These Days are the Best Days

After Connor woke up from his nap today (a 3.5 hour nap, at that!) he surprised me by saying "I love you, mama.... hug." and then giving me a full-body hug!!

Need I say more?

My heart completely melted and I just stood there holding him in my arms for about five minutes.

I swear, two year olds are not always candycanes and teddybears, but when you share a moment like that, it makes up for every ball thrown at your head, fart while changing a diaper, full-blown tantrum at Target, etc... you get the picture!

Me and my babies... pooped from putting up the Christmas trees!

A Great Night Out!

Jamie and I headed to Lexington yesterday afternoon for the Beastie Ball, benefiting the Lexington Humane Society! Jamie's law firm sponsored a table, so we were able to spend the evening with many friends and acquaintances. It's always nice to have a night out on the town, especially when it's benefiting cute little fuzzy puppies!!

There was a really extensive selection of silent and live auction items, plus a lovely dinner, cocktails, and dancing! We spent the night at the hotel where the event was held and had a yummy breakfast at the Marriott restaurant this morning! 24 hours of baby-free relaxation and fun time! :)

As a bonus, I was able to wear a dress that I wore for our wedding rehearsal dinner over three years ago ... a dress I never really thought I would be able to wear (in public) again! Yea!

This week's big event is a Parent's Night Out for the parents of all the kids in Connor's class. We're hosting it at our house, so I've got lots of preparing to do!! Funny, it's actually been kind of nice to have an excuse to fix up the house a little bit! I've hung two big mirrors, several pictures, ordered and framed some wedding pics, and organized some shelves and cabinets. Also, we're having this new kitchen faucet installed this week!

I think it will update the look of our kitchen a lot. I'm super pumped! Funny the things that get me excited these days!!

Class Pictures and I Really Don't Love Halloween... sorry

At the parent-teacher conferences on Monday, we got the class pictures they had taken. OMG! They are the freakin' cutest pics I have even seen of Connor (and we have a lot of cute pics of him!) I'm afraid to scan and upload the pics for the blog b/c of copyrighting (does anyone know if that would be ok for me to do if I give the photographers credit? ) but you'll have to trust me, they are darn cute!

What I CAN show you are our Halloween pics. Don't get too excited - it's the same Elmo costume from last year! I had to bribe this child with Skittles just to get the thing on! He kept saying "Too big, Momma.... Too much, momma!" Basically, he wanted nothing to do with the costume. To make that even more abundantly clear, as soon as I got the crappin' costume on, he pooped and I had to take the entire thing off again to re-diaper him. Oh the whoas of motherhood. Gotta love full-body-one-piece-polyester-furry-costumes!

Not to sound like a bad parent, but we only went to our two neighboring houses with Connor this year. His idea of Halloween (besides eating the Skittles) was to hand out the candy to all the other little goblins...err.... children from the neighborhood. A O K with us... we'll have plenty of years to come where we're stuck trick-or-treating all night. (Now I can totally appreciate how relieved my parents were when I was old enough to go around the neighborhood with my little sister by ourselves... seriously!)

The original Halloween prankster ... Connor put all our decorations on the porch into his candy sak and took them inside!!

Halloween is just overrated to me. It's stressful to find a costume and it leaves us with tons of candy in the house - which we'll eat - which isn't good. But more pics...

"Anybody home?"

Connor trying to escape back into the house. Guess he's really not that into Halloween either!

Notice the one little piece of pumpkin garland I threw on our front bush. There. That's my decor (sense a litte sarcasm?)

How many days till Christmas?....

Wonderful World of Preschool

Connor has been in preschool now for about two months and OH the the improvements and changes we have seen in our little guy! For any mom out there that questions the value of finding an excellent preschool, let me be clear: it is totally worth it!

As a stay-at-home mom, there was definitely some question as to whether of not we really needed to enroll Connor in a preschool. After all, we were going to Gymboree, the play room at the gym, and now 2-year-old soccer play where Connor gets plenty of interaction with other children. However, even the best mom with the best kids needs a little break in the action every now and then.

Once decided to pursue the preschool option, we quickly found the perfect fit. Out wishes were pretty simple: non-denominational, an actual school setting (NOT a daycare), and offering options for a young 2-year-old without potty training expectations. Since most preschools in our area are either run through a daycare facility or church, it made our search short and sweet!

The first day he brought home his bookbag filled with arts and crafts and paintings, I was so proud my heart almost hurt! I am just so proud of my little boy! And, the best part, he absolutely LOVEs his 6 hours of mommy-free time at school (and so does momma!)

Yesterday, he brought home a progress report from his teacher in preparation for our parent/ teacher conferences next Monday. (I guess "progress report" is the new lingo for a "report card" ;) A preschool report card is truly hilarious, but so on the money regarding their specific development areas and benchmarks. Criteria include things like the child's ability to dress themselves, wash & dry hands, sit still, follow one and two-step directions, etc.. Each area has 2 options for a "grade": developing and usually.

Most of Connor's checks were in the usually column, with a few in the developing column (and a couple of no's written in... specifically in the "dressing one's self" which he does not do! :) The teacher's complimented him very much and suggested that the best way we can help him as parents right now is to let him do more activities such as eating and hanging up his coat and bag on his own to build self-confidence. (Apparently, Connor uses the smile-and-flirt-to-get-adults-to-help-me tactic at school, just like at home! I taught him well! haha ;)

We couldn't be happier with Connor's progress in school so far! Especially as the very youngest kid in his school, as he just made the October 1st birthday cut-off by 4 days! We are also thrilled with our choice to enroll Connor in preschool at two, and with the school we picked! I'm having a fun time meeting other parents, volunteering on committees, and even hosting our Parent's Night Out at our house next month (since I'm a room parent!) We've really jumped right in!

As a bonus, a couple of ME days a week are nice to have. Simply having the time to shower and blow-out my hair, or vacuum or scrapbook is great! I can appreciate the luxury of being able to try clothing on while shopping, I can actually walk past the toy/sports section of Target without spending an hour explaining that we "have all of those things at home .... they have to stay here!", and I can hop in and out of the car to run about 10 errands in the time it takes to run 2 errands with Connor in tow!

I'll post more updates regarding our school experience as the year progresses!

I leave you with a couple of pics from our trip to the Louisville Zoo last week!!

Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure!

Pictures from my race last week in Downtown Louisville! I beat my goal time by quite a bit, finishing the 5K in about 28 minutes! Then, today, I ran in The Hunger Walk and improved my time by a minute! Yea!

Sorry for the lack of posting recently! Too too busy!! More to come...

The entire crew!

Just after the race!

Me and my baby!