Older Brother Teacher (with more patience)

After Brady's bath tonight, Connor decided that perhaps the best way to get Brady interested in potty-training was to set up the "baby" potty. He explained to Brady that he started out on the small potty before going to the big potty. He offered to sing songs to Brady while he was trying to go potty and was even taking requests. I got the last couple minute of Brady sitting (only) on the potty and the two of them singing together. No worries - it's rated G.

Packing Connor's Lunch

One thing about Montessori is that Connor has the opportunity to take his lunch. He was so excited to pick out a lunch bag (like Daddy's) when he first started there. We try to pick out 2 days a week for lunch taking. More recently he has started pointing out our flaws in packing his lunch.

One, don't pack a dessert for him because he never has time to eat and Ms. Beth won't let him eat it first. (Apparently he is a talker and just doesn't have time.)

Two, there needs to be five items. He pointed out to to us that we only packed 4 items today and rattled them off on his fingers -- 1. Sandwich, 2. Juice, 3. Pretzels (or chips), 4. Fruit Chews, and 5. "You forgot my Banana".

When you insult the packer, you get to pack your own lunch next time!

Chris's New Car (and Connor's in 2021)

For over a year, Chris has been talking about trading in his vehicle for a new vehicle since his current vehicle is a stick-shift. However, based on his choice of vehicle and the fact that his car was free and clear, I was not motivated to discuss it further. Over the last couple weeks, Chris has had some leg/hip pain and needed to trade me vehicles. That was all it took to convince me he needed a new vehicle! I drove his car to Montessori and work and I swear I hit every light and I got stuck in Riverside's traffic jam. Not the best situation in a stick-shift. I told Chris he now had my permission to get his new vehicle.

On Saturday, I arranged for Mimi and Papa to watch the boys so that we could go look at vehicles. He still knew what he wanted and when compared to some of his alternatives, it was one of the least expensive of his choices. We went straight to the dealership, asked for my hairdresser's husband (to avoid the aggressive salesmen), and test drove the vehicle. Chris liked it even more after that. We had a deal very quickly - then 3 hours later, we actually got to drive the vehicle home. (If dealerships ever want to make the process more attractive, they need to work on the checkout time. I think we signed more paperwork than when we bought our home. We were even video-taped during the finance discussion!)

Congratulations Chris (and Connor) on your new Toyota Scion XB! We told Connor he was loaning it to daddy for 12 years and then it would be his!

School Day Pictures

Following are the boys school pictures. They look so grown up in these pictures!

Connor - Montessori Academy Brady - Central Child Care

Seaton Family Holiday Pics

We had our holiday picture session this weekend where the boys did really great and we got our annual "blackmail" picture. They can't deny the brotherly love that they share!

Update: Robin's Cake Creations

Update - turns out that mom has "outsourced" the cake creations to Robin. These are her cake creations. See below for this year's creation.

Per my Happy Birthday blog, I mentioned that my mom has gotten creative in the past with the birthday cakes when combining my birthday with my nephew, Shane's. This year, we will be combining mine with Shane's and Ethan's. See below for one of her more creative masterpieces. A couple year's later she went pro.

Happy Birthday to All of Us

November is the month of family birthdays! There are 10 family member birthdays within 10 days of each other. We had two birthday celebrations this weekend with family. Saturday night, we celebrated my birthday along with Papa and Aunt Julie's birthday. We had a nice night of visiting, pizza, chocolate cake, and gifts - yeah! Sunday night we had dinner with Papa Terry and Gma Donna, where the boys enjoyed the visit and we had MORE chocolate cake. Next Sunday, we are celebrating my birthday and my 2 nephews' birthdays with my family. My mom has gotten really creative with the cake in the past when combining birthdays - so this should be interesting to see what she does this year. My only request is no more chocolate cake.

On my birthday, Connor asked me how “many” I was and I said 33 – he held up three fingers and said “like me”. I said no, 10-20-30 plus 3 (using my hands to signal the count of 10s). He said – that’s a lot and walked off. Gotta love the toddler’s viewpoint! Happy Birthday to all my family and my friends that are also celebrating birthdays this month!

Parent-Teacher Conference at Montessori

Last week, we had our first Parent-Teacher conference with Connor's teacher at Montessori. Little did we know that this is far more involved than a report card. We sat down with Ms. Beth to discuss Connor's progress in the three main areas - academics, behavioral, and work habits.

According to Ms. Beth, Connor is well rounded with an interest in all 5 academic areas that Montessori monitors (practical life (aka motor skills), creative expression, science, math, and language). It was no surprise that he is proficient in many of the math areas considering his parents are Accountants. It was a little surprising that he has an interest in the science area. Ms. Beth said that he is very curious about things yet to be presented and likes to watch the older kids at work.

Ms. Beth said that Connor stays quite busy during the day, really enjoys getting new lessons, and displays a positive attitude. She said he is easily pulled into inappropriate play, but is equally easy to redirect him back to the expected behavior. Connor recently asked if he could be the "Bathroom Monitor", so he is working with an older child to learn the role of this position. His motivation in this area relates to the fact that HE is usually one that the bathroom monitor has to remind to be quiet and stop playing in the sink.

Great news Connor! We are really proud of the progress you are making at your new school.

Trick or Treat

This Halloween, we have participated in more Halloween themed events since the boys are getting older. We went to Family Fun Night at Brady's daycare and we went to a Montessori Costume Party for Connor's school. They both enjoyed seeing their friends from school. Connor was really excited to see some friends that he hadn't seen in a couple months (since he changed schools).

For costumes, I purchased a train conductor costume for Connor since he is crazy about trains. I was having a hard time finding one for Brady, so I ended up ordering a Bat costume online. However, once it arrived, Brady and Connor decided to trade costumes. Okay - this will work, no biggee that one is a little small for Connor and the other is a little big for Brady.

Our first costumed event was the Montessori Costume Party. Connor was so excited to dress up, while Brady refused. I threw a hat on Brady and decided he could go as Brady. At the last minute, I gave Brady the option to wear the train costume or go as Elmo (Elmo Sweatshirt, Elmo hat, we're done) in hopes that he would choose one. He chose Elmo - good job Brady!

For Halloween night, we started out at Brady's Halloween Party at school and then went to pick up Connor early. Connor was really excited to show Brady around Montessori. Afterwards, we met up with daddy and started our evening of trick-or-treating. We went to Gma Darla's for a little bit and went through her neighborhood. We then went to Mimi's for dinner and trick-or-treating in her neighborhood. Before we had a chance to head home to our neighborhood, the cousins showed up at Mimi's and the kids had a blast playing together. This year, we skipped our neighborhood yet again and we missed all the trick or treaters. That's okay since the boys had a blast and still ended up with full buckets!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Connor's Field Trip to Mayse Farm

This week, Connor's class and a couple other classrooms went on a field trip to Mayse Farm. Connor was so excited since he had already been there with the family a couple weeks ago and knew what to expect (and what to look forward to). He said they got to ride a school bus to Mayse Farm, they did all the same things we did as a family but with his friends, and he even got to pick out a baby pumpkin. That evening, he decided he wanted to paint his pumpkin. At his request, I painted the face of the Jack O'Lantern and he painted the remainder.

What a great job Connor!

Our First Jack O'Lantern

At Mayse Farm a couple weekends ago, we selected a nice pumpkin for carving the week of Halloween. This will be my first memory of a pumpkin carving (although my mom said we tried one year) and the boys first pumpkin carving. Daddy researched pumpkin carving templates online and selected an appropriately scary one.

Since the boys did so great with their flu shots today (no fighting or crying), we decided tonight was a good night to carve the pumpkin. While daddy was carving the pumpkin (very professionally I might add), I suggested we pick out the pumpkin seeds for toasted pumpkin seeds. Of course, this became my task since the boys decided they didn't want to get their hands dirty.

The end result - a scary Jack O'Lantern, yummy cinnamon flavored pumpkin seeds, and a new memory with the boys!

Teenager attitude early or just a preview?

Connor and Brady are giving us a glimpse of what teenager attitude will look like with their new favorite phrases.

Connor has decided to end the majority of his statements or respond to our questions with "whatever". Imagine this being said in a smart alleck tone as opposed to being an answer to the question of what do you want for dinner. I have identified who one of the influences to this word were - daddy! Daddy has been caught on occasion responding to mommy's questions this way. Daddy now has some reform work to do!

Brady's new phrase is "I know that". The majority of time this is said as a statement that he knew something we just told him. It has came off a few times as smart alleck also in that we just told him something he already knew and we wasted our time telling him again. Well then!

Gotta love the personalities that are developing!