GAP casting call!

The time has come, we need your votes! Lord knows the gap card would come in handy since 99.99% of this kids wardrobe is Gap!

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We would really appreciate all the votes! You can vote multiple times for different pictures and the contest goes on until December!

I'm a big boy!

Connor is now officially out of his infant car seat! He is a chubby monkey and at just 6 1/2 months he is weighing in around 21-22lbs and has reached the weight limit for his beloved Maxi-Cosi seat.

I'm pretty sure he likes being able to move around a bit more in this seat, but overall...HE HATES IT. He used to just hang out in his car seat, take naps, play with sophie, etc. Now 90% of the time in the car is spent crying. This seat does not have nearly as much head support as his old seat and I'm pretty sure its killing his neck when he takes naps in it now. I have bought and returned 2 neck supports from BRU so far with no luck. I'm thinking another new car seat is in our very near future.

We just returned home this morning from our 4 day vacation to Omaha. I will have new photos up from our trip within the next few days.

Connor is totally monkey crawling already! I doubt that's the actual term for it but he moves his legs like crazy but his arms just don't get the hang of it so he kind of leaps forward. Its also time to lower his crib down, he has recently learned how to pull himself up to a standing position.!

Steak and potatoes

Connor now has TWO teeth! He sure is in a rush to get all these teeth in, guess he is excited to eat real food!

Blankie

Connor hasn't really had a strong attachment to any comfort items, besides his teething giraffe Sophie. He loves Sophie and she goes everywhere with us for him to gnaw on and play with, but he doesn't really fuss if she isn't around.

This all changed last week. After we got home from our trip to Utah to see grandma there was a box waiting for us from my cousins Monica and Julie and my Aunt Susan. Inside was a cute onesie and an adorable soft blanket with Connor's name embroidered on the bottom of it.

Now every night and during nap time he fusses until I cover him up with it. He loves to rub it against his cheeks, which is just too cute!

I was nervous at first to put him in his crib with a blanket, but I figure if he can roll over both ways, sit up on his own and get up on his hands and knee's he is big enough to move the blanket if it covers his face.

5 1/2 months....already

I can't believe that Connor will be 6 months in under 2 weeks! Still blows my mind how fast time is flying by, before I know it he will be walking and doing his own thing!

Its been far too long since I have updated this thing so Ill start with things Connor now does:

1: Rolls over both ways (has since he was a few days shy of 4 months)

2: Feeds himself his bottle

3: Sits up on his own for longer than a minute without tipping over

4: Holds/plays and occasionally drinks from a sippy cup

5: Eats oatmeal and veggies (fruit will start soon)

6: Gets up on his knees and scoots backwards. Forward momentum will come some day!

7: His first tooth is all the way out and a second one is just days from breaking through the gums.

8: Giggles. This is my favorite. He loves having his sides and ribs tickled and just yesterday he giggled for the first time just because he thought the dog was funny. No tickling or anything required!

9. He has the pincer grab mastered and has no issues picking anything up with his thumb and forefinger.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure I'm missing some things...He is right around 19 pounds and 27inches. BIG BOY! He was around the 74% for weight and 78% for height at his last doctors appointment. His 3-6 month clothes are starting to make their way into storage as its becoming increasingly difficult to get them on him.

Connor and I took a road trip this past week to visit my mom and grandparents up in Utah. It was a LONG drive and if I'm being honest I wanted to pull my hair out by the end of it. It was awesome seeing my mom and grandparents but 20 hours total of driving time is just too much for me to do by myself with a 5 month old baby. We are home now and Connor is getting used to sleeping in his crib again instead of snuggling in bed with mom. He much prefers cuddling.

McFatty Monday, Week 1

I wish I could say this week was a bigger success. I lost 2 pounds so its not a complete failure, but I was REALLY hoping to lose more than that. The beginning of the week I did really well eating wise. I pretty much lived off of our standard Chicken, green beans and asparagus dinner. We fear change and eat this meal at least 4 nights a week... And then the weekend and Mothers Day came. Guess I picked a bad week to start this process. I cant tell you how many bananas, pineapple, and strawberries I ate that were dipped in yummy yummy chocolate and then Sunday morning Anthony made us a breakfast complete with bacon, eggs, mimosas and pancakes with homemade syrup. Totally low cal right?... right? This was very unusual for us since we don't usually eat breakfast let alone bacon and pancakes and the chocolate dipped stuff is never kept in our house. I guess I should be thrilled to have lost any weight at all after stuffing my face all weekend.

I need new tennis shoes, BAD. I went to the lake by our house and walked 3 times this week and did a total of around 7 miles, a decent start. My feet were KILLING me after each walk, like really really hurting. My old Nike's just aren't cutting it anymore. So I'm on the search for new shoes. I bought a pair of New Balance yesterday but decided I hated them after getting home and returned them this afternoon.

I'll be heading to Vegas this Friday to Monday so it's not going to be an easy week but I'm hoping to keep on track.

Total weight lost: 2lbs

Mothers Day, a first

Today was my very first Mothers Day and I have to say that I loved every single second of it. Each day I am amazed at how much love I have for this little guy. There are days when I feel like I just cant hold him close enough to me and I long for him to be back in my belly where just he and I had a special little bond.

Yesterday I had a surprise delivered. Connor had managed to get on the computer and order his mom Edible Arrangements. I have always wanted one of these so I was super excited for it. I was miserable by the end of the night from stuffing my face full of strawberries, pineapple, and bananas dipped in chocolate as well as cantaloupe and honeydew melon.

This morning Anthony got up with the baby and let me sleep in. When I came downstairs I was greeted with Mimosas and a incredibly yummy breakfast he did all on his own. He only had to ask me one question the entire time he was cooking, which is quite impressive.

And if that wasn't a good enough Mothers Day, Connor decided to roll over! I was SO damn excited for this. He rolled from his back onto his belly, and then over onto his back again. We were able to get him to do it a few times and even caught one roll on camera. What an awesome gift!

I cant wait for all of the future Mothers Days to come.

these are a few of his favorite things

Connor is rather simple to please when it comes to toys. The majority of toys purchased by us naive first time parents are pretty useless. Hopefully our next child is as easy to please, but I'm sure she (yep I'm determined it will be a girl) will take after me and have to have everything imaginable.

So here are Connor's top 3 favorite things that make him smile, squeal, drool and just in general be the cutest damn baby on the planet.

1) Plastic Keys. Of course he picks the absolute cheapest thing he has and decides that he will be best friends with it. He LOVES these keys. He shoves them in his mouth and drools all over as you can see in the picture below. He throws them as hard as he can across the couch and squeals with delight. He naps in his swing or on the couch while tightly holding onto his precious precious keys.

2) Baby Einstein Exersaucer. This is a rather new favorite as I just put it together 2 weeks ago. Once he discovered he could press the buttons and it makes animal noises his world was complete. He will press the same button over and over again and just stare at it smiling while a big string of drool hangs out of his mouth. Notice that drool is a trend in this post? I have no idea how he even produces so much drool. He's learned how to play with a few other things on the exersaucer but the buttons are by far the favorite.

3) Sophie the Giraffe. I was hesitant to buy this product....really really hesitant. Not because of choking hazards or any other safety concerns. Oh no, my concern was the fact that it cost $22 and is in all honestly a glorified dog toy. She's made of rubber and squeaks when you squeeze her- dog toy right? I looked on Amazon and it got amazing reviews and some of the ladies on TheBump.com swore by it so one day while in Nordstrom's I noticed that they had them and took the leap and bought it. My son makes out with the giraffe. Really, he goes to town and shoves her nose and face as far as he can get it in his mouth. He likes her legs every once in a while, but the face is what he's after.

Taz can be found within 2 feet of Connor whenever he has Sophie out to play. He just doesn't understand why Connor gets dog toys and he doesn't.

Sweet little things...

I've picked up a new hobby in the past 6 months and if you cant tell by the pictures that hobby is....BAKING.

I became really interested in cooking after I moved to CA 2 1/2 years ago but baking always scared me. Not the Betty Crocker type of baking, but the make your dough from scratch and cover everything in ganache type of baking. I've found that I really enjoy it though and am actually quite good at it.

If you look at the history on my computer it will be littered with several daily visits to The Pioneer Woman, Bakerella, Tartelette, and Sweet Designs. These women have talent beyond belief.

So usually once I week I find something ridiculously unhealthy to make and whip it up around 9pm after Connor goes to bed. This past week I made homemade brownies with chocolate chip cookie dough (also made from scratch) chunks in it and covered the thing with ganache. It was to die for. I pulled 4 to the side (2 for me 2 for Anthony) and quickly packaged up the rest of the batch for Anthony to take to work.

I justify it by convincing myself I'm doing something really nice for the young guys. I mean they live in a barracks room with a toaster oven and haven't had anything homemade in months. So really I'm doing it for them.....yup.

I think I'm going to look into cake decorating/baking classes at the local community college. I would really enjoy that, plus it gets me out of the house without the baby and it gives me a chance to meet other people!

Meeting new people and keeping my sanity are always a plus in my book.

(the picture below is apple pie on a stick. too freaking cute right?)

BLOW OUT

Lord help me.

I thought I was lucky... I had been rubbing it in other moms faces and basically gloating that my precious little boy had been very kind to mommy and hasn't made me suffer through an infamous "blow out".

I had nightmares of waking up to a baby covered in poop from head to toe while I was pregnant and was fully prepared for the worst. I had even convinced my husband that it was inevitable and we would be dealing with it quite often.

Naive little me thought that this kind of thing only happened with newborns so I was totally in the clear. WRONG.

Connor had been having tummy issues the past 2 days so I was quite surprised when we were cuddling on the couch this morning after breakfast and we was the happiest baby ever. I soon found out why. I picked him up and thought "hmm thats odd, my hands feel damp". Yep, poop all over his legs and up his back was starting to seep through his jammies.

I may or may not have gagged the entire time I was changing him. But on the plus side, I have my happy baby back!

Hoping for a midwest way of life

When Anthony and I first got married he had made it very clear that he wasn't ready to get out of the military. This was ok with me as it is a stable job, we are guaranteed a roof over our heads and the military lifestyle isn't quite as bad as what people make it out to be.

This all changed the night Connor was born.

That picture sums up the moment when Anthony decided that he's not ever leaving us to go on some long deployment across the world. Of course he still thinks it would be fun to go to Afghanistan and ride around in his MRAP looking for bad guys to shoot, but he now knows its not whats best for us anymore. Coming home to us every night after work makes him happy. I kept telling him throughout my pregnancy that his feelings/emotions and life in general will totally change once the baby was here and he didn't believe me.

So this all leads to the hunt for a job. Yes we want out of the military, and yes we want to move away and be able to buy a home where we can raise Connor without having to move every 3 years...but we aren't willing to give up his guaranteed job without having a new one lined up. In this economy I think the stupidest thing we could do is leave the roof over our head and a steady paycheck with the assumption that we will be able to find him work in the following months.

Anthony has already flown back to Omaha to test for their police academy and this following weekend he will be in Lincoln NE testing for theirs. Two weeks after that he goes back to Lincoln yet again and tests for the fire department. If ya cant tell we REALLY want to move to Omaha/Lincoln. My brother is there, housing is affordable (and adorable), great school systems, and the people are great. You actually know your neighbors there. The whole atmosphere is different in the Midwest.

Competition is fierce, the Lincoln police academy has around 600 guys signed up to test and there are only 8 spots left in the academy. It wont be easy but we are hoping and praying that one of these jobs comes through.

Denial at its best

I love my husband....Every day while pregnant (and even now not pregnant) he tells me that I'm beautiful and he actually means it.

Because of this I guess I failed to realize how RIDICULOUSLY large I was at the end of my pregnancy because I still felt beautiful.

....What on earth was I smoking?!?!

This picture was taken about 5 days before I had Connor and it blows my mind looking at it and seeing how big I really was. I suppose I had selective vision and was only seeing the adorable little baby clothes that were filling my home and chose to ignore the sight of my midsection (although how the hell I managed to ignore something that large is beyond me)!

I loved being pregnant and looking at these pictures: A) REALLY makes me miss having the belly and feeling the kicks and hick ups. B) I now totally realize that its SOOOO true and you forget about all the crappy parts of the journey as soon as its over. Of course I remember how I couldn't roll over at the end and how bad my hips hurt, but looking back it really wasn't all that bad. Plus, it was well worth it, look at the adorable little guy I got out of it.

HAPPY (LATE) BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Last Friday was my birthday. Anthony surprised me with tickets to a dinner cruise which I was so excited about. Some friends of ours from Vegas were already planning on being up here visiting that weekend and were awesome and said they would watch Connor Friday night while we went out on our date.

The cruise was a blast. The food was really really good which neither of us was really expecting. We sailed around to Coronado, under the bridge and around the harbor. The whole thing was about 4 hours and there were DJ's, bars, yummy food and just a nice time out.

The pictures from that night didn't turn out to well as it was quite windy and I have a crappy camera.

Anthony also got me the necklace that I had been drooling over! I LOVE my new pearls.

The next day we went to lunch and the beach. This was Connor's first time down by the water. We have taken him to La Jolla before but stayed in the grassy area. I'm not sure if it was the loud sound from the waves or the bright sun but he DID NOT enjoy himself there.

Nursery picture

This is one of my favorite things in Connor's room.

I found it one day while browsing through pages and pages of baby items on Etsy and knew instantly that i had to have it.

First Easter!

I was really looking forward to Connor's first holiday (Valentines doesn't count). Sadly Anthony ended up having to work all weekend, and we ended up not having any visitors that weekend so instead of being alone and stuck at home me and Connor braved the long road trip and headed down to Vegas to stay with my parents. A last minute trip, but well worth it.

After a failed attempt at seeing the Easter Bunny on Friday I returned to the mall 40 minutes before they opened on Saturday morning and was the 5th person in line for their pictures.

I'm starting to think that Anthony has trained Connor to hate photos and to be difficult and whiny when there is a camera around. That's how Anthony acts, and now Connor is being that way too! As soon as I sat him in that bunny's lap he was crying at the top of his lungs. Luckily the photographer was able to snap a shot while he was catching his breath so it didn't turn out all that bad!

On a side note, if the Easter Bunny charges $18 for ONE 5x7 I cringe at the thought of what I will be paying for pictures with Santa this year.

Sunday was a nice day. We headed over to my brothers house and had yummy ham, pasta salad, veggie pizza and lots of other yummy food. After a few hours over there me and Connor hit the road and arrived home a very long 7 1/2 hours later.

A few more photos

This little piggy...

Aren't these just the cutest little feet ever! I just wanna eat em up!

Anthony and I took Connor to our neighbors house to try and get some photos of him. We walked away with a few good shots and many shots of a super fussy baby. Of course the little man chose that day to be in the worst mood he has had in weeks.

The minute we got there all he did was fuss and cry and refuse to sit still! The minute we got home he was all smiles and talking... Just my luck!

Of all the shots we got this one of his feet is by far my favorite. I love baby feet in general, but this is just too precious! It really puts it into perspective how small he is. (and look how big my diamond looks! ;-) )

Smiles...

Smiles that make the heart melt....and are IMPOSSIBLE to catch with the camera. Connor smiles more and more everyday, especially when sitting up like a big boy. Problem is that he knows mom REALLY wants one on camera and the second my cell phone or camera comes out he wont smile or sit still. He got this trait from his dad.

Like father like son

I refused to buy Connor any camouflage outfits. First because we are surrounded by a sea of camo everyday where we live, but mostly because I just don't find it that cute. I love my husband in his uniform, but its not the camouflage that does it for me, its the uniform as a whole and what it stands for. Anyways..... I'm drifting from the point of this post- HOW CUTE IS THIS!

Connor is outfitted with both a desert Cami beanie as well as a winter one ( I cant remember what the winter ones are called..shame on me!).

Oh, and those aren't rolls on his arm, pure muscle baby ;-)

LONG OVERDUE

A week shy of 2 months after Connor's birth I am FINALLY finding the time to actually update this thing. I have wanted to since the beginning, but well.... life got in the way. Guess that tends to happen when your free time is no longer really free.

The last post I had on here was stating that my induction date was set. We made it to that date with no signs of labor until an hour before I was set to be at the hospital. I was having pretty bad contractions by the time we got me checked in, but not surprisingly they weren't productive and I was still only 1cm. Long story short- the induction sucked. I wont be one of those people that sits here and blames the Pitocin for all of my pain because I was in loads of pain the 10 hours I was there before I even had the Pitocin drip in. I'm just rather certain that my body just did not want to be in labor, hence the reason we had to force it 9 days after my due date. I think the uncontrollable shaking was just as bad as the contractions. I was in active labor for around 27 hours and I ended up pushing for 3 hours. Sounds fun right ;-)

The cliche is totally true, the second that little baby is placed on your chest all of the hell that you just endured is totally worth it, and then some.

We had a rough start with Connor and I'm still not 100% sure what my emotions/feelings are on the whole situation. I kinda feel like I got ripped off. Here we were thinking that Connor was 100% healthy and he obviously wasn't a premie and when my water bag broke it was completely clear... all was good. We went from being in our "everything will be perfect" world to them taking him away from us after only 45 minutes, returning him the next day and then 30 minutes later another Dr. coming in and escorting us and him down to the NICU where a team of nurses immediately surrounded him and start poking and prodding while their faces don't hide the shock when they heard what his blood counts where. Those ladies REALLY need to work on their poker faces.

In the end everything is 100% fine and Connor is a healthy little boy. Those 11 days in the NICU where no fun though. I attached a picture of his tiny little foot with the iv in it so you can all feel bad for him ;-( Even while we were there we couldn't help but feel blessed. Here was Connor laying in a normal bassinet weighing in over 8 lbs in a room with 2lb babies that cant be taken out of their ventilators or held by their poor parents. One of our favorite nurses even told us that ladies were calling "dibs" on who got Connor on their next shift since they aren't used to being able to hold normal size healthy babies.

We have been home now for a while and it didn't take us nearly as long as I was expecting to get used to the whole baby thing. We had (have) our long nights where Connor doesn't like to sleep, but normally he sleeps for at least a 4 hour stretch at night which is nice. Feeding is NOT an issue of ours, he is around 12lbs now! Our doctor jokes that he is fattening up for Winter, which me and Anthony don't find too funny..especially since winter is over ;-)
Its AMAZING how fast they change. I look at pictures that we took while we were at the hospital and I look at him now and feel like he's a completely different baby. We were so terrified of hurting him while we were at the hospital (the IV's and wires didn't help) that we treated him like a piece of china. We quickly learned once he got home that he is not nearly as fragile as we thought. He holds his head up for longer and longer periods of time every day and has just started cooing and talking back to me throughout the day.

As he gets more and more alert we are trying to take him different places around town. This past weekend we took a little family trip to La Jolla and laid down on the grass and hung out for an hour or so. I think he enjoyed the sounds of the waves.

My goal is to now update the blog at least once a week, which I think wont be an issue at all. There are lots of changes and things happening around here so I need to keep this thing up to date!