The Young Family

Polar Express

thefamilyyoung — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 23:38:49 +0000

We took the boys to the Polar Express today at the library, which ended with a trolley ride and a visit to Santa. They were so excited to finally see Santa, it was so cute.

Listening to the story

My very favorite thing about the whole day: David decided that he wanted to give this picture to Santa. (In case you’re wondering what all the circles are, they are the cookies in Santa’s belly. Obviously.)

However, if you look closely at the back, you can see it was not originally intended for Santa. Sorry, Daddy.

David with Santa

Connor with Santa

Backhanded compliment

thefamilyyoung — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 03:13:31 +0000

The other day, David was telling us about a thing at school where “Skippy the Cat” comes into his classroom and has them do various activities. Apparently the last activity they were asked to do was to give a compliment to someone who wasn’t in the room, and he told us he chose Connor. We thought that was very sweet, and then David said, “Yeah, I said I like it when Connor does things that I want him to do.”

Huh.

Busy Saturday

thefamilyyoung — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:23:36 +0000

Saturday was a busy, busy day! It started out with David having basketball practice. He started Pioneer Basketball at the Y this year, which is geared toward kids in kindergarten and 1st grade. It basically just teaches them basics and focuses more on learning than competition. It’s hilarious to watch, because clearly, with 5-7 year olds, there’s not a whole lot of focus on things like traveling or double dribbles. But David loves it, and it’s a great opportunity for him to run around in the winter time, so it’s all good.

We went straight from basketball to Tait Farm to get a Christmas tree. Apparently we blocked out our statement from several years ago of “we are never again cutting down our own tree,” because we traipsed out into the field with our cart and our saw to choose our tree.

Timber!

In the afternoon, David went to a birthday party for his friend Jahmir.

Then, on Saturday evening we finally put up our outdoor Christmas decorations. Only 13 days left!

Thankful Turkeys

thefamilyyoung — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 14:26:37 +0000

I realize that Thanksgiving has past and we’re now into the Christmas season, but I feel that it’s necessary to include the boys’ Thankful Turkeys from this year, because they are just way too cute. Every day in November, they write down one thing they’re thankful for. I LOVE seeing what they come up with.

What Connor is thankful for:

1. My mommy
2. My brother
3. My daddy
4. Football guys
5. Football
6. McQueen
7. Pumpkin patch
8. Dinosaur socks
9. Dinosaur magnets
10. My toybox
11. Penn State fight song
12. McQueen song
13. McQueen cup
14. iPod
15. All of the songs
16. The radio
17. The TV
18. Hugs (my favorite!)
19. Eli
20. The tuck truck
21. Smiles
22. Soccer
23. Otto’s
24. The lights
25. Kisses (ok, this might be my favorite, it’s hard to say)

What David’s thankful for:

1. To have a mommy
2. Football guys (you can see they feature very prominently in the Young household)
3. Fish
4. Fish bowl
5. Pumpkin
6. David cup
7. Brother
8. Daddy
9. Baseball
10. Computer
11. Bus
12. The phone
13. Apple butter
14. Turkey
15. Volleyball
16. TV
17. Ireland and Ella
18. Basement
19. Bus stop
20. Carter
21. Gord (“Gourd”)
22. School turkey (the turkey he made in school, not to be confused with this turkey)
23. Flowers
24. Rain
25. Frederick

Try not to pass out.

thefamilyyoung — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:21:07 +0000

No, this isn’t a mistake. I know, I haven’t posted anything in over a year and a half. I really want to start up the blog again, for several reasons. For one, since I am “that mom” who wrote about 3 things in David’s baby book and never even bought one for Connor, it helps me remember who was doing what when. And, since we have a lot of friends and family scattered across the country, it helps them stay updated on what is going on in our lives.

So here’s what’s happened since you last heard from me: Dave and I went to Grand Cayman on vacation to celebrate our 5th anniversary; I started a business; David turned 4; we took the boys to Hershey Park; we went to DC and visited the Natural History Museum; my friend Holly came to visit with her daughter and son; we went on our yearly vacation to Ocean City, NJ; we put in a patio in our back yard; I got a part-time job at Penn State as an editor in the Outreach and Marketing department; Connor turned 2; David started in the Fabulous Fours class at preschool and Connor started in the Tiny Tots class; we went to several PSU games; Connor dressed up as JoePa and David dressed up as a bat for Halloween; David went on field trips to the fire station and Wasson Farm; we went to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving; the boys and I made a gingerbread house; we went to Lakemont Park to see the Christmas lights; we saw Santa come through our neighborhood on a fire truck; David got a phone call from Santa; we had an amazing Christmas and New Year’s; Dave and I went on a cruise to Mexico; we celebrated Grampy’s 70th birthday; we had a great Easter; we went to see the ducks at the alumni gardens approximately 987 times; I had a fantastic Mother’s Day and David turned 5 (on the same day!); Dave and I went to Charleston, SC for a long weekend; David graduated from Stay & Play; the boys and I picked strawberries at Way Fruit Farm; I found out I’m pregnant again and due in March; the boys and I went to DelGrosso’s Amusement Park; the family went to Philly on our way to our yearly vacation to Ocean City, NJ; David started kindergarten (!!!); Connor started in the Terrific Twos class; Connor turned 3; we went to several more PSU games; Connor dressed up as Buddy from Dinosaur Train and David dressed up as Troy Polamalu (with no long hair, sadly) for Halloween; we found out we’re having a 3rd boy (!!!!!); and we celebrated a great Thanksgiving. Other than that, nothing much is going on.

So, now that you’re caught up on our lives, hopefully I’ll be able to get back on track with this. I’m not going to make any promises here, other than to say I’m going to try really hard to keep up. We’ll see what happens.

Wacky Wednesday

thefamilyyoung — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:20:56 +0000

Yesterday was Wacky Wednesday at David’s school, so he had to dress all crazy. He kept insisting that he wanted to wear shorts under his pants, even though I was trying to explain that if he did that, no one would see his shorts and he would just be uncomfortable. Here’s the outfit we came up with:

We chose the shirt because “it’s so crazy to wear a Halloween shirt when it’s not Halloween!” and I finally convinced him to wear the shorts over his pants. He also wore two different shoes, which he thought was the silliest thing ever. It was cute to see all his classmates in their crazy gear.

St. Patty’s Day party

thefamilyyoung — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:13:09 +0000

David and Connor’s friends Catherine, Lilly & Eli had a St. Patty’s Day party this year. It was a lot of fun. Everyone was all festive in their green attire, and they had all sorts of fun green snacks (as well as green lemonade, which David thought was just so crazy).

Hope everyone else had a great St. Patty’s Day too!

Connor at 18 months

thefamilyyoung — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:01:40 +0000

I really cannot believe that my baby is 18 months old. It’s so crazy. It amazes me how much different he is than David. He has a much bigger temper than David ever did and has a much stronger personality. If he doesn’t like something, trust me, you’ll know. I think the phrase I use more than anything else right now is “He’s lucky he’s cute.”

He has a crazy obsession with ducks for some reason. Not sure where that came from, but he goes absolutely berserk if he sees a duck, and starts yelling “DUUUUUUCK!” at the top of his lungs. Duck is actually one of the few words he says, another way he’s different from David. At 18 months, David said well over 100 words. Connor says duck, dog, wow, ball, good, hi and bus. I think that’s it. He does the signs for more, milk, please and help. He definitely communicates, because if we ask him what he wants, he leads us over to whatever it is and shows us. He also knows animal sounds for lion, tiger, bear, snake, fish, sheep, cow, pig, and dog, as well as where his eyes, ears, hair, head, mouth, teeth, tongue, hands, belly, feet, nose and cheeks are.

He loves to wear hats, shoes, beads… whatever he sets his mind on. He’ll bring it to you and say “Aaaah! Aaaah!” until you put it on him. Here are pictures of a few of Connor’s recent fabulous ensembles:

Those are David’s pajama pants that he insisted upon wearing as a hat.

Note the mittens.

He wouldn’t let me put his pajamas back on correctly after I changed his diaper, then he had to have his Crocs on, as well as the headband as a necklace.

Yep, that’s a Tupperware container.

Connor loves his big brother more than anything in the world. One of their favorite things to do is chase each other. David is beside himself that he finally has someone who will run around with him. They love to play together; David will come up to me and say, “Connor and I want to go play in the basement,” and Connor will be toddling along right behind him and then will run to the basement door. It’s like they had a conversation about it, it cracks us up.

It’s so much fun right now, because he truly changes and learns something new every day.

Sicky, sicky, sicky

thefamilyyoung — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:28:09 +0000

Holy moly, it’s been a rough couple of weeks in the Young household.

Dave and I had a wedding to go to in Philly on the 28th. Because Dave was flying home through Philly that week, we decided he would just stay there and that I would drop the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house on Friday and drive down to meet him.

Plans changed a bit when Connor started throwing up on Thursday night and continued throwing up all night long. I decided that I’d wait and see how everyone was and drive to Philly on Saturday instead. Everyone seemed fine on Sat., so I dropped them off and headed to Philly. Turns out everyone wasn’t fine, because David started throwing up about two hours after I left. We were going to come home, but Grandma and Grandpa said they could handle it for one night.

During the ceremony, all of a sudden I felt like I couldn’t breathe and was going to pass out. I went outside and felt much better, so I thought it was just that I was stressed and worried about the boys. Not so much, apparently, since I had to abruptly leave the reception when I felt sick, and then I ended up throwing up too, from about 9pm – 6am.

When we got home, David was still sick, and ended up throwing up all day and night Sunday too. By the time Monday rolled around, we were giving him Pedialyte a tsp at a time from a medicine dropper, and he couldn’t even keep that down, so I took him to the ER. He turned around amazingly quickly once they gave him some anti-nausea medicine and a popsicle, and once we got home, he was like a new kid. We thought we were out of the woods, and then…

…Connor was up screaming all Monday night. We thought he had an ear infection, so I took him to the doctor first thing on Tuesday morning. His ears were fine, as was everything else, seemingly, so I think the doctor (actually, she was a PA, so beware of PAs, people. BEWARE) panicked. She told me she was worried about something called intussusception, which is where the small intestine telescopes into itself, and told me I had to take him to the hospital for an ultrasound, and if he did have this, he may need to be taken to Danville or Hershey for surgery.

At this point, the fact that I still wasn’t feeling great myself and hadn’t slept in 5 days combined with my insane stress level and worry about Connor and I had a minor (ok, maybe not so minor) breakdown. Thank goodness for Dave, who told me to come home and try to relax while he took Connor to the hospital. Turns out there was absolutely nothing wrong with Connor’s stomach — a couple of days later, we discovered that he’s getting his two-year molars, so I think that was the problem.

Once the stomach flu cleared out, the three of us all got colds, which led to coughing and more sleepless nights, but we all feel much better now. Hopefully this will be it for 2009, because we went through enough in one week for the whole year!

David is too smart for his own good

thefamilyyoung — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:00:11 +0000

David has been getting way too smart for his own good lately. He’s always thinking of ways to get out of trouble, and what he comes up with is usually something that makes us want to simultaneously crack up and throttle him. My two favorite recent examples:

1. The other morning he was driving me insane, asking me “why?” every time I asked him to do anything. I was trying to remain calm, but he was making me crazy. Finally, he asked “why?” one last time and I got mad and said, “Because when I tell you to do something, you just do it! You don’t ask why, you don’t question me, you just DO IT!” He looked at me, and without skipping a beat he said, “No, Mommy, I wasn’t saying the word ‘why,’ I was just saying the letter ‘Y.’”

2. One day last week, right after we were all getting over being sick (post on that coming soon), David was supposed to be taking a nap, but was making all sorts of noise instead. I had already gone in once to tell him to be quiet and go to sleep, but he started to yell again. Dave went in to tell him to be quiet, and David said “But Mommy told me to call for her if I was going to be sick.” Dave got worried and said, “Are you going to be sick?!?” and David said, “No, that’s why I called for YOU.”