Words

Audrey's really started mimicking a lot lately and has produced some new words.
"Bap" (bath) - whenever we walk by the kids' bathroom, she goes, "Bap! Bap!"
"Oh man" (courtesy of Angela!)
kitty
fish
bear (her little care bear today)
yuck (as in a stinky diaper!)
shoes

Her "da da" has turned into "daddy" or even just "dad" (usually shrieked with excitement when she sees Eric get home)

I'm sure there's more - I just can't think of them!

She's started climbing everywhere - on chairs, into her highchair. . . whatever she can reach!

Conner's been saying some funny things, too. At the UC/Miami football game that we went to with Papa Dave, a lady in front of us asked him if he goes to preschool. His response was "It really wears me out!"

He's also been saying "You frightened me!" when we surprise him.

Our weekend

We had a bit of an adventure on Friday evening - and not in the good way. After I got home from school, we all buckled up in the van to go get some dinner. On the way, we stopped at a carpet store on 125 (the plan is to get some new carpet soon - yay!). We left the store to make our way to a restaurant, and discovered that the van was completely dead. Nothing happening at all. Eric walked down the street to an auto parts store and bought some jumper cables, but there was no one around to give us a jump. I called our friend Angie (she and her husband Doug are part of our church small group) and she sent Doug in his truck to help us out. The cables Eric bought didn't seem to work, and after sitting there with the guys working for a while, I walked with the kids a couple of places down the street to a Dairy Queen so we could get something to eat. Doug and Eric picked us up there; Doug drove us home while Eric grabbed his good jumper cables and headed back to the van. They eventually got the van running, then drove it to the auto parts store and bought a new battery. It's been running great ever since!

Saturday morning we left around 10:30 or so to head up to Columbus. Eric's brother, Andy, turned 30 on Friday and they were having a party for him at the GameWorks in Easton. We spent the afternoon with Mom & Dad, then left Conner and Audrey with them while we went to play. We had a fun time - played all kinds of games. There were some ticket ones; one was obviously malfunctioning and we got quite a few tickets from it. Conner ended up with a Batman punching "bop bag" that he played with for quite a while today.

We made it home today around 12:00 - I spent the afternoon grading papers, doing laundry, and then Eric and I cleaned up our room and moved the furniture around. I definitely have to do some more laundry tomorrow - I think Conner is on his last pair of clean shorts. I also watched Thursday's episode of Grey's Anatomy this evening. I'd tivo'd it, but something screwed up. Luckily the whole episode is available online! You have to love the internet.

Audrey's "baby"

Took a cute video today of Aud. . .

I just realized that she's 20 months old today! Crazy.

Conner's new bed

Well, we spent a little bit of money today. After church, we went to Sam's (the best time to go and get samples!) then stopped by Verbarg's, a furniture store that's closing. It's a fancier-type store whose clearance sales were still too much, but then we saw some kids' beds in the back corner of the store. There was a set of bunk beds (already sold) and a nice-looking trundle bed. We hadn't planned on getting a new bed until next summer, when hopefully Aud will be ready to get out of the crib; she was to get Conner's bed and we were going to get a new one for him - maybe a bunk bed, maybe not. Anyway, we talked to the sales lady about the trundle bed; she said they'd knock $100 off of the clearance price, and Eric asked if they'd go down another $100. She said they would, so it was ours! Eric went back later in the afternoon with his truck and brought it home. Conner was very excited and actually asked to go to bed tonight. He took a nap today, so I told him I'd let him stay up a little late, but he was ready! We went to the Miami/UC football game last night with Papa Dave and got home late, so he was really tired after church today.

Aud's been doing something funny lately. She watches me brush Conner's teeth every morning and she's ready to do her own! It's cuter when she stands on the stool in front of the counter, but we had to take that upstairs so Conner can get into bed. So here she is sitting on the counter.

I talked to Angela (our babysitter) tonight. They still don't have power - they were told that it would be back on Saturday (as in yesterday) but I guess have since heard that it could be Wednesday now. I can't even imagine!

The fireplace is finally done now, mantel and all. The faceplate is actually pewter... I think it looks gold from the camera flash.

Genesis 1:3

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. Genesis 1:3
We lost our power for approximately 36 hours - from Sunday 2:00 PM to Tuesday around 2:00 AM. Considering the part of town we're in, Eric and I really consider us lucky that our power was restored so quickly! Angela, our sitter, lives 5 minutes away from us and still doesn't have power (as of this morning). This was all a result of a wind storm (courtesy of Hurricane Ike) that blew through our region on Sunday. It was crazy windy! Luckily there was no rain to go along with it and the days since have been just beautiful. I can't imagine not having power and having 90 degree temperatures (or rain!). Yuck.

We didn't have school Monday or Tuesday (snow days in September - who would've imagined that?!); Conner didn't have school yesterday either but is supposed to go back today. I hope we're not pushed to the limit with snow days this year - I'd hate to have to make them up at the end.

Sometime Monday morning our phone went out, too (around 18 hours after the electricity, which was weird). It was hard not being able to make calls or check online for news! A friend of mine at school said she heard the phone company uses batteries that are charged by the electricity; that makes sense, then, that the phone lasted a little while longer. As I was leaving for school yesterday morning I passed a Cincy Bell truck driving into the neighborhood. By the time we got home, the phone was back on.

Conner was supposed to start his swimming lessons at New Richmond HS yesterday; I never heard anything, but I assume they didn't happen because of the lack of electricity. Hopefully they'll pick up next week.

Our afternoon

We spent some time outside after getting home from school - I wanted to get Conner back on his bike and "practicing" without the training wheels. He really did a great job! We'd get going and after I let go he'd keep pedaling for a little bit before he got worried and start to brake. He was having a great time - told me he wanted to practice "all day and all night"... then went maybe one more time before he was done. Oh well - I think we got something accomplished!

Audrey enjoyed wearing Conner's helmet and kneepads! I think this picture makes her look like a skater.

She's been saying a lot of new words lately...

"bowl" , "buh buh" (bye bye), "there it is" (and that's soo clear!), "bubble" (when we were blowing some bubbles insides)

It's amazing how quickly they're coming now! And to think at her 18 month checkup I was worried.

Conner's bike

Conner's been wanting us to take his training wheels off of his bike for a little while now - we finally did it this afternoon after the Bengals lost (surprise!). The four of us went out to a flat-ish part of our driveway, and Eric and Conner gave it a try. We'd talked with him about having to practice and probably not being able to ride all by himself at first. . . I'm not sure he understood that, though. Conner really was doing great - Eric or I would run behind him while he pedaled and would eventually let go - he'd pedal for a little bit, then realize we weren't holding on and either fall to one side or put his brakes on. Over and over. It really got frustrating because he probably would be out there riding right now if he had some confidence, but I guess it just takes time. I'm going to try and get him out there after school this week and work on it.

Conner had a great first week at school. He was definitely worn out; he fell asleep early every night (except Thursday when we had group here) and passed out in the car Friday evening on the way to Home Depot/Penn Station. We got him to take a short nap yesterday, but I didn't want him to take one today so he'll go to sleep early tonight. He seems to enjoy his days though we can't get many details out of him. One thing he did talk about today was singing on the bus. It's only preschoolers, and I guess the adult aide that rides along sings with them! I'd love to hear it. Conner started singing the "squishing up the baby bumble bee" song in the car on the way home from church - that's how we found out about it.

He told me that he has a new buddy, but doesn't know his name. He seems shy about asking his buddy's name... maybe someday he'll learn it!

Aud's just started throwing things away (like if she has some sort of wrapper she'll take it over to the trashcan and put it in) then starts clapping for herself. Very cute. I think she really likes Angela - when we get there in the mornings she goes right to her and lifts her arms to be picked up.

I got a package in the mail on Thursday that had some bubble wrap. Needless to say, the kids loved it! I think it's the first time Audrey's seen it. (And isn't her outfit cute?!)

Teeth update

I saw another one last night! Audrey now has all 4 of her one-year molars... and according to the time frame given in this chart, they came in right on time! Crazy. Now she just needs to catch up with the rest.

Our busy weekend

It was so nice to have a long weekend to recover from last week's re-entry in the working world! We kept pretty busy, so I have to admit I didn't get to lay around the house as much as I would have liked.

Friday night we went to the mall to return a wireless router that doesn't want to work downstairs, let the kids play in the play area, then ate dinner in the food court. It was raining when we arrived at the mall, but not when we left, so then we went to Anderson's first home football game of the season. We won by 30... I'm thinking it was 42 - 12. Not a close one.

Saturday Eric did some running around in the morning and I took the kids to Coney Island after Aud's morning nap. It was fun... our last chance to get there for this summer! (Unless we go this weekend.. I think it's still open) If you were there, you probably heard us leaving around 3:00 - Conner was throwing a major fit. I think he was just tired, but it started out as "I'm cold" after getting out of the water, escalated into "I'm hungry" as we started to walk away from our grassy area, and culminated into "I want to ride rides" as we walked out. These were all pretty much at the top of his lungs. Audrey and I just kept walking (she was cute as we started to leave - grabbed the noodle under one arm, put our pool bucket on like a purse and took off). Conner fell asleep in the van on the way home, but I didn't want to leave him out there because it was so hot. He woke up inside and wouldn't go back to sleep. We had a friend from our small group over for dinner (his wife was working); Conner and Brendan (2) played together really well.

Sunday was church in the morning, then home for a nap for Audrey after a couple of stops (a check of a tent sale at a furniture store, then lunch, then Krogers for their $2.20 12-packs of pop). Around 4:45 we left on a Jeep trip - I've only let her ride in it recently, but Audrey seems to enjoy the jeep. We went to a tobacco farm in Brown county owned by a co-worker of Eric's, then stopped for dinner in Georgetown, then went to visit with some friends who were camping out (in large, very nice RVs, if you can call that camping!) on a creek that runs into the Ohio River. It was a really nice set-up. We hung out with them for a while, then headed home... stopped to put the roof on the jeep (it was really getting chilly at that point!) and both kids fell asleep on the way.

So this brings us to Labor Day. . . nothing exciting in the morning, but after the lunch the kids took naps, then we met some friends at the water park at Woodland Mound. Again, our last opportunity for the summer! Both Conner and Audrey loooove going there. I didn't get much of a chance to visit with my friends because I was constantly chasing Audrey around - it will be so nice next summer just to let her roam (it's enclosed)! But we had a great time and went home and went straight to bed.

Right now Conner's at school - I think the bus thing finally got figured out. I e-mailed the transportation guy from New Richmond yesterday saying that I hadn't received a call and would like him to call my sitter this morning with details then let me know he'd done that. I thought I might have to take the afternoon off of school to get Conner to preschool (and then go try and find someone to vent to) but he e-mailed back last night apologizing, said that someone should have called us, and he would call Angela first thing this morning with times. Sure enough, by the time I got the kids there this morning (at 7:30), he'd called her. So hopefully Conner caught the bus and is having a great time at school! (And hopefully he'll go to bed early tonight!)

This is a picture of Conner getting on the bus. . . 20 minutes after school started. They forgot to pick him up!!! Angela called asking where they were, and they sent out another bus for him. So he rode all by himself (on a normal-sized bus) to preschool. Tomorrow better be perfect!

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Oh, and Audrey finally has another tooth - top, right-side... right next to her front teeth (I don't know what they're called). We're up to 8!

Whew. Now I need another 3-day weekend!