Traditions

One of the things I enjoy most about being a mom is thinking up and starting traditions for our family. I'll admit that when Eric and I were childless this didn't seem as important, but now that we have Owen I'm really enoying thinking about what habits I want to start now and continue as he gets older.

Here are some of my favorites we've started to establish:

Reading the Bible at meal times and eating together as a family at dinner. My parents actually started this tradition when I was growing up - we would have devotionals after breakfast each morning. We try and all sit down for dinner every night and after we're done eating we'll read a few Bible stories from the "Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes." It's a great kids Bible that I read as a child - big pictures, a few questions and a short prayer at the end. The best part is that Owen asks for it every day and wants us to read more and more stories!

Saturday morning cereal and cartoons. Owen is a big breakfast eater - every morning he eats two eggs, toast, fruit and yogurt. On Saturday I give both of us a break and we just have cereal and fruit in front of the TV. I usually put on Veggie Tales or Thomas the Train and we just hang out for an hour - such a nice change of pace from our busy week day mornings. This is the only time of the week Owen really watches TV and even though his bowl of cereal and fruit doesn't have milk in it, he usually puts his food in my bowl of milk and we share. :-)

No more party in the back

A few days after Owen turned 18 months old he got his first hair cut. I hadn't been able to bear cutting off his curls, but even I had to admit that Owen was rocking a mullet. It was totally "business in the front and party in the back."

Eric and I were getting our hair cut too, so we made it a family event. Eric held Owen and I supplied the suckers. But shockingly - Owen could not stand the candy! But he did like sharing it with his Daddy, so it sill kept him occupied while his beautiful curls were being cut off.

After a lot of maneuvering on the part of our hairstylist - here was the finished result.

He still has a few curls left - but the mullet is history!

18 months

I'm going to admit right now that this post will be a lot of me bragging about my big boy, but this blog is serving as Owen's baby book, so it only seems right. :-)

Owen turned 18  months in September. He still continues to be off the growth chart in height and weight. He weighs 32 pounds 4 oz, and is 35 inches tall. He wears size 8 shoes and is the biggest kid in his class although he's the youngest!

Owen is talking up a storm - he says so many words and is constantly repeating words after us and loves to go through books saying the name of the picture we point to.  He can say quite a bit of the alphabet and his numbers if we say them with him and will often say the next letter or number in the series without prompting. He has color flashcards and can say them all - but doesn't know his colors when they're presented in other situations. :-)

He knows a lot of animals and their sounds - his favorites are cow, duck, horse, sheep, fish, cat, monkey and TRAIN.

He also knows and can say a lot of body parts - he loves singing the "head, shoulders, knees and toes' song and "If you're happy and you know it." Body parts he can  say and point to are: Head, hair, eyes, ears, mouth, shoulders, elbow, tummy, knees, toes, fingers and bum :)

Here is a list of words he says almost every day:
NO - his favorite, which we hear way more than we would like to
yeah - how he says yes. he can say yes, but takes the easy way out :-)
mommy
dada
hi
bye
uh oh
oh no
Whoa
night night
love you - My favorite!!!!
happy
more
all done
please
thank you - I'm hearing this more and more without asking!!!
Bible - love this one too - he always wants more than one story
Amen - repeated after we say it
up
go
milk
water
bannana
eggs
snack
hot
cookie
berries
apple
art
outside
teeth
shoes
socks
stop
dog
book
ball - his absolute favorite toys
mouse - as in "If you give a Mouse a Cookie"
Elmo

He says many more after prompting. It's great to be able to communicate with him more and more.

We are already in the middle of the "terrible twos" Owen is a very head strong and has been a challenge for his daddy and me. Even with our struggles with discipline we love being parents and can't imagine what our life would be like without this little boy!

Summer 2011 via Instagram

It was a LONG, HOT, DRY summer in Texas. So long, hot and dry that we're just now recovering. :-)

I took lots of photos with our nice camera this summer and I'll post a few in later posts, but I love the feel of Instagram pictures - I think it's perfect to remember Owen's first big summer.

Playing with Colored Bubbles

Fun in the Pool

Playing in puddles after one of the rare rain storms

Fun at the beach in Galveston

 A fun trip to Angel Fire New Mexico with Nana CiCi and Papa Rusty.

First time Mommy let me lick the bowl!

South Padre

In late May we went to San Antonio to see Lauren and Scott graduate from medical school. I am so proud of these two. They began their residency in OKC in July.

From there our whole family went down to South Padre for a few days of vacation. I did not realize how far south we were going. It was a LONG trip (and the trip back to College Station was even worse!)

Once we arrived we had a blast. Our condo was right on the beach and had it's own pool. We all had fun - especially Owen. He loved the pool and the waves. Unfortunately water and our camera don't mix, so I only got shots of him on the beach. :-)

We did get some good family shots that week.

We even got one of the whole family. It had been too long since our whole group was able to get together. I'm glad we were able to spend some time together this summer!

Spring has Sprung

Since we're suffering through what feels like the 100th day of over 100 degree temperatures, it's high time I posted the rest of our spring photos.

Here's my big boy on his 14 month birthday. Since he's not changing as much month to month, this will probably be the last surfer dude pic for a while.

And here are some pictures that I know will hugely embarrass him when he gets older, but it's my job as his mamma. :-)

Just so you know, our child doesn't typically walk around the back yard butt naked, but the bottom in question had a terrible diaper rash and we were letting things air out a little.

Owen's second Easter was fun. The Easter bunny brought him lots of goodies. He loved the eggs and the watering can his Nana gave him. He also looked very handsome in the outfit his Mimi sent him.

Mother's Day was pretty uneventful. Owen was suffering from yet another of his many ear infections and his medicine made him sick. Mamma got to wake up to a blow out in his crib, and his pants had to be changed several times before the day was out. It was also Eric and my 6th anniversary on Saturday. My boys got me flowers and a bird bath - very thoughtful!

Here's the only attempt we made at photos that weekend. We were all pretty tired, but it was a fun day.

Doesn't Owen look so much like his Daddy? He looks more and more like him each month!

Owen and his favorite pastime - helping to water the yard.

Thirteen Months and Walking!

 

At thirteen months Owen is 30 pounds and 33 inches tall - good thing he started walking a few days after this picture!

His new favorite thing is to throw his ball. We've seen a lot of this the last few weeks

 

Owen isn't saying too many new words, just dog, ball, bubbles, mamma. He does try to mimic us a lot and so will say things that sound very similar to words we just said. He babbles constantly and walks around the house talking to himself. He has started copying how I call the dogs. I make a "kissing" sound when I'm trying to get them to come into the house. Owen has stood at the front door several times yelling, "GOG, GOG" and making kissing sounds. It cracks me up :)

Owen's generally a happy boy, but he has started exerting his independence. The temper tantrums are happening more and more often when he doesn't get his way.

I'm trying to take more pictures of one of us in the photo with Owen

Poor Shady doesn't get much love any more, but she did get a new summer hair cut.

Three days after he turned 13 months he took his first steps!

Just a few seconds later he was walking even farther.

By the end of the night he could go 10 to 12 feet. Within a week he was walking at least 50% of the time and within two weeks he's walking 90% of the time. He still walks with his hands up in the air - pretty funny. :-)

Bluebonnets - 3 years in a row

Two years ago we took a picture of our family in the bluebonnets. It looked like this

Last year our family bluebonnet shot had a new member - he was only 2 weeks old.

This year the bluebonnets were scarce because of the drought. We found a patch a few minutes from our house. Owen was not in the best mood and there were ants biting in the bluebonnets, but we did manage a few pictures.

I'm glad we got a few shots of spring in Texas - it seems like it was very short this year!

One Year Photo Shoot

The weekend before Owen turned one, we had a photo session with Sarah from ButterflyChaser Photography. We're so happy at how the pictures turned out - the weather wasn't great, and my back was killing me, but she was full of energy and kept Owen in a good mood for two hours!

Here are some of our favorites. I'm definitely ordering some prints to put up around the house.