11 months!

This kid is 11 months old!! I know that this is redundant, but I truly cannot believe that next time I give an update about Owen will be his FIRST BIRTHDAY! Ahh! I love watching him figure out new things, mentally and physically. He is SO curious about everything. It’s insane how much he looks like a little boy instead of a baby!

I’ve been planning his first birthday party for a few months now. It will be Thomas the Tank Engine themed and I’ve made some painted banners to decorate. But no previews for you before the party. 🙂 I will show you that I chose a Thomas fabric to “make” Owen a birthday shirt. I took Owen to Hobby Lobby with me to waste some time before needing to head home for bed and when I found the fabric and showed it to him, he got SO excited! He would talk to Thomas, play with the fabric, and grab it constantly. I think he’s feeling it. 🙂

Remember how I said he’s figuring out new things and curious about everything? Yeah. Here it is. Owen has figured out that there are movies on the bottom shelf of the entertainment center and his new favorite activity is pulling out all the movies. Another random thing he has started doing is picking up his puff snacks and just staring at it and “studying” it before throwing it on the ground. It pretty hilarious! Also, he LOVES playing with remotes. I don’t know what it is, but he loves them. We’ll take the batteries out (so he doesn’t accidentally open it and try to eat them AND to keep him from changing the channel) and give him the remote and he is completely content. It’s the weirdest thing ever. Ha! Lastly, he’s always been super flexible – as I’m sure most babies are. But really recently, he has started doing what we’re calling Baby Owen Yoga when Greg’s holding him. Ha! It’s the cutest thing int he world and cracks us up!

I may have said this in previous posts, but this kid LOVES apple juice. He has the 360 sippy cup that is basically a spill-proof normal cup – no straw or anything like that. He has figured out how to hold it himself and he downs it. Loves it. This month, we started bathing Owen in the actual bathtub instead of the sink and he’s loving it! Greg has really taken charge of bathtime now and they seem to really really enjoy that play time together. He can splash all he wants and with him in the laundry basket, the toys stay in arm’s reach!

Owen wants to crawl so bad. I guess I should say he wants so badly to be mobile. When he is sitting up and wants to get to something, he tries to shift his weight forward to get on his hands and knees. Still not quite there. When he’s holding our hands, he can walk pretty well, minus the balance part.

OWEN HAS A THIRD TOOTH! PRAAAAISE! Poor guy has been having teething pain since he was 3 months old and with only 2 teeth to show for it – these teeth showed up at 6 months. So this 8 months has been a struggle. But a third one has finally come through!! Yes!!!

I don’t remember if it was this month or last, but he moved up to the 9 month clothing. At 10ish months. Ha! He’s just SO lean that these clothes are lasting forever which is fantastic and money-saving. Now. With that said, the 9 month clothing may not last too much longer. They’re getting harder to snap at the bottom and when they do, they slightly turn into v-necks because they’re struggling to be long enough. So I’ve been buying 12 month clothing somewhat for now but definitely for future.

Baby boy loves being outside. He always has, but the more interactive he becomes, the more fun it is to watch him! We go to the park to swing (as well as our backyard), and he’s really enjoying playing with sports balls! A few weeks ago, we filled up the kiddie pool that we have and tried it out for the first time! Owen seemed to like it, although he was confused for a little while. It’s already quite hot outside so we’re going to have to monitor how much time we spend outside!

On a random note, we got a new couch! YES! It’s relevant because Owen loves it. It’s a sectional that curves around and Owen loves to sit in the corner where there’s lots of space and play with his toys there. Look how adorable this child is. 🙂

Owen LOVES his grandparents! The four of them are some of the few people that he will actually reach out to while being held by Greg or me. He has always gravitated toward guys over girls so he seems to favor our dads, but that’s not to say he doesn’t show some love for our moms! They are also some of the few people who he lets hang out with him with Greg and me walking away. The top collage is Owen with Greg’s dad and the bottom collage is Owen with my parents!

Last week was Annual Conference in the South Georgia Conference of the UMC. Basically, this is the time every year where pastors and lay delegates come together for a few days to talk about the business of the church. We had to stay in a hotel for it and it was our first time sharing a hotel with Owen. Oh man. Was that an adventure. We would be lying in bed at 8pm with all lights off, TV off, with our computers in our laps and headphones in – all so Owen could sleep. We communicated via text. That wasn’t really that bad. Conference makes me exhausted (plus they are early mornings) so I was ready to wind down by that point.

The downside to all this was that Owen did not do well in the nursery whatsoever. On Wednesday, he was in there from 1:30-5pm and apparently he cried for the first hour and a half and still never got actually happy. Then on Thursday, he was miserable basically all day. Both of these days, he hardly ate and never really slept. On Wednesday, he didn’t sleep at all from 11:30am to 8pm and on Thursday, he only took a 20 minute nap between 6:45am and 9:30pm. It was ROUGH. So we decided not to put him in the nursery on Friday (I had already planned on not using the nursery on Saturday). I’m sure some parents would say that I’m not helping Owen by not putting him in the nursery, but I don’t really care. Owen has trouble in new nurseries with new people. But I’m pretty sure most kids are like that. He does really well in our church’s nursery with our nursery workers, even for a few hours! Having the day on Friday really began to put him back to normal. He got to sleep in, take a morning nap, he ate a decent bit, and spent the afternoon with my parents. Then by Saturday, he was getting even closer to normal, even though he didn’t sleep well Friday night. It took a couple days after that for him to finally catch up on sleep! It was exhausting.

On a positive note dealing with Annual Conference, Greg got commissioned as a Provisional Elder in the UMC! It was such an exciting time and I am so very proud of him! He worked so hard on his paperwork and in the Board interviews and has grown so much since he went before the Board last year. Here’s to three years of not stressing about this again!

This one’s just hilarious. The two babies waiting for ice from Daddy!

I’m in the midst of trying to hardcore pack up the house for the move to the new house. It’s absolutely exhausting. There’s still a little under two weeks before the move, but there’s just so much to pack and I can’t physically and mentally pack nonstop all day. Greg’s doing awesome with helping to pack and helping with Owen. We’re looking forward to the move and to the new house. I just wish we could blink and be there. 🙂

I suppose the next time I update this, it will be for Owen’s one-year-old update! Craziness! Until then. 🙂