Owen is 8 months old

I feel terribly guilty that I didn't post a 6 month or 7 month post of Owen, so I'll catch up in this one! What isn't this big guy doing? He surprises me all of the time! He is knocking his gross motor milestones out of the park, first of all. He started crawling at Christmas time at 7 1/2 months. He then quickly started pulling himself up to standing using furniture, and now he is walking using a push toy, and can stand on his own for several seconds. The other day he decided to CLIMB into Raegan's little chair, and climb onto a toy. This is where I can tell he is definitely going to be into more things than R. I'm predicting walking by 9 1/2 months but we shall see!

I had planned to start him on solid foods at 6 months, which is now best practice. I ended up starting him two weeks earlier than that because he is just such a big boy and it was getting hard to keep up with the milk demand. The first time he ate baby food was the most hilarious thing, like he had been starving his whole like! He grabbed the spoon and shoved it into his mouth. He was so excited with every bite that he was shaking. And, there started my big eater! R never really ate baby food, so this has been a new experience for me. He eats A LOT of baby food, and teething crackers, and drinks some water. He is also still eating a ton of milk, but at least the food spaces it out for me. He loves to sit in his high chair and eat food while the rest of us are eating.

He has been saying, "mama" for quite that time. He has now added, "Dada" and "uh oh," He makes lots of funny sounds that seems like he is trying to imitate sissy and her many sounds! He responds consistently to his name, smiles when I recite his favorite book, and loves anything he can push. No one can get him to smile like sissy, though! She is the best at entertaining him, too. Which is a huge help to us! She has had a bit of a transition with sharing toys, and sharing mommy, but she is doing okay. Most of the time she loves playing with her brother! She likes to introduce him to new people, "This is my Owen." :)

Sleep has taken a turn for the worse, and it happened as soon as he started crawling. I read that this is common, but that is no consolation. It's like he decided it was way more fun to crawl than to sleep. It was really rough the first few weeks of crawling, but it has gotten a little better now. He is mostly transitioned into his crib, but still spends some time in mommy and daddy's bed depending on how tired I am. He still needs rocked or nursed back to sleep, and right now Daddy is the number one rocker. I have a terrible time getting him to sleep. On days when I'm  home, I sometimes just let him fall asleep in the car when we're driving somewhere instead of trying to get him down for a nap in his bed. Luckily, sissy has been sleeping like a champ!

Owen probably has about 30 times as many toys as Raegan did at his age, simply because of R's accumulation of toys over almost 4 years. We have blocked off the living room with a baby fence and the leather ottoman. It is essentially just a baby zone where Owen can cruise around and we know he is safe. Toys are strewn all over the floor. His favorites are the v-tech train, soft stacking blocks, his tractor push toy, and anything he can roll! He loves to have any books read to him, and sits so still while we read to him. We sometimes let Owen in on R's story time right before bed, and he enjoys that! Some nights I just need to get him to bed asap though. He also just loves to watch anything sissy is doing. If we put him in his walker, he can watch her build a castle or a train track, without destroying it and making her mad.

He's such a fun little guy!
Happy 8 months bubs!

Raegan's first ballet performance!

This is an old post that I started a while back, but then never posted! Just before Christmas, Raegan had her very first ballet performance! She started ballet in September 2014, which is also a combination Tap class. I enrolled her at the prestigious Northern California Dance Conservatory which is supposed to be one of the best programs in the area. They are known for teaching technique even to the littlest ones! It has been wonderful watching Raegan be independent with changing her shoes for class, packing her ballet bag, and then trotting back to class with the other girls. I have finally mastered the art of the "bun" as well.

The performance was "T'was the night before Christmas," and Raegan was a mouse. She performed two back to back performances in the Black Box Theater. Jasen, Owen, and I watched the first performance, and then Shari, Carlee, and Shannon watched the second performance. Raegan did amazing! She was very focused and did her moves on cue.....I couldn't have been prouder! After the performance we went out for a celebratory lunch, with ice cream! We bought the DVD of the performance so we can share it with my family who missed it. Her next performance will be in June, and hopefully Aunt Meg can make it to this one!

(She is number 6 from the left in the pictures below.)

The Holidays 2014

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted! I am going to attempt to do some catching up.....let's see how well my memory serves me! ;)

I'll start with Halloween....
Raegan dressed as a pirate, and Owen dressed as Tigger. The anticipation of trick-or-treating was almost more than Raegan could bare. She was so excited! Matt came and walked with us, along with Grandma Shari. It happened to be raining on and off that day, so we stayed in our small area of the neighborhood. I carried owen in the front carrier, and Raegan walked with her heavy bucket full of candy! There was no "helping" her carry it. At the end of the night, she had quite the loot. Luckily she is pretty good about sharing it!

Thanksgiving.....
We hosted at our house, per usual. We had most of Jasen's family, along with Meghan and Tarik. Everything turned out delicious! For the first year, I added a pumpkin cheesecake to the dessert menu and it was everything I had hoped....and gluten free of course! The following day Meghan, Raegan, and I did some black friday shopping. Nothing really too noteworthy about that, except that this is the first year Raegan has gone with us, so that was fun. I'm pretty sure R's favorite part was the scone she got at starbucks....which is our FIRST stop on black Friday shopping morning!

8th Annual Christmas Party....
We celebrated our 8th annual Christmas party at our house. With a 3 year old and an infant, I was ready to pull the plug on the whole thing about a week out. Besides, we had recently hosted a Packers Football party, AND Thanksgiving. I was partied OUT! But, Jasen insisted, and encouraged me. We downsized the prep and the menu. Meg and I did all of the cookies over Thanksgiving and then froze them. The only hitch was the oven going out 2 hours before then party, when I went to heat up the spinach and artichoke dip! So, Jasen cooked it on the grill....and all was well....except the $400 bill to actually fix the oven later. Ugh.

Christmas.....and Dad's 60th Birthday Party....
The kids, Jasen, and I went back to Illinois this year BEFORE Christmas so that we could be there to celebrate my Dad's 60th birthday. We threw a huge party for him at the press club, including catered appetizers, and keg. The theme of the party was "Timeless" so we enlarged about 30 photos from his childhood to mid 30s and hung them around the room. We also added a current event or pop history fact about that year. Per our request, many of the guests also sent in favorite memories or stories about Dad. We read several of them as part of the toast. All in all it was a really wonderful party!

We celebrated Christmas with the Trutter's on December 23, and of course the kids ended up with suitcases full of toys and gifts! In all, we brought back 6 bags of stuff. I'm still trying to organize it all now! We are very grateful and blessed. :) Instead of the traditional homemade dinner that Mom makes for our Christmas, we went to Lake Pointe Grill. I think we were all just too worn out from the party planning. And, as a mother of 2, I totally understand going to a restaurant for the holidays now! We had a great visit with my whole family, even Lindsey and Trevor were there! We enjoyed the party planning, eating out, and hanging with family! It was a great trip! We got a small amount of snow, just enough for sissy to make a snow angel (according to her)! We miss everyone already :( 

And as if that wasn't busy enough, we then flew back to California and celebrated our Christmas traditions here. This was of course Owen's first Christmas and he enjoyed all of the boxes and wrapping paper! He surprised us all by crawling for the first time on Christmas Day! Next, we went to grandma Shari's where we opened presents, ate a delicious meal, and celebrateed with the Smith family! 

It was a wonderful holiday season!!!