him down on a table so she could give the shots in his thighs. This was directly after the liquid so while he was mad that the liquid was gone he turned bright red. The nurse was worried at first that this might be a reaction to the vaccine and then realized that he was mad, so she continued. He took the first shot and screamed and as the other shots were given he cried and when it was all done he got two sparkly bandages and then calmed down. He was quiet by the time he was dressed and buckled back into his car seat. He then fell asleep during our five minute drive home. He was a great trooper!
His two month stats are: Head is 15 1/4 inches, he weighs 9 lbs 14 oz. and he's 24 inches long. Or as the doctor puts it, Connor is long and lean.

Monday afternoon Connor was very good. Then around 6:30 he was so fussy it was really hard to calm him down. He finally went back to sleep and slept until midnight, then back to bed around 1am after eating. We both were back awake at 5:30am. We had a ton of fun doing this:
I love his big open mouth smiles...they are always followed by squeals, which are just so darn cute!

Fun with babies

On New Year's Eve we went to the O's. Upon arrival Camille anxiously asked if she could hold baby Connor. Within minutes of rocking in her arms she had him asleep. He woke up a couple of times and she just rocked him back to sleep.
At 9:58pm Chris announces that it's two minutes until the new year and gets his girls excited to blow noise makers and such. Peter and I look at each other dumbfounded. I ask, "It's midnight already?" Peter says, "It's only 10 o'clock." Apparently we don't have enough kids to understand why 10pm is midnight on New Year's Eve. After the kids had their New Year's party they went to bed. Connor was having a hard time so we headed home. At midnight we were all in bed.

On Wednesday I watched Claire during the day and on Thursday I watched Claire and Ellie. Claire did a great job of entertaining herself while Connor ate. During one feeding Claire was playing behind the couch and would keep asking if she could use/play with different items. She put on one of my "hooter hiders" and then put a teddy bear under it and told me she was feeding her baby while I fed Connor. Later she put one of Connor's shirts on a teddy bear and buckled it into his car seat. She also played with the bear on a baby blanket and tried giving it a pacifier. I was surprised that she didn't try to put a diaper on it, as the changing mat was also out. She also enjoyed playing in my shoes.
Claire was really happy that she got to play with Connor all day Wednesday and not have to share him with her sisters. Later that night Mary called to say that she told Claire that she didn't have to work on Friday so she would play with Mommy all day. Claire said, "No, I play with Aunt Mandy." Sounds like she really had fun.

Tuesday morning while I took a shower I had Connor sitting in his car seat. Normally he doesn't like this, but he was a great trooper. In fact he was waiving his hands and kept bopping the little noise makers that jingled...then he would squeal with delight. I kept sticking my head out of the shower curtain to see my super happy baby playing with the toys. By the time I had a camera, he was done sitting in his car seat.

Here's our happy baby-9 weeks as of tomorrow, pictures were taken this evening.