Signs of Life

A few weeks ago, Connell's classmate Paige gave everyone a little seed/pot kit for a birthday favor. Connell was so excited to have received a "plant" at school so we immediately planted some of the seeds and put the pot on the kitchen window sill. Since it was clear from the price tag that they were dollar store specials, I didn't have great expectations for the future of the sunflowers. Lo and behold, a couple of days ago we saw a sprout! Connell is convinced that he is going to have a huge garden of sunflowers now!

Daddy Comes Home!

OK - So I asked Clare if it was alright if I actually updated the blog today. Over the past week you've all read that I've been gone for a week, so I thought I'd tell a bit about my travels.

My company is attempting to land new clients for my products in Europe and South America. I began the week by flying out on Sunday night and arriving in Madrid, Spain Monday afternoon. Madrid was a nice city, very modern and much more clean than I had envisioned. As this was a business trip, there was not a lot of time to see the sites while in Madrid. I participated in meetings Tuesday and Wednesday, then flew out Thursday morning to Budapest, (pron. "Buda-pesht") Hungary for a meeting with a customer that afternoon.

Budapest is a beautiful, old city on the Danube river in East Central Europe. The picture is of historic Budapest before sunset. I took the picture from on top of a hill that overlooks the city. It was a breath taking view. Budapest used to be two cities, one 'Buda,' one Pesht, on each side of the river. They built the first bridge across the river 150 years ago and the two cities became one. Funny that bridge is still there over 150 years later and has not fallen down. My colleague from Hungary was a great host, taking me in my limited time to see the city, then to a traditional Hungarian restaurant for dinner. The food is alot like the comfort food I grew up on, lots of stews and soups.

Then Friday morning I got back on the plane and flew home. All in all it was an exhausting trip, covering 24 hours on a plane and 11,000 miles. It was good to be back home again to see Clare and the boys and try to recover from the week.

Crazy Day and Waiting for Daddy

Thursday was Crazy Day at preschool and although we weren't very creative, Connell wore his shirt backwards and wore shorts on top of his pants. He also wore two different shoes. He wore a safari hat that we used for his safari/jungle themed first birthday party nearly 3 years ago that was still in his closet (my friend Katie had given a bunch of them to us from Vacation Bible School at her church that year).

The photo of Liam serves no real purpose - sorry. Just thought that I better put one of him in to give he and Connell equal blog space!

Just checking in...

No great pictures to post here. We are simply trying to stay sane while Ray is in Europe this week. The hardest part is Connell's bad allergies and the fact that Children's Claritin doesn't seem to be helping him. In fact, he still claims to be "snorty" much of the night (it wakes him up) and the Claritin almost seems to be having a stimulant effect at night (he sits and plays in his room for an hour or an hour and a half claiming that he is not tired even though the last few days we have been playing outside for 2 hours to wear the kids out!!!!) Connell also had a seemingly dairy allergy reaction at suppertime last night (I haven't seen a true one since last fall -- and nothing he ate had dairy so I really can't put my finger on the cause but had to get out the hydrocortisone cream nonetheless.)

Enjoying the Weather

Since Sunday was a beautiful day and Ray was leaving early evening for Madrid, we all went out for a while in the afternoon. The boys rode their bikes and Ray and I just enjoyed walking through the neighborhood in the 70 degree weather.

Conference with Connell's Teacher...

We had spring conferences today with Connell's teacher at preschool. We had no surprises --- she stated that he could do all the academic/fine motor tasks that they tested him individually on (ABCs, numbers, patterns, cutting with scissors, writing letters) and yet he still talks constantly and often out of turn. This is no shock to me since many of you might know that my constant complaint about spending the day with Connell is that he is never silent. He basically thinks aloud -- so he tells you everything about everything and asks you questions in between. It can get very draining for me. Since there are 16 in his class and the class size is only going to get larger as he approaches kindergarten, he is going to need to learn when it's his turn to talk and when he must listen. In addition to that, he also likes to switch spots during circle time so that he can vary his friends to chat with. Ugh! For the first time today, we told Miss Theresa that since Connell was very late in talking and even then very slow to develop good communication skills with ECFE personnel that some ECFE teachers were watching him closely thinking that he might need speech and language intervention. Miss Theresa's mouth dropped to the floor at that comment as she has always seen him as an excellent communicator and now to the extreme. Funny how things turn out I guess -- she thinks that he just took everything in for all that time and now he is an overflowing vessel!

In the picture above, the cutting along the bottom black line in the purple was done by Connell -- (we think the top one was done by the teacher or aide).

It's Hat Day

Connell is supposed to wear a hat to preschool today so I took out a few possibilities and we had fun trying them on this morning. He decided on the Viking football cap.

Riding Along...

Ray got Connell's training wheels working and despite the terrible wind yesterday, Connell got to ride a few yards down the street. Liam was tickled to have inherited Connell's old trike.

Looking at Liam on the trike reminds me of a few photos that my mom probably still has where I was riding on trikes (one was in a red dress with tights and the other with a boyish looking outfit). Even at age 2 my hair hadn't grown any longer than Liam's in this photo -- I honestly looked like a boy until I was almost 3. This photo of Liam really reminds me of those few baby pictures.

Extended Business Trip

Ray just found out that his trip to Europe next week for work has been extended. He will be leaving late in the day on Sunday (the 20th) and flying to Madrid for a few days. Midweek, he will be flying to Budapest for a presentation before coming back here late on Friday. For any of you keeping track of his trips, this will be the longest one to date (and most international, too!) Hopefully the weather will be nice to get outside during the 5+ days and 5 nights that we will be without daddy.

Bike Woes

What happens when you spend $2.50 on a bike at the Goodwill and it doesn't already have training wheels? You buy some and realize that it's harder than it looks to make them touch the ground and actually work to keep the bike steady. Connell was all ready to take off helmet and all, but daddy realized that he has to drill some different holes to make the training wheels work. We hope to have the bike together to take down to Owatonna next week while daddy is in Spain for 4 days to ride with grandma and grandpa in their cul-de-sac. Ray made the comment that Connell will probably be able to ride his bike faster than some of the elderly ladies drive their cars in that development!

Remnants of the Contest

Despite the problems that I had for weeks leading up to my French contest, the day actually went pretty well. Sometimes the day ends up with its share of problems, but I guess I dealt with most things in advance this year. I could literally feel the stress gone from my shoulders by Friday am and then by Saturday I was totally back to normal. I still have some tasks to do (pack everything and organize it for next year, do some write-ups for publications with summaries and results, etc.), but the bulk of it is behind me once again. Since I haven't really had time to spend much time with the boys (not to mention taking photos for the blog), I took this picture as they nosed into my contest certificate stars. I assisted in putting the stars on their faces for the photo :-)

Liam somehow cut two of his 2 yr molars in the last week or so while I was too busy to even check. Hooray! Only two more teeth left (his top two molars) and then we will have 40 total teeth between the boys and a few years of no teething for either!

Contest Headaches

With my French contest only 2 days away, I am stressed beyond belief. Ray has not seen me this upset over the contest in years (and I have been doing it for 12 years and also haven't felt this tense over things -- even the two years that I was VERY pregnant during all the hoopla). The main problem I have found this year is that every teacher is making at least 1-3 small errors, but since there are 25+ schools involved -- that creates 25-75 errors for me to fix up for them! Each of them thinks that their little "error/s" is/are just that (minor!) and that they are really sorry that it/they occurred. I have everything from problems in meeting deadlines, incorrect names given to me, groups regrouping 3 days before the contest, errors in categories, entire schools canceling on me now (without having paid!). I will not even break even this year due to the smaller group of students (less than 750) and for those of you who don't know it, the position is totally volunteer (so I don't get paid a penny for the 50-75 hours that I put into the contest). I hesitate to finish this posting and check my contest email account, because I know that more problems will be waiting to be fixed.

Homemade Game

After walking at the Mall of America on Friday, I let the kids play in the arcade for a while although we didn't buy tokens to spend. Connell fell in love with the Bozo Grand Prize game and was begging to play it so I promised that we would try and replicate the game when we got home. I dug into the stash of ice cream buckets that I kept from years ago and numbered them 10, 20, 30, etc. up to 70. We put 12 plastic golf balls into another bucket and Connell was set! It was more of a combo of the Bozo game and Skee ball, but Connell played it off and on all weekend. Liam tried too, but he only throws overhead and VERY hard. Not only did Liam make a lot of buckets, but he also almost took out the fireplace screen and HDTV with his shots.

Memories

Thanks to my friend Vicki for posting some past pictures on her blog and giving me the idea to do the same. Look where we have come the last 4 springs.

The first picture is from spring of '05 with Connell at 8 months of age.
The second photo is from spring of '06 with Connell at 21 months and me with a huge belly. The third is about 3-4 weeks later when Liam arrived in June '06.
The fourth picture is from spring of '07 (Connell was 2 1/2 and Liam was about 10 months).
The last photo is from this spring. (Connell is 3 1/2 and Liam is 21 1/2 months).