Random Shots of Connor

I finally downloaded pics from the point-n-shoot camera, so I thought I'd share some of them. Do I seem a little obsessed with the little dude? I can't help it. He was a long time coming....

November 3, my little aviator. I have to admit, I never realized how fun it is to dress up little boys. :)


This image was captured by our video camera using its "smile technology". Basically, it detects a smile and snaps a shot for you... It is pretty cute, I think.


November 21, at his very first birthday party (For Jasmine & Leonard Roggenbuck). See next post for details.


November 22, kickin' it before church. Don't his eyes look blue? or green. I can't tell yet. Either way, I was impressed with how well he did with the tie.


November 22, playing in the jumperoo.
Karina gave us this jumperoo when she found out we were expecting. Connor loves it!! He can play in it for 45 mins to an hour before getting bored. And, he's becoming quite the pro! He makes that thing spew all kinds of noise as he jumps around in it. He only hurt himself once, when his foot got stuck in the leg part of his footie pajamas and never made it to the floor when he went "down".... That's why you can see I put an elastic band around the ankles, to keep the footies on. He hasn't bonked his head since. :)

He is a very serious jumper...

It's very exciting! Thanks auntie Karina!!


Thanksgiving lunch at daycare, Nov 24.
His daycare invited the parents to a thanksgiving lunch on Tuesday. Since Ron didn't work that day, we both went! Mostly to meet other parents and have fun with Connor. I didn't realize, however, that it was also pajama day. So that's why everyone else (including Miss Tonya) is in PJ's. Oh, well. I'm notorious for getting those kind of things wrong... He looked cute in his outfit, though.

Ron is such a proud papa! He didn't want to put him down the whole time.


Connor sat in a booster seat, just for me. He still drinks a bottle, so there was no need for the food tray... but isn't it cute? :) sitting next to him is Ayden, a very cute little boy who is sometimes in Connor's room in the afternoon, waiting for parents. (They tend to combine kiddos in the late afternoon as they start dwindling off). In the back is Miss Tonya (on the right) sitting with some of the other kids. Adam is on the far left of the back table with his mom. He's in Connor's room all the time. We're still getting to know some of the others.

Connor was hungry, so Ron fed him.

And then, I wanted a turn, so Ron reluctantly agreed. :)

It's hard for me to take him to daycare 2x per week. But he does really well there. He's such a good baby! We are so blessed. I thank Heavenly Father daily for this new little blessing that has come into our lives. What would we ever do without him?

The many faces of our little man...

Well, I've been trying all week to get a good photo shoot with Connor. But, it would seem that he doesn't like to cooperate with contrived scenarios. For example, the first time I caught him smiling on camera was not because I set it up and had some fun toys to make him smile. No, that never worked. What happened was, he decided he wanted to be in a good, smiley mood, and I had to run and get the camera. Now, all this week, when I've found the "perfect" place to do a quick little shoot, Connor has been asleep, or grumpy, or hungry. Today, I "forced" it for a few minutes -- put him in his boppy chair on the table. (No worries -- he was supervised the whole time). Well, 20 shots later, he was done -- grumpy -- and this was the best picture I could get:



I mean, don't get me wrong. It's cute and everything, but it's not *star* quality. I mean, I gotta win this contest! :) So, this evening when Ron and I were having dinner, Connor was in his swing and started smiling contagiously. I grabbed the camera and started shooting (yes, even with the swing in motion, I got some great ones!). Now, IMO, *these* are star quality... You'll notice Elmo in the picture. Connor, however, is not smiling at Elmo, he's smiling at himself, since this is an Elmo mirror... (See way below). Yes, our boy is very egotistical. I put a mirror behind his carseat for me to be able to see him through my rear-view. Every time we put him in the car, he smiles at himself uncontrollably. I have this fun mirror book -- always makes him smile. So, of course, the Elmo mirror did the trick.

Here are the many expressions of my little star, Connor. Help me pick the best one to enter into the contest. :)


I tried to capture his point of view, but that was a bit trickier.... He would watch himself, then smile, then watch, then smile... here's what he saw:


What a fun boy! :)

OCD cats

We have cats that are seriously neurotic about certain things. Like, whenever I sit down to the computer, Adrianne is right there to comandeer my lap. Or, whenever Ron lays down for bed, Anna is there to keep warm beside him. Or, they only eat out of one side of the bowl. Usually I flip it around so they eat the other half... The last time we were out of town for a few days, we gave them fresh litter, left lots of water and piled on the cat food. They're usually fine for 2-3 days at a time this way, though they're usually ticked at us when we get back. Well, last time we came home after a 3-day excursion, and this is what we found:

I'm sure if they got hungry enough, they would have started on the other side... :)

more videos

I meant to include more videos in the previous post, but blogger wasn't uploading... So now I'll try one at a time... Tell me when you're sickof videos... :)

Here, Connor is on his bouncy seat. can you see the cute moose on his feet? :)

Some videos

We got the new HD camera in the mail, and have been taking some videos of Connor. Nothing earth-shattering, just mostly trying to get used to the camera before we go on vacation. It's a little grainy indoors, but that's to be expected... My mom wanted to see some more videos on here, so I thought I would oblige. She says it's like being right there. Better than nothing, right?

This first one, he grabbed one of his toys for the first time. I'm talking on the phone to my brother, Wayne, and I forgot to take it off of speaker.... oops! it's kind of funny, though. :)



In this one, he's playing with his jungle gym which is placed on our bed. Please ignore the messy room in the background!




We love having Connor around!

Yay for Connor!

Connor was holding his own bottle for dinner today!!! Yay! Granted it was only for ~30 seconds and it was probably an accident, but it was the first time he didn't push it away accidentally. He's getting so big!

I went and had lunch with him today at DC. When I first got there, he had *just* fallen asleep, so like a good mom I immediately woke him up. We read "Sheep in a Jeep" (which is hysterical, by the way. Check it out!), and then we played for half an hour. Then I fed him half a bottle before he fell into a milk-induced coma. Nothing like the power lunch -- squeezing a day's worth of mothering into just one hour!

And now, tonight, we're just hanging out downstairs in the office. He's eating his bottle and I'm holding it with my chin, finger-pecking the keyboard with one hand to type this up. (well, except for the 30 seconds where he held his own bottle!! :) I'm also downloading Mamie's higher-resolution pictures for her blog book (My Christmas present for her & Geoff -- turning her blog into a hard-bound book). I'm also doing one for Ronna & JR, but luckily the photos on Ronna's blog are already high resolution. Blurb has a really good software and they are inexpensive and good quality, so that's who I use. You can all order a copy of the book if you want to -- not a money-maker, but a good family history thing to have. :)

I don't have any new pictures of Connor. I know -- slacker! But I will soon. I'm going to enter a photo contest because that's the only way I can have a chance at Krissy's photography skills. OK, so Ron's boss at work does photography on the side, and she's really good!! She even offered to do Connor's pictures before he was born, but then she thought better (worse?) of it, feeling like it would be viewed as favoritism at work, since she was Ron's boss. So then I offered to pay her because I really like her work, but she thought that would be viewed as a conflict of interest. (We had all just taken the business ethics quiz online as a corporation... dang!). Anyway, now she's running a contest, and I can enter, and if I win, I'm in! :) My other option is to ask Wendel and Ashley to come down and do pictures because I really like their pictures too, but I really hate to impose. They're SO busy these days and Ashley is pregnant *and* in grad school, maybe during the holidays... who knows. Anyway, I'm going to try and do a photo shoot this weekend, so that means tons of great photos for you to enjoy!!! :) Until then, peace - out!

We got Nothin'!

Nothin' = Not one single trick-or-treater! And I know this because as I left for Trunk-or-Treating at the church, I left a nice big bowl of FULL-SIZE candy bars in a hall-o-ween platter with a sign that said "Please take one!" Right next to it was a plastic pumpkin with a light that you plug in, and the porch light was on. Not exactly screaming "come here!" but was friendly enough. I noticed how the bars were arranged so I could estimate how many kids came by. Usually we get 2-3. (We're kind of off the beaten path, which is good sometimes. :). This year: zilch. zero. nada. nadinho. The candy bars were still arranged in EXACTLY the same way when I got back. (keep in mind that in Oregon, we get dark at ~5:30pm in October -- soon to be 4:30 pm by the time we hit winter solstace). The bowl hadn't been touched. So, I thought, maybe it's still early enough, surely someone will come? Nope. So, the bowl of full-sized candy bars came inside with the 1/2 full Costco mini-bars that I took to trunk or treating. Sheesh! How am I supposed to lose any weight? The cats aren't going to eat this stuff!!!! better luck next year.

Nothin' = I didn't get any new pictures of Connor on Hall-o-Ween because, well, I was running late as usual. That's OK, though, because I already posted one earlier ("A Little Preview").

Nothin' = No talking on the video! Connor has been starting to talk, and I've been trying to get it on my "point-and-shoot" video. (No worries, we have a real "HD" video camcorder coming in the mail tomorrow, hopefully, so we can get real videos, not these crappy little PAS clips). It's so cute, because it's more than just a "coo". He's actually saying full sentences in baby language. I thought, if I could record it now, then as soon as scientists can decode the baby language, we can play it back and translate what he said. It must be super-secret, though, because every time I turn on the camera, he clams up and just stares at the camera. So, I turn the camera off, and away he goes again! I turn it back on, and nothin'! I'm going to keep trying, but for now, I'll post my best one. This was after he had eaten his second breakfast. First breakfast comes at 5:30 or 6am when he wakes up. (Did I mention he's sleeping through the night now? at about 8 weeks old, he started sleeping 5 hours at a time 2-3 nights per week. Now at 12 weeks, heoes down at ~10pm and wakes up at 6am every night. Yay! I just know I'm going to jynx it by posting it here, but I guess I'll h ave to take my chances). I try to get him to sleep some more after first breakfast, mostly because I'm still tired. (Just because he gets to go to bed at 10pm doesn't mean I do....). Second breakfast comes at ~8:30 or 9am. He's usually pretty active after that and has alot to say. That's why you see his blanket sleeper still there -- he just came out of it from his "morning nap". Try and ignore me whispering "Hi" in the background. He usually talks more if I'm talking back. But, I didn't want to talk right into the mic.... Eventually I'll get a better one.



Incidentally, last Thursday was his first day in day care. Well, not really because we only stayed a few hours and I was with him. It was more of a transition for me, than for him. Friday was his first solo day (all day). It was so sad for me!! He had a great time, though, and met some new friends. This was his outfit for his first day. So cute! Ms. Tonya loved it, too!

Honestly, have you ever seen a cuter baby???? (of course all of you other mothers will say "yes", but that's OK. :).