Kiai!

On Friday after sectionals it was pretty windy but "warm" so we got to go for a walk with Cindy and her baby Abby, and Sarahann and her baby Savannah! Technically SAS is also Cindy's baby. :) Our friend Katie found a jogger for us to use with Connor when we visit, and he was LOVING being bundled up and propped up in it - the hood really tunneled the wind away from his face too!

Cutie!

Saturday we got to go see Daddy's cousin Chase receive his black belt in karate! Connor wore this sweet outfit that was Jonathan's when he was a baby. He also wore his anchor socks for good luck for Laura on her LAST day of Patriots!
Here we are at the Civic Center waiting for the Karate performance and ceremony!
Chase being announced and recognized for achieving his black belt (and some person's big head in front of me...my camera doesn't have much of a zoom!).
About to show some skills with the other graduates in his program.
Chase (3rd from left) with a small group.
Showing some moves with these sharp scary things (I have no idea what they are called!).
Receiving his black belt from the kioshi. Awesome job, Chase!
All of the students who had received some degree of black belt.

It was very cool and we were so proud of Chase! His sisters are also working towards their black belts and were there to cheer him on.

Laura, my sister who is now a SWAMMER, had an amazing final night of her championships. She came in 10th in finals of the 200 fly with a 2:06 - which is super speedy! Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure that she will be back in the pool again some time...but what a huge accomplishment - the culmination of four years of hard work and dedication on a D1 swim team. WOOOOO Laura!

I'll give a sectionals finals report tomorrow! :)

Sweet Saturday

Happy 5 months to my baby boy Connor!

Fun day today, too late to blog though because it's another big one tomorrow! Get ready! :)

Section III Boys Swimming

AKA "Connor's First Swim Meet" (with the exception of seeing Auntie Laura swim while I was pregnant!)

Oh wait, a quick pic with almost uncle Jay from the night before!

Connor and I went with uncle Will to his team pasta dinner. Swimmers also usually shave before a big meet - helps you to feel more streamlined and quick in the water. Here is the "before"...

Coach Shannon starting the balding process.

Coach Jamie finishing it up.

Now Will and Connor look more alike! Today Will looked in a mirror and said, "Ah! I'm bald! I keep forgetting til I see myself." Hahaha.

Go F-M!

I pulled out my green '98 sectionals shirt and my "F-M Swimming and Diving" hoodie (circa 1996) for this one...it was a big deal!

Okay so after a long walk into the pool, we were in plenty of time for the first event, the medley relay. Will had told me the night before that even though they had already gotten the state cut time, they were out to beat West Genessee, who had a faster seed time. The medley relay (for you non-swimmer readers) consists of 4 people each swimming 50 yds. The first person swims backstroke, the next breaststroke, the next butterfly, and the last (Will) freestyle. West Genny was ahead by about a half a body length to a full body length through most of the relay. Here is Will off the block...you can see the kid from WG is in slightly ahead (his feet are sticking out of the water!)
Will crept up on him throughout the 50 years (which is a very short amount of time/distance to catch someone and they hit the wall almost together - not that you can really see from my long distance pic from behind the railing.
Well, after screaming and screaming we all looked at the clock and F-M had done an amazing time of 1:37.87. West Genny had a 1:37.88. Will did exactly what a strong swimmer should and didn't let up at all - touched the competition out by one one-hundredth of a second! They will fae each other again on Sunday, should be exciting! Oh, and for all you swimmer readers, his split was a 22.30 which was a personal best and totally awesome!

Here is their relay team and WG (#2) all trying to fit on the awards podium!

Will's 2nd individual event was 100 breaststroke - he's the baldy closest to the bottom of this pic. His time was 1:06.27, which put him in 8th place after the Class A prelims. I took a video of his 50 Free swim, which was also excellent, but of course....can't manage to get it onto the blog!

Whoa Baby!

Connor was wearing his green and white frogs to cheer for uncle Will - but this is how he spent most of the meet because it was extremely hot and sweaty. I can't tell you how many people made comments like, "Lucky! Wish I was dressed like him!" Lol...he did such a great job at the meet, being Will's biggest fan!
Here's will getting his 8th place award from breaststroke.
Yay Will! Can't wait for finals!

P.S. We weren't with Laura but she also did AWESOME swimming today! She swam a 57.2 in the 100 butterfly and placed 12th overall. WOOOOOOO!

Welcome to Syracuse

I've been working on a few projects for Connor's room. Well...they've been in the works since August 2010...but this week I actually put some plans in motion! I bought supplies around Christmas time to make SU colored letters for over his crib...and I am not much of an artist, but off I went!

Here is what they look like completed. I just also finished a little shelf, and we are going to hang everything next week, so I'll post a couple more pics then.
As you know if you're a frequent reader of this blog, Jonathan's mom saved a good amount of his baby clothes. The only tricky thing is that Connor was born in the fall and Jonathan at the end of winter, so not everything is wearable during the different seasons (that and I'm pretty sure that Connor is a lot chunkier than Jonathan was!). I put him in these sweet Syracuse "bloomers" (I don't know what you call that...a diaper cover?) just to play for a little bit...because I don't think they will fit by summertime!
Levi came over for a little while last week and we were playing cars on the kitchen floor while Connor napped. This is the only picture I got because once he realized I had the camera out he kept running over and laughing, trying to see the pictures I hadn't taken yet. Apparently when he went home he kept telling Matt and Daniela, "Neeny (Lindsay)! Sit down!" Hahaha....I kept telling him to sit down so I could take a picture while he zoomed his car across the floor...didn't happen. We had a great time!
Connor and I had a big adventure yesterday. We flew up to Syracuse to visit all of his grandparents and to see Uncle Will swim in his high school sectionals meet. Connor was quite a trooper, since we left the house at 4:45am and even had to deplane on the tarmac in Cincinnati just to pretty much go into the airport and turn around and go outside again to get on the same plane! We also had to do a diaper change high in the sky...I had never even been in an airplane bathroom myself and WOW what a small space! I was a tad stressed but Connor had a great time kicking the walls and making loud noises. Anyway, we made it to snowy Syracuse and are excited for some fun things, even though we are missing Daddy and Otto. :(

We thought the baby carrier might get a little heavy with just me and bags...so we decided to break out the umbrella stroller and see if Connor could sit up enough. He was loving a few laps around the house!
5:30AM! Wide awake and ready to fly (well after we struggled through security. Phew! There is a lot to put through the scanners all while trying to hold a baby!)
Jonathan said he was like a little old lady with a blanket across his knees. We are so thankful that he took us to the airport and helped us get our luggage inside. We miss you, Daddy!

This weekend is also my sister's final college championship swim meet! Connor and I made an awesome psych up video for her this morning...if only I knew how to get it from facebook onto here I would show you! I did take a quick picture of him, wiped out after his big video production...in his bison t-shirt and nike track suit! :)

Tomorrow we cheer for big uncle Will at the pool and send cheers to PA for auntie Laura!

Super super superbowl Sunday!

Connor's latest trick...lean as far back as possible in his bumbo seat so he can make mommy run and rescue him. Hahaha...I did find out today that he can pull himself back up, and it does air out his neck rolls, but I am worried that he's going to topple right over!
Food Network Magazine had some yummy "lighten up" meals in the last issue. On Saturday I made this mac and cheese soup that turned out quite delicious. I put about twice as much veggies as it called for to up the veggie content and Jonathan (my darlingest who does not love veggies) loved it! Woo! Please note the snowman placemat, bowl, and plate...though there is no snow in NC. Oh well.
Here's cutie boy getting ready for church Sunday morning. This is supposedly a 9 month outfit. Boy oh boy!

I made an "enchilada ring" for our lifegroup's superbowl party. It is stolen from another blogger (actually her mom). You can find the recipe on her page here!

http://kellyskornerrecipes.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-07-20T19%3A28%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

Before wrapping it all up to bake!

I forgot to take a "finished" picture, but Kelly had this beautiful picture of all the food on her facebook! Thanks for letting me steal! :)

Tina and Daniela made this AWESOME cake to celebrate both the superbowl and the one year anniversary of the beginning of our class (which split from another larger lifegroup and has grown a ton in the past year). Look at that 3D logo!

I'm not sure how I feel about this picture...but here's our fam! Yay Packers! (Just for my hubby).

Thanks Shelley and Casey for being super hosts! :)

Eating Words

Well, this morning Connor made me eat my words.

On most normal mornings, my alarm clock is Connor babbling through the monitor...which is a pretty great alarm clock, I must say. I feed him and get him ready for the day and we play upstairs for a little while. Then we go down and I usually lay him on a blanket or his activity mat so that I can grab a bowl of cereal.

I laid him down on his back and a minute later he looked like this...

"Oh hi mom, just rolling onto my stomach since last night you said I only hang out on my side."

"Ta-da!"

He proceeded to spit up all over (eating and then being on his tummy don't usually mix) and I cleaned him up and laid him on his back...so he turned over to his stomach again. Just in case I didn't get it the first time. ;) One more spit up later and our day was off and running!

Connor's first time petting Otto

Connor is a little better at grabbing and pulling than petting, but Otto just sat there and let him do whatever he wanted for a few minutes. Such a good dog...sometimes! :) Here's the reason why I put Connor down next to Otto...

I had to finish this post the next day, because even though Connor has been having awesome 11-12 hour nights of sleep, he is not to keen on napping these days!!!

Happy Groundhog's Day everyone! Surprisingly, we got to take a walk outside on Groundhog's Day while much of the US was having huge storms. This family does not mind snow, but spring would be fine right about now too!

Mrs. Carey M!

It's FEBRUARY! I feel like Christmas was yesterday. This year is flying by! Our lifegroup (Sunday school class) at church is reading the whole bible together this year. I have tried to challenge myself to read the bible from start to finish a few times before...and usually get stuck somewhere around those toughies Leviticus and Chronicles...I think I've made it as far as part-way through Kings. HOWEVER! We are reading it in chronological order and so far that has been awesome, it switches things around a little bit. Have you ever read the whole book of Job? I had never...and it turns out that it is so "conversational" that it makes such great sense to read it all the way through (over some days!). Just wanted to say how much I am loving it, and encourage anyone trying to read the entire bible to try it out chronologically!

I know I've posted thumb-sucking pictures lately. He just melts my heart...

I call Connor "wild man" quite a bit. He is so joyful and smiley but also gets very LOUD now and has a killer grip on whatever he can grab! He is not technically rolling from back to front, but spends a lot of time rolling side to side when on his back to grab and hug and hold and suck on whatever he can find!

I have the book "Eat This, Not That" by David Zinczenco and Matt Goulding. It does not recommend a specific diet but gives comparisons of similar foods and gets you around all of the wording that can be tricky at the grocery store (like "natural" means pretty much nothing...you need to look into a lot more than the giant words on packaging that try to pull you in!).

My sister gave me a new one, "Cook This, Not That", for my birthday. It is pretty sweet because they look at all sorts of delicious restaurant meals that have outrageous calorie, sugar, and fat levels, and have then created recipe substitutes that you can make at home...saving both money and your health!

I have made four of the recipes so far, and was excited to make "Lasagna Rolls" because Carey was coming for a visit! They had chicken sausage (Italian style), spinach, ricotta, and a good blend of spices. Here are some process pics...unfortunately I forgot to take one of the finished meal, which included some more marinara and a little mozzarella on top! YUM!

I have just a few pics of Carey and Connor, she is going to send me some great ones from her camera that I will post later.

We had a fun and relaxing couple of days and we miss her already!

Here's what I mean...my wild man with the awesome thighs. Sorry Connor my love, that is a Twichell trait and I fear you may never lose those and be just like your Mommy and your Papa. Don't worry...at least they are full of muscle, and we know you are strong already!

On a last little note, I am excited for a fun superbowl party. Oh, you didn't know that I was such a football fan? Ha! I'm really not a big fan of any NFL team, I only follow college football. HOWEVER (is that my word today or what?), I'm excited to try some new recipes to party with and my dearest husband is a Packers fan...so I will be excited for him. :) (And I'll show just a little love for the Steelers for my Uncle Bob and Molly!)