Guess who turned 1....a month ago?

Yes, but at least it's better late than never, right?!

Here's pics of the little man's big day.

It was a great day filled with great family and friends. Conley loaded up on some great gifts and did really well--even got a pretty decent nap in right before.

The Birthday Boy!!!

and then~~~Decor...

Conley's smash cake...baked by yours truly.

Color scheme + banner made with scrapbook paper

Scrapbook page that guests wrote Happy Birthday notes on

Cupcakes...some fun-fetti, some strawberry. Yum!

More bringing in the color scheme....scrapbook paper napkin rings. :)

Walka, walka, walka

He walks!

Conley first took steps...what...2 weeks ago now?! His first steps were stellar--literally about 8 of them right from Ryan to me. After that he seemed to regress and the steps were minimal.

But now?

It's official. Little man is a-walkin. We're talking across rooms, around corners, turns, the whole 9-yards.

What a little stud. :)

The video? Oh yes. That. Our video camera was being borrowed by a friend when our sweet little firstborn took his first steps. I'm ok with it though, obviously. ;)

Inchworm

I thought that the inchworm pictures would be a good way to show how he's growing by taking one each month. The most recent attempt at a photo shoot is definitely worth sharing.

Exhibit A...






I think we'll call this quits at 12 months, no?

Self-feeding

I was talking to a mom the other day who said that she is so anal that she didn't let her kiddos feed themselves until they were able to feed themselves with a spoon.

Now

WHAT

IS



THE

FUN



IN

THAT?



:)

PS- Dear Sister....did this post make your blood pressure go up just a little? Mwa-haha!

Fall Fun

In an effort to continue blogging a little more consistently, here's an update along with some pics I've finally uploaded to my computer.

Apple Orchard--we hit up Aamodt's Apple Orchard in Stillwater a few Sundays ago (ok, so it was about a month ago). It was PACKED! Ryan's sisters and Rachel and Preston were up for the weekend so we all went. Conley had his first hay ride which he thought was pretty cool apparently.

Family picture.


After the orchard, we headed to the Teddy Bear Park in Stillwater which is SO COOL and a must-go-to if you have never been there. Again, Conley approved. (We went again yesterday and he wasn't quite as interested...much more interested in clinging to me).

Peek.


Don't be fooled. He's really having a good time! Promise! :)


To keep up with the FALL FUN THEME :) I was so excited to find that the apple tree in our backyard had lots of apples that my neighbor lady told me would ACTUALLY be ok to eat! Score! So, here's Conley and Uncle Keagan pickin' some apples which were promptly washed, peeled, and made into a delicious apple crisp. Nothing can be better than apple crisp from your very own tree, right?





So, there you have it folks. We are LOVING this weather and savoring every moment of it!

More posts to come!

Brutish boy

Well, Conley may not be able to walk yet, but he sure can climb a slide like no other! Oh dear, each day I worry about what I have in store for me being the mom of a BOY!

Yup, my baby boy with the runny nose, bruise under his eye from hitting himself in the face with Thomas the Train, 2 1/2 teeth that he proudly displays to anyone that smiles at him. He has no fear. Up and down the slide. Up and down the step into his bedroom. So fun to see him explore, but SCARY!

He's developing quite the "personality". Yesterday we went to "Baby-garten" at the Library here in town and there were about 10 kiddos there, all under 2. They all came in quietly and started playing with their toys...not my boy! No, he crawled up on all the toys shouting and carrying on the whole time. Hilarious! I'm sure the other moms were scared of the brutish boy with the bruise under his eye who was nearly knocking over their kids. It was near the point of embarrassing, no lie. BUT he loved it and did great with the music/story time. Afterwards the lady who led it said "He sure had a good time. He's the life of the party!". Haha. Again, if only I knew what was in store for me ahead.

Being a mom is a crazy, funny, humbling, nerve-wracking, and amazing thing!

I'm baaaack!

Well...at least I'll make an attempt! :)

To be fair, this quiet Sunday morning feels really strange because we seriously haven't had one of these in a long time. So much has happened since I last posted! Here's where we're all at.

We bought a house and moved to New Richmond, Wisconsin!
I turned 28 yesterday.
Conley is 10 months old and his 1 year birthday party is NEXT month!
Ryan's brother, Keagan, has been living with us for a month.

OK. So, that puts us at the present.

As for Conley, he is no longer a baby. He's a toddler. No lie. He hasn't mastered the "toddling" yet, but he looks like a real boy. He's in to everything and is all over the place.



He LOVES Tytan and yesterday has the first day where he really got to "PLAY" with his cousins Anna and Ryan when they came to visit. He was all over the place with them--going down the slide, pulling himself up on his playset. So fun to see him like that.
He is apparently at the stage where if I walk around the corner he thinks I've fallen off the face of the earth; therefore, I'm forced to sneak out of the room when he has his back turned or else I'm followed by quickly crawling baby. :) It's nice to be so loved though, right?

I need to get back in the swing of this blogging thing, but I'll make an honest attempt.

And NO. I'm not pregnant. Ha. Just living life and forgetting to blog about it!

Here's a few pics to get us up to speed.
@ our old house (June)


In his pool @ the new house (July)


@Nick and Katie's 70's themed wedding rehearsal (August)


@Como Zoo with Brenda, Corey, Anna & Ryan (August)


So, there we are. Here's hopes for a better blogger ahead. :)

Inchworm

6 months

My baby is 6 months old. I don't want to talk about it. :( Why does he need to get big so fast?!

I posted the pics to the left. All 6 months of carseat pics!

I just uploaded a few hundred pics, so I'll post more soon!

Little boy

I know. I know. Bad blogger.

It's just that the time I DO have at home is being spent playing with the little man, feeding him, then getting him to bed. My time left is spent with a little R&R which includes reading everyone else's blogs, but forget my own.

Today I had daycare for the first time in over a week. A girl from work watched him for 8 whole hours! Being away caused me to LOVE LOVE LOVE him even more tonight. All I could think of tonight is how happy I am to be his mom and how happy I am to have him. He's pretty darn amazing.

Combine that with the last episode of Biggest Loser before the finale and I've got some major sappiness going on! ;) (Go Daris!)

Pics to come...someday.... :)

Easter

To continue the marathon of blog posts, here's some more cute pics from Easter.

Dune Buggy

Ryan bought a jogging stroller that converts into a bike trailer. Very functional....and gigantic. I refer to it as the dune buggy. We strapped him in to test it out in our house, but then decided to rig up his carseat in it until he's bigger. It's not MEANT for a carseat, but it works REALLY well. It's a little added workout--what a bonus! :)

What Conley thinks of Rice Cereal...

You'd think that Con-man would be DEVOURING rice cereal at his size. But no. The boy isn't a fan at all. Clearly!

Conley and Cousins

Last Saturday we spent the day at Ryan's dads for Easter and we got some more pics of Conley and his cousin, Allie. She's just 3 weeks older than him and it is so interesting to see what each of them can do. Miss Allie has a couple of teeth popped through already!


"You might have teeth, but I'm still bigger!" :)





Then, we stayed at my parents' house Friday night and Saturday night and Conley got to hang out with his OTHER cousins.

He's thrilled. Really. (I'm not sure why they're all doing "jazz hands" though. haha)

Workin' Man

Ahh....working with Conley. Where do I start?

Don't let the concept fool you. It's a wonderful opportunity, yes. BUT it is HARD. I knew it would be, but I also knew (KNOW) that it is worth it in many ways.

Here's the equation...

Sweet baby boy + teething + mama with things to accomplish in order to earn a paycheck = STRESSFUL

Here's this week, as "typical" as it can get...

Monday: Started out bright and early by dropping him off at the babysitter at 8:30. I hurried to the office to get as much accomplished in 4 hours as possible. Success. Got organized and felt ready to start the week. Picked the boy up at the babysitters and headed to one of my houses in Woodbury. Slept in the car, slept for a while at the house. Had a meeting--slept through it. Drove to 2nd house--slept in car. Dad picked him up there at 5:30 and mom continued working til about 7.

Tuesday: Full day at the office starting with a meeting at 9. Was awake and distracting most of the time. Then had a speaker which I was supposed to attend, but was unable to due to distraction of very warm baby with no pants on. :) Instead, we sat in the back of the office and he entertained a resident who was visiting. Attempted to get him to take a nap while also trying to check emails and make attempts at some sort of productivity. Fail. Broke out the Tylenol. Sucess. Slept for about an hour as I wrapped up a little paperwork and he slept through 1/2 a budget meeting. Woke up and proceeded to be distracting. Fed him a bottle (this wasn't the first bottle of the week, promise.). Went to "Work Book Club" meeting and he slept again. Woke up during it and was crabby and needed to be walked around. Tried to talk with one of the people I'm training in while jiggling baby. Pretty successful. Crabby until any-person-who-smiles-at-him walks by. THEN, he turns into this adorable and happy little boy who giggles like crazy. Repeat. Any-person-who-smiles-at-him says, "What a happy boy" and "What a good boy" and I roll my eyes. He spits up on me which signifies that we need to go home. It's about 5:00.

Wednesday: Had a 9:00 meeting with the owner of the company. Conley slept in the car and at the office UNTIL the meeting started. Then, he decided he wasn't very happy. I made all attempts to keep him happy until, thankfully, the meeting was over. We then attempted a little bit of work before heading to "PD FUN DAY" at a local park. Of course, he fell asleep in the car on the way TO the park and slept for a little bit there. During this time, I kept thinking, "YOu're not supposed to sleep at the park. You're supposed to sleep at the office!". He woke up shortly after and was one crabby boy. I tried to walk him around the park, swing, stroll him around, etc. to no avail. Again, I broke out the Tylenol and that seemed to help (eventually, after we left the park, of course). I called Ryan on the way out of the park with crying baby in the background and proceeded to cry myself. We were planning on going back to the office, but then I couldn't figure out why I would do such a thing, and we headed home to work instead. THIS is the fabulous part of the job...the ability to do things like that! So, he napped a bit til Ryan got home and I ran out the door to another staff meeting. <>

Thursday: 9am meeting-- stood most of the time to keep Con-man quiet, gave him his bottle, and kept his car seat rocking in order to keep him sleeping. Headed to one of my houses where he slept initially. I had his car seat out on the washing machine in the laundry room, and one of the residents walked in there, walked back out and said, "Can someone please take the baby off the washing machine?!". Funny stuff. Slept on and off and then we were homeward bound about 4 or 5.

Friday: WE STAYED HOME! Woop-woop! He slept in til about 8:00 which was FABULOUS. We worked upstairs for a bit (which wasn't so fabulous), but then he took a good afternoon nap in the comfort of his own crib and I spent the day doing some email inbox spring cleaning, making phone calls, etc.

Now that I have reflected on the week, I can't remember why I had so many times that I wanted to pull my hair out. Seriously-- it was probably the worst week yet and I threatened Ryan that we would be starting FT Daycare soon, but now that the weekend is over, I'm ready to go back to the "routine of non-routine" tomorrow. He has almost a full day of daycare tomorrow, then he'll be with me the rest of the week.

AND NOW that I just re-read what I wrote (since I actually started this post yesterday morning and finished today), I need to clarify a couple of things...
*I'm not drugging my son with Tylenol. He really does seem to be teething! ;)
* I LOVE the little guy like crazy, but I know that any mom can understand the moments that you want to pull your hair out. Riiiiight?

That's that. We've had a VERY low-key weekend and Conley has been rocking the sleeping! He woke up 2 times on Friday-Saturday (Ryan's night to get up) and 3 times last night (my time to get up)....BUT he slept til 8:00 and 8:30 respectively AND he's taken some great naps. This is what happens when his mom isn't carting him around all day. My plan for the week is to start trying to put him on some sort of a schedule so we can make this working thing go a little smoother. Wish us luck! :)

Grow, grow, grow

My baby really looks more like a toddler.

exhibit A


When did THIS happen? Some mornings I seriously look at him and think that while he slept (sporadically) through the night, he changed a little...and believe me, I get to see what he looks like at least every 3 hours during the night! SIGH.

We've hit a couple of major milestones in the past couple of days. Conley is OFFICIALLY SITTING UP UNASSISTED!

SEE???


I was telling Ryan yesterday that I thought it was pretty early for him to be sitting up already. We got out the "What to Expect..." book and Ryan was reading off what he could/should be accomplishing at the end of Month 4. We were giving nods and "uh-huhs" until we came to the fact that they MIGHT be able to roll over at the end of 4 months and we said NOPE. Can't do that one. Not even a few minutes later, as if to say "Heck yeah, I can!", Conley rolled over from his bell on to this back. No lie. He's stubborn like that and wanted to prove us wrong. :) I'm sure we won't see a repeat of this amazing feat again for awhile, but he sure timed his first successful roll appropriately.

Other than that, we are also apparently teething. Do you see a common factor in the following pictures???



Yup. The boy ALWAYS. HAS. HIS. HANDS. IN. HIS. MOUTH.
And we're crabby. With rosy cheeks. and some serious appreciation for the frozen teething ring. We'll see!

I briefly mentioned sleep, but for real, he's still getting us up a MINIMUM of 2 times and USUALLY that is more like every 2-3 hours. No lie. The problem, however, is that he has no schedule or routine which is my fault. More to come..."Working with Conley" deserves it's own post. :)

Happy Saturday--more to come!