DJ Owen

Owen was a tough one to settle last night. We have had to keep him up and moving constantly these past couple days or else he just isn't a happy camper. One thing that chilled him out was listening to daddy's music. Gabe popped his headphones on him and he seemed so relaxed, jiving to the tunes. He looked so cute with his over-sized headphones on that we just couldn't resist snapping some pictures. It helped that he threw in a couple silly faces as well. The result:

You're pretty rad, little one.

Happy 6 months Owen!

Happy 6 months, baby boy! The time has flown and before you know it, you'll be a whole year old! You bring so much happiness into our home and we wouldn't change a thing about you. 

One of my favorite pictures of the two of us

Here are some things that you currently love:
-Splashing!!! I hold you on the side of the tub when it's full of water and you just kick away. You sit still for a few seconds, growl and squeal, then you suck your bottom lip in, concentrate and kick and kick and kick. You get water everywhere and it is so cute to watch! (You wiggle so much in your bath that I haven't ever given you a single bath by yourself because we need more than two hands.)
-Moving. You haven't ever been a fan of just sitting or laying still for very long. You like to be on the move. You like to be carried and constant bouncing. You are overflowing with energy.
-People. You LOVE socializing with people and it makes me so happy. I am a bit of a hermit sometimes, so I am glad that you enjoy being out and about. You have a new game where if I am holding you and someone else smiles at you, you get all shy and turn your head into my shoulder and kick and laugh. So cute, little one.
-Sucking on anything, but your favorites are anything plastic, fabric, or momma's fingers. You love exploring by immediately bringing anything to your mouth, no matter what it is. Tonight you scooted on your bum/back on the floor over to the coffee table leg and started gnawing on it! haha it was so funny!

And just a few extra tid-bits about you:
-So far you have tried oatmeal (which you're growing accustomed to) bananas, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, and today you had a fruit medley mix. The mashed potatoes and gravy were your favorite.
-Your first tooth is coming in on the bottom. I can see just the tip of it, but I have a feeling it might take its sweet time growing in. Sorry buddy.
-You love the sound of your voice and you aren't afraid to use it! You yell for a good majority of the day and you love to talk. Your talking is starting to sound more and more like words, such as, "momma," "dadda," "hi," and once you said, "I am Tom." (Did we give you the wrong name?!)
-You can throw some pretty wicked tantrums. You push off with your feet and yell and arch yourself backwards. It's pretty impressive. You make up for those moments with your smiles. You have the BIGGEST smiles and are such a happy baby. If we smile at you, we are always guaranteed a smile back. You have such a big personality and it definitely shines through.
-You love singing. If you are ever upset or won't finish your bottle, singing "you are my sunshine" will cure the blues.

You are such a joy to be around Owen, we love you so much! Keep growing strong, big guy.
Love, mommy and daddy

Our New Years Eve

Last night after we put Owen to bed Gabe and I partied it up to ring in the new year. We wouldn't dare risk messing up his bedtime routine so we decided to keep it low key this year and celebrate just the two of us so Owen could sleep in his own bed. It was a fun evening just hanging out by ourselves! Gabe has been teaching me the ropes of Mario Party, so we played that for a while. We never had video games of any sort growing up and frankly I have just about zero interest in most of them, but Mario Party was actually pretty fun for me. The reason: For the most part you usually just have to push one button at a time. I have no multi-finger coordination skills when it comes to video games so I am awful at running and jumping at the same time. Then we watched "Invinsible" and I fell asleep the last ten minutes, which is common, drank sparkling cider and watched the ball drop on NBC. Gabe then tortured me by making me stay up another 25 minutes to finish our Mario Party tournament... Which had a lame, unfair ending because we were playing the computer and somehow it took us over. Once we made it to bed and had barely fallen asleep Owen woke up screaming bloody murder because he was super hungry, but it took  me a while to figure it out because he normally doesn't wake up that early to eat. Growth spurt? Thankfully he was out like a light after that and I finally got to bed around 2 a.m. I think he was also a little upset when he woke up because he realized that we didn't wake him up for the ball drop...  We are already enjoying this new year and look forward to what it will bring us. We will be moving sometime in the Spring and Gabe will start dental school. We both want to improve our health this year, and I am setting monthly goals for my etsy shop. Bring on 2013!!!

Our 3 Year Anniversary

This last Saturday Gabe and I celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary. We had such a good day! We started a coin jar several months ago and decided that whatever we saved up we would spend on our anniversary. We had enough to go out to a nice restaurant so we decided on PF Changs. If you haven't been there, go now! It is one of our favorite places to eat, everything on the menu tastes so good. We told our waiter it was our anniversary, so they brought us free sparkling cider and a chocolate caramel butterscotch slice of cake for dessert. It wasn't something that I would normally pick off the menu, but we both really really liked it!

Here were are with my mongolian beef, and Gabe's crispy chicken. Mmmm mmm  good!

We couldn't really come up with anything to do after that was cheap and "anniversary-ish" so I had just thought that we would walk around downtown and see the lights, but Gabe had something up his sleeve. He told me we had reservations somewhere after dinner and I was super surprised. He had tried to surprise me many times before, but I can usually tell that he is up to something.  I had no idea at all this time so he did pretty darn good at covering it up! We ended up going to the new theatre in Centerville where we saw the play, The Christmas Carol. It was fun! We haven't been to a play together before and we really enjoyed it. I see many more play-watchings in our future. The night was wonderful and it was fun talking about years past and everything that we have done, and our favorite memories. We have had a great life together so far and are very much looking forward to what else is to come. I really am so lucky to have Gabe as my companion. He has always had so much patience with me and still makes me laugh to this day. I love you Gabe!

Christmas 2012

We had a great Christmas this year, and hope that you all did the same! Every year we have been married Christmas has exceeded our expectations and we really enjoy all the celebrating. It was even more fun adding a baby to the mix and I am sure it will just get better as he too starts getting excited about the holiday. This year we started our celebrating early with the Dickes family Christmas party, decorating gingerbread  trains/men/tanks with our friends, and making a candy countdown chain. Christmas Eve my mom made the traditional broccoli cheese soup and candy-cane shaped bread sticks, which we devoured as it never disappoints. Christmas morning Gabe and I got up before Owen to open our presents uninterrupted (which we highly recommend) and then Owen opened his later. He proceeded to cry his eyes out the rest of the morning, which made us assume that he hated Christmas, but turns out he didn't get enough sleep and just needed a nap. The last couple weeks have been stuffed full of things to do and Owen's schedule has been thrown way off, including his night time sleep, so its been wonderful having some down time and being able to get him back on track. Hello longer stretches of sleep! One of our new traditions is to take a picture besides our gifts that we receive from Santa. It's fun to remember what we got each year. Here are this years pictures:

Gabe has really been into his song making lately, so he mostly got a lot of music related presents.

I saw this stuffed elephant at IKEA a while back and wanted it for Owen's nursery, but they ran out and I was bummed so he hunted it down on ebay and surprised me with it.

"Happy Hippo, Angry Duck" is my new favorite book for Owen. It's a cute book about how to recognize your moods. He seems to be a bit on the moody side, just like his momma, so I think it will be good for him. We are so glad he has such a big personality!

We had such a great Christmas this year and had so much fun spending it with all of our family and our new addition! It was good to see everyone and we definitely made a lot of memories. Gabe and I are looking forward to celebrating New Years Eve together after we put Owen to bed. Maybe next year we will let him stay up with us :)

Owen's Christmas Pictures

A few weeks ago I had my sister take some pictures of Owen for our Christmas card. We decked him out in his candy cane pants and pom pom hat. Here is what we sent out, plus some extras! Here is her website if you want to take a look at the rest of her work: http://www.chelsyannphotography.com/

Owen's first bites

Our pediatrician recommended that we wait until Owen was six months to start him on solids, but he seemed really interested in the foods we were eating, so we decided to start him early. We first tried oatmeal, and the first couple days he ate it just fine, but after that he just seemed so unimpressed. Oatmeal is so bland and I felt like he was telling me he wanted to try something more exciting. We have been giving him sweet potatoes and will soon try carrots and peas. He has been really good at chewing and swallowing his food since the beginning, which makes me a proud momma. It's so fun to experience new things with him!