Happy Birthday Connor!

This post is about Connor's second birthday even though he's now 26 months old.  The next few posts will be woefully out of date but I'm going with "better late than never" on this.

Connor's birthday was train themed.  Kid loves trains.  We invited some close friends and family for an afternoon of cake and fun. It was great to have so many people celebrate with our little guy.  Like his first birthday, he woke up on the day of the party with a fever.  Luckily, a dose of ibuprofen and some new trains set him right. We spent quite a bit of time decorating the night before (even though it might not look like it!)

Connor demured while everyone sang "Happy Birthday" and then sat down to eat his cupcake.  He's not a big fan of sweets.  I think he only took a couple of bites of this before going back to playing with his trains. Note that he brought two of them to the table with him. 

Connor's cousin, Elliot, is a HUGE fan of sweets.  Here he is enjoying his cupcake like it's going out of style.

Cousin Kai was less impressed by the food.

We didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked but we had a great time. 

Connor's actual birthday fell on Thanksgiving.  We didn't do presents at his party so we started the day with presents and then went from house to house getting more turkey presents. For two days after, Connor kept asking "more presents?".  Here he is opening his presents from Mommy and Daddy.

Happy Birthday Connor!

Zowie!

Update: The video was originally set as private but I fixed it. Sorry!

Connor has a set of Batman jammies that I bought when I bought his Superman jammies.  Every time he wears them I sing him the Batman theme (from the 60's sitcom).  He's recently began singing along with me.  In fact, the Batman theme is the one and only song he can sing.  He calls it "na na na" and likes everyone to get in on the singing.  I took a video of the performance on a recent car trip.  Check it out.

Connor's tricks

I took this video in mid-June (almost caught up to the present).  Thomas was worried our home transition would limit us from documenting Connor as he was in late spring 2011.  Luckily, he performed all his best tricks in this car ride - dancing, pointing out Dada and Mama, animal sounds, and saying "buh bye".

Night night, dogs

Tonight as we got Connor ready for bed he was saying his goodnights.  He said "night night" to Daddy.  Then the dogs came in to say goodnight.  We are dogsitting for Zoe so there were two dogs to say goodnight to.  I told Connor to say goodnight to the dogs and he said "night night, dogs". This was the first time he'd ever combined two words! I can't believe how much he's learning.

Updates

It's been awhile since I've posted.  Thomas went on a business trip, then we all went on a mini vacation, then we all got sick.  Thomas had some plague, Connor had another ear infection, and I got a cold or something.  We're all healthy and home now.

In the past couple of weeks, Connor has really started talking more.  Talking is probably overstating, maybe communicating is a better word.  The most recent additions to his vocabulary are "yeah", "outside", "shoes", "jeans", "bath", and "cup".   He's also doing some sign for "please".  It's not exactly right but I'm pretty excited that he's starting to learn manners.  One language issue for us is "no".  Connor can say "no" but we're pretty sure he thinks it means "fun thing that bugs Mom and Dad - do more!".  He bangs a hairbrush against the TV, smiles and says "no".  He leans over in his high chair to hand his cheese to Smokey and again "no!".  We're working on it.

Just a little off the top

Connor got his first professional haircut recently. He looks like a little boy instead of a baby. This video isn't very exciting but you can see the concern in his face and in the death grip he has on that graham cracker.

2010 Year in Review

2010 was quite a year for our family. For Thomas and I, it was our first full year as parents.  It was a big change from our DINK lifestyle referenced in the title of this blog.  We started this blog because as we look back on the past year, the memories aren't as clear as we'd like that to be.  That's due to a  combination of sleep deprivation and too many exciting things to remember.  Here's a quick recap of some of the highlights month by month.

January: 
Thomas went on his first business trip as a Dad.  Emily and Connor survived!
February:
Connor started day care.  Emily went back to work.
March:
We celebrated the wedding of our friends Jaimee and Jason.
April:
Connor discovered his feet.
May:
Thomas turned 30. We celebrated with a barbecue.
June:
Connor took swim lessons.
July:
Thomas and Connor took advantage of early morning wakings by watching the 2010 World Cup.
August:
We took our first family vacation to Breckenridge, CO.
September:
Emily and Thomas celebrated their 6th anniversary.
Connor progresses from army crawling to regular crawling.
The kitchen remodel begins.
October:
Travel to Atlanta for Elaissa's wedding.
Connor's first plane trip is a success!
November:
Connor's first birthday and first illness.
Connor is a walker!
The kitchen remodel is (mostly) finished.
December: 
Emily turns 30.
Connor says some words: "agua", "Mama", "Dada", "uh-oh". (Editor's note: as I typed this he also said "up".)


This is a digital version of a photo book I made capturing the highlights of Connor's first year.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Connor's first birthday

Connor turned one on November 24th.  We didn’t do much to celebrate on the actual birthday because we were preparing for Thanksgiving and attending the Thanksgiving recital at his day care.  His birthday party was planned for Saturday.  On Thanksgiving evening, Connor got sick. He was a little better but Saturday things took a turn for the worse. He spent the entire day being held by mom.  Needless to say, he was not in the mood to party.  Rather than cancel the party,  we filled a prescription for antibiotics and hoped for a recovery.  We had many guests from out of town and didn’t know when we’d reschedule.  Many of Connor’s family and friends came to watch him eat cake and open gifts. Instead they watched Connor lie listlessly on my chest.  He did rally for a bit.  Just in time to celebrate the Korean tradition of Toljabee.  I don’t know much about the origins of this tradition but every kid in Thomas’s mom’s family has put on the Korean garb and reached for the item that predicts their fortune.   Thomas wore this same outfit when he was one.  The items on the table were a pencil, string, and money.  The pencil symbolizes intelligence, the string represents long life and the money is (obviously) wealth. After a moment of quiet contemplation, Connor went for the pencil.

We’re hopeful that he’ll use this intelligence to earn his wealth and use it for health insurance to prolong his life.

After the Toljabee Connor made angry faces at everyone while refusing to eat cake and then went back to laying on mom for the gift opening.

A sick baby does not make for a great party but we were grateful for all the people who came to share the special day. The good thing about having a baby born in the week of Thanksgiving it’s easy to find things to be thankful for.