New Year, New Followers Blog Hop!

We're participating in a really freaking awesome blog hop this weekend! Click the button below and go check out some of the best blogs I've come across.

I guarantee laughter and lots of cute babies.

Now, shoo! Go follow these blogs!

And Happy New Year!

Owen's First Christmas

Obviously, I did something super wrong last week and accidentally deleted all of my images. I'll be working on it as I can over the weekend. Until then, enjoy this post (with pictures!).


Owen's first Christmas was awesome. I don't even really know what else to say about it, except that it was my favorite Christmas ever. Seeing him experience it all was so much fun.

On Christmas Eve, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's (Ross's parents) house.  Owen wore a sweater vest. (Who put me in charge of dressing a child?)

Thumbs up to Christmas!

Riding his new fire truck from his great-grandma.

Trying to figure out the ball popper from Grandma and Grandpa

New hat from Aunt Rachel. I love it because he can't figure out how to take it off.
High five for this one, Rachel :-)

The future of Racer Band?

Owen talking with Aunt Rachel

The best picture we could get of Owen & Daddy

Owen & Mommy (still holding on to that drum stick)

Laying down some beats with Grandma

Reading with Daddy

On Christmas day, we started by opening presents at home and eating breakfast (I make awesome french toast, just so ya know). 

Rupp decided to crash the Christmas Tree picture

Owen & Daddy opening gifts

He's obsessed with his activity table. He dances along with the music.

He stole the Reese's candy cane out of Ross's stocking

And the candy canes off of the tree.

After that, we ran off to Nanny and Papaw's (my parents) house. 

Reading books with Nanny

He kept looking up my dad's nose. Boys are gross. 

Pouting because I wouldn't let him break all of the ornaments. (Notice he stole Ross's stocking candy at my parents' house, too. )

Petting Big Kitty for the first time. Kitty was not amused.

My new favorite picture.

We ended the night at my aunt's house. I suck and forgot to take pictures there, but we had a ball. Owen loved all of the attention he got, and even put on a nice display of his 'tricks' while we were eating supper. 

My favorite part of that night was when my 8-year-old cousin asked me if she could borrow Owen to star in her silent movie, 'Attack of the million foot baby from OUTER SPAAAAAAACE!' 

Did I let her borrow him? Yes. 

They eventually fired him, though, because he wasn't being monstery enough or something. The best part was, they were so serious when they told him they were replacing him. 'This just isn't working out.'

I love my family.

I hope all of your holidays were as happy as ours! Now we're in the countdown (6 days) to Owen's birthday. Unreal.

Wordless Wednesday: Peek a Boo!

He's so sneaky you can't even tell there's a baby in this picture.




 

11 Months

Today my little stink is 11 months old. That's hard to swallow.

It seems like he just got here but, then again, I can't really remember what life was like before him.

My big 11 month old is too busy 'reading' to look at the camera.


 The last few days Owen has been obsessed with books. If you sit down in the floor, he automatically grabs a book and plops down in your lap. This may be my favorite phase so far. I love having him just chill and snuggle with me while we read. It's so rare that he stays still for very long anymore, so these moments are precious.

I had a big losery mom moment today. Driving to work, I was listening to a country station and 'There Goes my Life' by Kenny Chesney came on. I knew I should change the station, but didn't. I made it to the last verse (you know, the part where the kid goes off to college) before I was bawling my eyes out. I can't think about him being a grown up yet.

I can't even handle that he's going to be one in a month.

Christmas Picture Outtakes

We've talked about how much of a fail our little Christmas card photo shoot was the other day. Today, I finally got around to actually uploading the pictures.

Even though none of these will be gracing the inaugural Miller family Christmas card, I thought I'd share them anyway because, let's face it, Owen is adorable.

Yeah, the kid wouldn't even look at me. We're trying this again this week, though, so *finger crossed* maybe we'll get some decent ones.

Color me stunned: Owen behaves (mostly)

You've all read my tales of my stinker of a child and his shenannigans. Well, today he was awesome. A perfect, well-behaved child.

Except for this:

It's a miracle Rupp has not destroyed Owen by now. I have the most patient cat on the planet.

O did too many awesomely adorable things today for me to recap them all, but my favorite was when I was sitting cross-legged in the floor playing with him. He walked across the room, grabbed a book and then sat down in my lap and handed me the book. He wanted me to read to him.

We read a book about a very helpful bunny (the one he picked out) and then cycled through his wildlife board books and Aladdin. He loved every second of it.

I'm so glad I have a child who seems to enjoy books (at least so far).

The rest of the day was easy and fun. We rolled around in the floor, watched some Baby Einstein, chased each other around the living room, read some more books and made silly faces at each other. AND he took three naps. Three LONG naps. Heavenly.

I seriously have the most awesome little boy on the planet, even if he's a stinker 90% of the time.

Well, that didn't go as expected...

I had high hopes for my post today.

This was my to-do list today:
1. Make handprint ornament
2. Take picture of ornament for blog
3. Take Owen's Christmas card picture
4. Post cute pictures on blog

This is how things went down:

The Ornament
I made the salt/flour dough for the handprint ornament and stuck Owen in his high chair with some puffs to entertain/distract him. I rolled it out into a circle and then went in for the print. I honestly didn't think it would be a big deal. I figured I would distract him, grab his hand and smush it into the dough.

I was mistaken.

I grabbed his hand and pushed it into the dough. He closed his hand and ripped a chunk out of the middle (of the dough, not his hand). Well, crap.
Tried again. Same result.
I even tried pinning one of his arms under the high chair tray so I only had to deal with one grabby baby hand.
Yeah, so that's not as effective as it was a few months ago.

Eventually, I did get one alright handprint. Popped that sucker into the oven to harden.

Dammit! I forgot to poke a hole in it to hang on the tree!

I pulled it back out and it was already beginning to harden. I scraped the best hole into it that I could using one of those random little pointing things that came in our knife block (what are those things for, anyway?).

It didn't look awesome when it came out, but hopefully painting will improve it because Lord knows I'm not trying it again.

The Pictures
I wrestled Owen into his Christmas pajamas (seriously, dressing a 10 month old is the most frustrating thing on the planet). Owen, I promise no one is trying to kill you. People wear clothes. You can't just be naked for the rest of your life. It's socially unacceptable. Stop biting me!

I finally got him dressed, and then attempted to put his Santa slippers on. Nope. Not having that.

If Owen could talk, this is how that conversation would have gone:

Owen: "Hey, let me chew on those!"
Me: "No, they go on your feet."
Owen: "I'm going to chew on them, ok?"
Me: "No. Just let me put them on your feet."
Owen: "Fine, but I'm going to bunch up my toes. Good luck."

More wresting ensued.

Ok, so now the kid is dressed. I set him in the play pen and removed the Christmas tree barricade:

The barricade

 I handed him a present with a bow in the hopes that it would distract him from the tree. Then I sat him under the tree and all Hell broke loose.

First, he started tugging on a sparkly green reindeer ornament. I took it away from him. Then, he started using the present as a weapon. His was beating the Christmas tree with it.

I kept snapping pictures, hoping he would eventually turn and look at me (or that I'd at least get a cute candid shot). Nope. Nothing.

Then my camera battery died.

Sigh. I'll try again tomorrow.

I promise adorable Christmassey Owen pictures in the near future. It will happen.

I hope.