Birthday Party

Mommy, Daddy and Owen after blowing out candles

Last Saturday was Owen's birthday party at the Clarion hotel in Muscatine. We left home around noon, thinking Owen would fall asleep for at least an hour or so on the 2 - 2 1/2 hour drive down there, but he didn't. He was too involved in watching a few of the new movies he got for his birthday. So when we got down there we checked in to the hotel a little early to see if Owen would nap in our room. An hour and a half later, he was still up and Nana and Boppa had arrived, so we gave up trying. By about 4:00, most everyone had arrived and we were ready to party!

We reserved three poolside rooms and also a few tables to be set up in the party room that was actually right outside of our rooms. It was the perfect set up. We were in one room, my parents in another and Ryan's aunt, uncle and cousins in another, so we had plenty of room for the kids to run around and plenty of bathrooms and places for everyone to get changed. The kids were anxious to go swimming, so we got our suits on and headed to the pool.

Ready for the pool!

Ryan's mom had bought Owen this life jacket for the river and brought it along for him to wear in the pool. It's the best life jacket I've ever seen! We didn't even have to hold on to him the entire time because he could balance in the water. With other life jackets, he gets pulled forward too much and can't keep his face out of the water. I'm glad she let us take it home because it really is AWESOME!

In the baby pool

Swimming with Mommy and Jaxon

He spent most of his time in the big pool and just LOVED jumping in. Sometimes I would put him out on the edge of the pool and couldn't back away fast enough before he jumped in again. He had so much fun, and my arms got a great workout! :)

After swimming, it was time to eat. We did sort of a pot luck type thing, where everyone brought something. We had walking tacos, lil smokies, BBQ beef, queso, veggie pizza, a few dips and a couple of other things. It was delicious!

He has a funny look on his face, but he's just chewing his food! : )

You could tell Owen was getting pretty tired by this time, but I livened him up a little bit by reminding him that we have cake to eat yet! But first, presents!

He really wasn't too interested in opening presents. The first few he opened he played with a little bit, but he really didn't care that much. In fact, he started walking away at one point and I had to fend off all the other kids and get someone to get him back over there! But he got some really good stuff: a LeapFrog laptop, a Transformer, a Mickey Mouse rocket, Mr. Potato Head (or as he now calls him, Boppa, because he has a mustache and glasses), new jammies, a car with a track, and a puppy that talks and sings.

Hayden was MUCH more interested in presents than Owen!

Notice the kids getting closer and closer : )

And of course after presents came candles and cake! The part Owen had been waiting for! I think he was surprised by how many people were singing Happy Birthday to him. He just kind of hunkered down in his seat and watched. But when it came time to blow out his candles, he stood up in his chair and went at them! He did a pretty good job, too, but I'm glad we practiced a few times the night before (especially because when he did it at home he got frustrated and put his hand over the candles. He didn't burn himself, but I yelled NO really loud and it scared him so much he started bawling. Oops!)

"Happy Birthday to you!"

Blown out!

Finally enjoying his cupcake!

The rest of the night, Owen was pretty much hanging out on someone's lap, snuggling up. He was fighting sleep, though. My mom tried to take him in to read a story, but he wanted to go back out where everyone else was. I finally took him in our room at about 9:15 and laid down with him in bed. It didn't take long for him to snuggle down into the covers and fall asleep. I think the poor kid was running a fever, though. I ended up having to sleep with him at about 4:40 in the morning, because he woke up screaming, and he was just radiating heat. Poor punky. But he slept in quite a while and fell asleep on the way home for a bit, and by the time we got home, he was back to himself. 

All in all it was a really good birthday party. Now I can't wait until next weekend for Christmas!

Happy Birthday to the Coolest 2 Year Old I Know!

Blowing out his candles!

Today is my little man's birthday! And that's exactly what he is, a little man. He amazes me every day, the things he learns and remembers. For the last week or so, we've been asking him whose birthday is coming up. For a while, he would say "Raggie!" (our dog's birthday was last week) or "Jaxon!" (his cousin, whose birthday party we went to over Thanksgiving). And then he would talk about how Jaxon had a balloon and there was cake (cupcakes, actually). So we would tell him, no, it's going to be YOUR birthday and start singing Happy Birthday to him. So he would sing with us, but his words were, Happy birthday, Jaxon! Happy birthday, Jaxon! It was adorable. But slowly as the week went on, he learned that HIS birthday was coming up, and he was getting excited!

So today he's home with Daddy because daycare is closed due to sickness, and when I went home for lunch, Owen was in his jammies eating "roni and haw dogs" and was in a really good mood. So I asked him whose birthday is today and he yelled, "OWEN!" I didn't even know that Owen knew what 'presents' are since he hasn't opened one since last Christmas, but I asked him if he wanted to open presents, and he got really excited and said, "Yeah!" So after lunch we went to living room and he tore right into them!

Rip 'em open!

Super Mario Bros. gummies

TRUCK!

Movies

"Boppa's truck and Nana's car in the gwage (garage)." -Owen

He also got a bunch of banana's. Seriously! Daddy did the shopping last night. And wrapping bananas is pretty difficult, so you could see part of them. I told Owen he had one more present and he looks down and sees it and says, "Manana's in nere (there)?!" He couldn't get it open (Ryan put LOTS of tape on it), so he brought them over to me and he wanted a banana bad! He was so happy! It's nice to be able to give a gift that he loves at 55¢ a pound! His favorite was the truck, which immediately became 'Boppa's truck' and he found his car that is the same brand and that became 'Nana's car'.

We also plan on getting Owen a Power Wheels truck for his birthday/Christmas gift from us and both sets of grandparents. Not sure exactly when we will buy it, considering it's winter and he can't use it until spring, but I think we will just keep an eye on the price and buy one when it's on sale. He's going to LOVE that thing, though!!

Tonight, Ryan had to work, so Owen and I are on our own. I picked up some cupcakes and candles so Owen could practice blowing them out and get to have some cake on his birthday. He's been talking about cake ever since he realized his birthday was coming up. One of our friends asked him tonight what he was going to do for his birthday, and his reply was, "Cake."

Tomorrow we head to Muscatine to have his party at the hotel. We were going to go to Davenport to an indoor inflatable castle park, but we can't leave until tomorrow, and the logistics of getting to Muscatine, getting everyone together and going to Davenport, playing at the park and getting back to the hotel to swim, eat and open presents would be very hard. Not to mention Owen getting a nap in there somewhere. So we are skipping the inflatable park and going straight for swimming at the hotel. I think Owen is going to have a lot of fun, so I'm really excited for tomorrow!

Happy 2nd birthday, Owen!! We love you so much!

Playing Catch Up

I should have known, from my days of keeping a diary, that I would not be good at keeping up with a blog. And since tomorrow is Owen's SECOND BIRTHDAY, I better write a post to play catch up with the last three months!

First of all, his obsession with the moon has waned (get it?). He still likes to find the moon and the stars at night, but he doesn't think it's necessary to constantly shout about it anymore. :) His new obsession I would have to say is daddy's truck. He talks about it all the time, wants to ride in it every day, and gets so excited when he gets to. One day I had to take the truck to work, so I loaded Owen in and took him to daycare...which is about 30 seconds away from our house. HE WAS SO MAD! Or maybe the word is heartbroken. The ride to daycare was not long enough for him and he threw a fit. One other time, a couple of weeks ago, riding in the truck was the highlight of our 2am ER visit! He woke up in the middle of the night screaming and crying and his breathing was so raspy and weird that I thought there was something in his windpipe. He also kept pointing inside his mouth like there was something in there. Ryan was out of town with the car, so Owen got to ride in the truck to the ER, which brightened his mood quite a bit. Turns out he had croup. Poor kid would cough so hard and so much that he threw up a few times.


Owen also really loves the ABCs (or as he always says, 'the ABCDs'). He has gotten SO good at them. He can name every letter and for most of them, will tell you a word that starts with that letter. That's how he learned them. A Ace, B Boppa, M Mommy, D Daddy, P puppy, etc. He doesn't know the song real well, yet, but individually, he's got the alphabet down. It's awesome! I got him some foam letters to play with in the bath, which he loves.

We finally took a trip to Omaha to visit my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew, and also go to the Children's Museum and the Henry Doorly Zoo. It was so much fun! I think Owen had a really good time at both places. I thought he was going to be more animated about the animals at the zoo, but he was just kind of quiet. He seemed very interested in everything, but I was expecting yelling with excitement! He ended up falling asleep right as we were getting to the Cat House, which I was a little sad about because he loves to roar like lions and I wanted him to see them, so I picked him up out of his stroller and woke him up! :) He was fine with that, though, because he just loved the cats. We even got to show him a puma, which was fun because he has Puma brand shoes and he talks about pumas a lot now because of them.

In the rainforest at the zoo

Walking through the tree roots in the rainforest

HUGE gorilla!

Daddy holding him up to see the stringray

The Children's Museum was fun because there were so many fun things for Owen to do and look at. It was nice to be somewhere that had stuff that even little kids like him can do. I think he had the most fun in the ball room and on the various playground equipment.

Playing in the ball room with Boppa

Playing with cousin Annaliese

Slide!

With cousin Ian in the fire truck

He was having more fun than his facial expression is showing!

I have also missed Halloween, which went much better than last year. But before we get to Halloween, I better show pictures of us going to the pumpkin patch with Ryan's family!

Owen's a scarecrow and his cousin Bri is the Pumpkin Patch Princess!

Sitting on the pumpkins!

Owen looking at the "bunny rahs"

The pumpkin patch was a lot of fun. Owen got to pet bunnies, cows, a goat, a pony and some baby chicks, and we saw really cute little pot bellied pigs. Then it was time for a hayride to the pumpkin patch, where Owen picked up a bunch of little gourds, but then finally decided on a pumpkin just his size. 

For Halloween this year, Owen went as an Iowa Hawkeyes football player. He wore his jersey over his Hawkeye sweatshirt, his Iowa hat, and we put black stripes under his eyes with ash. He was so cute. I'm having camera issues right now, so I don't have any of those pictures right now, but I'll update later when I get the pictures. 

We decided not to trick or treat in our neighborhood (for lots of reasons), so we headed to a really nice neighborhood with lots of houses with their lights on. My boss actually lives in that neighborhood, so we started at his house, although he was hiding in the basement while his wife and kids were trick or treating. They had left a big basket of candy on their porch, though, so I took Owen up to it and his eyes got really big and he said, "Canny!" (Candy) He was so sweet, though, and only took one, while Ryan on the other hand went up and grabbed two or three of the kinds that HE likes! :) Owen wasn't really sure what to think about going to all these houses and getting candy, and he didn't say ANYTHING to anyone except Ryan and me. I tried getting him to say Trick or Treat! and Go Hawkeyes!, but he wouldn't. He did talk to a dog that some lady had with her, though. :) By the end of the night, he had a lot of candy, and I think he had a pretty good time, considering he had no idea what to think!

Fast forward to Thanksgiving: We went to Elkader on Thanksgiving and had a delicious meal at my brother and sister-in-law's house. Owen had lots of fun with Ian and Annaliese, as well as everyone else. He learned how to play Ring Around The Rosie, which he thinks is tons of fun.

That weekend, we went to Muscatine and celebrated a couple of birthdays - his cousins Jaxon (turned 3) and Lexi (turned 4). We went to a hotel and swam and the kids ran around and had a really good time. Lexi asked me if Owen could play Ring Around The Rosie with her, which was perfect, since he had just learned it a few days before!

And after Thanksgiving, we of course had to put up our Christmas tree. To get in the holiday mood, Owen "read" the book The Night Before Christmas, which actually is a recordable book that Nana and Boppa recorded themselves reading.

Owen helped us put the ornaments on the tree, and did an awesome job!

"Mommy! My hiding under twee!" -Owen Burke

Tired out from decorating

The biggest news of the last 3 months (actually of the last 24 hours), is that Owen went potty in the big boy potty!! Last night, after his bath, he was running around naked for awhile and playing, which he loves to do. Then, all of a sudden, he announces that he's going to get a diaper. Well, he would never decide to put on a diaper unless he needed to poop or pee, because he has done both without a diaper on, and he HATES it. So I asked him if he had to go pee pee and he said yes, so I asked if he wanted to go on the big boy potty and he said yes. So I sat him down on the potty, and I know from my nephew's potty training experience that you have to make sure "it's tucked", and he just sat there for a little while. After a bit, I asked him if he had to pee pee and he said yeah, so we waited a little longer and sure enough, I heard a little tinkle in the potty!! I was so excited for him, and I could tell he was pretty happy with himself. When he was done, I told him to tell  Daddy, so he runs out of the bathroom and yells, "Daddy! My pee pee in potty!" It was so cute.

I'm sure I'm forgetting about a lot of stuff that he's accomplished and fun things we have done in the past three months, so I'm going to make it my New Year's Resolution to do a better job at keeping up with the blog. One more thing I'm going to add is that Owen is talking SO MUCH! He learns new words so quickly and is such a smartie pants. I can't believe some of the stuff he says. The best thing he says (because he hasn't said 'I love you' yet!) is, "Sanks (thanks), Mommy!" And most of the time he says it, I don't even have to ask!! What a sweetie!

Moo(n)!

Owen has become obsessed with the moon (only, he pronounces it 'moo'). Every time we are in the car, he looks for the moon, and when he can't find it, he asks (over and over and over again) "Where moo?" During the day, I tell him the moon is going nigh-night, and at night I help him find it. Most of the time he finds it on his own and yells, "MOO! Mommy, moo! Daddy, moo!" and then we have to look at it and talk to him about it or he won't shut up! :) Last night, the cutest thing happened. He found the moon out the window of our house, and of course started screaming about the 'moo'. He made me look at it and then picked up his stuffed bear and held him up to the window so he could see the moon, too, and even pointed it out to him. It was just so cute and shows how his imagination is starting to blossom. It was awesome!

Another funny thing happened at supper last night. While we were eating, he had his finger up his nose and looked at me and said, "duck" (which in this case was "stuck"). I thought he had a booger he couldn't get out, but then he blew out his nose really hard, and out came a piece of black olive! I about died laughing! I had no idea he had put it up there, so I was just so surprised when it came out his nose. Of course he just stuck it in his mouth and ate it! :)

I don't have any new pictures, which I'm actually kind of mad at myself for, because this weekend he wore both his Iowa football jersey AND his Vikings jersey. And I didn't get a picture of him in either!! Bad mommy, but I did get a new video:



This weekend we are going to Omaha with my parents to visit my brother, sister-in-law and their two kiddos. The children's museum and the zoo are on our agenda - I'm SO excited, especially for the zoo!

Weekend

This weekend we went down to visit Ryan's mom and the rest of the family. Last weekend was Ryan's birthday, so he got to open his present from his mom and stepdad - matching Vikings jerseys for him and Owen!

Jared Allen jerseys

We pretty much just hung out at his mom's house and grilled and more family came over as well. Owen got to see 3 of his cousins, but he was being a momma's boy pretty bad, and really didn't want to have much to do with them. I think he wanted to hang out with the grown ups and be a ham and get them to laugh at him (which happened quite a bit!) :) He did get to jump on the trampoline, though, and had lots of fun chasing the puppies and finding the kikis (kitties).

On our way home on Sunday, we stopped to shop in both Coralville and Cedar Rapids. We wanted to try to find Owen a baseball cap that fit his head. He's always hated wearing hats, but last Thursday and Friday, he found one of Ryan's hats and HAD to wear it to daycare both days. Just flat out refused to take it off. It was so cute, but obviously way too big for him. I took his picture on Thursday, but my phone died (because Owen dropped it in a bucket of oil), so I don't have it anymore. But anyway, we found him one with a puppy on it at Gymboree in Coralville and then an Iowa Hawkeye one in Cedar Rapids. He wore the puppy one out of the store and did a pretty good job of keeping it on. Here are a few pictures:

Is he going to ride the bike or fix it?

Running with the puppies

Mowing the not-so-green grass

I don't have a picture of his Hawkeye hat yet, and the puppy one says, 'Brave Like Daddy' on it. :) CUTE!


We also got a new car! We got 4 years newer, 70,000 miles fewer, and lots more miles per gallon because we traded in our SUV for a Nissan Altima. We really like it, and have already seen how much gas we save when we took it to Muscatine this weekend. It's weird driving new vehicles, especially going from an SUV to a small car - I feel down so low! But it drives so smooth and I just LOVE it! Still getting used to the touchy brakes, though! :)

2010 Nissan Altima

Animals

Owen loves animals. His favorite book is an animal book and he's always pointing them out on TV, in real life or in his books. We've been working on some animal sounds. Here's a cute little video:




My favorites are the lion and the kitty :)

Owen also loves to jump (or as he would say, "bump"). He takes every pillow off the couch and puts them in a pile on the floor so he can jump off the couch onto his landing pad. I tried to get some action pictures, but this is the best I got.

Another thing we are working on is saying "Please". He is such a little smartie, and it didn't take long for him to catch on. The other day he was eating lunch, and said, "more". Well, he still had lots of hot dog and peas left, so I asked him, "More what?" because I genuinely didn't know what he wanted. His reply: "Wease!" (Please). I was kind of surprised he said that because it was a pretty new word and not what I meant by my question at all! It turned out he wanted more ketchup. He actually says it quite often now, but most of the time we ask him to say it. There have been a few times, though, that he's asking me for something, but I can't understand him, so I say "What do you want?" and he'll just say, "Wease". Makes me smile every time. :)


Owen loves to take baths, which he has now learned to say "bath", so he requests them a lot. I have a hard time getting him out of the bath most days, but I now have a secret weapon that hasn't failed me yet...I tell him it's time to brush his teeth. He loves it! He'll yell, "TEETH!" and wants to get out right away and is so excited to brush them. He lets me brush them for a while, but then he wants to do it and after a few minutes, you have to pry the toothbrush away from him. But that's ok with me. I just hope he doesn't get my crooked adult teeth that takes years of braces to fix! But for now I'll just worry about keeping them clean :)

Brushing!

Being silly

Here's another cute video



The quality on both videos today aren't that great because they are from my phone video camera. It's just so convenient to use because I can upload them right to YouTube from my phone without having to plug anything in. But it looks nicer on my phone than on the computer :(

Two months later...

Cheesy boy!

Wow, I have been slacking! Two months since my last post! Do you realize how much one year olds change in two months?! A LOT!

We have a jabberbox on our hands - always talking, screaming, asking questions, learning new words, using the same words over and over and over. I can't believe how many words he knows now and how fast he can learn some words. His favorite words right now are: Dis? (This -he's asking for the name of whatever he's pointing at, and asks this about a million times a day), Ayth (Ace, our dog), bite (which he uses for drinks, too, which I think is so cute!), mine, muck (milk), kiki (kitty), bike, and Where ___ go? Along with "mommy" and "daddy", of course! He surprised us the other day by opening a book we haven't looked at in MONTHS, and pointing to Elmo and saying "Elmo!" He obviously learned it at daycare, but it still surprised us! Our pediatrician said that they hope for 20 words by 20 months, and he's just in his 19th month, and I bet he has WAY more than 20 words. What a smarty pants :)

This summer is a 180° turn from last summer when it comes to the swimming pool. He ABSOLUTELY LOVES THE POOL! The first time Ryan took him to the pool in town, he was still pretty hesitant, but there were quite a few people there and I think he was a little overwhelmed. Luckily, a friend of our has a grandma who has a pool, and we went over there one day and he had a BLAST! Eventually, he was jumping off the side of the pool, and didn't care at all if water got in his face, which was new. And it was nice that our friends grandma also had a little life jacket that fit him. We still always had to be hanging onto him, but it made things much easier. Here's a picture of Owen and Ryan that day:

We went back to that pool another time and he was just as crazy as ever! I had to pull him out for awhile so the adults could play water volleyball, and he fought me the whole time to get back in!

We also got him a baby pool for our house, which he loves, too, especially because it has a slide on it! It's so funny to watch him play in it and go down the slide.

Sliding on his belly

Being silly

Face first!

Telling Ace to take a "bite" of water from the pool

We went back to the pool in town last week and he loved it, except there is a HUGE bucket that fills up with water and then eventually tips over onto the people below, and he hates that :)

We also took him on his first boat ride this summer. Our friend's dad has a pontoon that we took out on Clear Lake. Owen had a lot of fun. He even got to drive the boat and go tubing with Daddy! Lucky!

On a boat!

Driving with "Uncle" Mike - he took it very seriously

Tubing with Daddy. It was a pretty short trip, because he kept trying to jump out!

Tuckered out after all the boating excitement

Owen loves to "drive" things. Sometimes when we get home from places, he wants to stay in the car and pretend to drive it. I took Owen to Wal-Mart in the truck one day, which only has two doors, so he has to go through the driver's door to get to his seat in the back. Well, he refused to go to his seat, and instead waited until I sat down and then plopped down on my lap and wanted to "drive". He always makes a car noise while he's doing this, too. It's adorable, but I'm not going to sit outside in 90° heat and humidity while he pretends to drive in a car that's not on! We are thinking about getting him one of those cars that kids can drive that are battery operated. Maybe for his birthday/Christmas present, but then he can't use it until spring! We'll see...

Owen has also gotten to spend some time with both sets of grandparents this summer. Here are a few pictures from my parent's:

Swinging high with Boppa!

Riding Nana's moped with Boppa!

Pushing the tractor

And here are a couple from Ryan's mom's:

Jumping on the trampoline!

Swimming

I'm sure there are tons of things I'm forgetting to talk about, because A LOT really does happen in two months, so I'm going to try a lot harder to keep up with my posts. I'm kind of a hypocrite because I always get antsy when my sister in law takes "too long" to post on her blog, but I'm sure she's never gone THIS long! :)