Happy Birthday Connor!...and playing blog catch-up

Connor is 6! He got lucky and did not have to go to school on his birthday, so Daddy took the day off to help celebrate. It was a jammed-packed day that started with a trip to the Science Center. It was pretty cool even though Cooper was deathly afraid of the mechanical life-sized dinosaur that roared! Following the Science Center, we met Grandma and Grandpa Gillam, Great-Grandma Gillam, and Great-Grandma Dena at Red Lobster, (Connor's choice of course, for some reason he loves Red Lobster and always begs us to go there!) He was super excited because he got to try crab legs for the first time, he even got to crack the shells! After dinner Uncle Chad and Chelsea met us for an evening of bowling.


Cooper and the very scary dinosaur



Can you tell how excited he is?




Even Cooper got to bowl!


Happy Birthday Connor-bug!

Fall Party

Hello old friends, it has been awhile!

Connor's first school party was this past week, crazy that my baby is old enough for school parties! Anyway, I signed up to plan the party along with one other mom...yes only ONE other mom and she emailed me saying she was too busy to help. Ok, let's not forget who is in nursing school and the party was during finals week...awesome (just wanted to get that off of my chest, I feel better now.) Being a novice at school party planning and trying to find games/snacks/prizes that were of fall origin and not Halloween proved to be very difficult. However, it is really amazing how many games you can make out of pumpkins...pass the pumpkin, pin the stem on the pumpkin, pumpkin toss etc. (pat on the back for that!) I think overall it went pretty well and I was excited to find out that all of the parents who volunteered to donate party favors actually donated party favors, and the mom who volunteered to bring snacks actually brought snacks! I was a little concerned given the not so great response I was getting from parents who volunteered to donate items. I did sign up to "help" with the winter party...at least this time I will know what to expect! The kids had fun, and really I did too and that is all that matters right?!

I have to give Connor's teacher, and every teacher for that matter, mega props because I honestly don't know how she does it everyday.

And for that I have created a top 5 list as to why I could never be a teacher...

1. ADHD kids...ALL OF THEM + party = mass chaos!
2. Germballs...(the kids, as I am now referring to them) totally gross me out and I'm in nursing school! There is just something about one wiping their nose on their arm from their elbows to the tips of their fingers and then proceeding to hug one another, hold each others hands, or worst of all, trying to hold my hand (probably the reason Connor has brought home a letter saying someone in his class has strep throat every week with the exception of 1 since school has started...oh and did I mention that I got strep, no doubt from the germballs!)
3. Exhaustion...Being in that classroom for 1 hour exhausted me...and I deal with two rambunctious boys and full time school on a regular basis.
4. Mrs. Gillam...I really don't like being called, "Mrs. Gillam" that is my mother-in-law, not me.
5. Deception...Some of the kids are truthfully really sweet and I think I would have a hard time not playing favorites. Connor didn't like that one of the little boys that I thought was really nice was the bully of the class for whom Connor has complained about since day 1...could have fooled me, I guess kids learn to be deceiving early!

The germballs do make for some pretty cute pictures!


Yes, that is Connor aka Mummy #4 (the germball on the far right)