~One month later~

A whole month has flown by since our last update...so here are a few things going on in our lives recently:

~ Projects
The house projects are never ending!! We have a long laundry list of things we want to do around the house; we will probably never complete it. Here a few things we are hoping to have done this winter: blinds & curtains -- we only have a few windows left, but man, blinds & curtains add up quickly and before you know it you are spending a ton of money!!,  the baby nursery - of course this needs to be done before May! We need to paint, put in a ceiling fan/light, and get furniture and a few other small items, the basement - we would love to get the basement painted and carpeted so that Ryan will have an office area at home & Connor can have a new play area for the winter when we become shut-ins (ha ha)!! Furniture for the basement would hopefully come shortly after that!!, painting the guest bedroom & laundry room - once we get those two rooms done then we will have painted the entire house!!!

A few other projects we'd like to do as time and money permit are:
more decorations and a few small pieces of furniture (like a bench when you come in the front door)
changing out the light fixtures - especially in the kitchen & dining room
patio furniture for our deck & screened in porch (probably next summer)

I'm sure the list will continue to grow!! :)


~ Friends!!
Yes, we are making friends!! And, although hard to believe, these are friendships that I have started!! Usually it is the other way around; Ryan makes friends at work and we meet people that way, and so on!

I found a Christian moms group and Connor and I have been attending events during the day. Some friendships have blossomed out of that! I feel so lucky to have found this group. I can only imagine how lonely Connor and I would be at home all day!

~ Babysitters
We've worked really hard over the past week to find a regular date night babysitter. We have been so blessed to have wonderful neighbors who are willing to watch Connor any time we need them to. But, we decided that we should probably have one regular sitter to come for the nights that we are gone over bedtime and out later than usual. We interviewed one sitter this week who Connor adored! She has one son of her own (19 months) and other on the way expected to arrive in April. At one point during her meet up with us, Connor grabbed her hand and walked her to his room to show her his fishies. So cute! Anyhow, we hired her..

Tonight we are meeting with another potential sitter to use as back up. After we hired the first sitter, we got an application (we posted the job on sittercity.com) from a lady that attends the same church that we've been attending. She also has a young child and will probably be a ton of help around the time that our other sitter has her baby. I can also use them for doc appts during the day if a neighbor or friend isn't available to watch Connor.

~ Connor!!
Connor is really growing every single day and I am always seeing him do new things. He is really repeating words right now. He calls every fruit an apple, he says 'hot' every time he sees our space heater..the oven...the microwave...or sometimes even the refrigerator (ha ha), he tries to say happy & pappy (they sound the same), meme, he can say baby!! yay!!, and there are a bunch of others but I can never think of them when I go to write on here! I'll just say that he mimics words when HE wants to. If he doesn't want to, there is no hope of it! Ha ha. If he is in the mood to mimic my words, I can really see the wheels turning in his little head while he tries to figure out how to say it. The changing table is a great place to get him to try new words. He really focuses on my mouth and how I am forming the words.

We are working on age appropriate puzzles! He has one puzzle of trains, cars, and other modes of transportation. He would rather bang them off of other toys right now than fit him in their correct spots on the puzzle, but that will eventually come. I bought him another puzzle for Christmas, so maybe having the new one will spark his interest again.

He's been showing his little temper more and more with fits & tantrums! It's gotten better over the past few weeks because I've been working on not rewarding that behavior and not letting it bother me in public. I don't expect us to be tantrum-free for a long time, but I think we need to figure out one predictable way to handle his fits and hopefully that will reduce the frequency.

We've gotten into more of a schedule over the past few weeks. Most of these moms group events are in the morning, so we've been heading out each day around 8:45, going to whatever event, and coming home for a nap in the afternoon! I've realized that once Connor gets up in the morning, he will stay in his crib for about 20 minutes and play with his stuffed animals. That time allows me to shower in peace, so then when I get out I bring him over to our room with me while I finish getting dressed. I never thought I'd get to this point. My showering was dependent on his nap schedule and some days he doesn't nap (=no shower until Ryan gets home)! Those days usually end in tears, but I haven't figured out way to get him to nap if he doesn't want to.

~ Visitors
 Next week, my sister, brother-in-law, and 2 nieces are coming to visit for Thanksgiving! They will be here for about 4 full days. I'm sure we will make a trip to downtown Chicago, but I'm not sure what else we will do. We are going to let it up to them! We're excited to not have to spend Thanksgiving alone! 


That's all for now...I'll try to post again before this next month is up!