August just seems to have flown by. We found a few fun activities to fill our weekends and evenings.
We've have fallen in love with the little park next to Lee's Marketplace. We love to go and feed the ducks. It's the perfect family activity for a weekday evening. It's close by, simple, and a lot of fun. Brian and have fun feeding the ducks, but it's more fun to watch Connor's excitement as he feeds them himself. He squeals and claps with delight every time a duck eats the bit of bread he threw down.
I got Connor some new pajamas...Thomas the Train themed, and he loves them. He picks them out to wear every time I give him a choice of pajamas. He excitedly points at the trains on his shirt and pants. The kid is a little obsessed with trains and cars. At the first of the month I gave him a haircut. I buzzed his hair with the clippers. He surprised me by not being scared of the clippers. Connor sat on Brian's lap during the process. At one point, he got some hair in his mouth and it made him gag. He gagged so hard that he threw up...all over Brian. Poor Brian has gotten it every time. They both were covered in hair and vomit. I was very glad that we were in the bathroom. We stripped Connor down and put him in a bath to clean him up. His hair was only halfway done, so after his bath I finished the job. He didn't freak out as I finished, and we made sure to keep the hair out of his mouth. I tried to get a picture of him with his new haircut the next day, but he wasn't having it. I did managed to snap a picture while he was crying.
Our Connor-boy continues to grow and develop. He turned 21 months old (it's getting hard to keep track) and weighs 23 pounds. I haven't measured his height lately but he can now easily reach the picture frames I keep on the third shelf up on our bookshelf in the living room. He wears size 5 shoes, size 18 month pants, 24 month/2T shirts, and size 5 diapers. He still is not talking, although a couple weeks ago he said "wow" a few times while we were reading stories at bedtime. He refuses to say it again. Haha! He'll say "buh-buh" for bubbles and "bah-bah" for baby. Whenever we ask him to say mom or mama he still says "DAH!" very exuberantly and then laughs. Little stinker.
He is still a night owl, and his bedtime is 9 o'clock although he rarely falls asleep before 10 pm. We've tried and tried to get him down for an earlier bedtime, but no matter how consistent we are, his internal clock refuses to budge. Connor is also very inconsistent with eating. I wouldn't really call him a picky eater, although he's more selective in what he'll eat that he used to be. He'll go multiple meals where he barely eats anything and then he'll eat everything in sight for a couple meals before going back to barely tasting his food. He always surprises me with what he likes too. He won't eat a pb&j but he'll eat chicken fried steak all day long. Haha! Strawberries seem to be his favorite fruit, although he enjoys raspberries, peaches, apples, grapes, and bananas as well. He loves yogurt, raisins, hamburgers, and anything with ketchup. Some of his other favorite foods include quesadillas, potstickers, Grandma Westover's Chili, and hot dogs.
We went to the Weber County Fair on August 11th. Our second year going. Connor was much more interested in the animals this year. He had so much fun running around looking at everything.
He especially loved the goats and cows. He ran from pen to pen pointing and growling at the goats. He was hesitant to pet them though, until a young girl brought a baby goat over for him to touch. He thought that was pretty cool. After that he wanted to pet them all. I have the most pictures of him looking at the goats...we had to stop and look at every one.
When we got to the cows, he ran excitedly from stall to stall. He'd look for a minute, point at the cow, and then run to the next one. This kid is the energizer bunny. He loved to listen to the cows moo and did a lot of mooing himself. He keeps his lips closed when he moos, so it's a muffled sound, but he does it with gusto. He wouldn't pet any cows...I think they were just a little to big and intimidating.
We stopped briefly to see a few pigs. Connor was not sure about them at all. He wouldn't get very close, but he was excited when he heard one grunt. There were so many flies around the pigs that they kept buzzing around us and landing on our faces. Connor didn't like that at all.
Next we visited the rabbits. Connor liked them a lot and when I pointed out that they wiggled their noses, he scrunched up his nose and breathed in and out really fast. It was adorable. He loved petting the bunnies. We didn't stay super long near the rabbits, because Connor's cheeks and eyes got red, and he started rubbing his eyes. I wonder if he has allergies.
We had fun looking at the chickens, although Connor was rubbing his eyes a bit while we were around their cages. I don't know if it was something still bothering him from the bunnies, or something from the chickens. The loud cock-a-doodle-doo's of the roosters startled him each time. I don't think he hated the chickens, but he didn't love them.
He wasn't sure what to make of the turkey either.
We were all very hot and sweating by that time so we ducked into the arena to cool off. They were doing some sort of draft horse show, and Connor loved watching the horses.
Before leaving we stopped at the petting zoo. We got a cup of food and walked around petting and feeding the animals. Connor loved to pet the goats.
He was a little hesitant to feed the goats at first until he saw us do it. Brian helped him hold his hand out in the right position, and when the goat nibbled the grain off his hand he got the biggest smile on his face.
Afterwards, he started clapping and ran around in a circle doing his little stompy-feet dance. He immediately wanted to do it again.
Our other favorite animals in the petting zoo were the watusi cow, baby pot belly pig, and the brand new litter of piglets. The cow's horns were quite large and impressive. The picture I got doesn't do them justice. The baby pigs were just adorable!
Brian and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary this month. How we've been married for 12 years already, I don't know. It's been a wild, crazy, amazing ride so far, and I feel so blessed to be married to my best friend. We celebrated by going to dinner at Ruby River Steakhouse and then to see the movie Ant Man and the Wasp. Dinner was great and the movie fun. We enjoyed our evening together while the grandparents babysat Connor.
Connor and I still enjoy our weekly trips to the library. We love finding new books to read and going to story time. He's slowly getting better about sitting down and paying attention instead of running around the room. He loves the toys we find at the library too. Although he usually gravitates towards anything with wheels, one afternoon he had fun playing with some animals.
Speaking of things with wheels, while grocery shopping the other day we found a cart that had steering wheels for Connor to play with. He had so much fun "steering" the cart through the store.
They have a ton of toy cars in the nursery at church. Connor spends the entire time playing with the cars. One Sunday, he claimed an entire bin of cars for himself. He had a blast taking the cars and trucks out one by one, examining them, and then placing them in a line. He was in heaven.
Connor has really gotten into coloring lately. He colors like he does any other activity...with lots of energy and speed. He likes to hold one crayon in each hand and scribble back and forth or in circles as fast as he can. Then he neatly sets the crayons down in a line before getting two new ones to use.
One evening we went to Five Guys for dinner in downtown Ogden. They have a lot of horse statues scattered about the sidewalks in that part of town. Connor was adamant that we stop and pet each one we walked past.
Scott, Kiley, Sadie, and Kate came to visit us over Labor Day Weekend. Connor and I went with them to the SeaQuest Aquarium in Layton on the Friday they were here. We had a lot of fun looking, touching, and feeding the animals. Connor and Sadie were a little wary to touch anything, but Kate loved touching everything. The sea anenomes were kind of creepy. They felt like jelly, and it creeped me out a little when one of them started to wrap around and cling to my finger.
Connor is only 3 1/2 months older than Kate. Connor is taller than Kate, but she has him beat on weight. They are so cute together. Seeing them play together almost made me think that twins would be fun...almost.
Connor and Kate were fascinated by the giant boa constrictor. A nearby caretaker told us that it had just eaten a 7lb rabbit about four days before. Kate was content to just look and point at it through the glass. Once Connor noticed the lock on the glass, he immediately grabbed it and started pulling on it to open the cage. We have to keep a close eye on this kid.
Another favorite part, at least for us parents was the tortoise that was just wandering loose. He was so cool. Connor was quite wary of him though and stayed at least 5 feet away at all times. I picked Connor up and held him while I petted the tortoise, showing him it was safe. He wasn't convinced and refused to touch it and wanted down so he could run away. Haha!
Sadie didn't like the turtle either. She jumped on her dad's back and lifted her legs up so the turtle couldn't get her.
Just around the corner in the next room, we found a large statue of a turtle. When Connor first saw it, he jumped and backed away. He thought it was another live turtle and wanted nothing to do with it. It made me laugh a lot. Once I had convinced him that it wasn't real, he was willing to sit on it's back.
The iguanas were pretty cool too. Most of them were smaller green ones, but there was one very large orange iguana. We got to feed them thin slices of lemon, which was fun. They would stick their big pink tongues out and grab the lemon with them. We got to pet them, and I tried to get Connor to touch them but he wouldn't. Their skin was very bumpy and rough but also soft at the same time.
We also got to feed some birds. The caretaker let us in and once we were seated he gave us plastic cups filled with some sort of thick green liquid. We held the cups out in our hands and the birds immediately started to fly down and land on our hands. One even landed on Kiley's head. The food cups and lids on them, and the birds pried the lid off with their beaks then started to eat. We had fun watching the birds eat, and Connor even tried to reach out and touch their tail feathers. Connor eventually got bored and slipped from my lap onto the floor. We were supposed to stay seated on the bench, so I had to struggle to pull him back into my lap with one hand while my other hand held a cup and supported two or three birds. Haha! It was touch and go for a minute, but I managed to get Connor back onto my lap.
We got to touch some stingrays, but Sadie and Connor were more interested in playing in the observation space underneath their cube.
We all got manicures while we were there. You can put your hands in an open tank filled with doctor fish. The little fish swim over to your hand and eat the dead skin from it. If felt slightly ticklish but wasn't unpleasant. Sadie and Connor refused to put their hands in the water, but Kate loved it. My hand did feel a bit smoother afterwards.
Kiley loved it so much that she got a pedicure too! Scott actually got her a ticket to do this. She got to sit in the chair for 15 minutes while the fish ate dead skin off her feet. I don't know if she was very relaxed during the process, but it was funny to see the fish swarm her feet. She said that it was weird because some of the fish kept swimming between her toes. A fish manicure is one thing, but I don't think I could stand fish swimming between my toes. Haha!
While Kiley was getting her pedicure and Kate and Scott were still getting manicures, Sadie, Connor, and I checked out the shark room. The kids were more interested in playing with the open shark mouth than they were in looking at the small sharks swimming in the tank. Sadie climbed up onto the bottom jaw and kept saying, "Mommy, save me!" Connor noticed the giant plastic sharks hanging above the tank and excitedly whispered "whoa" over and over while pointing at them.
We enjoyed our time at the aquarium, and stopped at McDonalds for lunch afterwards. Connor got his first happy meal. He liked his apple juice, and apple slices, but ended up eating my burger while I ate his chicken nuggets.
On Saturday we went to the water park near our house. A slight wind was blowing so it was a little chilly and Connor shivered the whole time, but he was having so much fun he didn't want to leave. He was a brave little guy and walked into the wading pool by himself until the water was chin deep on him. I was right by him the entire time in case he fell, but he didn't. While we were there I went down the water slide (the second time in my whole life). It was more scary than I remembered. It was a very fast slide and sitting up didn't slow me down at all. I survived to tell the tale though. I also learned to float on my back. Brian teased me about only floating in water that was 2-feet deep, but I'm quite proud of my accomplishment. Despite many years of swimming lessons, I've never learned how to swim and have always been scared of water. I'm slowly getting better. Maybe I'll take swim lessons with Connor when he's older. Haha!
After dinner Saturday night, we all went to Farr's Ice cream for ice cream cones. It was crowded so we had to wait awhile in line. Connor entertained himself by wearing Brian's hat and playing peek-a-boo with us.
Brian got a raspberry and cream cheese flavored ice cream and I chose Caramel Caribou. We shared our ice cream with Connor and he was quite the happy boy as he alternated licking ice cream and nibbling on my sugar cone.
I'm so happy the Kunz's came to visit. Connor loved playing with his cousins and I had so much fun spending time with my sister.
Besides all this fun, we've still been looking for a home to buy. We have looked at a lot of places, and even put in an offer on one, but nothing has felt right, so the search continues. Hopefully our luck will improve next month.
Goodbye August, bring on September!
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