I've been such a blogging slacker lately! Our summer was jam packed with Jake in a 10-week summer school course, moving shortly thereafter, and trying to juggle our two boys and keep their lives somewhat stable. I hope to be a better blogger now that our lives have regained some regularity.
While raising 2 children has had it's challenging moments, Connor & Cody bring so much joy and laughter to our lives.
Connor continues to test our patience as he has officially entered the "terrible two's". Some days I wonder if there will ever come a time that I won't have to say every 5 minutes, "Connor, don't touch that," "Connor, don't throw that," "Connor, your baby brother isn't a pony, get off of him!" "Connor, stop crawling through the neighbor's doggie door!" Ah, what a fun age :)
But there is another side to Connor that I love. He is always giggling, jumping, skipping, hopping like a frog. He's everything that a little boy should be. He's so inquisitive and curious about everything. I'm constantly laughing at some of the things he says. For example:
Me: "Connor, please don't take that juice cup in the living room. I don't want you to spill."
Connor: "But Mom, that's why we have roller coasters"
Me: "Huh??"
Connor: "See Mom, these!" (as he points to a regular drink coaster...apparently we need to take him to an amusement park soon to eliminate the confusion)
This is one of my favorites, Connor uses this phrase quite frequently:
Me: "Connor, will you please help me finish cleaning up your room before you go outside and play?"
Connor: "No Mom. Let's just do that to-later"
Me: "To-later?"
Connor: (as if he's explaining himself) "tonight, tomorrow, to-later!"
Me: "Oh! Makes sense to me!"
You know you're child watches too much "Dora the Explorer" if this happens:
Riding in the car on the way to a barbecue Connor asked where we were going. I told him to a barbecue to have dinner. He then asks if I know where I'm going. I told him I hadn't been there before, but I was pretty sure I could figure it out. He then said, "Who do we ask when we don't know which way to go?!"...."THE MAP!! I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map"...if you're a mom of a toddler, you know the rest. He then said, "Should we take the first path, or the second path, or the third path?"
Also, when we first moved here, we were getting ready to go somewhere and Connor walked up to the garage door and shouted "Abre!" (Spanish for "open!") I laughed so hard, b/c I realized that he had watched an Dora show that morning where they taught them that using the magic word "abre" would open things. Pretty observant!
Ok, one last story...Last week Connor and I went to Kohl's to check out their sale on baby/toddler clothing. I let Connor get out of the shopping cart and walk around. He kept wandering around and picking up pants and shirts and holding them up to him and saying, "How does this look, Mom? Does this match?" He was off in his own little world for a while. I couldn't see him but I knew he was close b/c I could hear him talking to himself. A few minutes passed and he realized I wasn't right next to him anymore. All of a sudden I heard,
Connor: "Have you seen my Mommy?"
Female shopper: "I think she's right over there"
Connor: "Oh, thank you. I thought I lost-ed her"
Female shopper: "You sure are a cute little boy"
Connor: "Thank you. I know."
(maybe we should work on teaching him humility)
Cody is now 9 months old. Just looking at his picture makes me happy. He's such a sweet little boy and has been such a good baby. I was so worried when I found out I was pregnant again, that these two would be too close in age and I wouldn't be able to give them each enough attention, but Cody is just a "roll with the punches"-kinda kid.
He always smiles at you when you look at him. He LOVES to wave and often entertains himself by sitting in front of the mirror and waves at himself (sadly, I think he genuinely feels like he's waving at another baby). He absolutely adores his older brother and always flaps his arms and kicks his feet when Connor enters the room. He loves to copy him. The other day Connor was doing somersaults in the back yard. Cody was crawling around on a blanket and immediately got on all fours and put his head on the ground and kept looking up at Connor. He had a look on his face like, "how did you do that again?"
He is officially mobile and can crawl fairly quickly now. He's just now starting to cruise along furniture and is slowly learning about the effects of gravity. After his naps, I am often greeted by Cody standing in his crib with a huge smile on his face, so excited to see me...I LOVE this age!
Cody's been babbling for a little while now. He frequently says "ma, ma" and "da, da" and I've gotten him to say "hi" a couple of times. For the last few weeks I've heard him chuckle/laugh to himself a lot. It's kind of funny, b/c he especially does it as he's crawling toward something he's interested in. The other day, I could hear him from the kitchen laughing. I looked over the couch into the living room and saw him crawling toward one of Connor's grapes that had rolled under the couch. At least by laughing he gives me a warning if he's about to get into something he's not supposed to!
I asked Connor this year what kind of face he wanted to carve on his pumpkin and he said he wanted one pumpkin to be a "Cody" face and the other to be a "Connor" face. He said we should make the "Cody" one happy with two bottom teeth. I asked him if we should make his happy too and he said, "No, we should make him mad b/c sometimes I get frustrated and this is the face I make."
My friend Brittnee told me about this fun place called "Jumping Jacks" in West Jordan. They have a ton of fun inflatable slides, castles, a dragon. Brittnee and I took our kids a few weeks ago and they had a blast. Connor was kind of a wimp at first but eventally got the hang of it. 
this was his reaction when I fell off the tube...
I think he thought he'd never see me again. He eventually 
We had a lot of fun watching the Raspberry Days parade
Connor & Tanner on the playground
Cody & Mom (gotta love his spiky hair)
Playing on the beach
Connor's special fishy kisses
Relaxing with Lucy after a long day
