Owen is 20 months! (well, now 20.5)

This post could have also held the title, "It was the best of times and the worst of times." But I'll get into that in a bit. :)

Talking
In general, Owen is an absolute BLAST these days!  At about 19 1/2 months, his vocabulary just exploded.  It felt like literally overnight, he learned 50 new words.  He finally said dada and made William's life complete. :)  I tried to write down all the new words he was saying, but I finally gave up.  His favorite words are apple, moon, poop, burp, up, help, and naming animal noises.  He likes to repeat the names of people in his family and he LOVES to name his colors.  He can correctly identify and say blue, yellow, green, purple, green, and red ("ro").  Pink, brown, black, and white he can identify but not say.  And now when we're counting to 10, he correctly places and says 2, 6, 8, 9, and 10!  Aww, I love bragging on my little guy.  This year is going to be super fun getting to do more and more activities with him!  Here's 2 short videos on counting and colors.

(Please ignore the yogurt all over his face.  I also had some juice and decided the night he was wearing no bib and a white onesie would be an ok time to let him drink from a cup by himself.  Oops, ruined that onesie for sure.)

Eating

Owen has definitely become a little pickier when it comes to eating vegetables and meat these days.  There are things he definitely doesn't like.  What kid doesn't like chicken nuggets?! So I'm just having to get smarter about pureeing them and getting them into other things.  But overall, he still eats pretty well.  He loves dairy of all kinds: milk, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese and will scarf down any kind of fruit all day long!

Playing

He currently spends his play time playing with little match box cars.  Loves them. I found a little people garage at All Things Kids and he adores sending them down the ramp or pushing them on the tile.  He also loves his Thomas Trains that he got for Christmas.  He still could spend hours reading (aww) and likes throwing balls.  We try to play around on the piano every few days to get him used to sitting up and "playing."  He likes to look at the music and then plunk some notes, so he's getting it a little bit!  He enjoys coloring and can now draw an O for Owen!!

Sleeping

 

I still don't have a great sleeper.  He did better for a couple months, but is now back to getting up sevearl times at night.  We've gotten lazy and William just gets him, puts him in bed with me and then goes to sleep in the guest room.  Seeing how much Owen moves around, it's a no wonder he wakes himself up all the time.  We're working on some kind of plan here soon since I don't want to sleep with 2 babies in a couple months!  A month or 2 ago, Owen also attached himself to a stuffed animal that was in his room.  He will not sleep without Leo the Lion now.  I actually got it when I was pregnant with him and we were in Texas.  I had just spent the day in the ER because I was bleeding and scared I was losing him.  We went shopping later that week and I got him the lion because he was just too adorable.

The hard times

I think we've entered toddler land.  Owen had figured out he has a will and is very much asserting it.  It mostly comes out when getting dressed.  He hates getting his diaper changed and getting dressed after bath time is torture.  You should see the song and dance William and I have tried.  Distraction with books, youtube videos, singing, you name it.  Sometimes it works.  Most of time, we just avoid the kicking feet and try to get him dressed as quickly as possible.  He will also throw a fit now when he doesn't get something he wants, namely a snack when it's too close to dinner, when it's time to leave the park or library, or just gets told no in general.  William and I are gearing up for being on the same page about some discipline techniques!

But all in all, he is such a delight!  It's been so fun seeing some of the things we've done since day 1 start to actually click with him.  He loves saying amen at the end of prayers and enjoys reading his Bible stories and praying before bedtime.  He also knows the songs we always sing before bedtime.  I love that he is still a cuddler and loves to snuggle with his mama.  I'm cherishing these last 9 weeks before I have to give him divided time.

Some pictures:

we finally had enough snow to go out and play

but the weather has mostly been fabulous - lots of winter park time!

he LOVES his kitty!

2 favorites - books and trucks

He loves this toy at the library.  We've been going to Tuesday toddler story time.

enjoying a snack at Great Harvest Bread Co

playing in Ellie's toy box as I cleaned her room

fever day - we were "cooling off"

And here's a little video from that day.  He loves to make videos for Aunt Jenna:

And one more random video. He loves to make "snow angels" on the carpet:

the 'stache bash

The title of this post could have also been:
- I slept!
- Happy Birthday William
- Wait, he's a porn star?

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Let me back up. Yesterday, my hubby marked a big milestone in his life. He turned 40!  A friendly reminder that I did marry someone 9 years older then myself. :) Even though he is not a huge party person, I knew I had to make a semi big deal of his big day. So I secretly planned a couple big events for this weekend. After lunch on Friday, Owen and I set off for Peoria. My sister said this may have been a bit OCD to pack his clothes this way, but really I was just trying to make it easy on my mom.
I said goodbye and booked it back to Champaign. I got home a little after William who was expecting me to have Owen and the babysitter. But surprise, we were kid free all weekend.  We headed out to Desthil to use a giftcard (thanks Trish and Chrissy).  It was a popular place and we saw multiple people we knew.  I had a big, yummy burger and they even gave William a free birthday dessert.  Then, we got all crazy and went home to watch a movie and go to bed.  It was pretty amazing to get a full nights sleep.  Well, minus the getting up to pee.  While William knew we were going to do something on Saturday, he didn't know what.  I admit to putting him to work cleaning and setting up tables.  Little did he know a month ago, I sent out these babies to invite some friends to his 'stache bash (ordered from here).

Although I should have spent the day enjoying being childless, I have this slight problem about going overboard with parties. So I spent most of Saturday getting ready for our guests. I kicked William out for a few hours so I could at least put up a few decorations as a surprise.  Here's a little breakdown of what the party included.  Jenna would shake her head at my pictures.  It was dark with my bad camera and of course, I missed several important things.  

Decor

I stuck with red, black, and white as our color themes.  Of course, I didn't get a picture of the main table once it had food on it.  But here was the banner that went above it.  Ignore the ugly curtains.  My mom and I are in process of making new ones!  Above the fireplace, I made a banner of mustache names such at lip spinach, cookie duster, and soup strainer and accompanying pictures.  There's a simple printable version here.

The main table had cupcake trays that I made by covering cardboard with ribbon and scrapbook paper and placing them on top of a covered soup can.  Can you say free? :)  The table also help the mustaches on sticks, stick on mustaches, and little favors of Wolly Willys.  Remember these from when we were little?  

I made a "wet your whiskers" sign for the drink counter.

Of course, we had to have some pictures of the adorable birthday boy.

And the balloons sporting their mustaches:

Food
I kept the menu pretty simple with a mexican dip, fruit, veggies, and lots of drinks.  A few highlights were the chocolate lollipops.  I ordered molds for chocolate and got a great bag of chocolate from Hobby Lobby (hello 40% coupon).  These took a few days to make since I only had 4 slots in the mold.  But they were yummy!

The drink hit of the night was my sangria. I had never made this before, but it was great!  It does have to be made a day ahead of time to all the flavors can mix.

We of course had to have red velvet cupcakes which are William's favorite.

And last, mustache cookies.  I made sugar cookies and cut them out as circles.  Then I just cut the circles into a ying-yang shape and then put the 2 halfs together to make a mustache shape.

Games
So what's a party without some good old fashioned games?  Well, that's what I thought at least, but now I'm wondering if I should have spared myself the embarrassment. :)  The first game was simple and had no problems.  Pin the Mustache on Burt Reynolds and I found the whole printable game here.  4 of the guys got really into it and Josh took home the prize!

And then there was the Name that 'Stache game.  I got the idea here.  I took pictures from a collection of famous mustaches here and had people guess who the people were by just seeing their mustaches.  While some people were working hard on trying to figure it out, someone came up and asked if I had put a porn star on the game.  Aghast, I said of course not!  But then I realized that there was one person that I didn't really know that I had put on there.  He had a great mustache, so I thought someone would know who he was.  Well, most everyone did.  And obviously, I lead a sheltered life.  Note to anyone who makes this game: don't put Ron Jeremy on there.  *insert lots of blushing*

these ladies worked together to win the game

The winners of the games took home a bouquet of suckers and Walmart giftcards.

The People and 'Staches (more pictures on facebook)

the birthday boy, me (and Ellie)

nice eyebrows Jeff

Becca and Josh

Mike and Amy

Mags looking good with a stache

Mike and Julie

Stephanie and Mike

And that's a wrap.  We went and picked up Owen today in Peoria and stayed for church.  He had an awesome weekend with my parents and I hope William had a great time being celebrated.  I love you sweetie.  Happy 40th Birthday!

Krannert

Today, we met Holly, Keira (KiKi according to Owen), and Caden for a great time! We had lunch together at Krannert's little cafe and then went to see Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem. They're a group of 4 who play the fiddle, bass, guitars, and a drum set made up of boxes, an old suitcase, and some tin cans.  They played lots of fun songs that the kids could dance and do motions to.  We were in the small theater with only about 50 people in attendance, so Owen roamed all over throughout the experience.  But he enjoyed doing some motions to the songs and definitely clapped along! He also loved to name the color of lights as they changed throughout the show.  Such a fun experience.  Thanks for the invite Holly!

Here's our little theater goers.  The pics I took inside the theater were way too dark:

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

There really aren't that many adorable Valentine craft projects to make for boys to wear, but I had to do something. Especially since we aren't making valentines for friends quite yet. I had bought Owen this red onesie for a Christmas shirt that never got made, so I just found a cute graphic of a robot and cut it out of fuzzy, adhesive vinyl for his V-day shirt. Definitely the cutest valentine ever!

latest craftiness

I've had a couple fun bow orders in the last 2 weeks! The first was a little set for a baby girl shower. J gave me complete freedom in making whatever bows I wanted. Hope the new little baby (ok, more so her mom) loves them!

The next one was SO fun and will definitely be going up in the Etsy shop at some point after Ellie gets here. V wanted a bow for every month of the year! I actually made her a few extra as well such as Illini pom poms for the fall and a few little bows to complete the set. But I think we got all the major holidays covered. :)

Last Monday, we had a sprinkle for a gal in our small group who is expecting her second boy, Nolan.  Even though it was a mostly a diapers and wipes shower, I thought the little guy needed one outfit in his wardrobe made especially for him:

30 weeks!

Ellison: is as big as a cabbage.  She's about 3 pounds and is almost 16 inches!

Me: I'm definitely feeling pregnant!  I've had to put away the medium maternity shirts and a few pairs of jeans that I really liked.  Still don't feel quite as big as I did with Owen and my weight gain hasn't been as much as with him, so I cannot complain.  But I'm slowing down.  I definitely take advantage of Owen's afternoon naps a few days a week.  Starting to feel my stomach stretching and breathing's getting a little more difficult.  But overall, not terrible.

Last appointment:  Owen had a blast with Aubrey, Gabe, and Mataya while I got blood work done and met with Ray.  My blood work came back fabulous.  No gestational diabetes for me.  Thanks for the prayers on that!  I really enjoy Ray, despite him being so quiet when you talk to him.  We got so caught up in conversation that I didn't even ask what her heartbeat was when he listened.  But everything was good.  He's letting me go for one more 4 week period before we switch to the every 2 week appointments.  We're still working on figuring out if I'll even be allowed to deliver on the 4th floor because of the heart stuff.  No one really knows the answer to that as of yet.

Sleep: Still only sleeping with one extra pillow but that's probably going to need to change soon .  I remember in pre-pregnancy when I wanted to roll over all I did was roll over and go back to sleep.  Now it goes a little like this.  I want to roll over.  Then I think, do I really want to roll over?  I move the pillows, and slowly pull my belly over to the other side, trying to ignore pains that shoot through me in multiple areas.  And then inevitably I fart. (Oh sorry, was that TMI).  Seriously, William just laughs.

Food cravings: not too many specific cravings.  Well, do sweets count?  Definitely loving powdered donuts and Milk Duds.  I promise I eat lettuce sometimes. :)

What I'm working on: This past weekend, my mom came for Friday and Saturday.  It was so wonderful having her here!  She played with Owen while I got lots of stuff done.  She also gave me a little sewing lesson on a friend's daughter's jeans.  Now I feel like I can hem some of Owen's stuff without having to ship it off to her. She also helped me finalize (I think) what I'm doing paint wise in her room.  Everything else I'm still clueless about.  Whew, talk about getting down to the wire here.  This week's project is cleaning everything out of the craft room and condensing it into a much smaller space in the guest room.  Hoping the blank room gets me inspired to get moving!

Craft wise, I've had a few more orders this week for bows, but did have time to finish up these little booties for her that match an adorable outfit my mom got her.  Going to try and get a couple hats finished up for her this weekend.  I think I have 2 more projects for other people, one ordered and one shower gift and then I'm shutting down the Etsy site and focusing on making adorable things for MY girl. :)  That's still so much fun to say.

I did her first load of laundry this week.  I have been so blessed by Summer who has 4 little girls and has shared her beautiful loot of clothes.  I had fun dumping out all the bags and tallying up what I have and what I need to get still.  It's amazing how quickly you forget how LITTLE 0-3 month clothing is.  I may have choked up a little while praying over her clothes.  And that little teddy bear was my first teddy bear.  It's pretty limp with not much stuffing, but can't wait to put it in her room.

And lastly, a picture.  William and I have been bad about taking official ones, so here's a bathroom shot.  This is from the morning, I definitely look bigger by the time dinner rolls around. :)

bathroom redo

I'm slowly slowly working my way through my downstairs projects. I saved up enough to do something with our one downstairs half bath. My goal was to make it prettier for about $150 or less. Here's a picture from the day we closed on the house.  It's your builder basic bathroom.  

This project started about 4 months ago, when I was at Lowes and came across a mirror that was half off because of this little dent.  So easy to repair with furniture markers, which we already own.  Even though I didn't love the curved mirror, I hadn't planned on replacing it.  But for half off, it went in my cart and sat in the basement until I had more inspiration for the bathroom.

Next step was finding pictures to base the color scheme around.  I found 3 prints at Gordman's and had them color match one of them for my focal wall.  I've also been scouring places like TJ Maxx for some sort of storage solution since there we have a pedistool sink, meaning no storage.  What I found was not at all what I was looking for (a book rack), but I think it will work for right now.  We have quite a bit of tan paint left over from one of our houses, so the next step was painting the 3 walls and then the bathroom sat for a little bit while we figured out to get the mirror down since it was good and glued on. 

I looked at tons of websites to get an idea of how to get rid of the mirror.  We ended up having to buy a little wire saw from Amazon.  We taped the mirror in case it broke, and he pulled the saw back and forth behind the mirror until it cut through the glue.  It took a good chunk out of the wall!  But a little spackle and a day to dry did the trick.  It didn't look perfect, but since a new mirror was going to hang over it, it didn't really matter.

Then, I started painting the one orange wall.  Foil does a nice job helping get behind the toilet without getting tons of paint on the back of the toilet.  My goal was to use NO tape while painting this room.  My cutting in is getting pretty good, if I don't say so myself.  But getting into tight spaces to make very straight lines was definitely a little tough with this belly!

And here's the final product.  The new mirror with tan and orange wall.  New towels.

Still deciding if I need to put something over the toilet.

I really like these prints!  I color matched the middle orange flower for the wall color.

Hold reading material for our guests, extra towel, and I need to work on the top rack.

So here is my final breakdown:

mirror - $32
orange paint - sample $4, quart $14
toilet paper holder - $7
book holder - $25
pictures - $45
2 new hand towels - $7
trash can - $25 (seriously, I can't believe I spent that, but we have pricey taste)
tan paint - free because we owned it
furniture markers - free because we owned it

---

total - $159

$9 over what I wanted to spend but I got a new mirror!  That's huge!  Did I mention that I did everything myself (ok, except the mirror).  Pretty proud of that.  Ok, onto the next project.