Happy Birthday Connor!

Connor had a pretty exciting birthday this year as he got to celebrate it in Florida. I was a little worried that it would not be as special if we were on vacation, but it was quite the opposite, he had a great day! We went to the ocean and played in the sand and water all day and then went to dinner. For several weeks before our trip he kept saying that he wanted to go to Red Lobster for dinner (there seems to be a pattern here) and we kept telling him that you can get fresh seafood in Florida and we would find a nice restaurant to celebrate. We found the perfect place, Jetty's Waterfront Restaurant. We thought it was appropriate because Connor and Cooper call our jet ski Jetty! When we got to the restaurant Papa told Connor that he could order whatever he wanted on the menu. I was a little worried because he had been talking about wanting to try lobster but he decided on the Yellowtail Snapper and loved it (sigh of relief because of course me being the tightwad that I am, all I could think of was Cha-Ching!) He even ordered a dinner salad and broccoli to go with it, he is quite grown-up now ;-)

When he talked to Grandma Olson on the phone he told her that he had Yellowtail Snapper, you know the fish with the yellow on its hips...

I wonder if this fish knows that it has yellow hips?!

The next few photos are pretty Cooperesque and read like a flip book.

Photo op with the Birthday Boy

Doing a little sneaky peaky, determined to not be left out of the action...

There it is, he finally made it into the picture!

When I asked Connor what he wanted on his birthday cake and he said Halloween. Everyone was raving about Publix cakes, so I figured we better order from there and I was lucky enough to find a Frankenstein cake design. The cake was delicious but I think they need to reevaluate their decorators abilities!

This is an exact replica of the cake that I ordered.

This is the cake that we received...it made for a good laugh at least and Connor thought it was funny, so the cake was success! Pretty gory for a birthday cake, don't you think?!

Busy Busy!

Busy is the key word for the Fall for the Gillam's. Connor started his 6th season of soccer and begged everyday to play baseball (machine pitch) until we finally gave in and signed him up. All of these games and practices means that we are busy pretty much every night of the week. He loves every second of it and surprisingly never complains about having to go to practice or to a game. Mostly I think this is because he is a social butterfly and going to games/practices means he gets to see his friends more than normal. He does really well in soccer and is getting better and better. As for baseball, while he does a nice job hitting off of the machine, let's just say that when it comes to catching...he needs to keep his day job! I have noticed some improvement but overall he still has a long way to go ;-) This of course is killing Brad but he has been able to bite his tongue and has kept working with him. He is only 6 after all!

Continuing on with the busy theme, Cooper started PDO 2 days/week and is doing pretty well there. Every morning he begs to stay home but once he gets there and sees the kids, he does fine. Brad just got back from Canada after 2 weeks and was supposed to return on Thursday for another 2 weeks but the project he has been working on has run into some software delays. I am hoping they can get this figured out this week because I hate not knowing when he is going to be gone and such. Inevitably before it is all over, he will be gone around 10 more weeks within the next few months...blah! I really can't wait for this to all be over.

On a brighter note, I finished nursing school in August! Yay!! I am now awaiting the dreadful boards. All this means is back to studying for me :-(

Playing catcher

Cooper and Mommy being silly!