Alligators

Conner's world and imagination is expanding rapidly. He is picking up words, ideas, and phrases from everything around him, and he remembers everything.  I guess there is a Little Einsteins episode where an alligator is chasing a woodpecker. That is most likely where our adventure today came from.

If Conner tells you that we have 3 alligators in our pool, it is true.  They chased us around the house today.

It all started in the living room.  There was just one alligator.  It followed us to the bedroom, over & under the bed, back to the living room, then to the kitchen (and then there were 3).  There we tried to stop them with a cup of water (it might have been thirsty?).  Pretzels finally did the trick.  Once we were friends, we told the alligators about the pool and they decided that would be a good place to live.

Unless you have a lot of time to spend running, hiding, and convincing the alligators to go back to the pool, I would not mention it to Conner  (if you do find yourself in that situation, they like pretzels) 

I love seeing his imagination develop!

Hunter's Hat

We found a hat that was Hunter's size in our closet last week.  He loves it.

We are not sure what he was doing here, but it sure is cute!

Yup.  He is the most adorable blue eyed boy ever!

Dirty Boy

This is a picture of Conner right after our ward party. No, there was not a mud fight, just a little water, sand, and a playground.  He was filthy.  Him and his 2 groupies ran up and down and around the playground for 45 min. straight.  He is a bit of a ring leader, but I don't think he means to be.

He had so much fun playing with his "friends".  These really were his friends, but the word to him means any child around his relative size.  He is definitely my social child.  Whenever we go to the park, he always asks if his friends will be there.  Whether he has ever met these 'friends' or not is irrelevant to him.  He is happy to talk to, follow, and be followed by complete strangers.  It is pretty fun to see him socialize.  

Vocabulary

Conner has been talking for a long time.  He is usually very easy to understand, but lately, his language has been changing.  He is at the glue like stage of life - Everything he sees and hears sticks.  He likes to repeat words and phrases he hears.  It is very cute, but some times makes it difficult to understand him.

Here are a few of his most recently picked up words and phrases,

"wow, that's amazing." (Thank you Little Einstein's)
"I'm amazing"
"Look, straight ahead" (Not sure where this comes from, but probably Octonauts)

With Conner's extending vocabulary, it is a little harder to know exactly what he is saying.  I am usually not expecting the big words, and they are not always used correctly, but it is sure fun to see him learn!

Conner has been watching a lot of The Letter Factory (I highly recommend it for toddlers needing to learn letters and sounds).  This was our go-to activity for potty training we-need-to-stay-of-the-carpet activity, so he may have watched it 3 or 4 times in a day... And Conner knows a lot of his letters and sounds.  Here are his favorites:

R - This has been his favorite letter for months.  He knows the letter R and its sound very well.
O - second favorite letter. He will point it out everywhere.  Anything that is a circle is an O. (we need to work on shapes...)
W - This is his 3rd favorite.  He loves to say the sound most - Wu, Wu, Wu (followed by a giggle)
C- When asked, he will point out C and say the letter.
B - He is not so great at saying B, but he says Bu, Bu, Bu, when he sees the letter.
F -This is similar to B.  He does not say F, but he says Flying, because the letter F flies in the movie.  Cute.
K - When Conner sees the letter K he says Kick. (and he acts it out)
A- Ahhh! (hands in the air, like he is afraid)

Those are his favorite letters, but he knows all of them a little bit.  If you point to any capital letter, he can either tell you its name, sound, or the action it makes in the video.  Not bad for 2 1/2!  :-)

Moral of this post: Kids do learn from what they watch on TV, so make sure, if the TV is on, there is positive, good messages for them to learn from.

Hunter Walking

Hunter is walking.  Not just occasionally, almost exclusively.  It is official - he is a mobile terror!  :-)

Here is evidence:

Hunter's favorite show to watch is Little Einsteins.  He will pat his legs along with the characters and raise his hands high in the air for rocket to blast off.  It is adorable.

Swimming!

After a summer full of swimming with cousins and friends, Conner is really starting to like it.  He does not swim on his own, but he swims with a little float-y.  It is adorable.  He gets super tired and sleeps very well on swimming days.

Here is a video of Conner and his friend Bennett.  Aren't they adorable?!  They have so much fun swimming.

Ryan's Baptism

Today we went to San Diego to celebrate Ryan's (Daniel's nephew) decision to be baptized. At the baptism, Conner sat in the front by the glass with all of the kids looking down into the font.  He is a little to young to understand the importance or significant of the moment.  All he saw was one of his favorite cousins in a pool of water.

So, in the middle of the baptism ordinance, he pointed to the font and said, "me to!  I go too."  He then went to the door and tried to get in to the font.  :-)  Luckily the door was ridiculously heavy and did not budge under his weight.

I took him to the back of the room and explained to him that when he was 8 he could make the decision to be baptized just like Ryan.  He seamed pretty excited about that.  He definitely did not understand how long 6 years is.

Thank you Ryan for being such a good example to all of your younger cousins.  Keep up the good work!

Katie, Sydney, and Conner sharing brownie batter.  Yum!  These three are so cute together.