6 month check-up

Connor went in for his 6 month check up today. He weighed 20 lbs. 13 oz. which puts him in the 95th percentile. He's back on the chart...at 4 months he was greater than 95th! His height was 27 1/4 inches which is 75-90th percentile...same as last month. And his head circumference is still in the greater than 95th percentile...big brains = smart kid. He got one shot and did not cry at all.

We talked about his crawling, or lack of crawling actually. She said bigger kids develop later...does that mean he'll be two before he crawls? I showed her the "tooth" that was coming in. She said it wasn't a tooth at all! It's a cyst, kind of like the one he had on his chest. So no teeth yet, and no Cheerios until the teeth come in.

Other than that no big news. He seems to be having some troubles with allergies right now, but that's to be expected with his parents being who they are. She did ask about sleeping. I said he was doing ok until we got back from Ireland. Since then he wakes up about 6 times a night! Thanks Lydia! I said I wasn't prepared to let him cry it out yet and she said that's all she had to recommend. So for now I just need to work with him, but that usually around 1 year they all tend to straighten out.

So that's where we are. Connor exceeds at eating and not at moving!

PS - Connor made a complete roll this afternoon...back to belly to back! Again, he was trying to get my cell phone, but whatever motivates him works for me. He also made his first snot bubble today! Those allergies are really getting him today (hope it's allergies).

Finally!!!!

A little over two months ago, Connor learned to roll from his belly to his back. I have spent the last two months trying to convince him to go from his back to his belly. Tonight I finally figured out the motivator...the remote control and my cell phone! He loves gadgets like me! I should have known. He rolled right over and grabbed the phone and then rolled back onto his back. He does not like to be on his belly. I'm doubting he'll ever crawl, but at least tonight he made his first move toward an object. He has also been diving for me lately. He'll dive for me or for a toy and end up on his face and very unhappy. Walking can't be far behind!

Tomorrow morning we go to the doctor for his 6 month check up. Do you think they have a 120th percentile?

Good Friends

Connor has some good friends that he likes to spend time with. Here he is last Saturday at Corbin's house. Corbin can crawl and thought that Connor looked sturdy enough to pull up on. Connor didn't think it was such a good idea.

Then on Sunday, he met Corbin and Sawyer for lunch. We always have a good time with the Baker's and the Ziaja's.

Then on Monday, Connor met one of his little girlfriends, Nina, at the Children's Museum for Sing-Along time and then went to lunch with his playgroup. But by lunch time he was exhausted, so he slept through lunch.

And now, Uncle Adam, Dave's Best Man, is staying the week with us. Connor is such a socialite! Hopefully, Froggie won't do anything to embarrass him!

Training

So, today was the first day of training for the 2009 Austin Marathon (which will be Feb. 15th, but I don't think Connor will mind). I've decided to train for the half marathon (I trained 2 yrs for the marathon and only finished one and then for a 1/2 and it was too cold to go). So, I thought I'd try again. I got up early, got Connor ready and tried to get everything into the car to get down there by 7:15am. Unfortunately I didn't get everything into the car. I forgot to put the stroller into the car, but I did pull it out of the garage and set it behind the car which means.....yes, I ran over it! Luckily only one tire is a little banged up. Dave went online to Graco and found a replacement part which will hopefully be here soon. Connor was not happy to be on the bumpy trails in his little umbrella stroller. So hopefully in 2 weeks there will be no signs of trouble with the stroller and Connor will be riding in luxury again.

Twins????

Our friends, Sarah and Minor (Bakers in TX blog) needed a babysitter today, so Connor and I volunteered. We had a lot of fun! Sawyer is a pretty easy baby. He sleeps in a crib! It was amazing! Connor's crib has been used twice now...once by Addie and once by Sawyer! Anyway, the boys had a good time and I still have all my hair. The only times it got a little tough was when they both got tired or when they both wanted to stand up. You have to hold a 6 month old with two hands and two 6 month olds is definitely tricky. Come back any time Sawyer!

Connor shared his toys nicely.

I'm going to say that Connor is giving Sawyer a kiss. I suspect that it's really a retaliation bite for chewing on Froggie though.

After the bite...I mean kiss...Connor rolled over to have a look.

Sawyer liked the jumparoo. He can get it going just like Connor. It's pretty funny.

After Sawyer left, Connor spent some time in his walker. He's really starting to get good at moving that thing around. He kept running into my feet and ended up trapping me in this back corner. Then I got out and he chased this bag into the corner. I'm thinking opening cabinets is not far behind!

Ireland - Part 2

On Wed. we went to the Blarney Castle. Had we known what a trek it would be, we probably wouldn't have climbed all the narrow, slick stairs to get to the top to be pounded by wind and rain just so Froggie could kiss the Blarney Stone...but we did! Still, it was pretty cool!

Connor was not happy about going to Blarney Castle. Also, his head got "bumped" while we were in the dungeon of the castle. (Notice I laid no blame for the bump.)

Connor insisted that I feed him while in line to get to the Blarney Stone. We just happened to stop in the kitchen for a feeding. My poor boobs have been out all over Ireland!

Unfortunately we had a few minor incidents with the car while in Ireland. Dave used the left-side rear view mirror to high five a couple other cars. No major damage and luckily we had taken the insurance on the rental.


We went to a cute little harbor town, Kinsale. We had a great lunch and walked around the town.
On Thursday we met Dave's former co-worker Tim and his wife Jacqui(Jackie). Ironically , Tim spent the week in the US and had just flown in that morning. We had a great time getting to know them and can't wait to see them again.

Connor tried yogurt for the first time. He loves it!

Matt's Dad, Bernie. Connor was mesmerized by his beard. Hopefully this was good training for the Santa pictures to come!
On Friday morning, the owner took us on a tour of the tower. It was very cool!

This picture is for Grandma and Grandpa Kostusiak. They bought him this sweatshirt last year.

Connor dressed for the wedding. Thanks Aiden for letting us borrow some clothes.

LydiaThe ceremony had to be in the front room because it was raining. Sorry Aunt Lydia!


Great-Aunt NancyMini MeThe happy couple!Dancing to the Irish band that played American Rock 'n Roll

Connor didn't make it through the reception. I'm not sure how he managed to sleep through all the noise, but he did!

We had a great time in Ireland. We wish we'd had more time and cannot wait to go back and see all the things that we missed!

Our trip to Ireland - Part 1

So now for our stories from Ireland. We started out on Sat., Aug 9th. We flew from Austin to JFK first and we got moved up to first class. It was awesome. It was around Connor's lunch time. We attempted to feed him on the plane and he fell asleep in the middle of it. We spent about 6 hours at JFK before catching our plane to Shannon. Unfortunately, the plane from Atlanta with 8 members of our group didn't get in in time and the plane took off without them. They ended up having a really rough time and spending the night in NY. So sorry for them!

Meanwhile, we had a good trip. Connor slept until about an hour before we landed which was about 8:30am Ireland time. So we fed him breakfast and pretended that was our time. Dave and I on the other hand stayed up the whole 2 days...we all slept well Sunday night!


We decided to explore the castle grounds our first day. It was very pretty. They had a peacock family and deer living on the property.

The part of the castle on the right in this picture is the part that is restored. The castle was burned down in 1921 by the IRA. There used to be a third floor and this side came out much farther. On our last day they took us on a tour of this tower on the left...more pictures to follow of that.

Springfield Castle from the front.

Cliffs of Mohr....It was raining and cold. This is the only picture we have from there. Connor and I spent most of the time here in the car. We did meet up with the "missing 8" while we were here and went to have dinner and hear their travel story.


On Tuesday we went on a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry. It's a 110km ring of road around County Kerry (I think). It was a gross morning, but the sun came out as the day went on. It was sooooo beautiful. It made you want to move to Ireland.



My Uncle Roger and Aunt Nancy met up with us for this part of our visit. I think we all had a great time and agreed this was our favorite part of the trip.


I called this the Guiness River. It looked like it was beer flowing down river. I had to hold Dave back. I thought he might just jump right in.


At the end of this tour we saw a rainbow as we came into town. If you look closely just over the trees, you can see it too! We split from the group when we got back to town. We had to go in search of diapers!

Dogs! Dogs! Dogs!

While we made it 5000 miles with a 6 month old with no incidence, our little dogs had some troubles here at home.

Laura called the morning we left to say that Sophie appeared to have some kind of trouble with her paws. They took her to the vet and she had blisters on two of her paws. (So much for Beagle Bootcamp!) She made a full recovery, but did wreak some havoc at the Everett house. But on the bright side, she's been asleep since she got home!

Now Marley had the most trouble. She was left home with a wonderful pet sitter coming to visit twice a day and Auntie Nora came to check on her too. On Tuesday they discovered that Marley was having some trouble. There was puke and diarrhea all over the house. They called the vet and he said to try to give her some Pepto. On Wednesday it appeared that she was getting worse, so they took her to Dr. Jones. She spent the night with him and seemed to be doing better by Thursday and was brought back home. So she seems fine now. He thinks she had some kind of bug. Poor Marley! And poor Dave! He spent all day Sunday cleaning all the carpets in the house!

Both dogs are passed out right now from their misadventures while we were gone. Hopefully that was the end of it! Not sure what we'll do with them for our next trip! Trouble makers!

Froggie Goes To Ireland

We traveled 5000 miles to take all these pictures of Froggie!


Froggie decided he'd like to try his hand at driving on the left hand side. He talked our Ring of Kerry tour bus driver into letting him try.


Froggie has fun storming the Blarney Castle. It was a nasty day and Froggie was glad to be inside out of the rain.


Froggie was the only one brave enough to kiss the Blarney Stone. (Sorry there's a rain drop on the lens.) He now has the gift of gab...just what we need, he already gets in trouble for his songs.


Froggie ran into a bit of trouble, literally, in Cork and had to go to the Garda station in Kinsale to file a report.

When Froggie came out of the Garda station he had a nice lunch and then saw this church across the street.


He decided he needed to pray for forgiveness for all his "wild" days.

All that praying made Froggie thirsty.



The next set of pictures are what happens when Mommy's busy. Daddy, Connor and Froggie got a little bored while Mommy was busy helping Aunt Lydia get ready for the wedding. Note to self...don't leave the camera with a bored Froggie.

Froggie got into the whiskey supply of Lord Muskerry's, the baron of Springfield Castle.

Froggie found this little gong in the castle. He thought if he rang it the butler would bring him more whiskey.

It didn't work so he rang this bigger gong.

Froggie got frustrated so he rode into the closest village to buy his own damn whiskey!

Froggie realized he'd spent all of his Euro trying to bribe the Garda earlier in the week, so he asked Lord Muskerry if he could borrow a few Euro to get them some whiskey.

Froggie tried to get a few Euro out of the other locals.

Froggie tried to dare his new friends into doing shots.

Froggie's glad he didn't end up like this guy, but he went ahead and shared his whiskey with him.

Who invited this guy to the party? Froggie figured he was a little over dressed.


We had a great time on our trip. I'll try to put up the rest of the pictures and our "story" in my next post.