Cuddlin'

With Grandpa Boldon

A family photo op.

Another Howlin' Good Time!

Is that?!

Yes. That's my son. Yes. He's chewing on a dog toy.

We're so proud.

Thanksgiving more

Thanksgiving

I'm singin' in the...

Oven drawer? One of Connor's favorite past-times... standing in the oven drawer and singing/dancing.

the end of a long day

Grandma and Grandpa Stolte cuddle and watch Blues Clues with Connor before bedtime.

When two dragons eat...

Connor and his best friend, Patrick.

Grandma Carol

Tuna mess

Yeah... spoons and forks?! who needs 'em.

Connor's dog

Connor got this dog for Christmas last year. He loves his dog. Some days he won't leave his crib without doggie, or duckie. This is a doggie day. It's interesting to dress a 15 month old when he refuses to let go of his dog, which is the same size as he is.

Birthday for me...

My birthday was really great! The girls at work bought me flowers and a very nice card...

My family came over for a late lunch/early dinner, which I call "linner." My brother made apple pannekoekens, bewteen them, my brother, sis-in-law, mom, and step-dad brought enough food to last for a wonderful birthday linner, and breakfast and lunch for the next day, too!

Mom and John took Connor with them for the night, Josh and I watched a movie and slept... a LOT! We didn't wake up until almost 10:30, and even then, we didn't get out of bed for a few more hours. It was really nice to relax. Connor was brought back home aruond 4:30. I can't remember what else we did that day, but it was nice. :-)

Tickle your belly

What's a Football for?

Connor's version of Football, playing with Uncle Rob, Aunt Melissa, and Daddy.

Update!

Okay, so I had to change the date because posting continued birthday pics of the Con-man in August just seems plain wrong. Anyway, I finally located his birthday cake-eating pictures hidden in our spare memory card and had to add my favorite. But I changed the add date to July 10th, so if you wanna see it, scroll down and you'll see it there before the other b-day pics.

And Mist agrees.

Sometimes, though...

I just need to lay down.

Summer fun!

In my swing, I can do so many things! I like Summer. I do all kinds of things.

Sometimes Mommy and Daddy take me outside and we run around the yard. It's fun.
And sometimes, they take me to the park. Not sure what I'm supposed to do there, but they think it's pretty fun... (That slide thing, though... that's a little scary.)
Yeah, and I found a new favorite game! It's called "move the rock!" See, you pick up a rock and you throw it in the yard. There's lots of rocks by the house, so this is an ever-lasting game of great fun!

Guess What!

Yup. I'm one, now. See? Balloon proves it.

Wow... how does this work?!

This is one of those tricky things, but Grandpa Boldon taught me... See, you put the ball in the thing, and it rolls down... if you pick it up before it reaches the bottom, you WIN! Man, I beat Grandpa SO many times! He kept waiting 'till it rolled all the way down. Silly Grandpa!

How To (The How-to Guide to Opening Doors)

Press buttons.
Push handle.
Look through door.
If you see anyone yell and close door.
If you don't see anyone, crawl through doorway.
Press more buttons.
If anyone approaches you during this process, yell, explain in jibberish what you're doing, and go through door, closing it firmly on their faces.

(Note: It's important that this method also works on bedroom doors.)

This is how... (A How-to guide to talking on the phone)

First, of course, you pick up the phone.
Then you push a lot of buttons (or not).
Then you hold it to your ear (see illustration above).
Then you talk a lot.
Then you push more buttons randomly.

When you're tired of talking, throw the phone on the floor. Someone'll come along eventually to pick it up.

If you have questions or comments, please call Connor. .. his phone number is a random dialing of numbers.

Is it possible to have too much?

Yeah. It is. But he's happy with it. Where are we going to put all of this stuff?!

Best Birthday face ever...

I finally found his birthday cake pictures... they were hiding in our spare memory card for the camera.

huh...

Guess this isn't so bad after all...

You want me to do WHAT?!

The boys..

At The zoo...

Connor's first trip to the zoo...
Grandma Marie went with, and Daddy, Mommy, and cousins Jon and Jesse! Wow! So much to see!!

I love...

Cake. Connor's First birthday cakes... SpongeBob and Ducks. Yeah, this is the best birthday ever!

Another Sad Day

Our close friend, Carol's husband died over the weekend in a motorcycle accident. We don't know much. We don't need to. Carol and Justin had their problems, she was even filing for divorce. She loved him still... but he had run across things that changed him, changed his priorities, and he had a hard time deciding what was more important-his family, or living the after-high-school party years dream.

What do you say to a friend in a situation like this? What do we say to ourselves and each other? Justin had once been our friend, too. Josh never lost hope that Justin would turn his life around some day... I wish I could say the same. Justin put a show on for people he didn't know well, I can honestly say I didn't know Justin well. But I know Carol. I know she's hurting. I feel awful because I didn't try to know Justin better, but if I had, he had changed into someone I know I wouldn't have gotten along with. And there's still Carol. Carol with the children she and Justin had. Ryenne, who will be 2 in August. Evan who just turned 6 months old today. Children who will never remember their father as the person their mother feel in love with.

And still, Carol. What can we say or do to help her? She has such strong family support, close friends. But there will be such pain. She never really stopped loving Justin. Everyone knows that.

Such pain. I can never imagine this kind of pain. I have no way of knowing how to help her.

Okay the past weeks

SO, in the past few weeks, we've found out the trany's bad on the car (only to find out it may not be the trany exactly, but probably is several other things that will ultimately cost just as much and that Mazda tranies are usually not very reliable anyway)...

Tried to sell the truck-still trying. Anyone want to buy a truck?

Got a second job-sort of. Contract work as a sub-contractor transcribing... do I know what I'm doing? Really?

Um... At least the house hasn't broken. This week.

Next week the nephews are coming. AWESOME! We want them to come every year, but last year we had the newborn and just couldn't handle it mentally. This year they're coming for the full week next week. We're hyped. Don't really know how we'll pay for them to be around-they eat a lot and will probably want to do things. But it'll still be fun. Downside (and maybe upside after it's done) is that we have a lot of cleaning to do and they'll be here in two days.

In two weeks and two days we'll have Connor's first birthday party... so we have to clean for that, too.

I never liked cleaning much.

Almost 1

That's right! YOU! I'm turning 1 soon.

Happy or Sad?

Benefits to baby turning 1:
No more carrying around annoying (and heavy) rear-facing car seat
Get to take baby outside in his shoes now he's sort-of-walking
Won't have to buy formula for daycare or home
Won't have to puree all of his food

Not-so-much benefits to baby turning 1:
Baby will insist on walking everywhere... and ignore the hand held down for him to hold (especially in the street)
Have to actually buy shoes for baby to walk around in
Have to buy special milk - sort of
Have to sit and chop food up into not-too-small pieces, but not too large, either
Have to tolerate temper tantrums when we dont' have 20 minutes to walk with baby around in circles.
More temper tantrums in general

Future year out-look:
The day baby climbs over/out of crib and baby gate
Day baby learns to say "no"
Day baby learns to get around his clothes and to his diaper-thus taking the diaper off
Day neighbors see us chasing naked baby around trying to get baby back in diaper and clothes
Day baby discovers how to open doors
Day baby defeats baby-safety catches on cubbards and drawers

Conclusion: WHAT WERE WE THINKING?! (Okay, so yeah, we love him... but really, they need to invent that time machine-so we can pause baby's growing up.)

Our family

So, this picture was last February... Connor is 11 months old as of yesterday and looks so different already. Weird how fast they grow.

Our friend

We got the call this morning that our friend had been found by police in her home dead. We sit by and wonder why. What could have happened? Carey was a light to all of those around her. She was always so cheery and cheerful. It was difficult to be unhappy with Carey there to cheer you up. She always had a hug and a bright smile, and no one was unwelcome when she was around. That's the person Carey was. We will miss her so much... What more can be said. She's gone. Just like that.
http://www.legacy.com/StarTribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=88252710

Three sleds

Just because I know it'll make Josh happy. :-)

Walking babies...

The greatest point of independence for a baby-moving where they want on their own. First step-rolling. Second step-crawling. Third-walking with furniture. Fourth-walking with wheeled support. Dang. He's growing up WAY too fast!

Curtain Call

Two of Connor's favorite past times... playing with curtains and trying to get on the porch.

Kitty!

That Kitty... she's SO funny!

My little Fang-baby

Well, his top middle teeth are finally coming in, so we had to get a picture of the fangs before those top teeth came in too far! As of the first day of May, the little Con-Man has 7 teeth!

Bunny cake?

I want that Bunny Cake! I don't care if I can't have it. I want it!

Yeah, Yeah, so that's not how the song goes

Over the River and Through the Tunnel...

But then again... neither is this.

Wait a sec! I'm stuck!

This week or that?

Last week my Grandpa died. It's always hard to lose someone you love. There was not a lot to report for the week, it revolved around reflection, grief, thought, and the never-ending changes happening with Connor.

Connor is busy... he walks around everything now. There will be pics to come-just as soon as I can remember to download them from the camera.

Spring is here. I have tulips sprouting out of the gardens and there's the warm, moist sent of Spring in the air. We walk around and I marvel at how warm it is so suddenly. Connor likes to be out-doors, he just jabbers away in his stroller for the whole walk.

It's hard to be a baby!

This is what we did most of the weekend... well, for Sunday anyway, not really so much on Saturday.

One tooth, Two teeth...

Do you see it? There's definately a tooth there! Actually, there are two, but the newest tooth is so tiny as it just broke through yesterday afternoon...

I'm NOT a Couch-Potato!

This is what the family spent a good part of our snow-day at home on the 2nd doing... Due to school closings, day care was closed as well... so we stayed home and watched it snow the latter half of the 25+ inches of snow we got in a two day period...

One way or another...

"I'm coming to work with you, too... You can't stop me! One way or another, I'm coming!"

Yeah, I'm SO a Winter man!

This is actually over a week old. Okay, so we never said we were great at keeping up on things...

It's Cold Outside!

Connor and Dad at Connor's first-ever Snowmobile race. We came to support Uncle Jon! We got the new furnace in, Uncle Ader and Aunt Angie came up, it was great fun... and now we have a nice, warm house!! YAY!

Nothing like Lion's Feet.