Whew, a busy first Christmas!!

Connor has a very busy first Christmas, but I think he had a great time! His bedtime over the past week ranged from his normal 6pm, to a couple 9:30pm nights, to a very hectic 1am bedtime on Christmas Eve, but thankfully he slept in the car!

Well, where do we start? Connor's Christmas actually began on the 23rd of December, when we visited Grandma and Grandpa Mellott's. Uncle DJ was there, and also Uncle Dale and Auntie Elvie. Connor had a wonderful time unwrapping altogether too many presents! Mom and Dad were silly and forgot the camera though, so we don't even have a picture of Connor opening his first Christmas present!!

Christmas Eve was a very busy day! We started out at Oma and Opa's house for a big gathering with all the family:

Connor had a ton of fun hanging out with his big cousin Kaden:










And he loves his Mike Wazowski!!



He also learned to anticipate the flash from the camera, so it's very hard to get a picture with his eyes open now!


But eventually we got one!


Connor also got his first puzzle, and a really cool train(which has a song that has been in my head constantly since then!) And, a really loud set of bells, which strangely enough, I told my mom to buy for him! He loves them though, but not as much as Derek does!













Later that evening, we drove to Grassland for the Mellott family Christmas, and we finally got that 4 generation picture I mentioned before!

Grandpa Mellott, Daddy Mellott, Baby Mellott, and Great-Grandma Mellott, together at last!







I can see a resemblance in all of them! Very neat!


Then, we had our very first "Christmas Morning"! Derek and I have grown up both doing the big get together and gift opening with our families on Christmas Eve, so it was really special to start our own tradition with our little family! We didn't take any pictures until after everything was all said and done though!







Then, last night we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house for another Christmas celebration!











Connor got his very first "gaming console" which, as you can imagine, Daddy was very excited about!

So, Connor's first Christmas was a week long event, and a very special one at that! I will remember it forever!

In non-Christmas news, Connor is waving at everything and everyone, including people on TV, and anytime anyone leaves the room, or every time I carry him in to his room! It's totally adorable!

He has also recently aquired a fascination with eyes, (which I am sure is due to Mike Wazowski's prominent Uni-eye!) If you ask him where are "_____"'s eyes, he will more often than not point at them, but not on real people, only on stuffed things!

He is also standing more and more lately, and for longer periods of time. But sadly, he is still working on those top two teeth, and they, on top of trying to recover from a very disrupted schedule, and wreaking havoc on his night sleep. So, I will leave it at this, as Connor has just awoken, and is not very happy at all!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy new year! Two weeks and counting until Connor turns one!

So many changes!

Just a quick pre-Christmas post to mention all the new things that Connor has been doing lately! He now waves, but it takes a while to get him to do it! When he waves good night to Daddy and Leo, he usually doesn't start to wave until I start closing his bedroom door! He also does "so big!!" when you ask "How big is Connor?" but only if you lift your arms up and say, "so big!", too. He just started this a day or so ago though, so he's still getting the hang of it!

He also has started to stand on his own!! Mostly once he pulls up on something he will let go for a few seconds, and then sit down, but he also has started using my legs when I am sitting on the floor to get part of the way up, and then he will straighten the rest of the way on his own. It's very cute to see him with his arms out for balance slowly lowering himself back into a sit, too.


In other news, Leo has discovered that good things usually happen when he sticks close to Connor.

As an example:










Connor discovered how to get into the box of Frosted Flakes, and Leo was right there to assist in the clean up process! It was adorable, and of course I let them play in it while I grabbed the camera, but I think we will be moving the cereal up a shelf from now on!!

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone, and I'll be sure to post about Connor's first Christmas in a few days!!

Mini Santa!

Well, I said that cute pictures were coming, and here they are!

Daddy bought Connor a wee little Santa outfit, and he is adorable in it! But, I have to admit, even with the outfit, I think he looks more like an elf than a Santa! Nonetheless, he is super cute!
















I am not too sure what he is doing here, but he looks like someone we should be paying attention to!


And a couple impromptu photo shoot pics:












And, I am also going to post a video of Connor and his push toy! He is getting really good at motoring around with that thing!

Whoops!

I forgot to post Connor's 11 month stats last time, so here they are:

Weight: 18lb 10oz. (Another pound this month!!)
Length: 28.5 in (apparently he shrunk half an inch!)

That's all for now, but there are some more cute pictures coming soon!

Happy 11 months, little man!!

And that is officially the last time I can say that... in a mere 4 weeks, my little man will become a bona fide BIG BOY! I cannot believe it's been almost a year since we brought this little guy home. It seems like just yesterday!

He is learning so many new things lately, and it's so amazing to watch, even though it's things that we completely take for granted. For example, Connor has just learned how to put lids on things. It seems so simple, but when I showed him how, and then he copied me, it was as if something clicked in his head! Very cool.

Today Connor got his picture taken with Santa! It didn't go to well, but we managed to get a cute picture before the tears started, anyway! I will get Derek to scan it so we can add it to this post, too!

Connor is also working on getting his top two teeth. A couple days ago, he was being silly when I was feeding him and blowing all the food back out, but in the process, you could totally see his top gums, so I snapped a few pictures to see if I could tell for sure if he was teething. I am always very doubtful, but I think these pictures prove it!






In these last two, you can really see the white spot just to the left of middle:

Before we left to go see Santa today, I was letting Connor chew on a mandarin orange for a bit, but he seemed to prefer throwing the orange at Leo. Well, while I was getting his supper ready, I gave it to him again, and after a few seconds, I hear this slurping noise! Connor had pierced a hole in the peel with his teeth, and was sucking all the juice out! I hadn't planned on actually giving him the inside of an orange until he was a year, but I probably should have known better than to let him chew on a whole one!

But, no harm done! He absolutely loved it, and there haven't been any tummy problems, so I think we are in the clear!

I did, of course, snap a few photos!

I haven't written anything about Connor's sleep habits in a while, so I should probably give an update, as things have changed quite a bit since I last talked about it.

Connor seems to have dropped to one nap, which is still his usual 30-40 minutes in length, but he has taken to sleeping anywhere from 13-15 hours straight at night! His usual bedtime is 5:30 or 6pm, and he is up around 7:30am, sometimes later. I have thought about keeping him up later in the hopes that he will then take some decent naps during the day, but it just doesn't seem to work like that for him, so I am leery to try it. Plus, he is so painfully tired by 5 that I already feel bad keeping him up until 6pm, so he usually goes down earlier. I have heard that during the winter months children tend to get more night sleep, but it's not supposed to be at the cost of naps! According to Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (Weissbluth) Only 10% of babies are down to one nap by a year of age, and it seems as though I have one of them!

Well, that is all for now! I will leave you with Connor sporting his Flock of Seagulls hairdo - this boy really needs a haircut!!

Brrr.. What is this stuff???

The weather today was a balmy -7C so I thought it was about time to get Connor out in the snow!

At first he seemed quite intrigued by it, but,as you will see by the pictures, he got less and less amused... He did try to crawl in it but as soon as his mittens got in the snow he stopped dead in his tracks!!



He seems quite happy in this photo:


And in this one: (he was trying to look at Leo on the deck)


But then he started to take on a somber,contemplative look:






















But then...


And then..


So then we went inside...