California! Home Sweet Home

To celebrate Mark finishing school and getting his Masters degree we decided to go to California! It was such a Hallelujah time for us! Mark is a super diligent, hard worker in everything he does and school is no exception. He managed to work full time and get a scholarship for graduate school...not to mention it was during tax season!!! Mark was good in that he always tried to find and make quality time for us a few times each week but it was a rough few months of me feeling like a single parent. I love the picture above because Conner was just so happy to have his daddy around! I second his smile because I was super happy to have him around as well!

I found a coupon online for tickets to Sea World that are the same price as a single day entry! I swear that you should never buy anything without checking for a coupon or discount code first.

We were wondering how Conner would like Sea World. He's a definite animal lover but his attention span in next to nothing. We decided to do the "One Ocean" show with the killer wales. Conner was a little restless as we were waiting but as soon as the first wale jumped out of the water he was GLUED! He kept doing the sign language for more and saying "more please". (He's stopped using all his other sign as his vocabulary has grown but for some reason he still signs more)

Every time that the dolphins swam by Conner would have his face pressed against the window and cheer and as soon as the dolphin swam away he'd turn to us and say "where go?" is a really sad voice.

So the craziest thing happened when we were watching the killer whales in their tank! It was during feeding time so the trainers were tossing in troves of fish and one of the bigger whales decided he would rather eat bird than fish, so he would spit his fish into the air to lure a big white ingrid in (I think that was the name of the bird). Well after a little while doing this one of the birds took the bait and dove down to get the bird and the whale just jumped out of the water and snatched the bird. Then it got a little graphic at that point as they fought over the bird and ripped it's limbs apart!! A lady standing by us got teary eyed and ran out from the observation deck saying "that's horrible". Conner on the other hand thought it was awesome and loved watching them eat it and play with their food.

I LOVE boogies boarding!! I've tried surfing a couple times and the only time I've had much success is on a long board. Maybe someday I'll return to my roots and live in California so that I can learn how to surf for real! We spent hours every day out boogie boarding. It was really nice because our condo was right on the beach so we could put Conner down for his nap and go out and ride the waves and check on him periodically. My family always laugh at me because I like to say I'm from California :) I WAS born in Redondo Beach California but we moved within a year of me being born. I like to say "you can take the girl out of California but you can't take California out of the girl). There's someone about the sounds of the ocean and playing in the waves that just turns the rest of the world off.

Unfortunately we couldn't let Conner get in the waves much because of his tubes in his ears. I tried to put in ear plugs but he wasn't having that! Luckily he can get in the pool as much as he wants just not the ocean :( He could play in the sand and throw shells and rocks on the beach all day long!

 

We spent a lot of time in the pool and by the end of the vacation Conner was fearless. Too fearless! He would just go run and jump into the water without anyone around and pop right back up with his floaties. It still scares me though because sometimes he gets stuck in weird positions so it's important that someone is always there. 

This is the other place we went to at least 4-5 times a day!!! The complex we stayed in had an awesome pond and he was obsessed with the fishes. Usually the first thing out of his mouth every morning when he woke up was "fishies eat now, fishies eat now" 

Playing around the house

Here's what everyday activities look like at our house. Everyone that meets Conner tell me he is the cutest little boy but he is also the MOST ACTIVE, ADVENTUROUS, DAREDEVIL little boy that has not had his common sense switch turned on. He definitely makes each day interesting for me! I know he's sick when I look back on the day and realize that I didn't have to save his life that day :) I'm not kidding either! I picked him up from the nursery and his teacher told me "I've never seen a little boy climb the things he does!" They are constantly amazed by him....as are we! He just turned 2 and hopefully I'll get a birthday post out soon! I love this little boy with all my heart because for as crazy as he is he also can't go a day without cuddling time during a book or "Mater's Tall Tales".

I was pretty proud of myself for the fort and Con played inside for a couple minutes but then he decided that jumping on the roof and crashing down and having it all cave in on him was more fun!

I'm sure some day I'll use my formal dinning room for it's intended purpose but it probably gets WAY more use like it is now!

I do clean my toy room I promise!! But it usually ends up looking like this within a few hours.

 Can you believe I came back from the bathroom and he was inside the very top shelf of my hutch! 1 MINUTE I LEFT THIS BOY ALONE!

His two favorite books! I've read them 1,000 times!

Remember the cute statue worship?

 Do you remember my last post on how cute it was that Conner kisses the statue - perhaps it's borderline idol worshiping:).... well the day after I posted it on the blog Conner got a hold of an ice cream scoop and smashed the back of Jesus's head to pieces.

So long cute ritual...

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Conner's Ritual

I wanted to take the time and get a funny/cute ritual that Conner has documented. We have a small little statue of Jesus with two children and a lamb. I'm honestly not very sure where we got it but it's home is on top of our piano. Every so often Conner will see it and take it down, then without any preemptive action on my part he gives a kiss to Jesus, each child, and then the lamb. I asked Mark if he taught Conner this and he said he hadn't. I honestly have no idea where it came from so it must be from his heart :) 

He has done it multiple times and I was glad I got the ritual in a picture. I truly believe that he may not know why he loves Jesus but that love inside of him is strong and that is because he came from the Saviors presence.

 

It's the most wonderul time of the year!

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Conner is obsessed with sledding. He got a new sled and was laying on it in the house for days. Here he is getting ready for church.

 My mom arranged for us to go to this really cool free Christmas activity called Stringtowns Polar express (or something like that). We were all blown away by it. A bunch of families have come together and made this little train that goes through all their yards and fields. It's a small thing (as seen below) but it was still cool none the less. The first half of the ride was the polar express journeying to the North Pole. Once you get to the North Pole you go into a cottage where Santa and some of his elves are. Santa gives each kid a candy cane and bell. Then he does this little presentation on Jesus being the true meaning of Christmas. After the North Pole you get back on the train and the second half of the journey is spiritual. It starts with the manger then has pictures blown up of the Savior as he got older and then eventually his death and resurrection. The whole time there is music playing and it was really quite an experience. I hope to be able to do it every year.

I wouldn't say Conner was thrilled to sit on Santas lap but at least he didn't cry.

 

We did Christmas with Mark's family the weekend before Christmas and it was really fun. I'm kind of a Christmas Nazi so I had a schedule for us of all the different stuff we were going to do.

The best Christmas picture we could get.

 Christmas Eve we celebrated Christmas at my parents house. Conner does better when he can watch and mimic Carson and Audrey. Sadly I didn't get many pictures from the night

 Then we had our own little Christmas morning at our house.

Mark does awesome wrapping :)

The day after Christmas we went up to my Grandparents cabin in Island Park. Despite the fact that Conner got a horrible case of the flu it was pretty fun. I have to say that as a mother that has been one of the saddest/scariest things I've seen him go through. He didn't eat anything solid for 4 days!! I was freaking out! After several phone calls to the doctor we just focused on him drinking pedia sure and resting. He threw up SO MANY TIMES! A toddler throwing up is definitely no fun because he wasn't the best at communicating when or where he would throw up. Despite the flu we managed to go sledding a bunch and play TONS of games. Due to all the little children we've taken up playing our board games on the ipad. Ticket to Ride was the most played. Due to Conner being sick I didn't take very many pictures. Luckily Con was able to sled one day.