Day at the Beach

A few of the guys in the neighborhood decided to plan a boy’s only camping trip at the beach. 

Since Tylor was a little too young to join we stayed home (and I slept as much as he did recuperating from my first week of work) and Jaydon and Steve went to spend the day at the beach. 

A few days before Jaydon’s cough had started up again so I nixed the plans for camping out overnight. 

Jaydon had a great time playing in the water and flying his shark kite the Grandpa Forte had given him. 

Athena thought she was already in dog heaven and tried to be the energetic, pre-cancer puppy she used to be by spending the day swimming and fetching sticks. 

She did very well and seems to be all the better for it too. 

Jaydon decided that sunglasses are pretty useful things and looked very cool hanging out in the water. 

Since I wasn’t there I don’t have any actual stories to tell but do know the boys (and dog) came home happy and exhausted. 

When I brought Jaydon to nursery the other morning he asked why he couldn’t just go to the beach instead…

Back to Work

Wow, it’s already been 4.5 months and time for me to head back to work.  Tylor has been doing very well with only waking up 1-2 times per night and he got there all on his own.  Steve and I joke that he knows we are experienced sleep trainers so knows it’s not worth the effort to try and wake-up at all hours of the night.  They also agreed to let me go back part-time until the new year so that helps with easing into the new schedule.  I found a driver for Jaydon so no longer have to rush home on my lunch hour to pick him up from nursery and I’m back to checking e-mails and reading the latest energy news articles while pumping at my desk.  It’s times like these that I can definitely say that the second one is sooo much easier then the first.

Dancin Boy

Those of you who are adept at using YouTube you may have already discovered these videos on our site but they are so much fun that I wanted to post them anyway.  Jaydon is a real dancer and loves his music (I wonder who he gets that from??).  Every once in awhile an oldie will come up on a random playlist or i-tunes genius mix and Jaydon will latch on to it.  It’s great fun except for the part where he asks you to play it over and over and over again.  Here’s a taste of his latest favorites – with all his dance moves included.  This song was made for little kids and Steve wanted to show Jaydon how to walk like a real dinosaur, as you can see Jaydon is a quick learner. 

I never realized the importance of this silly song until we spent one evening looking for it on the internet only to discover that is basically started the whole rock and roll thing. 

Jaydon also has a taste for early 90’s songs, this one is a favorite and makes me think of frizzed out bangs and warm-ups. 

And more fun walking (and being chased by) a dinosaur.

Excersaucer

We got our excersaucer back from the neighbors and introduced Tylor to it. 

He got right into it, even spun some of the toys a few times before deciding it was a little too much to take in all at once. 

The next time he went in Jaydon was around and was having a great time reconnecting with all his old toys.  And Tylor was content to watch Jaydon do the playing.

Pizza

Every so often Steve gets inspired to make a big fancy messy dinner.  Well this night he came home early from work and made home-made pizza dough. 

We invited over Jaydon’s good buddy Jacob, who’s expecting his little brother to arrive in January, and set the boys up to make us some pizza. 

They had a great time and did a really good job.  It’s amazing what they’ll eat when they make it themselves.  Jaydon ate mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and even a few onions on his pizza. 

It was a fun evening and Tylor watched it all contently from his bebe seat.

Green Beans

Let me just start by saying that I love this picture. 

It captures Tylor’s personality so well – he loves to just take it all in.  The doc gave us the ok to start on baby food so that night at dinner we were eating some good green beans (which are hard to come by here) and Steve handed one to Tylor. 

Tylor spends most nights at dinner sitting in his chair watching us eat so he was super excited to join in on the fun. 

He gnawed on those greens beans the whole dinner and looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. 

Tylor is a once a week pooper so because of that the doc said to start with veggies and fruit first and cereals last – which is the exact opposite of what we did with Jaydon but I think there as many opinions on this as there are fruits and veggies to try.  So with Tylor eating green beans whole I took this as a sign to go ahead and start the eating adventure; went back to the store the next day to get more of the good beans before they were gone and started up the blender. 

Tylor was totally into eating and actually cried when we stopped feeding him (Samina is doing the feeding while I'm taking the pictures). 

It took a few days before we could stop feeding him without him getting completely upset that the food was gone.

I also bought a new freezer knowing that we were getting into baby food making time.  Between the frozen breast milk, our stash of smuggled pork and Tylor’s first few veggies it’s already full – guess I should bought the bigger size – oops.

4 Months Old

Tylor is 4 months old and he’s turned into quite an adorable baby. 

He loves to talk, will smile and giggle to get your attention and loves to go for walks in the Bjorn.  The doc says he’s tracking in the 75% for height and weight which explains why everything I seem to put on him is too small (but Mav still has a couple pounds on him). 

Jaydon continues to be a great big brother and is the best way to keep Tylor entertained if he starts to get a little fussy. 

Athena’s hanging in there too, she’s noticeably lethargic and the number of meds we give her keeps increasing but we’re just happy to still have her around.      

Another short video of the boys being cute.

Grandma Connor

Steve’s mom decided to visit us in Doha to meet the newest member of the Connor family. 

She has been to Doha before so we didn’t do any tourist stuff except for some rug shopping.  She spent most of her days playing with Tylor when he was awake and with Jaydon when he got back from nursery. 

The timing for her trip was perfect since she was able to help me on the plane from the US and was an extra set of hands to have around when Steve went on his business trip to London for a few days. 

She also taught Jaydon how to do zrbtts on people and now that’s one of his new favorite games with Tylor which he just loves.

Heading Home

After almost a full month in the US and 3 weeks without Daddy around it was time to head back home to Doha.  Before we left Jaydon got to sit on a real tractor which he thought was great. 

He was on it about 5 seconds before he managed to get covered in nasty black grease so we had to call it day helping out in the pear orchard. 

At the airport Grandpa held Tylor for awhile while I figure out our check-in. 

Small town airports aren’t very experienced in checking bags all the way to Doha so it took a bit of time.  Most difficult part of the trip was getting through security.  They let Grandma come as far as the metal detector but not on the other side which is where you need the extra hands.  Once Jaydon got through he took off immediately, a nice lady in a wheel chair got his attention (he was very curious about the chair) and entertained him and kept him put while they opened all the carry-ons, checked all my milk and liquids for explosives, told me that I had too much food (for 28 hours of travel you never know what you might need), etc.  I got Tylor’s put back together (seriously – baby shoes too!) and a nice gentleman behind me volunteered to hold Tylor while I got my shoes and the Bjorn back on.  Our flight was a little delayed taking off so I stopped by subway (the only place to get food in the GJ airport) before getting on the plane.  Well the subway line was so long and they were so slow that they started boarding our flight when I placed my order and had finished boarding by the time I was paying (it was also a small plane) so we were the last ones on the plane.  As I got on it was the first time I looked at our boarding passes and realized I was in 3C (the bulkhead with the extra room for the infant) and Jaydon was in 15C.  Right, I’m pretty sure a 2.5 year olds who should be going down for a nap rather than getting on a plane will not fly by himself.  Luckily there was a nice lady in 3A who took one look at the Mom flying by herself with 2 kids and agreed to changed seats with Jaydon.  The flight from GJ to Houston was a lot easier then I had expected.  Tylor cried during take-off (so loudly that the stewardess actually got out of her seat at one point to see if I needed some help) but after that he was so exhausted that he slept the rest of the flight.  Jaydon was very well behaved.  We got to Houston and had a 6 hour layover until the flight to Doha boarded.  We headed to the lounge and camped out in the family room for several hours.  Steve’s mom had planned to come visit us to see Tylor so we asked her to coordinate her arrival such that she could help me on the long flight so she met us in Houston.  She arrived just as Jaydon was just getting to the very overtired stage from missing his nap and I was getting to the end of my patience and ideas on how to keep him entertained.  When she arrived Jaydon was thrilled and had a great time playing with her until we boarded the flight.  We boarded at 9:00pm so Jaydon was exhausted and quite content to veg in front of the TV until he fell asleep.  All in all, the 16 hour flight back was painless; the boys slept or kept themselves entertained.  Jaydon watched Nemo and Dora and even let me get a few hours of sleep and Tylor slept in the bassinet for a few hours (something we never got Jaydon to do when he was little).  When we landed in Doha the one thing that kept Jaydon going was that he was going to see his Daddy soon.  When we left the arrivals area and found Steve Jaydon was so excited he could hardly contain himself – we thought he was going to break down in tears from being so happy to see Steve. 

And Steve didn’t put Jaydon down until it was time to strap him in the car seat.  It was a priceless moment that still makes me smile to think about.

Above the boys are showing off their latest GGF (Great Grandfather Forte) fashions.  He hand painted Tylor and Jaydon some new T-shirts/onszies with fun blue and green fish and a puppy.

Photo Shoot

While we were in Palisade we had a visit by an old friend Pooh-Z who's hobby is photography.  She was our wedding photographer so is was nice to also have a chance for her to get a few shoots of me and the boys. 

You can see a few of the favorites in the shutterfly slideshow below.
Jaydon and Tylor Photos

Bats and Paint

Jaydon got see his first bat up close and personal.  (We saw a tons of huge fruit bats in the Seychelles but they were too far away to actually see their face.) 

My parents cat Isabel caught it and let it go in the house.  The next morning the dogs found it hiding in the corner.  My Mom was able to catch it and tried to let it go but the cat had had too much fun and the little guy and he didn’t make it. 

When Jaydon was 3 months old we had painted some canvases with his hand and foot prints.  Well my mom wanted to be sure that Tylor didn’t miss his chance at the fun so we bought some paint and canvas and had a painting day. 

We first started with the easy subject. 

Jaydon was all about covering his hands and feet with paint but wasn’t quite as thrilled with how precise we wanted him to be with the artwork. 

He got into it later when Grandma told him he could paint the wall too. 

When I was in middle school, I redecorated my room with black and white checkered floor and painted one of my walls with black and red handprints.  Jaydon got to add some of his own handprints to the wall which was fun for all. 

Next it was Tylor’s turn. 

Baby foot prints are much easier to get so we started with them.  I seemed to recall that with Jaydon we did his 3 month hands while he was sleeping so waited until Tylor was asleep to try – well that was a disaster, and woke him up so then we had an uncooperative, overtired baby to get handprints from.  We finally gave up for awhile and tried again after he had had a good nap.  We got the canvases painted but the candid shoots ended before the handprints were finished (painting baby hands is a 2 person job so no more cameramom).  The final products ended up being quit nice.

Tylor Swims

So Tylor finally got his chance to give the pool a try.  He thought is was great fun and focused his full baby concentration into the experience. 

He liked standing on the stairs the best. 

After awhile he got comfortable with ‘swimming’ around on his tummy, until his neck would give out and he’d dunk himself. 

He would always be super tired after all the fun, one of the time she actually fell asleep on me in the towel before I put his diaper back on. 

Needless to say we all needed a bath once he woke but if ignore the warm wetness it was a beautiful day to sit outside and enjoy the perfect weather.