Movie Sunday

It snowed again today. Seriously??? It's March 30th! Both kids got up pretty early today, but we didn't have much planned, so we hung out in our pj's for a while. Sydney painted some pictures and made a car out of a tissue box and toilet paper tubes. I thought that was pretty creative of her to come up with that on her own!

Brad and I went to see Pentatonix last night. The show was good, but not as good as the last time we saw them. Something was off with the sound and it just wasn't great. But we got to try a new restaurant for dinner and it was delicious! Since I've had to eliminate dairy from my diet, eating in restaurants is a challenge, but this place was really accommodating and the food was great.

Connor wore his overalls for the first time yesterday. They had Mickey on them and he was pretty excited about that :)

Sorry this one's sideways. Razzy found a new sleeping spot in Sydney's pile of laundry. Sydney has a habit of turning her clothes inside out when she takes them off and I've told her that I won't wash them unless she turns them back the right way. So there's a giant pile of clothes that she needs to turn the right way and Razzy thought it was a good place to nap...

I told Sydney last night when we left for dinner that if she had a good night with the babysitter that she could watch Frozen (again) today. She had a great night, so I let her watch again after breakfast this morning. Here, she's showing me how loose her tooth is. It's still hanging on, so we may well have to head back to the dentist :( 

I'm pretty awful at getting Connor to nap. He naps pretty well at daycare, just not at home. The only place I can really get him to sleep is in his car seat if we're out running errands and he happens to fall asleep in the car. Sometimes he'll fall asleep nursing and I'll let him "nap" in my lap. Never lasts more than 10 minutes, but I guess it's enough to help carry him to the next "nap." He had his cat nap on my lap while Sydney and I were watching Frozen. 

Brad had to leave for a work trip this afternoon :( Sydney and I continued Movie Sunday and watched Despicable Me 2. That's one of her favorite movies now and we listen to "The Happy Song" in the car all the time. I'll have to try to get a video of her singing it sometime.

After almost 4 long hours, Mr. Connor is finally asleep, so I think it's bedtime for me too! Hope you're all doing well!

Laughing Baby

I also posted this on Facebook, but thought it was appropriate to post here as well. Sydney makes Connor laugh so much! She started laughing at him and he laughed in response. I tell you, if I've had a rough day (either lack of sleep, bad day at work, bad commute, etc.), hearing his laugh makes everything better! He's such a happy baby.

Where is spring???

It snowed again this week. Seriously - it's almost April! Where is spring???

Connor's back at daycare this week - fingers crossed his ear is now clear and we're on the mend. He finally went back to mostly normal on Monday night and only woke twice to nurse, but went back down in his crib just fine. It's been hard for him to lay down because of his ear, so it must be a little more comfortable now. His teachers are also fabulous at getting him to nap, so 2 good naps at school on Monday really helped bedtime that night. Yesterday, he had a FOUR hour nap at school. Bedtime wasn't nearly as good - I think he was just hungry because he slept through the day! We may have to lay his crib flat again (it's elevated on one end to help with his reflux). He now manages to scoot himself sideways, which doesn't look very comfortable with the mattress on an incline!

One thing I love about Connor's school is that they use iPads to keep track of their daily activities and to take pictures and videos. At the end of each day, we get the daily reports emailed to us and pushed to an app on our phones. It's pretty slick and gives us a nice record of what's going on without having a bunch of paper piling up. This weeks theme in his class is "Flying Feathered Friends," i.e. birds. My least favorite thing! They do lots of art activities - this one was making a picture of a bird with feathers :) I think it's actually quite funny that they have a "lesson plan" in the infant room (they're all under 6 months old), but it's cute.

He doesn't look amused, does he?

Sunday was a rough day. Connor wouldn't sleep AT ALL and I was really tired and frustrated. My dear, sweet Sydney made me this picture, which instantly brought a smile to my face.

I think Connor's working on some teeth, but we can't feel anything yet. 

Sydney and I went to the dentist yesterday. She was excited to show them her wiggly teeth and adult teeth coming in behind them. Apparently my advice to leave the teeth alone was wrong and the dentist wants her to wiggle, wiggle, wiggle! Because her adult teeth are coming in behind the baby teeth, the baby teeth will probably need some help to come out. If they're not out in a few weeks, we'll have to go back to the dentist and have her help. 

This week is a dinosaur theme at Sydney's school. I love her Dinosaur Tale!

We got the first fish for the aquarium tonight! It has to stay in the quarantine tank for 30 days to make sure it's not sick, but we're excited to have it finally. We got a clown fish and Sydney named it Sarah :) 

Here's hoping that the weather warms up and that we can get outside to play a little this weekend. Or at least go for a walk! Swimming is over now and soccer starts in a few weeks, so we have our Sunday free again. Brad and I are going to see Pentatonix on Saturday night and are really looking forward to it! 

New Blog!

Hi all! Now that Connor is 4 months old, I thought I should start blogging again to keep everyone updated on what's going on. We'll keep Sydney Talk around, but thought we'd switch over to this domain so we can all contribute.

Let's see...Sydney is halfway through her Kindergarten year and is doing extremely well. We've had our fair share of snow days this winter, though, so we're all ready for spring to come. She loves reading and is reading well above her grade level. I think we have a bookworm on our hands! She also loves to draw, build things with blocks, build marble mazes (ask her about her QBaMaze set...she adores it!), and play with her princess dolls. Brad also got a few games for her that she's been enjoying playing (games that I don't have the attention span for). She does love to play TriOminoes with me, though (it was my mom's favorite game, so that's pretty special to me). This semester they are focusing more on math at school (much to my liking), so we've been having fun giving each other word problems to do. Things like:

Sydney has 10 apples. Sydney gives Brad 3 apples. How many apples does Sydney have left?

I really can't believe she'll be done with her Kindergarten year in a few short months! She's got two adult teeth coming in and has one loose baby tooth. She's very excited to show the dentist her new teeth next week!

I've been back to work for a little over a month. The work part hasn't been too bad, but the logistics of mornings and evenings are significantly more complicated now. There wasn't a spot for Connor at Sydney's school, so he's at a different location, which means 2 drop offs and 2 pick ups (in opposite directions from where we live). Sydney will be moving to his school for the summer session, though (couldn't move her now because she's in Kindergarten). Then she'll start public 1st grade in the fall, so we'll be back to different drop offs. It is what it is, though, and we love both kids "schools."

Connor is doing great too! He's adapted to daycare really well, though has been home with me for the last 2 weeks due to illness and snow days. It started out with his first ear infection (like his sister, his only "symptom" was awful sleep). We had a few days of bad congestion and being awake from 11pm to 4:30am, and we knew something was wrong. His doctor confirmed the ear infection and started him on his first round of antibiotics. A few days later, he started vomiting pretty badly. We weren't sure if he was having a reaction to the antibiotic or if he had a stomach bug. An ER visit and a pediatrician visit later and we're pretty sure it was "just" a stomach bug that was going around his school. I also came down with it, as did Brad, but thankfully Sydney was spared. Needless to say, there has been lots of hand washing and Lysol spraying around here lately. The day we finally took him back to daycare, I got a call to come pick him up - he had broken out in a rash from head to toe. The director sent me pictures and it was enough to concern me, so I rushed to get him and take him to the doctor. Looks like it was "just" hives, probably from whatever virus has been making him feel bad. He's already on Zantac for reflux, so we decided not to give him Benadryl unless the hives started really bothering him (Zantac has some antihistamine properties already).

I took him back to the doctor the following day to get his 4 month vaccines (which were already delayed because he had been sick when he was supposed to get them) and to check his ears again. Wouldn't you know, a SECOND ear infection. Poor guy. They put him on a different antibiotic that doesn't have a cross reaction with the first one he was on. I hate that he's so little and has been on so much medication, but we need to treat it.  His ears have made it hard for him to sleep. Prior to all of this illness, he had been mostly sleeping through the night, sometimes waking to nurse once, but going back down pretty easily. Now he sleeps pretty well from 8 or 9pm to 1 or 2am, but won't go back to sleep after 3. Makes it *really* hard to get up for work when the alarm goes off at 4:45. He's also lost a fair amount of weight over the course of this illness, so we're hoping that he starts gaining again before the next ear check. He's a little guy at 11lbs 10oz.

Sydney's doing her second session of dance (tap / ballet) and is looking forward to her recital in June. We've also recently started swimming again. She almost finished Level 3 this time and we'll probably wait until dance is over to sign up again (2 activities is about the max we can jam in the schedule). Connor and I have been taking a mommy and me swim class while Sydney's in her class and he LOVES it! The pool where we go is really warm and pretty shallow. He actually fell asleep in class last week while floating on his back with his head on my shoulder. I really wish I could have gotten a picture! Sydney will start soccer again in a few weeks - it'll be nice to get outside again and I'll bet Connor will enjoy being able to sit in the grass and eventually start crawling around.

Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks / months. I'll try to stay more up to date going forward...these are all from my phone, so not great quality. I really need to get the camera out more often, though my new laptop with Windows 8 makes it really un-fun to edit pictures.

Family Selfie at bedtime. Quite possibly the only picture in existence of the 4 of us together.

Poor sick, tired boy :(

I think they're related...top is Sydney, bottom Connor. Sydney laughs at her hair in this picture.

This one's for Grammy...he does cry and we do take pictures of him crying...

Sydney loves to entertain Connor in the mornings while I get my coffee. She's such a great big sister. 

We're still working on matching. This is one of Sydney's "gems."

Connor's first trip to the library. The hat is from her friend, Julia's birthday tea party. Sydney also got her very own library card and is now responsible for keeping track of when her books are due.

I told you she was a book worm...this is how she fell asleep one night!

My Valentine's Sweeties!

Razzy likes Connor's piano gym too. Or maybe just the fire :)

Connor got to feel snow for the first time! Don't worry - he wasn't out for more than a minute, hence no hat. 

More later...hope everyone is well!