Owen Turns 5!

Owen turned five yesterday, our cute little, sweet little Owen bobowen (as I like to call him). He has many nicknames- just plain O, Obi Wan and Obo Fett (he is a major Star Wars fan and if you are too then you will recognize these ones), Obee Doebee, O-meister, any of these will do. I've gone into a little mourning. My little boy is growing up. I used to ask him all the time, "Owen, will you please, please stop growing up? I want you to stay my little boy forever." He would tell me "no, I can't stop, I just can't." On Saturday Michelle said to him "Owen, I can't believe you are going to be five. I can't believe how big you are getting!" And he told her "what, it's not like I'm going to be any bigger tomorrow!" And it's true he's not any bigger today but five is older and it means that he'll be going to school soon, even though it's still 9 months away I'm already dreading the day. He is my little sweetheart, from the moment he was born I knew he was special (well, they all are but Owen was different somehow). Even as a baby he seemed especially thoughtful. He always asks me the deep questions and seems to ponder certain things. One of my favorite Owen quotes came when he was three years old and he was talking to his Grannie, he told her "You are the mom of my mom and my mom is the mom of me." He has always been fascinated by relationships and how people are related. When Michelle first came to live with us he would tell her that she was not supposed to be living with us, that she was supposed to be living with Grannie. This would hurt her feelings and I would just tell her to not feel bad because in his mind children are supposed to live with their mommies. He is always telling me that Grannie does it this way and Grannie does it that way. He sure loves his Grannie. My other all time favorite quote from Owen came one day when we were eating scrambled eggs and he was not touching his, which was unusual so I asked him "Owen, why aren't you eating your eggs, I thought you liked eggs?" to which he replied, "I do like eggs- in peanut butter cookies." Smarty pants. So here's a few pics of Owen with a few of his favorite things:This is Owen with Blackie and Brownie, his two best pals. Blackie is the favored pup and has been on many an adventure with Owen. We have spent many nights scouring the house and car in search of these dogs so that Owen could get a peaceful night's rest. Once Blackie got lost somewhere in the mall and we had to go back the next day. We searched every single washer and dryer in Sears before heading to the mall office where thankfully someone had brought him.

If you know Owen then you know about his blankie that he has had since birth. This poor thing has lived through everything. Even being lost in Mervyn's one time. The last few years my mother had taken to referring to it as "the rag" as it was literally reduced to strings barely hanging together. He has just this past year started to grow out of needing it with him at all times, so now it is being held by me for safe keeping. I love that he is so attached to things that mean a lot to him. He loves deeply.

Now Owen has grown attached to his baby brother, Colby. He sings to him when he is crying and asks to hold him all the time. What a sweet big brother.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Owen. We were waiting to ride Pirates at Disneyland. He LOVES Disneyland and has always lamented the rides he has not been tall enough to ride on. He cried and cried when Dad, Matthew and Gracie got to ride Splash Mountain and all he got to do was ride Pooh ten times while we waited. Broke my heart. He is anxiously looking forward to the day when he will be tall enough to ride Indiana Jones (please, oh, please let that be by the next time we go to Disneyland).

Owen came up with this idea for his birthday cake. We had just made homemade pizza on Friday and he told me he wanted a cake with pepperonis in a smiley face on it. So we came up with this idea- a white cake with vanilla frosting, toasted coconut dyed orange, and red frosting pepperonis. We had to scrape off the coconut for him to eat it, but all in all, I think it turned out pretty cute!

This is going to be a big year for you, Buddy! I'll try and look forward to it :-(

Give Me Some Space Part 2

Matthew's spacer is doing it's job nicely. He thinks it pretty cool, this massive gap between his front teeth. He came in and said "look mom, this sucker fits right in here." Then we tried a straw. He doesn't even need to open his mouth to drink from it, we thought this was pretty funny. Luckily, he's young enough that it doesn't bother him and the kids at school are fascinated by it. Thank goodness for that. Oh, and a major bonus- it really has helped his nasal problems, he hasn't been plugged up for about a week. This is practically a miracle.

Trick or Treat!

We all had a great time on Halloween this year. Gracie spent the afternoon and evening with a friend of hers and we definitely missed her, but she had fun. I just don't think I was prepared for her to be spending Halloween with friends yet, but we know the family well so we just rolled with it. We didn't get to do her blood splattered costume though, and that was one of the things I was looking forward to the most. Rex pretty much refused to leave his pumpkin suit on but he did let Kris put zombie makeup on him so we had a houseful of zombies. Owen asked me what I was for Halloween and I said that I was dressed up as a Party Pooper. Kris thought that was pretty good. Owen had a fit when we tried to put stubble on his face and almost refused to let me do it, but being a mean mom I made him do it and I told him how everyone would love it. I could hardly get him to stop crying long enough so that the tears wouldn't run down and smear it. Poor kid was so embarrassed to walk into the school (we went to watch Matthew and Gracie in the costume parade) but he looked so dang cute! Then right off the bat people were commenting on his costume and everyone knew he was Indiana Jones and then we saw a few other boys in the parade with stubble drawn on their faces and he perked right up, and he knew he looked good and he told me he wasn't embarrassed anymore! Rex was the dang cutest kid to go trick or treating with ever. He was so excited to run up to the door and say "trick or treat" in his cute little voice even before the door was open! He has the cutest little voice, you'll just have to trust me on this one! Then he would say "thank you" and the people would say "you're welcome" and he would run away from the house saying "you're welcome"! It was a fun mommy moment. I was smiling and laughing the whole time. One of the best parts of the night was the weather, it was warm enough we didn't even have to wear jackets! I was so happy!!!

Don't mess around with this zombie!

BOO!



Everybody loves Indiana!

One of these boys is not like the other...


One dead zombie at the end of the night.

Daylight Savings

Can I just say how much I hate daylight savings!?! It seems very pointless to me. We turn our clocks ahead in the springtime so that it can stay light until 10pm (or later) all summer long and then in the fall we have to turn them back so that it gets dark at 5pm. What the *&%#$? Can someone please explain the logic of it all to me? I seriously DO NOT understand it. I seriously hate it. The annoyance of having to change the clocks twice a year and adjusting to the new time (try getting your kids to sleep when it's perfectly bright outside). I have said all along that Arizona is the only state that gets it- why mess around with stupid daylight savings, just keep the clocks where they are at and let your body adjust to the seasons' changes normally!

2 Months Old!

Colby was two months old on Tuesday, my, my how time flies! He weighed 11 pounds and was 23 inches long and is doing just great!






What Colby has been up to this month: smiling, eyes starting to turn brown(yay! I think I am finally getting a brown eyed child), eye lashes getting longer, hair falling out(bummer! Can you say old man receding hairline?), starting to grow out of 0-3 month size clothing, still hating his baths, skin getting flaky and dry (due to colder ID weather), getting blessed, getting to know his grandparents, and filling our lives with a little more joy!

Tagged!

Oh Tara, thanks alot.

Here's my 2-7 things you may not know about me:

1. I hate to wash pots and pans, I mean really, really hate it. Sometimes they will sit on my counters for days (gasp, I know) until I work up the gumption to wash them (well, the ones that can't go in the dishwasher anyway).

2. And on that note, I am deeply in love with my dishwasher. When we moved here we had to get all new appliances and I picked out a Bosch. We had had a couple of dishwashers in our house in AZ and they were both crappy, you basically had to wash the dishes before you washed the dishes and they left spots so I wanted to get a good one. And I love it, beautiful, shiny, clean dishes- minimal effort. This summer my kids were horsing around in the kitchen while the dishwasher was being unloaded and somebody landed on the door and it wouldn't shut after that. I cried. Alot. And they lost their allowance for a few months. And then we got it fixed. Hallelujah! Second best day of my life.

3. I am a neurotic typo finder. It's bordering on obsessive. I find them in books, newspapers, magazines, catalogues. I'm always telling Kris "don't they pay people to find this stuff?" I am literally amazed at some of the big publications that I can find them in. I guess I shouldn't be such a perfectionist.

4. I have a need for speed. I have a goal one day to drive a race car, a real one. I sometimes miss AZ for the crazy fast freeways, I've had a few speeding tickets. I love roller coasters, really fast ones and to go four-wheelin'. I guess this is why I love road biking, smooth and fast, wind whipping in my face.

5. My favorite chore on earth is laundry. I used to get mad at Kris when he would do the laundry. I'd be like- man, if you are going to help me with chores can you please clean the bathroom? Do something I don't like. I've sort of learned not to complain when he's helping out but I'm still a little possessive about the laundry.

Now I tag Emilie, Kara and April

Halloween Sneak Peek!

The kids had their school Halloween Carnival on Friday night so I thought I would post a few pics of them in their costumes. This year in an effort to save money and be a little more creative I lobbied hard for them to dress up as something that we either already had at home or that we could easily make. This was hard for them to swallow, something about the consumer generation makes it hard to process homemade. They didn't believe me that as a kid in my family we made the most fun costumes ever, I can't really remember EVER buying one at the store and I don't think I ever wanted to. It was probably because of our mom and her love for dressing up and her creativity that gave us so much excitement and anticipation for coming up with our own costumes and dressing up on Halloween. Some of my favorite costumes that I can remember coming up with- a cowboy (ok, so I don't really remember this one because I was like two years old but I have seen pictures and they are great, I wore real cowboy boots and jeans and a cute little red western shirt and of course a cowboy hat, my parents even drew a stubbly beard and mustache on my face), a witch, a mummy, a rock star, an old lady, a gypsy, and a homeless person (OK, admittedly this sounds a little insensitive but at the time I thought it was very funny. Somehow, somewhere my dad found a grocery cart (no he didn't steal it from a store) and brought it home and it was just in our back yard so I filled it with bags and literally pushed this thing around the neighborhood while trick or treating!) I have great memories of Halloween because of the fun we had dressing up, and I love seeing how much fun it is for my kids. What are some of your favorite Halloween costumes and memories?

Kris' mom is gonna kill me if she finds out about this but it's the only picture with Rex in his pumpkin suit, for some reason he did not want to keep it on. And there's our little Indiana Jones (don't call him Owen when he's wearing this) A big shout out to Aunt Michelle for finding the leather belts and side bag (yes, Indiana has one of these in every single picture we could find of him) at the local DI, lately becoming my favorite place to shop.

And here's our creepy zombie (really getting into character, go Matthew), fresh out of the grave (Kris really made him go outside and roll around in the dirt) and right after feasting on some brains (gross, I know, but zombies gotta eat, right?)

Here's our little surgeon, Gracie. Thanks to Aunt Hayley for working at a medical supply shop we were able to get a REAL stethoscope, hat, booties, syringe, gloves, and mask for about eight bucks. And Gracie had the brilliant idea of covering herself with fake blood (surgery gone awry), we didn't do this for the carnival but we will for the BIG night, tune in later for pics.

And our cute little Casper, his is the one costume I splurged on. I couldn't pass up the adorable ghost onesie and then I had to find a white hat and pants to go with it. Total $13.00.