Goodbye, 2009!

I can't believe that this decade is over. I am so excited to see what 2010 brings. We know that the biggest change will be Baby Boy Smith arriving this spring. Now, here is hoping that Chris and I can agree on a name before we leave the hospital with our new addition! I haven't uploaded pics from Christmas yet, so here are some from our family session that we had in November.





Isn't he so darn cute? I am currently knee-deep in planning Owen's 2nd birthday party. I can't believe that at his 3rd birthday, we will have a 3 year old, and a 9 month old! What are we getting ourselves into?! I will blog more later about Christmas...I have to log-off because a certain little boy would rather play "shoo-shoo tains" than watch mommy blog. :o) Have a great New Year!

O's new bedroom, and some anecdotes!

I have been promising pics of Owen's new room, and here they are! It is nothing spectacular, lol. Here is his rocket-ship that holds his collection of stuffed animals.

Here is a view of his dresser, and you can see his new favorite movie...Elmo's Christmas Countdown. His furniture looks black but it is actually dark brown wood.


Here is his reading corner/climb from the chair to the bed area.




And here is my big boy in his bed! He does a great job! He loves jumping on his bed SO MUCH. We had Izzy and Owen over the other weekend, and the 3 kids really did a good job of breaking the mattress in, lol. Owen and Hudson thought it was there personal wrestling-ring!

In other Owen news, he has been cracking me up lately. At night before he goes to sleep, he and I say our prayers. Every night we pray for "Izzy's baby sister in Beckie's tummy." And almost every night he goes, "IZZY?! BABY?!" He is SO confused as to why I would be talking about Izzy and a baby. What a crack up.

He has recently become obsessed with "bees" (blankets) and this tiny stuffed cat. He carries his kitty around and says "nice kitty!" and gives it kisses, and we have to kiss the kitty about 50 times each night before he goes to bed, lol. And

He is still the world's worst eater! Nothing has changed on that front. His pre-approved list of foods includes peaches, bananas, oranges, watermelon (actually, most fruits), McDonald's chicken nuggets (hey, I'm not proud of that!), one specific brand of chicken nugget from Target, cheese, yogurt, Apple Jacks, pop-tarts...and that's about it, folks! It is SO inconvenient! We keep telling ourselves that our next baby is going to be a great eater...we shall see.

In baby news, I am almost half-way through this pregnancy...where has the time gone? I am measuring "huge" according to my OB, so hopefully at my next sonogram we can confirm that there is only 1 baby in my belly, and we can see if it is going to be a mammoth. I am already starting to dread the actual hospital stay. Owen has never been away from us at night, and when the baby comes, it will be at least 2 nights where we will be away. Luckily he will be in good hands, and daddy will leave the hospital each night to put him to sleep, but still...I will miss my little guy!

Chris is working on finishing the basement, and Owen is very interested. He goes down and helps his daddy sand the walls, and he gets *very* excited when Chris's dad comes over to help. He was over helping today, and O and I went to Target while they were working. On the way home, he kept saying, "Gran-pa? My daddy. Gran-pa?" He is really impressed with his grandpa, that is for sure!

My, poor neglected blog!

Ya, so it has been over a month since I have posted. So, here are some pics to show what we have been up to at the Smith house. 1st up...Gymnastics! We (I) enrolled Owen in a Tiny Tots gymnastics program...and it was a total bust, lol. He was way too hyper/impatient to actually *take turns* with other 18-months olds. The foam pit was his favorite. He was the only child/maniac who actually jumped in the pit from the ledge. Most of the kids had to be lowered down...not my son! He took a flying leap off of the ledge and about gave his poor gymnastics teacher a heart attack!



The other favorite activity was the trampoline...again he was the only 18-month old who could actually do a seat drop (for those "not in the know" a seat drop is where you jump up and then land on your bum.) I guess all of the bed/couch jumping has paid off!

And, here is O attempting the bars, lol. He did this for about 4 seconds before he ran off to the trampoline. It is much more fun that the bars, you know.




The balance beam, that isn't meant for young ones. But did that stop O...no! I think that it was about this point in the class where his teacher realized that she was in for a special treat. ;o) I'm a teacher, and I always swore that my kid wouldn't be *that* kid. Moving on...




I had a day off in October due to Parent-Teacher conferences, so I took Owen to Fun Run. He like it okay except he got in trouble for pulling hair. I really don't think he understands that it hurts people!! He is obsessed with brushing my hair and he is super-gentle, so I think that when someone won't let him touch their hair, he gets a bit grabby. Okay, my justification is over...



We went to the Pumpkin Patch again this year, and it was super fun! Here is Owen, taking after his daddy, shoveling kettle corn into his mouth. Please excuse the horrible pic of Chris, he normally doesn't look like he is about to pass out! Do you notice the lovely scar on O's head? He was running 2 days before the pumpkin patch, and he slipped and hit his head on the corner of the kitchen cabinet. I really thought we were going in for stitches, but miraculously it didn't bleed!



Picking pumpkins!



Sitting on the tire



Aw, my big guy. I will have to do a comparison picture from last year's "How Tall This Fall" and see how much he has grown!

In other Owen news, he is really becoming quite the little boy. He says so many words, and is just so smart. His new phrase is "Mommy's here." Chris will try to put him to bed, and Owen will be hollering "Mommy! Mommy!" as soon as I get in his room he looks at Chris with a smirk and says, "Mommy's here." Same goes for when Chris will try to put him in the car when we are leaving a store, Owen will freak out that I am not coming with them. As soon as I get in the car, he goes, "Mommy's here." Melt.my.heart.

In other stinker news, the sitter told me this funny story. She put Owen and his friend Addy down for their naps the other day. Addy is Owen's age, and they generally nap at the same time. They sleep in pack and plays in the guest room, and when they wake up, they will usually chat with each other for a bit before the sitter comes in and gets them. Well, Monday she heard the kids wake up and they were chatting with each other. All of the sudden, she heard crazy laughing and screaming (laughing-screaming...not *pain* screaming!) She goes into the guest room to discover that Owen has climbed out of his pack and play and was jumping like a maniac on her guest bed. She said that he looked quite proud of himself!

Updates on us!

Big changes are on the horizon for my lil family. As most of you know, we are expecting Baby Smith #2 this spring! Should be interesting having 2 little ones barely 2 years apart! I can't wait. Also, Owen has officially moved out of mom and dad's room, and is now sleeping all night in his new big boy room! (Mommy is sleeping in the big boy room right now with him, probably more for me than for him, haha). We are hoping that he will be able to sleep by himself within the next couple of weeks! We are definitely headed in the right direction. I will take some pics of his new room this weekend. Basically we turned his "play room" into his new room, that way we didn't have to move the nursery furniture. Chris is about halfway finished with the basement, so that will be our new playroom/baby wrangling place. :o)

I will try and get pics of his new room up this week. We have had an interesting couple of weeks at our house. My "morning" sickness has arrived with a mean vengeance. I am sick.as.a.dog almost all of the time. Thank goodness for medication to help with that! These pictures on this post are super random, but I have been bad about taking pics of my own kiddo lately! I am excited for the leaves to change, because I found the perfect little spot to take his fall pictures...we just need to wait for the pretty leaves to get here!

Catch-up!

If you are going to make it through this blog post, you better grab a drink. It is loooooong! I will just quickly caption each pic to keep it short. :o) Here are Owen and Izzy after playing at the spray grounds at City Park.

Owen loved his pool!

Hudson and Owen at Paradise Park this summer, playing in the wood chips instead of on the playground equipment. :o)

O and Hudson in the water room

If you want to make Owen happy, just put him in a ball pit!!



At Paradise Park, they have tiny sinks....which Izzy and Owen loved, of course.

And they also have a toddler room. Apparently Owen thinks he is King Kong or something. He literally tore that room apart with the help of his lil friends.



The secret to keeping toddlers happy when they are still rear-facing in the car? Give them snacks.

Owen and Mommy at the Platte County Demolition Derby! Owen had a blast!



He even went on his first fair ride!


And shared a Hawaiian Ice with Mommy while we enjoyed the derby.



We also went to Deanna Rose Farmstead this summer. After Owen ran out of goat-feed to feed the goats, he tried picking up poop pellets and feeding the goats that. SICK.



Deanna Rose has a little school house, and the kids got to play with slates and chalk! A few pieces may have been eaten. :o)



And the hilight of the day....feeding baby goats bottles! Owen LOVED this.

Not scared at all! He chased those goats down, and all together fed them 4 bottles.



Here are the kids at the waterfall!



We also went to St. Louis for a weekend in July to visit my wonderful Uncle Jerry and Aunt Marlene and my sweet cousins Tara and Ian. We all took Owen to the zoo and it poured.down.rain the whole time. Owen and his cousins went to Build a Bear and he made a Polar Bear that Tara and Ian named "Slusky Jr. II" There is a story behind that, but we won't go there. Not today.

Owen had a blast playing on Tara's balance beam!



We also went with Hudson's family to the new Chuck E. Cheese, and had fun! Owen loved driving the cars.



Here are Owen and Hudson in the monster truck! What big boys!!

Behind the scenes...

I thought it would be fun to share some "out-takes" of sessions I have done for friends that I have brought Owen to so you could a.) see pics of Owen, and b.) see what he does while Mommy is working! Here he is, playing with Izzy during her session.

Here is Owen, enjoying some of Izzy's snacks/bribes.

He is a perfect model to use to set my exposure! And you can plainly see why I had to watermark these pictures...they are so amazing that someone might steal them and claim them as their own. Right? Right? Just kidding, please know that these are OUT-TAKES! :o)

And here he is again eating my model's treats. He is definitely NOT shy when it comes to fruit snacks. We went to St. Louis this weekend to visit my Uncle Jerry, Aunt Marlene, and my cousins Tara and Ian (and my brother, Adam!). I swear that Owen mooched more fruit snacks off of Aunt Marlene! She never saw it coming, poor woman. :o)

Here he is, hard at work, distracting Izzy from smelling the flowers. Clearly Owen is more interesting than posing for pictures!

And here he is with daddy at my last session. What a goofball! He is getting so big! I have a lot to post later this week! I have pics from St. Louis, pics from Deanna Rose Farm, Paradise Park, etc. I have been a total slacker!

This one is for Beckie...

Last night when we were out taking pics, Beckie said that she didn't remember Owen being "that fat." Well, Beckie, here you go. A pic of my dimply-butt lil man! :o)

Flashback

Beckie and I were talking in the car on the way to Wonderscope about how it is hard to remember when the kids were babies. So, I did a little bit of digging in my hard drive, and found some "old" pics of the kids to mix in with the new pics. The pic above is from our outing last week to Legends. We ate at Trex Cafe and then the kids got to go play in the Paleo-Zone which is basically a big sand pit. :o) They had fun!

Here are Owen, Izzy and Hudson from the 4th of July. The G family and us have the same octogon shaped gate, so we brought both of them and made a huge gated area for the toddlers. It was reminiscent of the show "Rugrats" that used to play on Nickelodeon. :o)

And, here is a pic from one of Owen and Izzy's first play dates at Gymboree. They were SO LITTLE!!!

And here are Owen and Izzy 9 months later in the Lego submarine at Wonderscope. Beckie, I lifted some of these pics off of facebook...I didn't think you would care!!

And here we are 9 months ago at Gymboree again. Kind of brings a tear to your eye!

Back in the submarine. O's shirt is wet because he was splashing like a maniacal fool in the water room. Izzy's shirt is wet because she was standing next to Owen who was splashing like a maniacal fool. :o)

Owen's birthday, where the "3 amigos" are playing instruments. Look at how tiny Hudson is!

Owen and Izzy on the alligator ride!

I don't know why this pic posted again, but it makes me laugh. They were NOT fans of being in the gate!

Here are Owen and Izzy peeking in a shop window on the square when we went out for dinner! I hope you enjoyed this trip down (short) memory lane!