My little Hamster

Oh how Owen loves to play! He is growing up so much every day and my heart just aches in happiness and sadness. I am so happy he is growing and is so big and smart. He is the smartest kid I know. I am so proud to be his mom. I cherish every second we get to play together because I know this time will pass. I am sad because I don't want him to grow up, I wish he could stay this little perfect age forever. He is a perfect child in every way. I love his big happy smile when he sees me and I love how he wants his "mama" all the time. I love his big curious eyes and I love how his lips turn into big duck lips and his eyebrows furrow when he is figuring something out or concentrating. I love to watch him explore every inch of every place because I know he is just trying to figure out his little perfect life. I love his running open armed hugs and I love him. Sometimes just thinking about the love I feel for him makes me break down into big alligator tears. I could not even imagine being able to feel this much love for another being until he was born.
If anyone knows Owen, they know he does not know how to sit still. He just loves to run and play. I guess thats why he started walking at 9 months! Some of his favorite games we play together is I will pull out the blankets and make a tent. This will bring a smile to his face any day. He loves to be under the tent crawling around. What a new adventure it is. Also he loves to crawl through small spaces. He tries to crawl behind our couch or really any furniture that looks like a little tunnel. If Lee or I are sitting on the floor with our backs against the couch or wall, he will crawl though. He even tries to crawl through our legs and arms when we are laying on the ground. It reminds me of a little hamster. With his love for tents and tunnels. We really have to look into getting human sized hamster tunnels for him! :)

Vampire Baby

Owen grew in his bottom 2 teeth...and now his 2 canine upper teeth. I was waiting for his top 2 middle ones, but hid canines ones grew in first. Now he looks like a little vampire! It is so funny! I have tried getting pictures but it is hard to get him to hold still or smile while sitting still. What a cutie!

Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub...

The butcher (Owen cuz his daddy likes knives), the baker (Tate cuz he loves to eat his bottles all by himself) the candlestick maker (Ethan cuz he is the baby and that is all that is left).
So for Christmas, I didn't take any pictures...mad, mad, mad! Why?! I don't know? It didn't even cross my mind. I have never been the one taking pictures before. So we just bought a tiny tree had it on our end table so that Owen couldn't grab at it. I did take the video camera out and record the morning of for a bit. It was fun to have our first christmas all by ourselves at our home. I loved it. Owen also got a ton of great presents! He definitely was spoiled from his grandparents. Thanks everyone!! :)
Now for the above picture. On New years, we had Adam, Jill and Tate and Jake, Heather and Ethan come over. We decided since we all have kids and they have early bedtimes then we could hang out for a bit then put them down and go in the basement and party. We made homemade pizza's and breadsticks which were way yummy and watched our kids play. At around 7:30 pm Owen got his tired face on and started to fuss around so we decided to give all our kids a bath together for fun. It was so cute. Tate peed on Owen. But it was fun. Owen got pretty overwhelmed though because all us adults were in there laughing and taking pictures and I think it upset him.This is Owen getting frustrated in the tub. We ended up taking him out right after I took these. You have to take pictures of your children like this!! HAHA! We then played the Wii and us girls talked till about midnight while the boys were downstairs playing Xbox 360. Typical. After we said happy new year and kissed our men, we watched Eagle Eye. By the time we got to bed it was 3 in the morning! Ahh! I haven't stayed up that late since way before Owen was born. And the crappy thing is, no matter how late you stay up, you know your child won't and you have to wake up when they do. So lucky Lee got the job of getting up with Owen while I slept in till 9:30. What a great husband! This year has been the best year for us! I am so thankful for everyone and I am so thankful that Owen was born! I hope everyone has a fantastic year in 2009!

My Happy Child

I know all parents are proud of their children and like to brag about them...so that is exactly what I am going to do! I love my little Owen so much! He is just so cute! I can't get over it. He seriously is the happiest baby ever! He is so happy and smiley all the time. On Monday I went to the store and every single person we passed, they just smiled and laughed because he was just staring at every single person with the biggest grin you ever did see. An older couple was shopping around and I had passed them a few times and they kept smiling at me and him. Finally the older gentleman came up to me and said "I just want you to know that your baby is absolutely beautiful, he really is the cutest baby I have ever seen" I smiled and said "I know! And he is just so happy all the time". Then he kept looking at Owen and saying what a beautiful boy he was. Right after that store, we went over to Costco and once again, everyone that passed us was happy and smiling after they got one look at Owens bright happy face. Not only was he beaming at everyone but he was looking and talking too. One lady came up to me and said "You just have the cutest baby!" once again I said "I know, he is so cute" and she said "Oh and he is so social, just smiling and laughing and talking to everyone" It was so cute. And this happens on a daily basis. Every single time I go out, people just crowd around him and give him such compliments. I love my little happy baby so much. He really is so social. He loves to smile at everyone and get a smile from everyone. It makes me realize how happy he is and how I need to be happier all the time. He makes me want to be a better, nicer, happier person just because he is. I love to hear him laugh and play and make those sweet baby sounds you never want to forget. I love Owen and I love how he makes others days just by giving them his big open Owen smile. So here you are...have a nice day!

Owen can send you a text...

Owen is now a texting baby! Sometimes, I let Owen play with my phone to distract himself and he loves to push all the buttons. I have a long list of random letters and numbers saved in my contacts list from Owen pushing the buttons and saving them. He has also called a few people too. Well, now Owen can text. I was letting Owen play with my phone and I could hear a snapshot so I knew he had taken a picture..which he frequently does. Usually they are just blurry messes because he is in the process of sucking on my phone or waving it around.
Last night we went to a Christmas party with all my friends. It was really fun. One of my friends husbands, Adam, told me that he recieved a text of Owen's foot from me. Apparently, Owen had taken a picture of his foot and somehow sent it to Adam (since he is the first on my contact list alphabetically). I checked my phone and sure enough...My smart texting baby sent this picture. Don't worry, I am quite sure that he KNEW exactly what he is doing cuz he is the smartest baby alive! You can see he was wearing some blue pajamas and the white is the underpart of the foot. What a cutie! :)
On a side note...here are some awesome pictures from the party. We had a white elephant exchange and it was pretty funny.Heather got a "combover king" crown.Shae got some bubblebath and used candles "for a romatic evening" and Julie got candy and silly putty.Rachael recieved some really sexy pajamas and scored these hot undies from Kenzie.Kenzie recieved the underwear and a few other odds and ends.Here we can see Mary is just like little kitten playing with her kitten toy.I got the infamous "Joe's white hat", a bandaid and Sierry Mist Cranberry splash drink.Oh Jill, she got a sexy mask and lotion. Here she is rubbing the lotion all over her while blind in her mask.Britney got a whole bunch of old dried up corsages from old high school dances, a beatiful fanny pack and clutch.
Lee scored major with a bag full of goodies..in fact too many to even write, but lets just say it included a Chuck Norris book, a stuffed Kitty, a bunch of homies, and an O'Douls alcohol free beverage. Adam also got some scope, a toothbrush and a really sexy lipgloss.
Oh howI love Christmas parties and especially white elephants!

HELP!

I don't know what to do! Owen was sleeping through the night from about 11 weeks till about 6 or 7 months...but then he started waking in the night. He is now 9 1/2 months and STILL wakes up at least once, maybe twice in the night. I am very frustrated because everything I have read or heard or people tell me is "oh just go in and pat his back, give him his binky and let him know you are there but don't pick him up and go in every 10 to 15 minutes and he will eventually go back to sleep" Um...YEA RIGHT! If he even hears us or we go in...it makes matters a billion times worse. If we do go in and try to do the rub his back and give him his binky, the second we leave, he is standing up and screaming at us as we walk out! And the more we go in to let him know we are there and try to comfort him...it just starts all over again. Literally, the ONLY thing that puts him back to sleep is a bottle. But it is getting really hard and frustrating to get up and give him 2 bottles a night! Tonight I tried to go in and just give him his binky and lay him down and rub his back but he screamed and just reached for me to hold him. I am SO sick of getting up in the middle of the night. It seems like everyone else who has babies this age are sleeping through the night. I just don't know what to do. It breaks my heart to have him cry it out. I tried that tonight after laying him down with his binky didn't work and he cried or should I say screamed for an hour! It is 1:30 in the morning right now and I just listened to him cry for an hour...he finally fell asleep but who knows how long that will last. I don't want to get up and feed him because 1) I think he eats less during the day which just makes him hungry again at night. And 2) Everything I read/hear/am told is that feeding them in the night just makes them get into that routine and make it the only possible way for them to go back to sleep. Which is just the predicament we're in. I also don't want to just turn off the baby monitor and let him cry it out because what if something happens..I need to hear him. AUGH! I am seriously so tired and frustrated! What do I do? I mean, seriously. If anyone has any good ideas or thoughts...PLEASE let me know.

Owen is Walking!!

It has been quite a while since I have posted so I will update. Thanksgiving was good. We went up to Lee's parents. We stayed the night and the next morning Lee got up at 3 in the morning to go get his Christmas present. An Xbox 360. I was so mad though because I have been saving my paychecks from teaching and I was going to surprise him with it on Christmas morning. I had the best idea ever. I was going to get him a game too and then just give him the game and he would say that we didn't have the 360 then I would pull it out. But he caught me so I let him do all the work of researching the best deal on Black friday and going and getting it. But he was more than happy to!
The main news and I am so dumb for taking so long, but Owen started walking! What the? He is only 9 months old. About a week before he turned 9 months he started to take 2 or 3 steps but in the past 2 weeks he is pretty much only walking. It is hilarious to see him. Because he is so tiny and watching him hold his balance. It is so crazy. He will walk and grab to something then you can just see him staring at his next obstacle and walk to that and start all over. He loves it. I think it is so cute! But it makes me sad kinda. He is my baby boy and now is getting so big he can walk and say "mama". I love this stage he is in so much! He is my mama's boy and is just so cute and so happy and I don't want him to get any bigger. I love him so much!
This past weekend we went down to Cedar City and stayed with some friends we had in Logan. It was way fun. We miss them so much. It was so cute to see their kids play with Owen. He just loves other kids and he had a blast the whole time. The worst part though was he did get kinda sick the first day so we took him in to instacare and he had a mild case of croupe (sp?). Luckily we got medicine and the next day was acting much better. It makes me so sad when Owen is sick. I know every parent probably feels this way but I wish that I could take away his sickness and pain and carry it for him. Especially because he is so tiny and can't talk or communicate his pain so he just cries and I would take everything for him because I just love him oh so much! It made me so sad because his voice was gone and you could tell his little throat hurt. I just love that little boy and I feel like I am going to burst with love. I feel like it is impossible to love anything more. I can't even imagine that it is humanly possible to grow more love. I get scared thinking that when we have more children I won't love them as much but I know that is just silly. But for now...I just love Owen more than anything. I can't wait for Christmas. I told myself that we were only going to get him one toy but I find myself wanting to buy him more and more. Luckily, I have Lee to stop me.
Anyways we had fun in Cedar so thanks to JD and Melissa. We hope we didn't inconvenience you too much! We had a lot of fun and I know Owen did too! We hope we can see you again soon.