Thanksgiving

Like all great Thanksgivings mine started with watching a little football and the arrival of Santa at the end of the Macy's Day Parade.

With those required activities out of the way, I helped Uncle Sean finish the final bit of clean up before the rest of the guests arrived at Grandma's house to celebrate Thanksgiving.

After a great meal it was time to play. I had lots of fun with Eli and Hailey. Eli and I worked together to build this great big tower. Can you believe how tall we were able to make it?

I also had a great time working with Hailey on a smaller project. She is a great playmate!

Unfortunately Momma's camera ran out of batteries before we all ran out of activity. So there are some gaps in Momma's photos. But I felt blessed to get to spend Thanksgiving with Grandma, Aunt Janet, Mary Anne, Uncle Sean, Aunt Jo, cousin Devon, Aunt Lisa, Eli, Hailey, Micheal, Nanny, Grampy, Jaeger, Soleil and Tazz.

I hope you all were able to have as nice a Thanksgiving as we did!

Pre-Thanksgiving Winig Visit

Since it was the weekend before Thanksgiving I wasn't expecting much excitement.  But that was before Momma told me that the Winigs were coming to visit for the weekend.  We always have a great time with them on the Cape.  I was excited to share all my toys and my great park with Megan and Rachel.  After some fun in the back yard we headed down to the park.  I started with a little game of hide and seek.  Can you find me?

After the game of hide and seek, we took a walk down to my favorite creek to show them how much fun it can be to throw rocks into the water.  Aunt Sarah and Rachel had a good time checking out the creek.

Megan and I took advantage of the time down at the creek to have a little chat with each other.  I really enjoy playing with her!

After dinner we did something I had never done before.  We baked cookies.  Aunt Sarah is an expert Christmas cookie maker, so Momma thought she would take advantage Aunt Sarah's visit to give cooking making a try.  Megan, Rachel and I all gave it a go!

Once the backing was done, it was time for decorations and consumption.  I had lots of fun decorating, but I must admit the cookies weren't really my thing.  The icing on the other hand was GREAT!

Having the Winigs come visit was great fun.  I was so glad to get to show them my home.  I hope they come back again real soon.

Fall Color - November

It seems the fall color finally arrived.  Momma had great fun with the leaves in the back yard.  She was so excited to see how pretty the leaves were this year.  Daddy on the other hand wasn't as excited.  To Daddy it seemed like ground hog day.  Each weekend he went out and found as many leaves as the previous weekend, regardless of how often he cleaned them up!

We all got into the fall spirit though!  Daddy raked up a great big pile for the end of my slide.  I had lots of fun sliding into it.  Doesn't it look like great fun?

Momma of course had to get in a minor photo session with Tazz and I.  Below is Momma's favorite picture of me with the leaves.  How do you like it?

And last but not least, Momma's favorite picture of Tazz.  Over the weekend she tested out a couple of new point and shoot cameras.  Tazz's action shots sealed the deal on going back to Cannon.  Tazz sure does know how to keep her eye on the ball!

Happy Birthday - 2 Years Old - Oct 24th, 2009

It is hard to believe that another year has gone by and I am already 2 years old.  But if I think about all I can do these days... run, jump, throw balls, make baskets, climb just about anything you put in front of me, get Momma and sometimes Daddy to do what I want when I want, and talk... I guess it makes sense.  In order to celebrate this milestone, Momma and Daddy invited the family over for my big Day.  We started our day at gymnastics and then headed out to do a little decoration shopping.  I had a great time doing that until they started blowing up all the balloons.  Who knew the helium machine could be so loud.  But once we were home I thought the balloons were great fun and I was glad to have them.  After Momma managed to get everything into the house.. I did help with the carrying as I love to help... I took a nap and woke up to a celebration of me.

After warming up to everyone and opening the biggest pile of presents I've seen, it was time to move on to the blowing out of the candles.  Everyone did a great job singing Happy Birthday to Connor!  When it was over I used my bubble blowing skills, with a little help from Momma, and we blew out the candles on my Thomas the Train cake.  Didn't Nanny do a great job with the cake?

With the candles out, it was time to make my second wish with the first cut.  Everyone was a bit surprised to see me pull off this portion of the celebration.  But with Momma's help I was a rockstar at it.

The cake was sooo yummy, I really enjoyed eating it.  Much better than last year when I wanted nothing to do with it.

The next day after the celebration, Nanny and Grampy came over to see how it felt to me to be 2 years old.  They also helped me to play with some of my new toys.  This romote control car has been a great hit!

I must say, being 2 is great.  There is so much more to do and explore.  I can't wait to see what this year has to bring.  Too all that were able to make it to the party, thank you for coming and for all your presents.  For those that were not able to attend, we missed you and love you.  See you next year!

Pumpkin Carving

Happy Almost Halloween!  On today's activity list is PUMPKIN CARVING!  As you all know the first step of pumpkin carving is the growing of the pumpkins.  Most kids have to go to a pumpkin patch to find their pumpkins.  But not me, this year Grampy grew THREE pumpkins for us to carve.  One for Momma, Daddy and me!  Thanks Grampy!  Read on to see how it went.

First up, we had to decided on the faces we would carve into our three pumpkins.  I gave Momma the above suggestion, but she went a more geometric route with our first pumpkin.  But that was okay, as I still was allowed to scoop out the guts of the pumpkin.  You will notice, that I stuck with the spoon approach.  Momma went straight to using her hands.  I'm not certain what she was thinking as those pumpkin guts are GOOPY.  EWWWW!

After the cleaning of the pumpkin it was on to the carving station.  Since Momma is not the best with knives, Daddy took on this part of our factory line.  I worked the supervisor role.  I'm sure I could have handled the knife, but Daddy suggested we wait a little while longer before I give it a try.

Since we had three pumpkins to carve, a work break was in order.  I helped Momma to take a break by jumping in her lap!

But soon it was time to get back to work.  Here I am doing quality control checks on Daddy's carving work.

I'm happy to report that Momma and Daddy's work all passed inspection.  That made me a happy, happy pumpkin carving supervisor.

I was so impressed with Daddy's skills that I had to just give him a big hug!  I give the best hugs these days.  Momma says so.

Then, since Momma is Momma we had to squeeze in a quick photo session before the rain came.  Here are here two favorites!

Happy Halloween!

The Blue Couch Strikes Again - October

For those of you that have ever met Daddy's blue couch in person, you will understand that there is an unusual gravitational force around it.  It has these magic powers to pull you into its coziness and not let go.  This month the blue couch finally conquered me.  Daddy has been kind enough to share the coach, as I have realized that it is the BEST seat in the house.  But I didn't realize what it could do to a guy.  Momma however was on hand to capture its winning moment.

But don't think that I spent October asleep on the coach.  No, no.  I am now a full fledged gymnist.  After many, many months with Gymboree, Momma decided to step up the challenge.  After some not so successful audit session, I have really gotten into my new class.  Here I am working on my balance skills.  I can't wait until they let me on the real balance beam.

I have also been honing my skills as a chef.  This month Daddy and Momma have started letting me help make dinner.  My stirring skills have been in demand.  I've helped Momma cook a couple new side dishes, Daddy cook dinner and Momma make Banana Bread.  It has been a lot of fun! 

Don't think we have spent all our time indoors, though.  It has rained a lot this month, Momma, Daddy and I still make it to the park down the street.  Our neighbor's seemed to have moved inside, but there are many more fun hours to be had in the park this year.  On one of our trips, Momma snuck in a quick photo session of Tazz and I on a recently cut down tree.  How do you think she did?

Also, this month we had a visit from Nanny and Grampy.  I was able to convince Nanny to join me for a quick see-saw ride on the alligator in the park.  She was a great sport!

I also introduced her and Momma to my new facination, Daddy's keys.  I figured out during one my trips with Daddy that the car at the park had an ignition.  Now I MUST use Daddy's key to turn the car on.  In fact, these days I pretty much insist on putting the key in the ignition for Daddy's truck before we head out for a car ride.  Don't worry, neither Daddy or Mommy will let me drive yet.  I'm not sure why...

Also this fall I have developed a new fun way of riding the swings at the park.  Though the baby swing is still my favorite for high flying action, I have come up with a new approach.   Named "Superman" by Momma, I lay my belly across the big kid swing and run and run until I am flying.  As you can see I have a great time!

Stay tuned, as amazing Birthday Party posts and Halloween posts are yet to come.

More Family Fun in September

This month I have bestowed a special gift on Momma.  This month I named her, so that she no longer goes by Dadda, as everyone has gone by Dadda since I figured out how to say it.  You must admit Dadda is a very valuable word.  But I figured that Momma would like her own name.  And from her excited response, I would say that I was right.  So please meet the newly named, MomMom!

New words weren't the only excitement this month.  September also brought another trip to Sesame Place.  I expanded my horizon's again to a new ride, the hot air balloons.  I'm still not sure about theses amusement place rides, but I did have fun getting a bird's eye view of the roller coaster that was near by.  Here I am practicing my "WHEES" for when I am big enough to ride the roller coaster with Daddy.

Later in the month Grandma treated Momma, Daddy and myself to a fun day out with Thomas the Tank Engine near Lancaster.  We made a weekend of it, sleeping over at Grandma's Friday night.  Would you believe that Grandma had gotten a bed and bedrail for me.  It was very comfie!  After a good night sleep we headed out to find Thomas, I had great fun seeing all the working horses in Lancaster County on our drive.  But nothing topped getting to the train depot and seeing Thomas coming down the tracks!  Clickety-clack, Clickety-clack, Thomas the train is faster than fast!

Grandma had purchased us tickets for a ride on Thomas.  Unlike the playground at home, there were a lot of other people who wanted to share this experience with me.  I was not excited by that.  It took me about half of the ride to realize they were just focused on their own families.  Once I realized that I was able to settle down and enjoy the ride.  If Momma had only realized then how helpful my own baseball hat can be in those situations, things would have gone smoother... But after the ride I had a great time wandering around, checking out the other trains, watching Thomas come and go and even getting my picture taken with Thomas.

You might have thought that a trip to Grandma's house is all about me, but it turns out Grandma's place is pretty great for Tazz too.  Grandma found this wonderful dog park not far from her house that is BIG, grassy and has a small river running through it.  You KNOW how much Tazz likes WATER!  So after we left Thomas we collected Tazz and headed to the dog park.  Grandma and I had great fun sitting on the bench, so that I remained taller than the big dogs at the park!