Connor Videos

So you can see him in action....if only these accurately showed how he gets into everything...!

Oh, and today has been better. The two little teeth aren't all the way through yet, but he's hanging in there!

Please ignore my gross, extremely dirty feet....I'd been working in the yard. :)

Having a little taste of Brian's push pop.

Going after a ball in the kitchen.

He loves to press the buttons.

Not a Good Day....

Today started out rough and stayed that way.

Connor woke up around midnight and again at 5:30. This means I'm running on sleeping fumes.

However, interrupted sleep doesn't seem to bother him one bit. He is EVERYWHERE now. So far today he has:
1-unrolled 1/2 roll of toilet paper
2-splashed and played in toilet water
3-fallen into our shower and got his arm caught in our shower door (didn't hurt him, just made him mad)
4-he's took one 27 minute nap this morning and 1 nap in the car this afternoon.....that is IT.
5-several outbursts for no apparent reason including 1 very long one in the car all the way home from errands. (20-25 minutes)
6-he also thinks it is hilarious to go straight for the stairs because he knows it brings us running.

That brings me to another frustration of today.....baby gates.
So far, I've bought and returned 3-4 (lost count) gates because they wouldn't work in our space. That was the purpose of one of our errands today. I bought yet another gate only to open it and it is not wide enough. At this point I'm going to order an additional extension even though it already comes with one. A girl down the street has the same gate so I've asked to borrow her extension until mine comes in. Her baby is only 2 weeks old, so I don't think she'll need it right away.

Then, to top off an already frustrating afternoon, Gillware just called and were unable to recover anything from my hard drive. Apparently the "plates" were scratched. I really was hopeful that they would be able to get files....now I'm crushed once again.

I am so tired and there is so much that I need to get done. I really need for Connor to go to sleep now and sleep until about 10:00 tomorrow morning.

Ok, I'm wasting time. Better go.....tomorrow will be better.

———U P D A T E———

I am a horrible mother. Here I am complaining that we've somehow raised a little terror with a day of tantrums, but during his rotisserie chicken dinner tonight I saw two little teeth trying to make their way up in his little mouth. The inexplicable outbursts and fussiness are all forgiven...poor little guy. I should have known better. He rarely fusses or cries without reason. Hopefully as soon as they make it all the way through he'll be a happier little guy.

Also, a baby gate update. Ashley (down the street) lent me her extension so we now have a properly working baby gate! I can relax for a few minutes while he is on the loose! (He is currently swinging around an extension rod....walls and legs beware!

Time for little boys to go to sleep!

VISITORS!

I'm so sad that I don't have a lot more pictures to post here. I lost all that I took during Grant and Carrie's trip to Michigan last week during the hard drive crash. Hopefully, I'll have some of them back by the end of the week and I'll add them then! Thank you to Carrie for sending me a few that she took....here they are....

Very cool White House replica temporarily in the

Gerald Ford Museum (definitely worth $7!)

Outside the Museum...in downtown Grand Rapids.
That is the Grand River behind us.

Cool picture of the museum with reflections of downtown.

Waiting for our table at Rosies.

Connor checking out the water....shoeless no less.

———————

Leslie, Scott and Chris got here pretty late on Friday evening and left this morning (Sunday) so Scott could get back to work. Although a quick trip, it was a great visit. With all the extra help I was able to work on the catalog I'm designing for the National Book Network. I seriously spent about 10 hours working on it (at least) on Saturday. (Thanks again for all the help!) I'm just glad I didn't lose a lot of the catalog in my hard drive crash. That would have been a disaster difficult to recover from. Needless to say, I've already backed it up in about 4 different places. :)

Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Connor hanging out with his uncles on the couch.
He never just sits on the couch with us!

With his Uncle "Skeety" (Scott)

Toonces had to join in on the uncle action too. :)

Watching Baby Einstein with Grandma
while mommy works on the catalog.

Swinging at Frog Hollow!

I love this picture of Connor and Chris.
Connor LOVES Chris' hat!

"Hi DAD!!!" (from the top of the big kid's slide with mom!)

Going down the little kid's slide with Grandma!

Another one with Uncle Scott.

————————

Oh, and there were wild turkeys in our neighborhood this morning. I walked outside to get a closer look, but you could see them very well from our kitchen! We have TONS of birds...just wish there were fewer geese. The swans have babies (in the lake nearby)...hopefully they'll come visit soon. I've never seen baby swans before!

Turkeys from this morning....HUGE! 3 guys are showing off for one girl!

Mediocre picture of a pelican...I need to get a good one.
We saw one catch a fish on our walk tonight!

We LOVE duck families! Brian says the daddy duck must be taking a nap...... :)

In Lieu of a Whole Month Lost During the Crash (hard drive)

Here are some recent pictures. He is super fast crawling, pulls up to everything and can get anywhere. He's even gotten skilled at crawling up stairs....he just can't go down yet.

Lasagna Deck Dinner

Signature tucked thumb.

Zero chompers. :)

Who could resist that face?!

This was during one of his "speeches". It is pretty dang funny that when the inflection in his voice changes, the hands go up!


Helping Mom with Laundry

Kicking Myself

Yesterday was a bad day.

It started off great. I was up early doing work stuff and Connor had a great night. After breakfast and a quick nap for me and Connor my computer was frozen and after I restarted it I got a flashing file folder with a question mark.....NEVER a good thing.

Long story short: my hard drive is toast. I was unable to recover any files. The Apple Store was unsuccessful, but did give me a new hard drive. A local store was also unable to get anything off so I sent it to Gillware in Wisconsin. They do professional data recovery and my hard drive is going to have to undergo mechanical surgery (it was clicking....).

I am much better today than I was yesterday. Since I have been awful with updating the blog in the last month (or Facebook) I completely lost an entire month worth of Connor pictures. Of course I lost a lot of my high resolution files, but at least I have some from other sources.

The photos hurt emotionally and the 30 book covers that I will have to completely redo hurt mentally, psychologically and physically (if you count sleep deprivation due to catch-up-work).

Of course I know I'm supposed to back up on a regular basis or have a system in place to do so. The problem is life gets busy and I just lost track of time. It is amazing how quickly 3 months goes by.

So, there is still hope. My hard drive will reach Gillware tomorrow and I should know something within 5-7 business days. If they are able to recover files it will cost me $800. Not cheap, but a steal compared to DriveSavers charging over $2000. They guy on the phone said they have about an 80% success rate with my specific type of drive, so I am realistically optimistic.

In the meantime....I'm basically running on adrenaline.

I promise to post some pictures of Connor soon. He is growing up so fast!!!

(oh yeah....don't buy a plastic MacBook....for over the extra cash for the aluminum one. That seems to be a huge problem because the average life of a hard drive in a plastic MacBook is 12-18 months.....urg. I guess I should be glad mine lasted 25 months.)