Father's Day Weekend 2011

We had a wonderful weekend at Lake Keowee!

" Emma, Emma, Emma, Emma!"
That is what we woke up to every day...mind you, it was before the birds woke up! He was very excited to play with his friend.

The box is more fun than the game at this age...

Opening and closing the doors on the deck and going in and out was one of Owen's favorite games. He was very proud of himself when he figured out how to step down onto the porch without the help of mommy or daddy.

I'm ready to take the wheel, dad!

Owen loves to go fast!

He did not like the feel of the wet, rocky sand. Once he put his water shoes on he was great (too bad I lost them in the lake later that day...).
How many pictures are we going to take in front of this thing??

Playing so nice together with his buddy, Emma, at the waterfall.

First Haircut

After much prodding by family members (Uncle Matt, Nonnie, Grandpa Zip) I broke down and decided to cut those beautiful blonde locks. I knew that it was needed as he was beginning to look a little bit scraggely, but that just meant he was growing up on me!

When Luke and I moved to Greenville I noticed a place called Jelly Beans that cut hair for little kids. I used to drive by it all of the time and said that when we have kids we would take them there to get a haircut. It just looked so cute and fun!

So I made an appointment for him on Friday, he did great! And they managed to keep the long 'southern' look for me!

SUMMER!!

We had a great family weekend! We started Saturday morning with a trip to Cleveland Park where Owen ran, jumped and slid for quite awhile. Later that afternoon we took a trip to our neighborhood pool...let the summer fun begin!

Lake Keowee for the day...not a bad follow-up to Saturday!

Chillin' with daddy. Owen has this whole boat thing figured out!

Enjoying a boat ride on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon while eating one of my favorite snacks, balls (known as blueberries to everyone else).

This thing is pretty cool...

Look at that view!

Daddy wanted to take me down the waterslide, mommy was nervous that he wouldn't hold my head above water when we landed in the pool...

But daddy did great and kept my head nice and dry! However, I still don't know how I feel about the waterslide just yet. I have sort of an 'eh' attitude toward it (I must've gotten this from my mommy).

Love playing with the water features. Look at mommy constantly holding onto me...geeze, are you ever going to let me learn how to swim on my own???

No More Paci!!

Monday marked a HUGE milestone: No more Mr. Froggy or Mr. Bear :( Surprisingly, it has gone quite well! The ladies at day care asked very nicely if we could please not send the pacifier with Owen on Tuesday because he had become very dependent on it. Of course I was terrified how he would react and I questioned them, really?? You WANT him to be miserable all day with you on Tuesday? Better you than me I guess...

So with that information and Luke out of town, I decided that it was time for Mr. Froggy to outgrow his pacifier. So Mr. Froggy 'lost' his pacifier and I let Owen know that since Mr. Froggy was too big for his pacifier, so was he. The picture above is when I gave him his new Mr. Froggy with no pacifier attached...confusion doesn't begin to describe. He twisted, turned, examined that frog thoroughly. He even tried to put the entire frog's head inside of his mouth. Once he thoroughly examined the frog he decided that it wasn't quite right and handed it right back to his mama, he was not happy!

So far, he has done pretty well at night (just needs a little more hugs), I hope this lasts!

We have a WALKER on our hands!

Owen officially started walking last Sunday, April 9th! His daddy and I were so thrilled that he finally found the courage to try to walk. It really is such an amazing thing to witness and I am glad that he didn't take his first steps at daycare (if he did, they kept us in the dark for our own good). Since then, he has made a ton of progress! That first day it was just a few steps here or there, but today he is almost in a full on run (I had to run in front of him to shut the bathroom door before he began playing in the toilet). Oh my, I think I am going to have my hands full! Pics to follow as soon as we get a new camera!

Florida

I did pretty good on the plane considering we had a two hour delay...although I am much more active on the plane than I was last summer :) No magazine reading for mommy!

Cool!

Cracker!

Stop eating all of the sand!

I sure am glad this pool is heated!

Keeping myself entertained while they all watched basketball...

Again, sorry for the delay. I was much better at this blog while on maternity leave and summer vacation:)

Luke, Owen, and I were lucky enough to visit Naples over my spring break. I have never seen Owen as happy as he was for the four days we were down there. The kid LOVES being outdoors, and that is all we did! Unfortunately grandma was not there, as she was with Aunt Megan and his new cousin, William. We had fun with grandpa though! His most favorite activity was crawling down the long hallway from the elevator to the condo. He insisted on either getting out of the stroller or your arms the minute he saw the hall--too cute! His second favorite activity was eating sand and shells...hopefully he will outgrow this by the time we go to the beach this summer!

Thanks for the great memories, mom and dad! We can't wait to come down again. And after visiting it got me to thinking...why did I ever leave that place??? Should've transfered Luke down there ;)

It's been awhile...

I was able to stay home from work today while Owen was 'sick'. He had a temp yesterday so he couldn't go to day care today, so I was able to spend some QT with him :) He has gotten to be so much fun, each day seems to bring about a new discovery. We still aren't walking, but we are getting very close with the help of furniture and his walker.

Owen is also quite the talker already! He has been able to say 'dog' for awhile now, but he is finally adding the g. He is also fascinated with daddy's truck and says 'truck' all of the time. Some of his other favorites include 'bye bye (said with a southern twang), 'hi', 'mamma', 'da da', 'birdie', 'cracker', 'cookie', 'up', 'pout pout' (for his favorite book), and most recently, 'night night'. Now, keep in mind that we as parents know what he is saying, the common folk may still think of all of this as babbling. But we have our son figured out (well sort of).

And when he can't quite tell us what he wants, he is starting to use his sign language more frequently. He does 'more', 'eat', 'finished', and 'night night'. It is amazing to see everything begin to click. Today he went in front of his bookcase and repeatedly made the sign for 'more' over and over. I guess he wasn't done listening to books. It made me laugh because this sign is usually done just for food in our house!

Bath Time!

Right after Owen's 1st birthday, mom finally decided to get rid of his baby tub. I know that it was probably long overdue, but he always seemed content in his old tub. Well, he had a blast as you can see in these pictures. He couldn't stop crawling around the tub, there was tons more real estate to explore! Too bad his love for a bath was short lived, he now finds them to be very irritating and tends to cry throughout the whole thing...let's just say our baths are usually done in record time these days.

Happy 1st Birthday!

Get this thing OFF my head!

Is that all for me???

Yum!

Somehow, we managed to get all of the icing out of this shirt...

Daddy did a nice job picking out the balloons!