Sweet O

This year has by far been the most challenging, but the most rewarding, wonderful, and happiest year of my life. It has also been the fastest year to go by. I feel like I blinked and a year has flown by. I can not believe that you are a year old. It only confirms what my dad meant when he said to me "next week you will be dropping him off at college."
By (almost) all accounts, you were an easy baby. By far the sweetest baby I have ever met, although I may be a bit biased.

You are such a cuddle baby. You randomly come up to me and just melt into my tummy or my arms, I love it. You think everything is funny, and you are pretty goofy yourself.  In fact, you think that you are hilarious.

You make funny sounds, and blow raspberries on my leg and crack up at yourself.  You will steal Eli's snack and take off in the other direction as fast as you can, you try to jump off head first off of couches, beds, toys, in the pool...I have to keep my eye on you every minute or you get into trouble. I have a feeling you are going to be trouble. You are a mess after every meal.  You love bath time, which is a good thing because you get a lot of them.  You like to share you food with anyone who will take it from your grubby hand.  You love Pop and reach out for him as soon as you see him walk through the door.  You hardly ever cry, but when you do, boy its pittiful!!! We went an entire year without you ever taking a bottle, I don't know how we did it , but we did and I cherished all those quiet times I had with you. 

I feel like I made a conscious decision to go through the baby stage differently the second time around. I feel like I learned a lot having gone through it the first time and I wanted to approach things a little different. Since it was my second time with a newborn, a lot of the fears and concerns I had the first time were not there so I was really able to focus more on you and not the color of your poop, or how much you should be eating.
I also didn't worry as much about what other babies were doing, how much they were sleeping or eating and followed your cues more. I did what worked best for you and didn't worry about anything else. I was way more relaxed. I cherished every single day of your first year. I must give you most of the credit here. You made it so easy.  Even if we were having a hard day, your smile, and always happy attitude lightened the day.  I have loved this first year with you, loved it.
You picked up everything really fast, I guess that is the nature of the second child, always trying to keep up with a big brother.  And boy do you ever. You are a fast little booger and hold your own when it comes to keeping up with Eli.  You walk around this house like you own the place and are learning how to hold your own when it comes to someone stealing your toys and pushing you around.

(He was giving him a hug, not trying to choke him)
Owen, you are a complete joy. I can not get enough of you. My mom said it best when describing you "he is either smiling, or smiling bigger." You are always happy, and go with the flow no matter what situation you are in.

I have loved this last year getting to know you and am just thrilled to see what is to come, to see the little boy you become and watch your personality grow and to continue to watch you grow and learn. I love you with every little ounce of my heart.

Happy birthday my sweet O!

Party Time!

Owen's actual birthday is August 23rd, but we had his birthday party this last weekend because we determined that it had to be on a Sunday because the store is open on Saturday which means my sister and dad wouldn't be able to come!  Blaine works two Sundays out of the month, and with everyones plans, the 14th was the only Sunday open for a party!  So party we did!

I cant believe it was already time to celebrate a birthday for my sweet little babe! I will save all my sweet, sentimental words about how times flies and how much I love him, yada, yada, yada for the post on his actual birthday and keep this one just full of pictures from the party.

We tried to keep it small-ish because it seemed more manageable, easier to handle, and with the 105 degree weather, we figured everyone would be camped out inside and there are only so many people and toddlers you can stuff in a room.  It is close to impossible to keep things small with my family, but we did our best to keep it small-ish but decided it best to have the party at my parents house since its about four times the size of our humble home.  We ordered a bunch of pizzas, had a cooler full of popsicles, a big ol' cake, and some snacks for the littles.

Saturday afternoon, we dropped the boys off at my parents house and Blaine and I went and had a night out on the town alone.  After our date, Blaine dropped me back off at my parents house, just like we were back in high school, and I spent the night over there so I could wake up with the boys and get started on the cleaning and decorating.  Blaine came over and picked up Eli bright and early Sunday morning and took him out so we didn't have a tornado messing up all the cleaning we were doing and Owen napped for a good hour and a half giving us plenty of time to get ready. 

Thankfully Rachel came over so I could boss her around a little.  The first thing on the checklist: get Owen dressed.

Our attempt to get a good family picture didn't go quite so well, but we did our best to get everyone looking and smiling at the camera.

Dang it Blaine! Look at the camera and smile!!!

Here are just a few pictures to sum up the party

Between chasing after Owen going up the stairs, making sure there was enough pizza and lemonade out, and talking to everyone, there wasn't much time for pictures, but I did my best to get a few.  Most the guests never made in a picture!

Eli was thrilled to help Owen blow out his candle on his cake and had been singing him Happy Birthday all week!  You will have to excuse the fact that Eli is shirtless!  He just about got heat stroke from running around outside for so long.

Owen did not have a clue as to what was going on when everyone started singing!  But he got in the groove of eating cake soon after.

Happy Birthday Sweet Owey!