July

July flew by so fast! Here's what we've been up to since getting home from our trip to Idaho. 

I did some babysitting for a friend. It was all day, and they have a house and a yard, so Connor and I went to their house so I could watch their boys. They had more room to play and more toys to play with so it was great. Connor loved getting to play with all the new-to-him toys. He spotted this toy car when we were outside and immediately climbed inside. He doesn't know or is too little to walk these cars forward or backward yet, but that doesn't stop him from loving them. He "drives" the car by turning the wheel back and forth as fast as he can, then he opens the door gets out, closes the door, opens the door and gets inside again to do some more driving. He's content to play like this for hours. This car is all he played with when we were outside in their yard. Haha! I'm thinking we're going to need to get him one of these for his birthday or maybe Christmas this year. 

The Weber Library in North Ogden reopened at the end of June after a two-year closure for remodeling. We all love the library, and have been driving to the branch in Roy to get our books. It's not a long drive to the Roy branch, but it's nice to have our branch that's only a few blocks away open again. Connor loved the lava lamp style floor tiles, the parakeets, and the toys at the Roy branch. He also liked running around the large open ground floor and darting between the stacks. The new North Ogden Branch is smaller, but just as fun. Except there's no parakeets. He's going to miss the parakeets.

On Thursday mornings they have Discovery Time for children ages 0-5. We've gone a few times during July. It's been a fun outing for Connor and I during the week. We enjoy the walk over and love our time at the library. The first time we went, he was little terror though. He wouldn't sit down on the rug, on a chair, or on my lap, he just wanted to run around the room. He kept stealing the library lady's props from behind the chalkboard and when we were singing a song about ice-cream, he grabbed one of the colored paper ice cream cones from her hand. This started a bit of a riot with the other kids (they all wanted and ice-cream too), and they all ran to the front of the room swarming the lady until she handed out the remaining ice cream cones. 

He liked the music portion of story time, especially when the instruments came out. The kids got to hold a pair of wooden sticks to tap and rub together to make a beat while we sang songs. He wasn't interested in doing that though. He just wanted to hold them and suck/chew on them and try to hold them between his chin and chest without any hands. Haha! I didn't think he was listening to the lady at all until she asked the kids to hold the sticks in front of their tummies and tap them together. Connor immediately dropped his sticks and lifted up his shirt and pointed at his stomach. Haha! He also tried to escape more than once, running out the door of the room and darting into the stacks. I had to chase after him each time and carry him back. It's a fairly low key event, so his craziness was mostly fine. I'm plan to keep taking him. Hopefully between this and nursery he will start to learn that he needs to sit quietly and listen when it's time to do so. 

    

At the end of Discovery Time the kids get to do a simple craft. The first time we went, we got to make lions or sunshines out of paper plates. I helped Connor make a lion and tried to get him to color the plate, but he wasn't interested. Once I finished the lion, he decided he wanted to color, but only on the back of the plate. He wasn't too impressed with my creation, but he liked his scribbles.

    

He's already gotten a bit better about behaving and listening during Discovery Time. The last time we went, he sat down for part of the time. When he was standing, he wasn't running around, just standing in place. He only tried to escape from the room once. He actually listened to most of the books she read. He got very excited about the books and songs and other kids and kept squealing very loudly in delight. He was so excited when the instructor brought out the bin of instruments. Each of the kids got to hold a wooden stick with silver bells and ribbons attatched. Connor whispered "wow" when he first got his. He examined the bells and the ribbons closely and then all the sudden started to shake and wave the stick around. He was so excited he kept laughing and shrieking while dancing and running around. He had a lot of fun that morning. When it was time for the craft, he really got into coloring his airplane picture. 

    

The remodeled library has display cases of fossils, animal bones and skulls, taxidermy animals, and bugs. Connor loves to look at all of these treasures, and we spend lots of time doing so during each visit. He loves to growl and point at his teeth when he sees the saber tooth tiger and alligator skulls. Some of his other favorite things are the giant beetles and stick bugs, stuffed skunk, giant cobra snake, and the blue crab.

Oh, and I can't forget the raptor foot and claws. He loves to look at that as well. There is a lot of roaring/growling, pointing, and hand waving when we find the dinosaur foot.

I love that the kids section has toys for the kids to play with. Connor likes to play with this giant wire and bead toy. He also likes to walk on the lava lamp style floor tiles. When you step on the giant squares, the green liquid inside moves away from your foot. He likes to stamp his feet on the tiles to make the green stuff move. 

The real treasure for him at the library is the toy cars. They have a few open bins of toys that the kids can play with. They hold things like magna-tiles, dolls and furniture for the nearby doll house, giant lego blocks, and various toy cars. One bin holds an assortment of wooden toy vehicles like police cars, ambulances, school buses, firetrucks, helicopters, etc. The other bin holds plastic tractors, cars, trucks, and carts that are all the same size and can hook together to make a long train of vehicles. He loves the wooden and plastic cars equally. On our last visit he kept handing me cars to add to his train of vehicles. Once it was sufficiently long enough (ten or so cars hooked together) he proceeded to push it around on the floor. He got quite irritated if one of the cars fell off. Once I fixed it for him, he was happy again, and went back to pushing the cars along the floor. 

Before we leave the library, we pick out a stack of books to take home and enjoy for the week. Connor is really getting into books lately, and we have a lot of fun reading through our stack each night before bed. The last batch of books included books about caterpillars, a mouse going to school, and a color book with trucks and motorcycles. All big hits.

We've been doing our own crafts at home. Connor loves to paint with water colors, so we've had fun painting pictures. He also likes to color with crayons, so we've been coloring lots of pictures--some freehand and some in his coloring book.

Connor has become obsessed with his pacifier lately. One day awhile ago I had the thought that I should probably start breaking him of the habit of needed one. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, he decided that he needed his pacifier all day everyday. Before that he used it at night and only occasionally during the day. I try to keep the pacifiers put away, out of reach and out of mind, but somehow he always finds one. In fact, he's started carrying two around with him when he can get his hands on more than one. He would suck on one and hold the other, switching them periodically. Then one day he realized he can fit two in his mouth at once. He thought this was great and laughed quite a bit at his trick. He usually doesn't suck on two at once, but will still occasionally put two in his mouth to be silly or tease me.

Connor loves to play with daddy's tools. I pulled them out the other day for something, and he got so excited. He sat and pulled the tools out one by one, examining them each closely. He especially loves the pliers and the socket wrench. It's hard to drag him away from the tools long enough for me to put them away. 

    

One day I found Connor playing with all of his toy cars. He was pushing them one at a time across the floor and lining them up under the couch. Then he would push them each back across the floor and line them up by the bookshelf. The first few times he did this, he wouldn't use his orange or red car, just the three blue ones. I guess he likes a matched set. Haha! Eventually the color difference must have stopped bothering him, because he now includes the orange and red cars. I find his cars lined up in various places throughout the house--at the base of the kitchen cabinets, on the couch, outside on the balcony, behind our chair, under the table, etc. It's so cute and I love it.

Connor really likes dinosaurs. He really likes to pretend to be a dinosaur and chase us around the house trying to "eat" us. He stands up with his arms outstretched in front of him (mummy-style) and starts to growl. He'll run over to one of us and stand there growling with his arms outstretched until we play along and run away from him. He chases after us trying to maintain his fierce growl but always ends up laughing. He loves to chase us around and catch us. Sometimes when he growls and chases us he's pretending to be a lion, but most of the time it's a dinosaur. This has become part of our bedtime ritual. Change his diaper, brush his teeth, and play dinosaur chase before settling down in bed to read books. We loved this boy of ours so much.

We're working on getting him to use a quiet/indoor voice. When we are at church, the library, or a store and he's being loud, I ask him to use his quiet voice ("remember we have to use our quiet voice inside") and he immediately covers his mouth with his hands and starts to whisper. It's the cutest thing. He's not quiet for long. As soon as he lowers his hands he's back to being loud, but at least he listens for a few minutes.

    

We visited Union Station in Ogden to tour the museums there and see the trains. There was a street fair on nearby 25th street, so we wandered through the booths before going over to the museums. It was so hot out (high 90's) that we didn't spend too much time there. We were anxious to get inside and cool off.

We stopped to look at the locomotives, switch engines, boxcars, cabooses on display outside Union Station first. Connor was in heaven. He was so excited to see real trains. They were huge! Even as I'm writing this Connor is crawling over me trying to get a closer look at the pictures of the trains. Haha!

We had fun wandering around the trains, and Connor pointed out each part he recognized. He was very excited when he found the wheels. He started pointing at them and grunting. When we got closer he excitedly moved his hands in a circle to mimic the way the wheels turn. I think the wheels were his favorite part. He also got excited when he noticed the trains' lights, bells, and smokestacks.

Inside we visited the Browning-Kimball Classic Car Museum. They had a lot of cars packed into that one room. Brian liked the 1929 Packard and I thought the horseless carriage was cool.

Next we visited the John M. Browning Firearms Museum. There were a lot of guns to look at. Connor loved running around and in between the glass-cased exhibits. I enjoyed looking at the guns, but mostly followed Connor around to keep him out of trouble while Brian took time to look at the guns more closely. He really enjoyed this museum.

We spent most of our time in the Utah State Railroad Museum. Connor, our little train enthusiast, was once again in heaven and darted from place to place. He was just so excited with all the train stuff surrounding us. We might have to go back when he's older, and a little more calm. Haha! It was hard to actually get to look at everything when you're chasing a toddler around. We did get to see Utah's Centennial Gold Spike. It is kept in the original safe that held the real Golden Spike.     

    

We also got to see a railroad dispatcher's control panel. It was very cool. We had fun pushing buttons and flipping switches. I think I would have liked that job.  

We also got to see a telegraph key. There was so much stuff on display including conductor uniforms, dishes from a dining car, paintings of trains, and various artifacts from the construction of the transcontinental railroad.

The star exhibit in the railroad museum, at least for Connor, was the model railroad. He was beyond excited when he spotted the first miniature train running on the track. It's quite the elaborate setup with tracks running through tunnels and on bridges spanning overhead the walkway. It was fun to walk along the exhibit, following the various trains along their routes. 

At the end of July, Connor turned 20 months. Time is just going so fast. I can't believe that July is over and that in four months our little guy will be two! He still is not talking, although he's really started to say no (Nah!) lately. He wears 12 months shirts, 12 month (although I think I need to switch him to 18 month) pants, size 4 shoes, and size 5 diapers. He still takes one nap a day (lasting 2 to 3 hours) and sleeps 9 to 12 hours a night. Some of his favorite foods include strawberries, raspberries, cherries, yogurt, hamburgers, anything with ketchup, bagels and cream cheese, hot dogs, and jam sandwiches.

Brian keeps busy with work and his calling, and I'm busy with keeping house and taking care of Connor. The usual. We've still been looking for a house to buy. We actually found a townhouse with an unfinished basement that we loved. We put in an offer on it, but were beat out by someone else. Out of nine offers we came in second. We were so close, and although we're disappointed, we're hopeful we'll find something else. Hopefully sooner rather than later.