ten

ten things i love about owey at ten months:

10. his determination
9. his sense of adventure and fearlessness (he is now walking across the room on his own!)
8. the way he gets the hiccups every time he has a good laugh
7. that killer smile that is sooo contagious!
6. how much he looooves being around other people, especially kids
5. how excited he gets about silly things like bananas for breakfast
4. how much he loves it when dad comes home and bolts for the door with the biggest grin ever
3. that he is letting me cuddle him more and will sometimes just sit on my lap and chill (a big accomplishment for this little mover)
2. his serious and contemplative side (see above) - he is always trying to figure things out
1. he is mine! i love seeing pieces of both me and clint in him as he grows up.

love you little o!

remember this?

(first day of school)

well, guess who got straight A's?
sooooo proud of my man.
(sorry for the embarrassment babe.)

the best thing in rexburg in the summer:

papa would be proud!

i've been trying to get a picture of this all day:

check out the curly mullet. jealous, aren't you?

just for fun, a trip down memory lane

Here's a fun little game for all you blog fans everywhere... (copied directly from becca's blog)

Directions....

1. As a comment on this post, leave one memory that you and I have together. It doesn't matter if you know me really well (like my MOM) or if we don't know each other very well at all (like my new blogging friends). The memory can be anything you remember...something recent or something from when we were kids or from when we first met (and even if you only know me through blogging...you can tell me your favorite blog post and why or something). If we know each other really well and we have a lot of memories together just choose your favorite memory, the funniest memory or the first one that comes to your mind

2. Next, post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty cool (and funny) to see the responses. If you leave a memory, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave a memory for you if you put this same game on your blog!

in response

1)first of all, thank you for all the generous praise from my last post - totally flattered my ego, but i really do need to give credit where credit is due. do you know what any of that stuff would have turned out like if carlie was not right there doing most of it/showing me every step of the way? yeah. not pretty. so, while i appreciate you thinking i am some talented seamstress, i must disappoint. i am as amateur as they come. now that that's out of the way, i feel much better.
2) secondly, yes- a pattern. the diaper bag is from amy butler's nappy bag pattern. (i know- nappy sounds disgusting, but that is apparently the cool way to say "diaper") except for the fact that we were missing half of the pattern, it was very easy to follow (my first experience ever with a pattern) and you just gotta love amy butler. the pants are also from a pattern but i think it is just one carlie made up. leave it to carlie.
3) a reunion? absolutely! i can't even tell you how much i would love a reunion. so whenever any of you are within reasonable distance from me, i am there. (and my definition of reasonable distance is much looser than it ever was!) if all goes my way (which it rarely does, but a girl can dream, right?) we will be moving to provo in december/january and then all you utah residents/visitors will be mine, all mine!!!
4) one great thing all that sewing with carlie did for me was give me a bit more confidence. after all, i have a perfectly capable and qualified seam-ripper if things get out of hand. as such, i dabbled in a few other projects this week, sans carlie. so, don't be too hard on me! both are taken from martha stewart and were relatively easy.
this reversible purse (using carlie's scraps):


and this beaded necklace:

(sorry you can hardly see it)
honestly you guys... if i can do it, you can do it. trust me...

sweet retreat...

i decided to leave clint alone in his finals frenzy and headed off to happy valley for a few days with the babe. now, a couple of months ago, i hardly would have thought of provo/orem as a vacation, but it was like heaven to me! oh, how my perspective has changed! i was a little nervous about the drive - 4 hours, by myself with owey, but he was a rockstar in the car. i picked up a few tricks that you may want to try if you also have a car-hating kid:
1) fill up a basket with favorite toys and books and keep it in the passenger seat. when he gets bored with one toy or accidentally chucks it in one of his kung-fu flail moves, you can just hand him the next toy. and so on and so forth. make sure the basket is big enough and full of enough toys for this to happen approximately 5 million times.
2) stock up on crackers - any kind really, and throw caution to the wind. yes, handing crackers to one who is not exactly proficient in feeding himself in a cleanly manner might cause a bit of anxiety about your clean car, but it is soooo worth it. nothing a little suck from the vacuum can't fix at the end of the trip.
3) pavarotti. seriously. i must have been inspired to grab that pavarotti cd on my way out the door because it was an absolute miracle. when it was about time for owey to nap, i popped that baby in and after a few minutes of stunned silence, he was out like a light. a-mazing. did it 3 times and it worked like a charm. why didn't i think of this sooner??

anyhow... i stayed with super-mom and super good friend carlie and it felt like the good old days - a big ole' slumber party, giggles, popcorn (where were the hot tamales?) plus a few extra kids, but so much fun. just what the doctor ordered after a few friendless months in rexburg.
carlie promised to teach me how to sew, and sew we did... probably more than i ever have in my entire life. i think carlie's goal may have been to get me addicted, and i believe she won! i woke up early every morning unable to go back to sleep thinking about all the projects we were working on. (i know, i'm pathetic!) since her house is full of the cutest and most amazing supplies ever, i had all the creative supplies i could ever want, and a master teacher right at my fingertips.

by the end of the trip we had made the cutest diaper bag for me,
2 pairs of pants for owey

and a skirt for carlie's daughter halle.
owey had soooo much fun with carlie's cute kids all week, and although we both missed dad a lot (this is the longest either of us had ever been away from clint), we managed to have a great time.
THANKS CARLIE!!!

(carlie's cute kids)
we also got to visit some aunts and uncles and cousins (here and here) and it was great to catch up and for everyone to meet little o. we even got lucky and met up with our long lost CA friends and had a little boyfriend/girlfriend reunion for owey and audra. so fun(yes, i got to crash a wedding!)

anyhow, we are back and sort of in denial that all these friends and family don't live down the street. what i wouldn't give to live in provo again. never thought i'd say that, did ya?

things that made me laugh yesterday

driving past businesses named:
1. AmericInn (say it fast like you're from Utah or Idaho)
2. 'Da Pineapple Grill
3. B'Dazzled (hair salon- not to be confused with the infamous rhinestone encrusting "Be Dazzler")
4. Hair She Comes (another hair salon)

i don't know why these are so funny to me, i guess you just have to live in Rexburg to truly appreciate the humor in spelling things the way you (incorrectly) pronounce them.

what else made me laugh? realizing that owey's favorite toys are:
1. a red clown nose (sans squeaker, thank goodness)
2. a pair of goggles
3. a children's tylenol bottle
4. an ice cream scooper
awesome. hey, the kid has imagination!

world war 3, i mean... 4th of july in evanston!

if you've never experienced a 4th of july in evanston, (or i suppose anywhere where ALL fireworks are legal and people don't mind literally burning up hundreds and hundreds of dollars over a 2 day period) well then, you've never lived. it really does feel like world war 3.
we have been to evanston on 4th of july every year since clint and i met. in fact, it was 4 years ago this weekend that i first went to evanston and met the fam. (awwwww....) this year, we weren't really planning on going since the last drive out there was not exactly pleasant (remember how owey hates the car?), but tradition beckoned us and we found ourselves making a plan last minute and packing up thursday afternoon to leave that night.
in our plan, we were to leave between 7 and 8 pm so owey would just go to sleep in the car for the night and sleep the whole time and when we rolled in to clint's parents, we would just put him straight to bed. sounded good in theory. really o did very well comparatively. and he did sleep for almost 2 hours, which is waaaaay longer than he would normally sleep in the car. am i boring you yet with all these details? anyhow - the drive was BEAUTIFUL - we have discovered a backway that is breathtaking - and we made it in pretty good time (4 hours). of course grandma and grandpa waited up to see their little owey and we finally went to bed around midnight. and for the first time ever at their house he slept through the night (usually we sleep in the same room as him and he thinks its ok to wake up every 2 hours. we finally got smart and brought out an air mattress into the family room!)
the weekend was full of fun and relaxation - and lots of firsts for o (mostly revolving around fireworks). o did witness his first parade in randolph, utah- really the most pathetic parade i ever saw (a few rodeo queens, lots of horse poop, down the block and back - oh yeah - they throw candy, i guess that's why everyone goes?!?) the rest of the day was spent counting down the seconds until dark to see the sky turn from black to sparkly red, white, blue and every other color in the rainbow. most of the owey's cousins do not like the loud fireworks and a few of them were terrified of them, but our little guy didn't seem to mind. he was pretty awestruck, and maybe just tired - but the noise didn't bother him at all. and considering clint's brother was lighting the big huge ones right in front of us (the kind that you can feel in your chest when they explode), that's saying a lot. we just hoped owey didn't leave the weekend with permanent hearing loss (don't worry- i covered his ears.)
we also had tons of fun playing with water - i swear the kid would be content for hours with a bucket of water. now that i know how much o loves it, we'll definitely be getting more use out of our little plastic pool this summer.
we left late saturday night to head back home and crashed, exhausted from a full weekend.
i must be honest, with all the explosives around us, i hadn't really stopped to think about the reason for the celebration until we were driving through that gorgeous canyon. i sat in the backseat trying to get owey to sleep and gently sang him songs. with the majestic mountains and a setting sun that painted the sky right in front of me i started to sing "Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain..." i felt a reverence for this land that we live in and a deep gratitude for the freedom i enjoy that definitely does not come free. we are so blessed and i am thankful for the opportunity to reflect on those blessings. i hope you also had a wonderful independence day!

action shots

since we don't have a video camera, here is a look at our little walker...








i just love the expression on his face... he gets sooooo excited!!






sorry the pics are a little dark and blurry...

just curious...

are you as in love with these jammies as i am?



the best part? only $4 at baby gap in idaho falls. shiver me timbers!