Owen Turns 4!

Phew! I am finally getting Owen birthday pictures up! 

Owen Parker turned 4 on September 19th. He requested a "donut cake" for his birthday breakfast. Uhh, ok? Well, what the birthday boy wants, the birthday boys gets! He was perfectly happy with the donuts piled on top of each other and some candles on top!

Bubs had school that day (he took Angry Birds fruit snacks to celebrate with his class!) so after we picked him up we headed to lunch with Nana & Papa. Owen's favorite lunch food is cheese crisp so Mexican it was!

And he got a birthday ice cream sundae!

After lunch we headed home and Owen opened his cool Hot Wheels toy from Papa & Nana. 

After naps we went to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner. This is Owen's FAVORITE place that he talked about ever since we had his big friend/family birthday party here last year. Since it's his "off" year for a party (we do 1 big party per boy every other year) we had Jeff & Ruth and the kids come celebrate with us!

(thanks to Ruth for taking most of these photos!)

I just love their friendship!

Back to the house for cake, ice cream and presents

Innotab 2 from us

Owen, Owen, Owen. What can I say about Owen? He's affectionate, funny, silly, stubborn, sensitive, impulsive, curious, loyal, handsome, and a host of other things! He keeps us on our toes and we just love him. He's changing and growing so much which is so fun to see!

Owen loves hot wheels, Dr. Suess books, games on the iphone, taking pictures, family movie night, popcorn, cheese, his ASU jersey, lunch at Chick fil A, garage sale-ing, riding his Lightening McQueen bike, sips of my coffee, the beach, fireworks, and helping in the kitchen (especially if I'm making cookies or sweet tea!). He's crazy tall for his age and people constantly think he's older than he is. His speech therapy is coming along great and he's right on course to hit all of his speech goals for this year! I can't hardly get a word in edgewise these days, he has a running commentary on everything (including a random obsession with cacti, haha). No complaints here! He's very social and is constantly asking "who's coming over?" and "where are we going to go next?" Boy likes to be busy! He has a love/hate relationship with school and doesn't always want to go, but I think it's because he feels like he's missing out on whatever Austin and I are doing while he's gone. He does have lots of friends that he talks about from school and often gives hugs to his friends when I drop him off. Sweet boy!

Happy birthday, Owen Parker! I'm so glad you're mine!

10 on 10

I haven't done a "10 on 10" in a while. If you're not familiar with it, it's a fun project where, on the 10th day of the month, you take a photo for 10 consecutive hours. It's fun to find beauty in the ordinary things of life!

You're lucky today, because typically on Mondays I stay home and do housework/catch up from the weekend, so you would have seen 10 consecutive pictures of me doing laundry. Lame. But I had a hold at the library that they would charge me for if I didn't pick it up today, so I just swapped my typical Monday with my typical Tuesday and spent the day out and about!

6:36am. Breakfast for my early riser.

7:59 About to drop Owen off at preschool

8:26 A Starbucks date with Austin

9ish Building at the library

10:55 Quick stop at Trader Joe's

11:15 My view waiting to pick Owen up from school

Skipping 12 o'clock... crazy lunch time/putting the boys down for naps

1:30 Leftover cake calling my name.

2ish Just in case you think it's always roses and rainbows here... Owen woke up cranky today. Back to bed.

4:15 Dinner in the crock pot. (Stir fry veggies and turkey meatballs over brown rice)

5:30 Zumba with Ruth!

7pm Bath time to end the day. 

I love having these 10 on 10's to look back on. To think "oh yeah, that was what a normal day looked like when the boys were 2 and 3", or "I forgot the boys took naps at the same time back then". I want to remember and document these regular days so I can look back and see God's faithfulness through every season of my life, through every ordinary day. I truly am grateful to be a mom to these boys and a wife to Ryan. It's my dream come true, and though I often want to bang my head against a wall because it can be so hard, there is so much joy.

Insta-Friday: Just a Few Quick Pics from My Week

I don't have much to report today, just a few quick pics from my phone. I had a very sick husband last week/weekend so I didn't pull my camera out too much. No need to document that! Ryan's all better now, thank heaven. It's no fun to see your Love not feeling well. 

September 1st - I took Owen on an early morning date to Starbucks. They have the fall drinks out now, which includes my absolute favorite drink of all time, a salted caramel mocha frappuccino. Mmmm.

(Owen got a donut. See?)

Later we took a nap together. It was fabulous.

Sunday night Ryan needed some cheering up (he was still sick). We watched Jim Gaffigan. Ryan fell asleep a few minutes into it but I thought it was hilarious!

Ruth and I met up at Costco, then got lunch with our boys in the food court. It went surprisingly well, considering we had 3 boys 3 and under!

I got to see Owen's school picture on his school ID. Isn't he darling?? I'm so glad the picture turned out! He's a cheeseball when it comes to taking pictures so I didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. Doesn't he look so old?

Poor Austy had trouble with his ice cream cone. 

Last night it was cloudy, cool, and had the scent of rain in the air. The boys and I spent a good amount of time outside enjoying it. No need to bring back the summer weather, this will do just fine!

New mani: Case Study by Essie. Found this color at TJMaxx for $3.99! Much better than the usual $8. It's the perfect nude. 

A pretty uneventful week, as you can tell. We have a very full weekend to look forward to!

Insta-Friday

I tried to do a better job this week of taking pictures of things other than my kids and food... 

but it didn't work. 

Oh well. 

I've decided that Tuesday mornings are me and Austin's "date mornings". We'll do something fun together. This week, we went shoe shopping (for him) and then spent some time at a coffee shop. 

Hat twins

Saturday I got out by myself for a few hours. It was glorious! I shopped a bit, went to Trader Joe's by myself, and spend some time reading at Starbucks. It was so relaxing. 

Sunday after church we went out to lunch as a family. It was so fun and the boys were great. As long as Owen had a dang quesadilla and Austin has some salsa, they were happy campers!

The boys' favorite book lately. I think I've read it approximately 44783787483729 times. And they still laugh like it's the first time. 

Owen's new kicks. He's a 12 now.  (A twelve!!)

Rough day at school, apparently. The next day I got another notice that there had been exposure to Hand, Foot and Mouth disease! I need to buckle up for all the potential sickness that comes with a kiddo in school.

On a hot afternoon, I made this recipe for peanut butter play doh. The boys loved it! I threw the leftover dough into a container in the fridge, I plan to pull it out again soon!

When I came across this recipe on Pinterest, my mouth began to water. I knew I needed to make this ASAP! I'm glad I did because it was SO good! And yay for home made dough!

This was the first time I had ever used the kneading blade thingy. I felt like such a grown up.

Yummy finished product.

Owen had his school pictures this week so I took him to get a haircut. He did awesome and we had time to spare before bedtime so we took a walk around the Dollar Tree nearby. Owen loved this place! I told him he could pick one thing. It was so cute and fun to follow him around while he tried to decide. The final purchase was a bag of ring pops. He has asked several times since then to go back!

TGIF!

Insta-Friday

Here's a few pictures from my phone documenting our week!

Owen hadn't been in school for 4 days when he got his first birthday invitation! A little girl in his class wanted him to be at her birthday party. He was the only one in his class invited - she said "Owen's my only friend at school". She's such a sweet little girl, and is really taken with Owen. At school she insists on holding his hand everywhere, a bit to Owen's chagrin. He had lots of fun at her birthday party Saturday.  

Owen and Micaela. 

Sunday morning - the boys found themselves in dual time out. I was trying not to laugh!

Audio/CD books have been a great way to keep them entertained in the afternoon without having to turn on the tv. Dr. Seuss is a favorite of ours. 

Monday after we dropped Owen off at school, I had some things to get at Target. I let Austin just walk around and look at all the toys. He pushed every button on every toy he could reach. It was really cute and pretty relaxing! Nowhere to be, a couple of hours to kill. 

Wednesday Austy and I had a Starbucks date. Time with just the two of us has been so good for us! I'm enjoying getting to know him more and getting more quality time with him. He's so fun and so sweet. 

Does it seem like I bond with my kids over food a lot? Haha! Sharing chocolate milk after a nap.