1st Birthday

Owen turned ONE!

We celebrated Owen's first birthday with some friends and family on his actual birthday, April 30th. With they help of my friend, Bridget, I made a simple photo album of his first year with a picture for every month.

The decorations:

For lunch we had J Dawgs style hot dogs with special sauce, salad and chips. For dessert we had Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcakes. The kids had funfetti cupcakes to go along with Owen's funfetti cake.
Cute Sophia, playing in Owen's car seat:
Uncle Mitchell playing with the kids:
Aunt Marci showing Owen some pictures she took:
Claire and Paige wanted to help Owen out with opening the present they brought:
Opening more presents:
Here's all the loot he raked in. He loves it all and we can't wait to use the floaty in the pool this summer.

After presents, we sang Happy Birthday to Owen and let him dive into his cake. He enjoyed playing with the cake and smashing it in his hands, but he wasn't too sure about eating it. I think the texture of the funfetti chips threw him off a little bit. But it was fun letting him dig in.


Thanks to everyone who helped in celebrating and making Owen's 1st birthday a wonderful success!

Clouds and Magic Wands

(Sorry if this is a repeat for some of you. I was looking for this post and it was gone from my blog. I guess blogger decided to delete it for some reason. Grrr. Thank goodness it was a short post for me to repeat for my records.)

The other day while I was making dinner, Miles took Owen outside to play. I walked outside and this is what I saw:

He told me they were looking at clouds together. Then he gave Owen his very own wand. Or should I say, the wand chose Owen. Miles said it was made out of Boxelder (the tree in front of our place). Here is Owen with his wand:
What's your wand made of?

Pink Eye

The Saturday after I got back from California, Owen woke up with his eyes crusted shut. I knew it was pink eye. I called the doctor to find out what I should do about it. She said that it's most often viral and would likely go away on its own and to come in if it hadn't gotten better within a few days. I called in a couple of times but the nurses always said to give it another day. During this time it was improving, but not nearly fast enough for me. Unfortunately the nasty stuff lasted almost two weeks. It was pretty much gone after a week, but he still had small crusties in the morning the following week. It was nasty stuff. I felt so bad for him. His poor little eyes were so red, dry and sensitive. Sometimes his eyelids would bleed a little when I wiped the crusties off with a cloth. :( One funny/pathetically sad thing was the second morning I walked in, Owen was standing up in his crib, holding onto the railing in the corner of his crib, facing the wall. He was crying at the wall because his eyes were crusted shut and he didn't know that he was crying in the wrong direction, opposite of the door. I felt so bad for him.

Here are some pictures of the progression of his sad little eyes.

Trying to keep a smile on his face:

Big, red circles around his eyes. Owen got a bath every day that week to make sure his eyes were nice and clean before bedtime.

The one "good" thing about it was that I got some extra snuggles:

Looking pretty goopy, red, and raw:Almost better:

It was a long, rough road. I couldn't wait to have my clear-eyed baby back. It was also hard because I had to try and be super sanitary by washing my hands all the time and making sure he didn't touch my face with his hands. This was not an easy task. And I don't know how I did it, but I never got it from him. I also didn't like that we were basically quarantined to the house because I was trying to be a courteous Mom and not "spread the love" and germs around town, at church, or to my friends and their kids. Boy am I glad that is over and I hope it never comes back!

Happy Easter!

From our little bunny...

California Love

Miles had to leave for two weeks to the Philippines on a business trip. I knew that I would be a mess without him for that long all by myself. I originally asked my Mom to come out and stay with me and Owen. But my sister, Kim, suggested I come to California instead so that we could all spend time together and see one another. It was a fabulous idea and I am SO GLAD we went.

The best part about going was getting the cousins (Austin and Owen) together. It was love at first sight. Austin has always been such a huge fan of "poppy baby" since the day he was born. The last time he saw Owen was about six months ago. Now that Owen is a bit older and more mobile and interactive, it was much more fun for the two of them to play. They were pretty inseparable. Any time Owen got hurt, or was a little fussy, or just wanted to be held by his mama, Austin would immediately say, "Don't pick him up. He's ok," because he was so concerned that Owen was being "taken" from him. He'd quickly follow with, "Can I play with Owen now?" It was pretty funny how possessive he was over Owen. When I would feed him, Austin would say, "You're feeding my baby." He also wanted to be such a big helper all the time. When we arrived from Utah, I needed to feed Owen and get him ready for bed. He didn't nap very well, was quite hungry, and tired. I got him some dinner and when he was done, Austin got up to get Owen some toys to play with. This was the result:
The two of them could often be found playing together in the family room.

Austin apparently thought the dinosaur could use some soothing:

Austin always wanted to help feed Owen, too. He loved giving him cheerios and gold fish.

Slouching in the high chair:

Owen discovered Austin's trampoline. He really enjoyed pressing the buttons and bouncing to the music.
Some of my favorite times were when they would bathe together. They looked so cute playing in the tub together.One of Owen's favorite pastimes while he was there, was getting into Grandma's Tupperware cupboard. He probably emptied the contents of that cupboard at least 3 times a day.
While the children were sleeping, the adults played a lot of games. For at least half of the time I was there, we played board and card games each night into the wee hours of the morning. I was often hating life the next morning when I had to get up with Owen after going to bed around 2 am, but it was worth it for the laughs and fun we had together.We of course did Owen's Easter Bunny photo shoot while we were there. It was a lot of fun, since he was such a cute subject.

This was only Owen's second time on the grass. He was not too happy about it. I tried to get him to venture out by putting his pacifier on the grass beyond the blanket he was sitting on. He would go to reach for it, stop, and then cry.Eventually, he got brave enough to test it out. It helped to have the wagon for distraction. But I love these pictures of him on his tip toes, trying to avoid as much contact with the grass as possible.

Austin shooting some hoops, trying to be as awesome a basketball player as his Mom was.

Austin got a turn to be a cute little bunny too:

We wanted to make sure everyone got some photos with Owen before we left. So he got some quality bonding time with Grampy, Grammy and Auntie Kimmie.
And of course while I was there, I had to stop by Hank's Creekside Cafe for breakfast to get me some of their yummy Eggs Benedict. It did not disappoint.
A pretty picture of Mom outside the house in front of her beautiful, blooming tree:
And a couple pictures of me with my baby... (It's nice to actually be in some of the pictures with Owen, since I'm usually the one taking all the pictures.)

While I was there, my Mom told me that she was going to give me her old (but incredibly nice) sewing/embroidery machine. So she signed me up to take a couple of sewing classes so I could understand the basics of how to use the machine. I don't have it yet, but I'm excited for her to bring it out this summer so I can get a little crafty.

Some other things I did while there:

• Went for a walk with my Dad and Austin to a nearby park
• Skyped with Miles on a regular basis
• Tie-dyed some shirts (and the onsie Owen is wearing in his photo shoot) with Kim and her Beehives
  
• Took some much needed naps while Grampy, Grammy, and/or Auntie Kimmie watched Owen
• Started crocheting the edge of a baby blanket
• Ate lots of good food

It was a great trip, and way easier to be away from home than I expected. It was so nice to be with family while Miles was gone. I had a couple of days alone before I went to CA and felt so lonely. It was hard since I couldn't just pick up the phone to call Miles. Being with the family and having so many distractions was good so I didn't miss him as much. I was sad to leave and can't wait for our next trip out there!