Owens Thoughts

Its been quite a journey since we first told Owen he was going to be a big brother back in March. Since then, he has had many thoughts about the baby; thankfully, most of them have been good and all have been funny!

March 12th after t-ball practice we took Owen to one of our favorite places, Buzz Bakery. While we were all enjoying a treat Robert told Owen he had something exciting to tell him. He said "You're going to be a big brother! We're going to have a baby!" I chimed in that I had a baby in tummy and he quickly looked at me, looked at my stomach and looked back at me again. We tried to explain that we had a long time to wait before the baby was done growing by talking about the summer, and Owens birthday and a new school all happening first. October seemed so far away...

That night we took dinner to our friends The Mongelli's who had just had a baby. While we were sitting there chatting Owen suddenly burst out with "I'm going to be a big brother!" We were all very surprised, especially Erica and Steve who were the first to hear our news :)

Over the next several days Owen had fun telling many people that he was going to be a big brother. At our prompting he told both sets of Grandparents on Skype and many of our friends. We determined Halloween was a good frame of reference for him, so he would say he was going to be a big brother when it was Halloween.

We took Owen with us to the 2nd sonogram thinking that it would help him to see and understand that there is really a baby growing in mommy's tummy. Unfortunately, he was way more interested in the Drs office itself then in the sonogram. He was even more curious about why the lights were turned off then the images on the screen of the baby :)

As it began to sink in more for all of us that we were having a baby, we started to ask Owen if he wanted a brother or sister. He would tell us he wanted a baby brother and that we should name him Lightening McQueen! In May when we found out that we were having a girl we thought for sure Owen was going to be so disappointed. We came home from the sonogram and told him that he would have a baby sister to which he responded "Ooh, but I wanted a brother." When we asked why he simply said "Because I wanted to name him Lightening McQueen." We told him we'd have to start thinking of baby girl names instead and promptly he decided we would name the baby "Sally Car!"

Now as my tummy grows and baby "Sally Car" continues to get bigger Owen loves to lay his head on my stomach and feel the baby kick. He says "Sally Car" to my belly and is convinced she kicks every time. He often asks out of no where if the baby is kicking and has recently started hugging and kissing my tummy. He told me last week "I love our baby, mama." We spend a lot of time talking about the things we will do with the baby, what she will look like (he says she will have blonde hair and blue eyes "just like us mama") and all the things he wants to buy for her (typically these are all toys he wants for himself, but has learned to say "we should get this for our baby!").

It has been such a fun journey these past 7 1/2 months and we are so excited for Owen and his baby sister to finally meet! Baby girl, your big brother loves you so much already and we know he will protect and love you always.

4th Birthday Party

For his 4th birthday Owen requested a dinosaur party, and with his ever growing guest list we thought it would be a good idea to have the party at a local park this year. We were all so happy that Grandma Bonnie, Grandpa Steve, Grandma Donna and Grandpa Bill could all make it out to Virginia to help us celebrate! Knowing it was going to be good and hot on July 3, we planned for water games and the kids came ready to get wet and have fun in the sun!

Owen and daddy couldn't wait to get the party started, so they kicked off the water balloon fight. Sadly, that whole bucket of water balloons was gone in about 3 minutes :)

But that was ok, because daddy had a BIG surprise for Owen...SQUIRT GUN FIGHT!!!

As you can see, the "kids" really had a blast! HA!

Next up was cake time, and singing Happy Birthday to the big 4 year old!

Oh, the suspense!

Just a little taste, I'm sure no one will notice!

Finally we opened some presents. We were so blessed and overwhelmed by the love we felt from everyone there.

Everyone pitched in to help with the presents, and each child was so excited to see Owen open their present! It was so fun!

And judging by the over all subject of these cards, I'd say we did a pretty good job of driving home the dinosaur theme :)

Thanks everyone for making Owens birthday so very special! We love you all! xoxo

Owen Turns 4!

July 3rd at 5:43pm Owen officially turned 4! Robert and I watch him in amazement almost daily and often say to one another, "We really have a 4 year old!" It is so hard to believe that its been that long since this little guy changed our lives in the best ways possible.

At 4 Owen is fun, funny, sweet, sensitive, caring, considerate and polite. He is also adventurous, creative, loud, wild, rambunctious and free spirited. We often get compliments from friends, family and teachers about how well behaved, sweet and kind he is, but also we see him pushing the limits, testing boundaries and giving us a run for our money :)

At 4 Owen loves dinosaurs, and can name many that we have a hard time pronouncing. He still loves trains and can get very involved in building tracks for them to run on. CARS and CARS 2 are among his favorite movies and characters and he plays very in depth with various racing cars. He loves airplanes and helicopters, especially military ones and big bonus if they shoot missiles. He is infatuated with aircraft carriers, space ships, and even flying cars.

At 4 Owen still loves to "wrestle-house" with daddy whenever he has the chance and any contact sport is a favorite. He is a great swimmer, swimming with his arm floaties on with great confidence and has mastered cannon balls and loves being thrown around in the water. He just started practicing swimming underwater and surprised us with how well he can hold his breath. His swimming gets faster every day and now he even practices swimming to us with no floaties on.

At 4 Owen is almost 3 1/2 feet tall (39 1/2 in) and is in the 32nd percentile for height. He weighs 34 1/2 lbs and is in the 37th percentile for weight. He is so healthy and has not yet been on antibiotics, but has made 2 trips to the ER already (both in the last year).

At 4 Owen is very smart and witty, he loves to make jokes and hear jokes and understands word play. He is just starting to write his name, identifies numbers 1-5 and almost all letters, counts to 15 and loves to be read to. His favorite books include anything about dinosaurs, the Skippy Jon Jones books and books by Mo Wilems. He likes to play play-doh, color, and can draw circles, crosses, Xs, cars and trucks. He loves to learn about new places and hear stories of the things we've done. Museums are an absolute obsession of his!

At 4 Owen is loved by so many people and has blessed our lives more then we could have imagined. He has brought endless joy and happiness to us and always will. We are so proud of him every day and love him more then words could ever express.