Fashionista

With all the press coverage of the royal wedding this week in London, there has been much talk on the fashion impact of Princess Diana and now soon to be Princess Kate.  Unfortunately, I think they have missed one of the most influential stylists of this decade, Carter Owen.

Here he is seen sporting a red hoodie, safety googles and a multi-colored beanie.  He is not afraid to take fashion risks, and can pull various pieces together to create a cohesive statement.

Who could forget the one-handed mitten, sword and sunglasses look?  This look has been duplicated by many but could never live up to the original.

Here we have skateboarder pajamas, one handed mitten, safety goggles and a shark hat.  Much thanks to his sister for allowing him to borrow her pink barbie smart phone.

Babies all over the world, including this young lad here try to emulate his style on a daily basis.  While he may be sporting camo, the utter lack of safety equipment really detracts from the outfit. 

Carter Owen, you are the original fashionista.

Easter 2011

Happy Easter!

Our first Easter at our house as a family of five, and we enjoyed every second of it.  In the TV show The Office there is an episode where Jim and Pam get married.  Pam tells Jim she is going to take "mental snapshots" to help her remember their wedding day.  So here are some "mental snapshots" of our Easter 2011.  The everyday moments that life is made of, that I hope I can look back on and remember.  Cheesy and corny?  Absolutely.  But sometimes I need a little cheese and corn in my life and my blog is the perfect place to do this.  Anyways, mental snapshots.........

Carter caring less about anything in his easter basket and instead steadily devoured tons of candy.

Giving Ava four choices of dresses for church and she picked the blue one "jus like Carter."

Ava asking Carter for help opening easter candy and him taking care of her.

Swaying to John Mayer's Heart of Life in the kitchen to calm a fussy baby boy. 

Our family ready to go to church.

I call this picture the perfectly imperfect family.  Notice the spit up stains on Dawson's pants and the silly look on Carter's face? 

(I have a scratch on my eye, so it's glasses until Wednesday.)

My sweet boy staring in amazement at his hands.

His Easter onesie says "Just Hatched."  Funny thing about this onesie, I bought it on clearance Spring 2007 thinking for Carter to wear for his first easter.  Little did I know that Carter would be wearing size 18 months at his first easter instead of size 9 months!  Dawson was the first baby to be able to wear it!

Easter dinner:  au gratin potatoes (not from a box, Mom!) crescent rolls, ham and asparagus.

I'll tell you what, making dinner today was a comedy of errors.  I accidentally put sugar instead of flour into my butter to make the potatoes.  Luckily I realized right away.  Then I took the ham out to glaze it and put it onto a hot burner that I forgot I left on, burning the bottom of the pan.  But never fear, easter dinner made it to the table. 

The weather this afternoon was wonderful.  We spent much of the afternoon playing in the back yard.

My attempt at an artistic shot:  Shadle Chardonnay and lilacs.  What could be better?

I just love holidays!  It gives us time to focus on our family and enjoy life.  The perfect day.

Egg-stravaganza

Today was our

Egg-stravaganza!!!!!!

Safety First!  Even when dyeing eggs.

Our baby bunny snuggling a little bunny.

We also ate some of Aunt Tiff's easter cookies (thank you for thinking of us!)

Mike was apparently alarmed by this.

For years, my mom has always joked that I can't boil water.  While this is not true, I'm not winning any awards for my culinary abilities.  Today I had a major kitchen fail while trying to cook hardboiled eggs.  I always have to get out my cookbook to remember the exact instructions for cooking hardboiled eggs.  (I'm more of a loosey goosey chef, like cooking the pot roast like a steak.)  I read the instructions and still they turned out undercooked.  One of these days I will be able to hardboil an egg! 

I hope everyone is enjoying their Easter weekend. 

Questions and Thanks

Life with my little three and a half year old has taken an interesting turn.  He is solidly in the "I want to know everything about the world so I'm going to ask you a bazillion questions" stage.  On a daily basis I'm questioned about my every move from sun up to sun down.  I know this is a good sign that the wheels in his little brain are a turning, and he wants to know everything!  But sheesh!  Some of the questions I've answered just today include:  Where do tornadoes live?  Where does rain come from?  How do windshield wipers work?  Where is the sun at?  And while I'm not busy racking my brain trying to explain the entire world to him, I've dealing with his constant begging for chocolate fiber bars.  You know that the marketing companies are winning when my three year old is asking for chocolate fiber bars! 

And just what have we been up to this week?  Just relaxing, going to the library and seeing friends at playgroups.  Meme, you had made a comment about Carter being a homebody, which is so true.  It's like pulling teeth to get him out of pajamas most days.  On Wednesday, I told him he had to get out of pajamas because our friends were coming over for playgroup.  The second our friends left the house, Carter darted upstairs.  I yelled to him "What are you doing?"  Turns out, the kid immediately changed back into his pajamas.  It reminds me that when Brendan was this age he lived in his bathing suits.  Three year olds are so funny!

The (mismatched) pajama kid

Thanks Grandma and Bo for the Easter Baskets!

As you can see the hair baubles were a huge hit.  Check out her wrist!

The top is covered in hair bows too!

 

Explain

Today baby Dawson was happily checking out his excersaucer.

Ava was happily trying to climb into the excersaucer.

I told her no repeatedly, but yet she still would try to sneak past me to climb into the excersaucer with her brother.

Finally I told her very sternly "No climbing in the excersaucer."

She looked at me and said "Meme says yes!"

Meme, you've got a lot of explaining to do.



Avery's family Party

Yesterday we had a wonderful afternoon celebrating Ava's birthday with our families.

Thank you so much to everyone for coming to spend the afternoon at our house.  Everyone had a drive to get here, and we really enjoy spending time with you all!

Aunt Tiff, the cookies were amazing as always. 

Thank you Meme for the Dragon Ka-kragon juice.  (I think I've forgotten to mention him, but dragon ka-kragon is Carter's imaginary friend, who apparently died friday.  But don't worry, he's back.)

Singing Happy Birthday

"Oh, we hope you live to be a hundred"

 

Uncle Jay I do believe that is Daddy's signature move.

The hit of the party (for the children) was running around/riding his bicycle in a circle in the garage.

We love you all!

Princess Party

Today was Avery's friend party at a local park.

Four little girls have their birthdays in April so we had a combined princess party.  Here are some pictures from our fun morning!

Daddy planned to take this day off to do something fun, so he helped me at the park. 

The Princess cake that I made. Margie, your cake was way better.

Avery's mouth was stuffed with candy from the pinata.

Carter also enjoyed the pinata, although he refused to take a swing at it unlike his sister.

Baby Dawson was also there in all his chunky baby glory.

The Baby Combover.

Mike also called him baby Blagojevich.

Now, onto our family party tomorrow!  A busy, busy weekend for sure.

Houston, we have a thumbsucker!

Whose dark brown hair is turning lighter by the second.

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Avery,  Happy Second Birthday!

Two years ago we were blessed with an independent, sweet, spirited little girl.

You have grown so big.  Avery, you are Carter's shadow and Dawson's little Mommy.  You love to play cars, baby dolls and build with legos.

You are SO independent.  I cannot help you open yogurt or cheese sticks, it must be done by you alone.  And forget about brushing your hair or teeth!  You want to be just like your big brother and you refuse to sit in your booster seat at the dinner table anymore, which has lead to some pretty messy meals. 

Pure mischief.

This past week we were at a restaurant and I kept reminding you to be quiet.  So you decided to yell at me

We are quiet.

Needless to say, it was not quiet at all.  Daddy and I were laughing so hard.

You love to dress silly or act funny and run around yelling "look at me, look at me." You are talking up a storm, asking questions, speaking in three to four word sentences and bossing your older brother around with all your might. In fact, today he did something that didn't please you so you yelled at him "Time out Carter!"

Some of your favorite foods are cereal, crackers, bananas, strawberries, tacos and pizza.  You are such a good eater and will put away broccoli, asparagus and grilled chicken while your brother won't even look at it.

Right now you are sharing a room with Carter and you love to sleep with your "pinky" blanket.  Luckily we got you to give up your pacifier habit a couple of months ago. 

Your current nicknames include:  avey, avaroo, roover, roo and lady jane.  You love to read books but once again, Miss independent you want to do it all by yourself.

Avey, we are so lucky to have you as our sweet little girl.  We laugh at your quirks and spirit every day.  We are so blessed!

We Love you!  

We have been busy, busy, busy.  I have about 10,000 things on my to do list, and I'm struggling just to keep the laundry clean and dinner ready.  We've made some pretty big decisions lately, I hope they end up being right for our family.  Carter is officially a preschool drop out.  I really wanted him to enjoy preschool, but I don't think the class this year was the right fit for him.  So, we are dropping out until the fall to see if a little time and a different class will change his mind.  I just want him to LOVE school. 

We have also been going back and forth about whether this is the right time for us to move.  I feel like we have no storage space and we would love to have a shorter drive to work for Mike.  It sounds like it should be an easy decision to make, but it's  ......not.  There are so many factors that play into a move like this when you have little guys.

Big decisions.  Lots of thinking to do..........

Silly Kids

Some Stories only a parent (or grandparent) could love:

• Carter told me about a dream he had the other day.  He dreamed that he and Daphne (from Scooby Doo) had jet packs and they were flying up and down.  I think he may have the beginnings of a little boy crush on Daphne. 
•  I'm sweaty.  I need a sweater, Carter declared.  Clearly I haven't explained the purpose of a sweater very well. 
• Today I was talking to Ava about how the easter bunny will be coming soon.  She asked me "Leave him cookies?"  She really has some holiday confusion going on.

Now for the Antiquities pictures, taken at Carter's preschool:

I know as a mother I'm biased, but super cute, right?

Teething pain, ouch.