Something Scary

The other day, Owen and I were laying down on the love sac playing together. Because I'm so fascinated with his increasing ability to play make-believe, I thought I'd record our little adventure/conversation.

Owen: Let's lay down and go to sleep. Mommy! There's something scary over there. It's a monster! It's a lizard! Ahhhh!

Kendra: Let's get sticks

O: Ok, there are some over there. I'll go pick them up.

We shake our pretend sticks at the lizard.
K: Go away lizard!
O: He went away!
He waits a second while we pretend to sleep.

O: Mommy! There's something scary over there....
K: What is it?
O: A mommy lizard!
K: What can we do?
O: Let's get more sticks!

And so it continued through a number of "something scaries." After telling me it was a bear, I said, "Bears are very scary." Owen replied with, "Yeah, they're dangerous and fragile. Let's hide!"

O: A giraffe. See it's shadow?

O: A lion.

O: A tiger.

K: Is it Daniel Tiger?

O: Nooooo.

O: A rhinoceros.

O: A dinosaur.
O: A t-rex!

It was fun to get lost in his world of make-believe. I'm excited to have more adventures with my little guy.

6th

According to the world wide web, for your 6th anniversary the traditional gift to give is either candy or iron and the modern gift is wood. I was a little unenthused about it until I found this site. There it says, "Candy represents the sweetness in your marriage, iron represents good luck and strength, and wood represents a solid relationship." I thought, I can get on board with that. 

Although I've got to admit I'm looking forward to our 10th (diamonds). ;) I'm sure any of these would do just fine. Or more specifically, this:

Photo via Tiffany & Co.

But alas, I have to pay my dues first. And let's be honest, I'm guessing that ring is not on the shopping list.

Back to reality...This year, Miles was "in charge" of anniversary plans. He decided to forego celebrations on our actual anniversary since it was a Sunday, and push it off to the next weekend (hoping to also avoid the Valentine's craze from the previous weekend). So Sunday morning, we all went to church together. Elsie looked adorable in her little fur-cuffed, winter dress.

For dinner, we decided to do homemade pizzas. We made a pepperoni pizza with olives on half, and a chicken, tomato, pesto pizza. Owen was very excited to help out. He loves helping in the kitchen these days. Both pizzas turned out quite delicious.

After dinner, I gave Miles his presents. I bought him a decorative, wooden, "treasure box" for his desk and filled it with Dove dark chocolate hearts and a chocolate mousse Ritter Sport. I also framed his favorite pictures of Owen and Elsie for his desk/office. I didn't quite get all of the 6th anniversary gifts, but I think it was close enough.

Miles gave me a beautiful love letter with two coupons good for whatever I want. I tested the bounds of this gift and asked if that could be to make me dinner, do the dishes, put Owen to bed, watch a chick flick and give me a back massage. He said, "If that's the package deal you want, then you get it." Hmm...I may have to get creative with these "package deals!"

Our marriage isn't perfect. I don't know of any relationship that is. What's important is that we are working on it. And even when it's hard, there is no giving up. We are in this together. Forever. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

There aren't any pictures of the two of us on our anniversary, but that's ok. I think we can all agree we look much better 6 years ago. So I'll end with some pictures from that wonderful day that forever changed my life for the better.

V-Day 2013

Valentine's Day this year was jam packed. Well...at least it felt that way to me.

I started by getting up early (before the kids were up...which is early to me) and making Miles breakfast. I decided to make him eggs in a basket but cut out the holes with my heart and lips cookie cutters. It didn't turn out perfectly, but I think it was alright.

Miles then spent a little time letting Owen jump off the changing table...

...into his arms, of course!

Once Dad was out the door, Owen and I got busy making breakfast for ourselves. Owen decided to jump the gun and chomp into the cheese...again.

After breakfast and once Elsie was down for a nap, Owen and I took on the task of making sugar cookies.

I think he had a lot of fun. I, on the other hand, had to exercise a lot of patience. One time, when I was pulling off the extra dough around the cut cookies, Owen grabbed some of the excess and quickly shoveled it in his mouth. He also had a hard time resisting the urge to stick his little fingers into the rolled out dough.

Then he pretended to eat the dough off the counter. Such a silly boy.

Elsie was a gem and just sat back while we finished up baking the cookies.

I made some special cookies for Miles to eat.

A final note on cookie making with Owen. He was ridiculously obsessed with them the rest of the day and throughout the following days. I couldn't go more than 10 minutes without hearing about cookies and requests for cookies or finding him sticking his fingers in the frosting. One time I put them in a pyrex dish on top of the toaster so he couldn't reach them. He climbed up on the arm of his chair and brought the dish crashing down onto the counter. Thankfully, neither he nor the cookies were hurt. Next time, I vow to hide all evidence of cookies or frosting so that it won't be such an temptation obsession for his sugar-crazed little body.

When Owen was down for a nap, Elsie and I had a little v-day photo shoot. She is so dang cute and is always so quick to give me a smile. 

After "nap time" (AKA: Jumping in his crib) Owen and Elsie spent a little time playing together on the floor.

  
While Miles helped finish up dinner (my schedule did not go according to plan) Elsie conked out on me.

We had pink buttermilk pancakes. Unfortunately, once they were cooked you could hardly tell they were pink.

I wanted to serve them with strawberries as well, but apparently when you wait to buy strawberries until the day before/day of Valentine's Day they are nowhere to be found. So instead, Miles chose to have a plethora of meat - sausage, spam, and bacon - he said he couldn't decide on one. Here is our little piggy with all the pork products: 

  
After dinner, I gave Miles and Owen their presents. Owen opened a bag with some candy and chocolates and two new Hot Wheels cars.

Elsie watched on while doing her favorite pastime (sucking on her hands).

Then Miles opened his present. Normally I don't go all out just for v-day. Mostly, the holiday was just an excuse to give this to him. It is a signed print (by the artist and the author of the book for which it was drawn) of the book cover for Brandon Sanderson's Way of Kings.

I was pretty excited to give it to him. Miles is so hard to buy for and I knew he would not be expecting this at all. He said he saw the post about the sale on Facebook (where I had seen it) and almost bought both of the prints that were for sale (the other was for the last Wheel of Time book, A Memory of Light, cover art) but didn't because it was a little pricey. However, he said if he could only choose one, he would have chosen the one I got for him. I think I won major "good wife" credits. :)

After presents, we ended the night with some balancing acts. Miles showed Owen how he used to balance him on his hand when he was a baby.

Owen at 4 mo:

Owen at 2 yr 9 mo:

So of course, Elsie had to get in on the fun as well. She hasn't demonstrated the same standing skills as Owen at such a young age, but at 4.5 mo it's not too bad.

It was a great day of love and family fun. Even though it's a commercialized holiday where people often manufacture tokens and acts of love, I don't mind. I enjoy celebrating it and making the day a little more special. Hopefully both my children and husband feel love all throughout the year, but just a little something extra special on V-day.

Krump

I'm going to make a fool of myself by posting this, but that's ok. We were listening to some music on Pandora (I don't recall what) and Owen wanted to dance with me. I told him I would teach him how to krump. If you don't know what krumping is, there are some great videos on Youtube. And I'm sure you'll see that my form is 100% technically accurate. ;) Anyway, I told Owen it required big movements. We may have also been making some guttural sounds while krumping. The pictures are blurry, but I love all his stances and movements.

And this final picture is great for showing his stank-face.

SYTYCD - watch out. We have a dancer in the making! (That is, if I don't ruin his form, technique, and any rhythm he may have miraculously been born with....)

Rockabye Baby

Today when I went to put Owen down for his nap, he asked if he could sit on the rocking chair and if I could move the fan. I told him the fan (which we use for white noise) had to stay there but he could sit next to it. He sat down and started rocking. Then he sang, "Rockabye Baby." Then he looked at the fan and said, "The fan needs to go to sleep in his crib," and turned it face down. He rocked it again and then picked it up and said, "Did you have a good sleep?" He hugged the fan and said, "Yeah...you had a good sleep." Then he rocked the fan again and sang "Rockabye Baby."

I was cracking up watching him go through this little routine with the fan. I love how he gives life to inanimate objects. And it's always amusing to see what I say to him come back out of his mouth when he's pretending.

Going to the Beach

Last night, Owen came to me and said, "Do you want to come with me, Mommy? We're going to the beach!" He then proceeded to set up Elsie's car seat and his chair in a row as a "make-believe" car. He told me to sit in my car seat (his chair) so he could buckle me in. I told him I was too big and sat on the floor behind it to pretend I was in a different seat. Apparently that was silly of me because he started laughing and said, "No, Mommy! You can't sit on the floor!" Then I suggested baby Elsie ride with him. He said, "Put baby Elsie in her car seat so I can buckle her in." I walked toward her car seat, which was again the wrong move as I was informed that was the car. So I sat her in his chair. He then hopped inside the car seat to "drive" to the beach. I asked if he was going to see the ocean. He said, "Nooooo. There's not the ocean. It's the beach!" Ooooh....riiiiight.

I love that he checked on Elsie to make sure she was ok.

Then he said, "Let me get my keys." So I gave him mine, and he pretended to start the ignition.

Elsie started to slip, so I picked her up. Owen started to cry really hard and said, "NO! Put baby Elsie back!" I thought it was so sweet that he wanted her to be a part of his make-believe play. I'm loving this stage and watching his mind explode with creativity.

Scalp Treatments (Take 2)

Elsie has followed in her brother's footsteps in needing scalp treatments for her cradle crap cap. I've been putting coconut oil on it, which has helped (and smells so delicious I just want to lick her head and eat her up!) but I decided to get a little more hardcore today. Out came the turban...

Here's one of Owen for comparison:

It's Genetic

I thought it was about time to do a side-by-side comparison of Owen and Elsie to see how similar they look. (It's pretty obvious who is who due to clothing/colors.)

Newborn/hospital (Owen is on top):

Sleeping baby:

Bath time:

Spit-up:

(Owen won on the amount in this side-by-side comparison, however, Elsie wins for overall lifetime quantity of spit-up.)

Hand-sucking scowls:

What do you think? I see a lot of similarities, but to me there are definitely some differences. The biggest being their personalities. When I had Owen, I didn't realize that personalities were apparent from such a young age, however, I can now see they are. Elsie is the happiest, smiliest baby, EVER. It doesn't take much to get a smile out of her. I thought maybe I was just forgetting and that Owen really was smiley too. But when I looked back through pictures, I was hard-pressed to find many big smiles out of him. And I do recall that most often, he would give serious stares. It's bizzarre to me though since he is such a goofy child. Who knows?

Either way...I think they're both adorable. And I'm pretty sure that's genetic. Hee hee. ;)