Zippity ZOO-da

Since super fun tax season is officially over Rusty was able to take a few days off last week to make up for lost family time so on Friday we went to the ZOO!!!! I'm pretty sure Conner had the time of his life (until he got tired) We thought that Friday before school got out would be a perfect time to go. Little did we know it was Kindergarten day for one of the school districts! yay! But despite the hundreds upon hundreds of 5 year olds running around it was a practically perfect day!

Seeing the elephants for the first time. I'm not sure he really knows what to think...

Just happy to be here.

"Look Guys!"

He was a little nervous to touch the giant elephant. Can you blame him?

The tiger was kind of sleepy when we saw him (or her?)

Documentation of the 3.7 minutes that Conner actually sat in his stroller.

The Giraffes were pretty cool too.

Even the shrubberies were noteworthy!

Of course we had to check this guy out.

He didn't know it was a drinking fountain until he saw some older kids getting a drink.  After that we had to go and play in his nasty gum diseased mouth.

Lunch time!

So there was this little Indian house thing and Conner LOVED it! He danced and played in it for probably 20 minutes. Oh, and there, in the reflection, is proof that I was actually there! The only picture of me on this little expedition. oops.

 Alright, so the animals were super fun and interesting, yada yada, but the highlight of Conner's trip to the zoo was...the Playground!!!

He spent forever going down the slide over and over again at a snails pace as he clung to the side.  

But he just kept going back for more

A little tunnel thing. He would never crawl, but he would scooch on his butt all the way through.

He saw the big kids playing on these so naturally he had to play on them too (since he thinks he's so big and all) 

Checking out the big water ball thing on the way out (look how little he looks next to the big kids!)

about 10 minutes into the ride home. What a day!

Smoke Detectors and Other Helpful Helpers

They say you should change your smoke detectors batteries every 6 moths. We have lived in our house for about 9 months and haven't checked them yet. I know, I know, slap on the wrist for us because I know that all ya'll check yours every 6 months to the day right? I kept putting it off because honestly I just kept forgetting. Growing up I was obliviously oblivious to the fact that they were checked and then when I moved out and lived in apartments the friendly housing people came twice a year and took care of it. Well, I can assure you I will be an on time changer from now on (maybe).

If you know me well you know that the only thing that I am truly particular about is my sleep. I love my sleep a little bit less than my family so when it's compromised I'm a little bit cranky. It's already had some problems the last few months with Rusty getting home so late and waking me up when he does (not that I complain because I get to talk to him for a min before I pass out again!), Conner not sleeping well because of missing daddy, and my pregnant bladder exploding every few hours. But about a week ago we added fire alarms! Rusty came home at about midnight and he came to bed and I quickly almost fell back asleep when I heard it. I was just at that point where I was about to fall into the pit of sleeping when I heard "chirp." I'm a light sleeper so I woke up immediately and brushed it off when I heard it again and thought "this thing better not chirp all stinkin' night!" I was almost asleep again when the full fledged fire alarm went off and I swear all the smoke alarms in the house were shrieking and this calm automated female voice saying "fire, fire" But after about 10 seconds it stopped. What the Heck! I counted it as a false alarm since I detected no signs of a fire and started to sleep again when it went off AGAIN! lame! We turned on the light and decided to check things out just to be safe. After looking in every room and the basement it was safe to say there was no fire, but now my baby was awake. Thanks non-existing fire fire alarm! So we hung out with Conner for about 30 min until he remembered he was tired and then put him back to bed. I did another once over the house because now I was paranoid and went back to sleep sure that it was all false alarms. But then it went off AGAIN! ugggggg! and then it chirped 2 more times. after the last chirp we decided that if it made so much as another peep we were taking out the batteries all together and would just take the risk of dying in an inferno.

Our problem? We don't have a ladder (we have vaulted ceilings and the nice instillation guys put one at the very tipity top), and I'm not a very good at jumping. I started coming up with all sorts of safe ideas of balancing chairs on tables and step stoops on chairs to make us tall enough. Lucky for us they didn't go off any more that night.

But then then went off the next night! (luckily at like 8:00pm and not the middle of the night) So Rusty's nice daddy came down with a ladder the next morning and changed the batteries for us. Don't worry, we're not so spoiled that he came down just for that. He was planning on coming anyway to spray our pretty weeds in the back yard so we can put our lawn in soon. (yay) I would have done it myself, but it's generally frowned upon for women in my delicate condition (Sighing as I put a hand up to my forehead and pass out) to handle toxic poison. Not sure why...and Rusty is only home between the hours of 1:00am-7:00am and it's kinda dark during then.

Anyway that was quite the tangent! So we hadn't heard anything for a little over a week when what happens 2 nights ago? It went off at 2:45am in the morning!!!(yeah, yeah, I know that's redundant, I'm just emphasizing the time.) Rusty wasn't home yet so I called him to let him know because it was lame and I was "just woken up from my princess sleep" mad and it went off again when I was talking to him!! He got home about an hour later, meanwhile it had gone off one more time a chirped a few others. He was super investigator when he got home and noticed that one detector we hadn't changed the batteries in was blinking red we changed all of the other batteries that we hadn't yet (we have a lot of smoke alarms in our house. we're super safe) and haven't heard anything since.

Ok, so that was reeeeeally long and more of just a rant at stupid smoke alarms that wake me up. Sorry if it was boring but I'm just so annoyed! And why do they always pick the middle of the night to tell us about non-existent fires? One of the great mysteries of life I guess...

Operation: FATTY and the big 0-2

Well friends, I have a TWO YEAR OLD! Conner turned the big 2 on Thurs. March 29. He got lots and lots of phone calls from everyone he knew and by the end every time the phone would ring he would start freaking out and running around screaming because he was so excited that someone else called (or maybe he was just excited that he could hold the phone again) Pretty funny.

I couldn't help it, here is a pic of him on his 1st b-day. He's gotten so big!

We didn't do too much for his actual b-day since his daddy is pretty darn busy with work this time of year (my goodness what was I thinking having a spring baby? oopises!) but we are planning on having a family party with grandparents and aunts and uncles etc sometime after April 15th.

Operation:FATTY Update
SO, we went to the doc today and the big weigh in reveal..........ready?!?!

23 lbs!! a.k.a. the 4%!

Last time he was 20 lbs and in the 3% so we're making progress! He is also 32.5 inches tall which puts him in about the 10th%. He got to stand on the big boy scale and be measured against the wall instead of the baby ways so he thought he was pretty big. We also stepped up a size in diapers this week moving from size 3 to 4 :)

Conner is such a funny kid. He definitely has a little personality in him. Here's a TON of pic from this past year to show it off.

He likes to smile! He's good at that one. oh, I just noticed the giant snot running down his nose. I guess it just shows that he can still be cute even when he's disgusting.

He's SO done with his high chair. About 2 months ago he just decided that he was way to much of a big boy to be in it. Now he sits at the table on a regular chair with us. Except now the high chair is just sitting in the corner of the dining room waiting for me to clean it off so I can put it away...but as you can tell it has seen some pretty wild battles making it not so appealing to clean off, so there it sits.

He's really good at making messes. I guess that means I'm really good at cleaning up messes.

He LOVES animals, (puppies especially) although it doesn't really look like it in this pic. But it was the only one I could find that had a four legged friend in it.

He can get his parents to do pretty much anything. (and I think he knows it) 

He loves the water and the sink. He usually just stands there with a toothbrush, but he went through this ice-cream scoop stage for a while...

He loves to Play his da dar (guitar) We even had to have it out so he could play with the MoTab during conference. This picture is a perfect example of what he looks like most of the time. 

I think he's seen mommy do her hair one too many times.

He loves to color, but we're thinking he might just be a lefty. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'll admit I'm a little nervous because I hear that it's harder to teach them certain things. Not to mention they're kind of annoying to eat by. Guess he'll be sitting on the end of the table!

We still have to lotion him up morning and night because of his eczema:( (hence the giant blob of lotion on his forehead) But he's a good little sport about it (most of the time)

He also loves to eat toodies (cookies) and nana's (fruit snacks)
He likes to play with his ca-dars ("cars". He likes his toy ones but he would much rather sit in a real car and "drive" it. He even knows where the key goes!! better watch him! yikes!)
He talks and talks and talks, but nobody, even me, has a clue what he's saying most of the time. someday...


So anyway, that is our 2 year old Conner in a nut shell. He's so much fun to have around and we love him sooooo much! He definitely makes life interesting:)