All Aboard the Cheese Bus!

Yes, cheese bus.

We've discussed Owen's obsession with putting things down the trunk of his elephant ball popper, but I neglected to mention that he is pretty much obsessed with putting things in other things in general.

I guess it is also important to mention that we've been having feeding issues lately. Trying to feed a toddler is by far the most frustrating thing I've ever experienced.

Today, I had the bright idea to try and get Owen to eat a 'sandwich.' I put 'sandwich' in quotations because my brilliant idea was to feed it to him in parts so he wouldn't get bored so quickly. (The fact that I'm blogging about this should clue you in to how well it went.)

First, I fed him a piece of turkey. We have a lot more luck feeding him if we let him roam, rather than putting him in the high chair, so I just sat on the couch with a piece of turkey and he would come get bites from me every couple of minutes.

He ate nearly all of the turkey, which was great. Then, it was time for the cheese. I got a slice out of the fridge and after fighting him to take bites for a while, I decided to break it into squares and put it on the coffee table for him to munch on as he pleased (we do this with cheerios all the time, so I figured it would work).

What did Owen do with the cheese? He grabbed a piece to munch on, then walked across the room and came back with his toy school bus. He set the bus on the coffee table next to the cheese, and then this happened:

In case you can't tell from the crappy cell phone picture, those are pieces of cheese in the bus. He put every single piece of cheese in the bus, one by one.

What happened next can only be described as 'The Great Cheese Tragedy of 2012.'

He pushed the bus over the edge of the coffee table. Cheese went everywhere.

What did Owen do while I was cleaning up cheese off of the floor? He filled the bus with Cheerios.

Needless to say, that was the end of lunch time.

Elephant Surgery and Other Stories

I would like to offer up this Owen video as penance for my incredible amount of blog slackery lately.

Ok, so now that you've enjoyed a little bit of Owen boogying, we'll move on.

My little toddler (eek!) has grown up so much in the last couple of weeks. The biggest thing I've noticed is that he has begun to play with his toys properly. Blocks are no longer just for banging together. Toy animals aren't just for chewing on. He can make stacks of blocks that are 3-4 blocks high. The animals now 'play' in the barn.

There is still one toy he can't quite master:



My parents got him this Elefun ball popper for Christmas and the kid loves it. Lo-o-oves it. He's figured out how to turn it on by himself, which is neat, but what he can't quite grasp is that you can't just stick anything in the elephant and expect it to shoot out.

I've had to perform elephant surgery several times this week to remove the following: pieces from his shape-sorter, a toy sheep and several goldfish crackers.

Maybe he'll figure it out eventually.

He's also picked up a new trick, and it is my favorite EVER. Owen now gives kisses. Yes, I ask him for kisses and he leans in and closes his eyes and goes 'Mmmmm, mah!' A-freaking-dorable.

I didn't even teach him to do it. He just magically woke up from a nap one day knowing how to give kisses. Maybe it came to him in a dream or something.

He also got his first haircut this week. By 'got,' I mean I strapped him in the high chair with a snack and did it myself. This is how that ended:

TANTRUM!!!

At least he looks cute, even if he hated me for a while afterward.

He also has a slew of new 'bad' things he enjoys doing. The most scary of these is the climbing. He climbs on the end tables, the shelves and into (and on top of) the toy box.

Reading is a lot more fun inside the toy box, apparently.

He has also gone from just trying to tackle Rupp to trying to actually cuddle with him. Owen cuddling is not normal cuddling, however. It generally involves biting and lots of nuzzling. You can imagine how much Rupp enjoys this.

Today, the only way I could get him to stop freaking out (for no reason whatsoever) was to let him sit in my lap. No problem, right? Well, it wouldn't have been if Rupp weren't already in my lap. So I wound up with the cat in my lap and Owen sitting happily on top of the cat. Rupp is the saint of felines.

I also caught him sticking goldfish crackers down the floor vents today, so that was fun.

I should have some wonderful 1-year pictures to show you soon that we had taken last weekend by the extremely talented Dianne of Dianne Lisette Photography, so get excited!

Party Time! Excellent!

Today was Owen's birthday party. Going into it, I was ridiculously stressed. I had a million ideas of things I wanted to do, but when this morning rolled around and it came time to execute them I suddenly became apathetic to 90% of them.

We got to the church, threw up some balloons and scattered some confetti and called it a day.


Check out the ridiculously adorable cakes that our friend (and my former teacher) made:

 After we made it through appetizers and whatnot, it was time to see how Owen would react to his smash cake. I went back and forth for a while deciding how to clothe him for the cake. Bib over clothes? Take his shirt off? Diaper only?

We eventually decided on diaper only (Trashy? Possibly. Practical? Absolutely.), and boy were we glad we did. Owen demolished the cake. Demolished might even be an understatement.

Digging in

Owen takes cake smashing seriously.

Ok, so now we have this chocolate-covered baby. What do you do with a chocolate-covered baby, you ask?

Hell if I know.

We still have to open presents. We can't just leave him like that. Is there a hose around here or something? 


We decided on the sink.

Very funny, guys.

Once we got him (mostly) clean, we moved on to presents. Between Christmas and his birthday, I'm pretty sure there are no toys left that Owen does not have. Our living room looks like Toys R Us.

My favorite gift he received was a rocking horse. The rocking horse was mine when I was Owen's age. My mom had her friend restore it for Owen and it turned out beautifully. He loves it and has already figured out how it works.

Presents!

After presents, well... There wasn't really anything to do after that, so we cleaned up. My family is the best (no, seriously) and all chipped in and helped us get everything picked up.

He even helped clean up!

All-in-all, a huge success!

Ladies & Gentlemen, we have a toddler.

Today is Owen's 1st birthday.

Let that soak in for a minute.

My baby is no longer a baby, but a toddler. I've lost track of how many times I've teared up thinking about this the last few days. I swear, and I know this is ridiculous, that Owen even looked older when he woke up this morning.

We are having his real party on Saturday, but we did a little bit of 'celebrating' today. For lunch, we went to Matt B's (which, if you're not from MKY, is the most glorious pizza place in the state) and Owen happily nommed a breadstick while Ross and I enjoyed some nice, greasy pizza. Then we went to the park.

Owen loved going down the slides and playing in the dirt.

Here's Owen at only a few minutes old:

And these are from our park adventure today:

That was fun! Let's slide some more!

Check out this dirt I found, Mom!

Daddy wanted to slide, too

Just a- swingin'

My favorite men

He wouldn't smile in a pic with Mom...

But he did have fun trying to steal my sunglasses

What a difference a year makes.

Owen has been such a blessing, and every moment of this past year has been priceless. It's been hard at times (the newborn days, for example), but it's all been worth it.

I have never been more proud of anything than I am of him.

Owen James, I love you more than everything. Thank you for making me smile every day. <3