A little of this, and a little of that.

Yesterday we took Owen to the zoo. Owen absolutely loves animals. He ALWAYS picks out animal books and laughs really hard when he sees the kitties (he must have inherited that from Lee). Lee's parents took us to the zoo with Owen and it was a blast. I am a real dummy and forgot my camera and am way mad. He was such a good boy. He loves it outside and he didn't take a second nap and didn't fuss once. He just ran from room to room, exhibit to exhibit. The only problem was that if the animal wasn't way close or moving, he didn't notice. He also seemed to enjoy watching running water than the animals. But at least he loved it. He rode on the carousel and the train and absolutely loved it. I love having a child because you can just see the joy and happiness in them in everything they see and do. I feel like I get to have a second childhood because all of a sudden, everything is fun again. Only I am the giver which I think makes it even funner. But don't tell Owen that :). Anyways, zoo, fun!
Today wasn't so fun. Why is my child the ONLY child that won't stay by Lee or I during church? Why does he just run away and not look back? I really honestly think I could drop him off and pick him up later and he wouldn't even notice. He just run and plays and won't sit still. It is quite frustrating. Even the other kids that are around his age sit by their parents. Owen has no fear and runs away. I try to bring books and toys but he won't have any of it. The other parents look at me as I run back and forth and back and forth probably thinking "why don't you control your child?" But it's not like I can restrain him. I tried to hold him for a while in the back and guess what? He screamed and screamed until I put him down or took him out. In fact, all he does is scream. When he doesn't get his way. I think he is in his terrible two's...only he started a year early. The only time he is happy is when he is outside or away from home. So church, not so fun.
Then we get home. We decided to make pancakes for dinner. (I know lovely sunday meal right?) Owen has learned to stand on his tiptoes and open drawers and pull out things from in them and on the counter. He pulled down a brand new bottle of maple syrup and it broke and our floor was covered in the sticky mess. On top of it, we don't have paper towels so we had to clean it up with a rag. Took about 20 minutes. Then after dinner, we are sitting there and Owen had something gross on his hands. Look over, there is dog throwup and you guessed it, Owen smeared it around. So clean up that mess. I swear as soon as I got done doing that I opened the fridge to pull out grapes. Owen loves the fridge, he has a little obsession with opening it and the freezer. So we are sitting there and Owen is being quiet in the kitchen. Oh no. Here he comes from behind the island with fistfulls of rice. I had some in a tupperware and he must have pulled it out when I opened the fridge. So of course he runs to us, rice in hands, shoves it in his mouth and spits it back out. Hundreds of little pieces of rice go all over our carpet. So Lee and I are cleaning that up and he runs in the kitchen and is feeding himself and Feebee the rice that was all over the floor in there. Lovely. All of this within an hour of each other.
I do want to say though, that I love Owen. I love being a mom. There are some sticky, messy and unconvenient messes that come up but no matter what I love that little boy to pieces. I wouldn't trade staying at home with him for anything. I am so amazed at the love we have when we have children. You truly never know how much your parents love you until you have a little child of your own.

Although...I am thankful that he is in bed now and I get a break.

Until tomorrow morning at 7!

I should probably explain the main picture up above. Owen's eating habits have, well, gotten worse. He absolutely HATES his high chair. He screams when we try to buckle him in it. He wants to get up and see the world. If the camera came lower you would find this...

Or this...

or even this...

So while he eats I have to sit there right next to him and hold him. I could try strapping him in, but like I said, he just screams and gets angry and refuses to eat period. Lee was sitting right next to him so I could take pictures.
Lately, he will just throw all his food on the ground. It doesn't matter if it is food he likes, he picks it up, looks at me, and throws it on the ground really hard. I swear he only eats like 10 bites a day. So then I will pick up food, and put it in his mouth and he will just spit it out. It is a miracle when I can find food that he will eat pretty good. This has just been in the past few weeks that he has been doing this with his food. On top of this, he is hardly drinking any of his bottle. At nap or bed time he will just sip for a minute. Get in an ounce or two then be done. I know he is slowing down his growth now that he is a year but still, feeding time can get pretty frustrating. Luckily at the feeding above he liked the ravioli! At least he looks cute while doing it!

If you thought your day was bad...

Mine was probably worse. In fact, worst day ever! So after lunch, I decide to venture out and try to see if I can find a swimsuit for Hawaii. (Let's also say this is a pretty embarrassing post too). Anyways, I get Owen and buckle him up and head to Kohls. We get there, unbuckle Owen and start looking at swimsuits. First of all, I know this, but I didn't obey. Never take Owen shopping ever. While I am trying to look at swimsuits he is running all over and keeps running away from me. He thinks it's hilarious. So I am grabbing him and just grabbing at swimsuits hoping to grab my size. After chasing Owen down at least 6 times we go into the dressing room. I hate dressing rooms that don't have walls that go all the way down so I am trying to try on swimsuits meanwhile Owen is trying every second literally to try to crawl out and away. I was doing a pretty good job holding him back.
At this time (here comes the embarrassing part) I had found 2 or 3 I was debating on. So I take out my phone and take pics of me in the ones I liked. You know, you gotta compare side by side. Plus its different than seeing it in the mirror. As I am attempting this, Owen gets under the wall. I grab at his shoe, but missed by a centimeter. He was off and running. So I open my door a crack and try to lure him back in with my phone. He was slowly walking towards me and I thought I had won, when he took a sharp right turn and ran into the store out of the dressing area. So what's a mother to do but chase down her son. Her extremely fast wiggly son. So I run out and I am darting in between clothing racks trying to capture him. All whilst wearing a very non flattering bikini. Yikes. Don't worry the story gets worse. So we go back in and I get dressed, look at the awesomely beautiful pictures of me in swimsuits and decide to just get one and go. We check out and I decide, hey there's Old Navy why not stop there too. So buckle Owen up, drive to Old Navy, unbuckle Owen. Go in and walk around. Owen was getting fussy as it was his naptime but I just didn't want to sit at home like I do every day so I grab his binkie and walk around. Nothing was tickling my fancy so I decided to leave. Go out to the car, buckle Owen up. He is being fussy again and I realize he must have left his binkie in the store. Unbuckle Owen, go back into Old Navy, walk around and find his binkie (I had just bought them and was so sick of wasting money just to have him throw them wherever he pleases). Go out to the car, buckle Owen up. Look for my phone and it's gone. GONE! The pictures of me in swimsuits, gone with the phone!! Double Yikes. Quickly unbuckle Owen run back into Old Navy. Searched everywhere but no phone. Checked with the front desk/customer service and no phone had been turned in. I decided to go back to Kohls because I could have left it there too. Go out to the car, buckle Owen, drive to Kohls, unbuckle Owen. Did I mention how annoying it is to buckle and unbuckle a child a million times. Go into Kohls check the dressing rooms and by the swimsuits. Not there. Check customer service, not there either. I asked if I could leave my husbands phone number with them in case it got turned in so I left Lee's number. At this point I decided to check Old Navy one more time. So out to the car we go. Buckle Owen up, drive to Old Navy, unbuckle Owen. I go back in for the 3rd or 4th time and still no phone. I asked if I could leave Lee's number there too and they let me. So I finally gave up and decided to head home. Go back, buckle Owen up and drive home. Needless to say I still have no phone. Don't know who or where it is. And on it, are some very embarrassing pictures of me in swimsuits. Let's hope they don't end up on the internet somewhere. I hope the phone got run over!

baby blankets, Hawaii, and the sweetest thing...

I have been such a slacker lately! I hate when people don't update in a long time. I have been pretty busy. I have been making 2 baby blankets for 2 of my friends who are having boys. Lee's mom had made me one almost identical to these so I used some of her leftover fabric, bought some of my own and got to work. These blankets are a lot more work than you would think but I think they are absolutely darling! This is the first one I made, I am still in the process of binding the second one. (But it is pretty much the same).
Secondly, I am going to Hawaii!! Yahoo! I have never ever ever been and I have always wanted to go. I especially want to go before I get old, fat, and ugly! haha. So we are going with our friends Kyle and Jana that we went to Guatemala with. We love to vacation with them! For one, we all just get a long and everyone is laid back so there is never drama, and second, Kyle is the dad. Meaning, that he loves to find all the deals and whatnot and where to go and when and plans the ENTIRE trip. So basically, he finds us good deals, we pay and have a 100% stress free vacation!! Guatemala was the same way and we loved it. We are going to Kauai and staying in Princeville. I guess it is on the North shore and the ritzy part of the island so it will be really nice. I am kinda sad to leave Owen for a whole week, but I am sure I will get over it quickly while I am there! We are going in May so that means only 2 months to get off this baby weight. I have been following my points for weight watchers this last week and think I have lost about 3 pounds. I tell you, nothing is more motivating than a trip where you will be required to wear a swimsuit! Hopefully I can get 5 or 10 more pounds off but if not, oh well.
Finally, to end on a cute note. On Sunday we have to wake up Owen from his nap to get him ready and go to church, I opened his door to wake him up and found this...

I am sure every mom agrees that watching a baby sleep is one of the sweetest things ever! Oh and for the record, he doesn't sleep with a pillow, I put it in his crib because he was sick so I was trying to get him to sleep upright a little so he didn't get an ear infection.

Birthday Party

Here is Owen's last Birthday party. My best friend Jill had a baby 9 days after me, (We also got married 9 days apart!) so we had a combined 1st birthday for both Owen and Tate (her son). It was so so so much fun! We just had our friends over and hung out and had cake and ice cream. It was fun because we actually decorated it all really good and I made the cutest monkey birthday cake. Our boys had fun playing together and eating cake together. It was really cute! I am glad we did it. Here you go...
At the last second, I decided to make a second cake just to make sure we had enough, I didnt have enough time to get creative so I just made a basketball on it. Oh well.
Tate was so cute and dug right in. Owen just picked at his for a little then threw it on the ground. But by the end, they both looked like they had chocolate goatee's!
And we finished off the party with presents, play time, and of course, Owen stealing Tate's sucker. That boy loves suckers and kept stealing away Tates! haha, you can see that he has both suckers in his mouth.