The Summer Party - Again

Below are some additional pictures from our get together on Saturday. Truly was a fantastic time!

Uncle Rich, serving up the drinks!
Bocci, anyone?
If you're not over the age of 21, please skip over the next picture! By the end of the night the guys had the beer pong table out and in good use!
Aunt Lauren and Aunt Kate:
Uncle Jay with Aunt Lauren, cool effect with the smoke from Rich's cigar.
These last pictures were taken by Chris on Sunday. You can see just how exhausted Shane (ok, everyone!) was from the last few days.

This kid doesn't sit still for a second, let alone actually lay down!! Even Kylee is wondering what the heck is going on!

This is pretty much what we did all day long!
Does he look wiped or what?! And the sucker and blanket he's got with him - those RARELY leave the crib - a true sign that the day before got the best of him!
Look at that poor, tired, face!
Yet, by Monday, he was rested and right back at it again! Anyone need any work done around their house? I know a guy . . .

The Summer Party

This past weekend we gathered together some of our extended families and had ourselves a little seasonal get together!

Kids enjoyed being kids, adults enjoyed the endless supply of drinks and we all enjoyed some good conversation and being able to spend some time together.

We wanted to send a special "shout out" to Aunt Trae! We know how badly you wanted to be here with all of us and hope you know how much you were missed! We look forward to seeing you VERY soon! Hope you're feeling better!

Pictures can only come so close to showing what a great time we had on Saturday, but I think these do a pretty good job at conveying the message!

Three generations of O'Connor boys! Daddy, Shane and Grandpa:
Shannon with Jerry:
Playing in the sandbox!

Jerry, Jamie, Chris and Jerry

Tara being a pirate! Andrea, Danny and Brooke, with Jeff:
Shannon and Tara on the slide:"Bu-bbles - Wowwwwwwwwwwwww!!!"
The best of friends . . .

Driving Miss Tara:
Timmy in the kiddie pool!
Chris working the grill:
Shannon and Jeff playing on the monkey bars:
Chris with Shane and Timmy:

The Daddy's and their boys! Tim and Chris and Timmy and Shane:
Shane and Timmy playing at the water table. Notice the bus tucked tightly under Shane's arm? Aunt Sue and Aunt Joni gave him that bus the night before and he even made us let him take it to bed! He's still in love with the thing!
Playing is hard work!
Tara practicing her modeling skills!! We caught Shane and this little cutie trying to give each other smooches again!!! GramZ even managed to get a picture as proof! Maybe she'll let us borrow it so we can share it with all of you?!?!
Lots more to come tomorrow!!!

Catching Up

Yeah, I've admittedly been pretty bad with updates the last week or so - things had been crazy around the house and Chris and I had both taken a few days off from work - so blogging was the last thing on my mind!

This is our "catch up" post! The photos I had planned on sharing last week that I never got around to posting! Tomorrow and Thursday I'll post some photos from this past weekend and then back to "5 On Friday" this Friday! That will get us entirely caught up!! YEAH!!!

Chris has been working A LOT of overtime lately, with the crazy hours he's been keeping and the lack of sleep, Shane has had a few days where he's gone to daycare all day. The dogs are loving this! They get the house to themselves, they don't have to keep one eye open at all times to see if Shane is on his way over to harass, I mean love, them! It also means they got some extra loving from me when I went home for lunch!

Horrible shot of me, but I had to share this - Kylee is SO loving life in this shot:Finally, a few more pictures from our day at Stepping Stones in Norwalk a few weeks ago. We plan to go back again in the next week or so! Shane LOVES the bubble exhibit they have outside during the summer. Stepping Stones really is a FANTASTIC children's museum - anyone in the area should definitely look into checking it out.

Playing in the "water room" - as long as you don't make him wear one of those smocks (meant to keep him dry) he's happy as a clam!
Weeeeeeee!!!! We always start off in the toddler room (for kids 3 and under) to let Shane warm up. We think he's more comfortable at first when he's around other kids his size or smaller! Then we work our way around the rest of the museum - meant for kids 8 and under.
LOVE that face!
BIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG Bubble!!!!
I think Daddy likes the bubbles as much as Shane does!
My boys, my loves . . .

I Know, I Know . . .

I've been lousy about updating lately!

Chris and I both took Thursday and Friday off and we had ourselves an incredibly busy weekend spending time with family.

Rich and Lauren are on their way to the airport to head back to Florida as I type. It was great to have you guys around and we're looking forward to seeing you again for the holidays in a few short months!!

I do have TONS of photos to share and will upload them tonight after Shane goes to bed.

To give you an idea of just how busy this weekend was, Shane fell asleep last night sitting on my lap, after his bath, while watching Elmo! This NEVER happens! He was THAT tired, plain and simple!

Until tomorrow . . .

Uncle Jay's House - The Updates

We stopped by Uncle Jay's to drag him to dinner with us last weekend and while we there I snapped a couple of shots of some of the updates Jay's done.

I want to say that while I did happen to have the camera in the car, my 50mm prime lens (aka no zoom) was the only lens I had with me. With a fixed lens, there is no zooming in or out if you happen to be too close, or too far, to the subject.

What I'm trying to say is that some of these shots may appear "smooshed" - and that's just because I didn't have the room to back up any further to get more of an image inside the frame.

In other words, deal with it. :-)

Jay spent some time working on the "wells" (?) for the basement windows. He put in those new silver things (you can tell we don't have a basement of our own - I have NO idea what those are called) and filled it with pea gravel - all to help with any potential water problems.
Checking out Jay's efforts, while Shane "helps"
Uncle Jay finishing up the mulch bed around the GORGEOUS tree line in his yard.
A shot of that GORGEOUS tree line. Jay stained the deck off the sun porch. Looks FANTASTIC and makes such a difference!

Side yard, off the sun porch.
Front of the house. No more overgrown landscaping, new door knob/lock, mulch around the Japanese maple. Looking good!
Side yard (far side of house). Another shot of the tree line.
Kitchen. Finally starting to look lived in and "homey". New microwave courtesy of the Z's!

Living room portion of the "yellow room".
Bathroom - this room looks GREAT! Shower curtain is perfect for in there.
Looking down the hallway. From the "yellow room", through the kitchen, to the sun porch.

Keep up the good work, Uncle Jay! Your hard work is definitely paying off!

We've Created A (Shopping) Monster

So Shane and I darted into Home Depot VERY quickly today on the way to daycare so I could grab a piece of Quarter Round molding that we needed for the doorway.

We run through the store, grab the one thing we need, hand the lady at the cash register our $2.98, she, in turn, hands Shane the receipt, and off we go.

As we're walking out of the store, I notice he's got his hand (and therefore the receipt) extended out of the shopping cart, and his head is turning every which way and his cute little face looks puzzled - and it dawns on me. I know what, or who, really, he's looking for.

He was looking for the "BJ's guy"! You know the one - the guy you hand your receipt to when you exit the warehouse stores with a cart full of (un-boxed, un-bagged) goods? Well, that's always been Shanes job - to hand the guy the receipt. And I realized he was looking for one of those guys at the Home Depot today! Perhaps we spend a little too much time at BJ's? Or perhaps our precious, innocent, little boy, thinks his Mommy just stole that piece of Quarter Round from the home improvement store!?!

So funny. So cute. So Shane.

This Morning

Ha! Almost forgot to share this story!

This morning when I was in the shower, I heard a little knock on the door. I knew right away who it was, of course, and I also knew that because the door wasn't closed all the way that he'd be able to get into the bathroom.

I kept looking at the shower curtain at the end of the bath tub, waiting for it to be pulled back and for the cute little face of my favorite little boy to be standing there smiling at me - smiling the smile he smiles when he thinks he's gotten away with something!

To my surprise, I never did see that face.

A minute later I hear Chris yelling something to me from the hallway. I yelled for him to repeat what he said and this is what I hear:

"Your son just took your pajamas (the clothes I took off before I got in the shower) and very gently put them in the hamper for you!"

I about squealed with laughter! That little bugger! Where does he get this stuff from?!

When I got out of the shower and grabbed my towel that cute little face on my favorite little boy was standing in the doorway smiling at me. And he was smiling that smile he smiles when he thinks he's gotten away with something . . .

And We'll Have Fun, Fun, Fun . . .

You can't tell me this doesn't look like a kid who's having a GREAT time!!!

Yesterday we went back to Stepping Stones Children's Museum in Norwalk and purchased an annual family membership! We can now go back there and have THIS much fun as often as we want - for FREE!

More pictures to come from our weekend, but this one pretty much sums up the great time we had all weekend long! We had ourselves a nice family weekend, and we look forward to spending time with even more family next weekend!

5 On Friday

1). Peasssssssssssss??? (aka Please) Our new favorite word! Which I'm thrilled with, really! Except for when: he hands me the bottle of gas drops - "Peasssss"?; he hands me the bottle of infant tylenol; "Peassssssss, Meeeeeee, Peasssssssssssssss"?; he hands me the tube of toddler toothpaste while the tootbrush is still hanging out of his mouth- "Peasssssssssssss, More?" I think it's time to hide EVERYTHING from this kid! I couldn't be happier that he's learning to be polite, but when did he start thinking that saying "Please" would get him anything he wanted???

2). Uncle Rich and Aunt Lauren are flying in today from Florida!!! They'll be up here with us for a little more than week and we couldn't be happier! Let the good times roll!

3). After spending a few weeks with Aunt Trae, GramZ flies back home from Florida tomorrow and Shane has a big ol' hug waiting for her when he sees her next week!!!!!

4). Cute story. Last weekend Shane was playing with his matchbox cars and he was lining them all up along the top of the sofa in the playroom. The sofa sits up against a wall, under the row of windows in that room. One by one he knocked each car/truck off the edge so that it fell behind the sofa. And to each one that he knocked off, he said "Bye, Gee!" Seriously - how cute is that?!?!

5). I PROMISE to take pictures of the new floors this weekend and post them on Monday. It's just been that kind of a week!

Fun In The Ball Pit

I mentioned in last weeks "5 On Friday" that we had gotten Shane a ball pit after he fell in love with Melissa's at the 4th of July BBQ we went to.

Here's some proof of that love affair!