Owen's First Birthday Party

Eager to open presents!

For Owen's birthday party, we met up with some family at the Grand Harbor Resort in Dubuque. My parents came, as well as Ryan's mom, stepdad, sister, nieces, uncles, aunt and a few cousins. Needless to say, there were 6 kids 5 and under there, so thank goodness we picked the place for its water park! The water park is very kid friendly, and there is one slide that is completely dark and fast that was really fun for the adults. We took Owen swimming in a regular pool one time, and he's been in a couple of baby pools, but he was never a big fan. On the other hand, he LOVES to take baths, so we were curious to see how he would react to the baby pool. His first reaction: Still not a fan. The water in the baby pool was a little colder than I expected, and I think that is the problem for him, because I took him over to the hot tub (which I was thinking might be too hot, but it really wasn't) and he was fine in there. Eventually, we went back to the baby pool, and I set him down and walked away a little bit. He wasn't too happy, but I just kept backing away from him when he would try to walk to me, and eventually, he figured out that the pool is fun! He started walking around, splashing, and even crawled through the really shallow end. There were a couple of times that he fell while walking and dunked himself, which was a little scary to me, and I thought he would have a fit, but it didn't really seem to bother him very much. There was even a little kid slide that I took him down a few times, and he really liked that. I was very happy that he had a good time, and I think everyone else did too.

After the water park, it was time for some pizza and snacks, and then on to the presents! The little kids all gathered around, of course, but they were pretty good about not taking over the presents. Here are just a few pictures showing what he got:

A rocking chair with his name on it from Grandma Angie and Grandpa Dan,

The Night Before Christmas with Grandma Diane and Grandpa Dan's voice recorded reading it,

blocks and Weeble Wobbles from Great-Grandma Nancy,

and a cell phone in the shape of a dump truck from Great-Grandma Kuehl (which was the winner for the night).

Plus, he got bath toys, pjs, a football shaped pillow with a sleeping bag inside, a new car seat, and I can't even remember what else. He got a lot of great stuff, though!

After presents, it was time for cake. He got his own small cake, and instead of a candle on top, there was a Frosty the Snowman topper that plays music. He was a little hesitant about the cake at first, but eventually, he started in on it. I thought he'd get a lot messier than he did. 

 

Everyone else enjoyed a football cupcake-cake (a cake made from a bunch of cupcakes) and we hung out for a while and the kids played with Owen's new toys, while he was pretty occupied with the balloons my parents brought and his new cell phone.

The next morning we headed back down to the water park for about an hour before packing our car up to the brim with new stuff, grabbing some food at Wendy's with Ryan's family, and heading home.

Happy Birthday!

Birthday Boy!

 Today was Owen's first birthday!! It's crazy how fast this year went. All day I was thinking about the day he was born, and how much different my life is now than it was before he arrived. The only thing I would change about my life if I could, would be to have the grandparents closer!!!! :)

Someone asked me if the fact that he is a year made me happy or sad, and I told her it made me feel both. I keep thinking that I want him to stay the way he is right now, but then he keeps growing and learning and I keep changing my mind, that he keeps getting better with age!

Tree hunting

It's been awhile since I have posted, and we have been very busy since then. We went to my brother and sister-in-laws on Thanksgiving and had awesome food. I love Thanksgiving food! Then my birthday was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and we went to Ryan's mom's to celebrate our niece's birthday (the same day as mine!) and we went to a tree farm to get some Christmas trees for Ryan's mom and uncles. It was a lot of fun, and Owen cracked me up. It was one of the first times that Owen wore his winter coat, and he could barely move his arms in it, which made it hard for him to walk. A couple of times he fell down and instead of trying to get back up, he gave up and just laid on the ground. He wasn't upset about it ever, just laid there, all calm.

Great-Grandma's birthday

The next weekend was my grandma's 80th birthday party. Owen got to meet a lot of new people at the party and was dressed to impress ;) We are very lucky to have generous friends and family members that give us hand-me-downs for Owen, and we always get some really cute stuff. I really liked his party outfit -- very handsome! My grandma was nice enough to share a few of her balloons with Owen, so he was very occupied at the party, and we took a few home that he played with for days. He LOVED them!


Last weekend we decided to go back to Elkader, just for the heck of it, but we had to leave pretty early on Saturday because a blizzard was coming. We made it back ok, but it's been very white around here since then. Luckily, the weather is looking good for this weekend, because we are celebrating the Big 01 for Owen in Dubuque with the grandparents, some aunts, uncles and cousins. It's too bad that his birthday is so close to Christmas, because we want to keep his birthday seperate from all the Christmas stuff, but it's hard for some of my family to get back this way two weekend in a row. So we will have to do some more birthday celebrating at Christmas, too. Oh well, I'm sure Owen won't mind!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY, OWEN! WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

Re-read about the day Owen was born here.

Peek-a-boo

Owen loves to play peek-a-boo!

My camera is fixed!

Yay! My camera is finally fixed, and we are both so happy!

I took a million pictures of him when I got home tonight, but they are all pretty much the same because all he wanted to do was play with the laptop. I have a little tech-y on my hands!

Here he's doing double time with my cell phone and the laptop!

He really does love anything electronic. He's constantly playing with my phone, the remote, the laptop, the stereo, the DVD player or anything else with buttons. He's been banned from playing with the camera and the video camera, though! :) A few weeks ago, he started putting the phone up to his ear, which I thought was pretty cool, but a couple of nights ago, he put it up to his ear and said, "Ahroh!" THAT WAS REALLY COOL! I don't think it was a fluke, either, he's a smarty-pants!

I can't believe he is already 11 months! He's not my little baby anymore! :( I am excited for him to be off formula and to be in a front-facing car seat, though! One more month!

He's still as active as ever, and has moved up to running around instead of just walking. What a crazy little monkey!

Halloween

Owen was a skunk for his first Halloween. He looked so cute in his costume, but really wasn't a big fan of being in it. Even so, I did catch a short video of him in a good mood.



We didn't go to any houses because he stopped cooperating shortly after the video ended :( There's always next year!

Other new things with Owen:

He started waving Bye bye! The first time I saw him do it was when I told him to wave bye bye to the water when it was draining from the tub. I don't want him to be scared of the noise!

He click-clacks his tongue.

He LOVES to dance, but it's always for very short bursts.

He says Hi, or at least I think he is. It sounds a lot like "Hi" and it is usually when he first sees someone. I'm not really sure if he knows what he's saying or not.

He's still constantly on the go, but he has been getting more interested in reading books lately, which I think is AWESOME! He likes to point to the pictures and when the story is over, he will take the book from me and open and close it and turn to random pages. It's adorable.

Early birthday present

My birthday isn't for another month, but Ryan and my parents knew I couldn't wait that long for my birthday present...a new video camera!! Yay! I couldn't wait that long because our camera is still in the shop, and Halloween is this Sunday, so I needed something! Some friends of ours gave us a costume for Owen to wear that their daughter wore when she was a baby, so Owen is going to be a skunk :) I tried the outfit on him and it is so cute! I'm not sure that we will do very much, if anything at all, for Halloween, but at least I can get some video of him in the costume. We might walk around to a couple of places in our neighborhood. I'm not going to give out candy this year because our dogs are ANNOYING when it comes to strangers being anywhere near the house, otherwise I would have said that Owen would have been the cutest little helper. :)

Well, since I got a new video camera, I just had to get some video to put on here. It isn't the most interesting video I've taken, but it does show Owen "going crazy" (although it isn't when I told him to - it's just while he's playing with a toy), the fact that he LEARNED TO STAND UP BY HIMSELF and then he was pretty tuckered out.






I was surprised that he fell asleep while drinking his bottle. He hasn't done that in a looooong time.

He is ALWAYS on the go. Walking all over, making messes everywhere, bothering the dogs, trying to get into the cupboards even though they are tethered shut. The only time he sits still is when he's eating (and that's probably only because he's strapped in!) and sleeping. The other day, Ryan was complaining that he won't just sit and snuggle with him and just hang out like he used to. I agree! I want to snuggle with him! I do get to, a little bit, when I nurse him, which I'm down to two times a day on that. I was pumping or nursing when I came home for lunch, but most of the time he wasn't ready for milk when I was home and I got tired of pumping, so now I don't even make enough milk except for those two times a day - usually around 7 am and 5:30 pm. So he's up to two formula bottles a day now too, plus all the table food he eats.

He cracks me up. Right now he is chasing Ace, the chihuahua, around the kitchen and living room. Ace really doesn't care to have much to do with Owen, and right now all Ace wants is to eat and drink, but his food is up on the table because apparently dog food tastes good to babies, too. And playing in the water bowl is tons of fun. So Ace is hungry and thirsty and being chased by a crazy 10 month old baby, who thinks it's hilarious.

He also cracks me up when he takes a bath. He doesn't use the little baby bath anymore, and he just has a blast in the tub with all that space and water to splash in. He also has dunked his face right in the water a few times, and then freaks out and grabs for me and hugs me. It's funny. Then, he grabs for the plug in the drain, and when our tub drains, it makes a very loud sucking/slurping noise and it scares him. No, it terrifies him. He starts screaming and crying and it is sad and hilarious all at once. Maybe it's mean, but I kind of like the way he hugs me really tight when he's scared. :) I don't drain the tub when he's in it anymore, though, because I don't want him to have some weird, irrational fear of tubs or something. Tonight, I drained it when he was out of the tub on my lap, and told him to wave bye-bye to the water, to try to make it seem like an OK thing. He didn't freak out, but he watched very intently. And even when he was still in the tub, every once in a while he would stop playing and stare at the plug in the drain, like he was keeping an eye on it.

Well, hopefully next time I post I'll have some Halloween video and hopefully some pictures, too!

Broken Camera :(

When I was about six months pregnant, Ryan and I decided to get a new camera so we could take lots and lots of pictures and video of our cute little baby. And we did take lots and lots of pictures and video, until that cute little baby turned destructive! He loves to play with electronics - cell phones, remotes, cameras, DVD players, etc - and we should know better than to let him. Owen dropped Ryan's cell phone on the concrete on the 4th of July and broke the screen, and now he broke our camera :( BUT, it is in the shop and is hopefully going to get fixed for free.

I WISH MY CAMERA WASN'T BROKEN! Here are some new things going on with Owen:

-He's a walking pro. He is everywhere all the time and can practically run. He still can't stand up on his own without something to hold onto to pull himself up, but it's not too far away.

-He LOVES to feed himself, which is awesome! It's definitely messier, but it's actually really nice not to have to feed him all the time anymore. There are some things that we still have to feed him, of course, but he loves feeding himself AND the dogs.

-He's getting his two top teeth. He's a really good teether (so far!). No fevers or fussiness. He's just his normal, happy self.

-He is smart. If I say, "Owen, go crazy!", he will sway back and forth and wobble his head. This started the other day when I twirled him around by his arms and then we I put him down, we were both dizzy. I said, "Mommy's crazy!" and wobbled my whole body, so he mimicked me to get me to swing him around again, and now I just have to tell him to go crazy and he will. It's awesome, because it shows that he's learning language!!!!!

-Today I almost left work to go home to hang with my boys because Ryan texted me and said he was playing the radio and Owen was dancing with him. HOW CUTE! And another example of why I NEED MY CAMERA! I got a little preview of this when I came home for lunch, and Owen's dancing looks a lot like his "crazy sway". But I really wanted to blow off work when I read that text!

Owen went to Omaha last weekend with my parents because my little niece got baptized. My mom took some pictures that are pretty cute, but I don't have any of them saved on my computer. I promise that there will be LOTS of pictures next time (if not my own then I will steal some of my mom's) and I'll try not to go so long before I post! I just hate to post without pictures, but I thought I better get this new stuff down before I forget!