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!

Beach on our deck

We broke down and bought Owen a sandbox tonight. I had been against a sandbox, because, well I think they are gross. But Owen loved the sand at Wonderscope, and I started thinking that maybe he was missing a crucial toddler experience by not having a sandbox. As you can see by the sand stuck on his face, he loves it.

O's cute crab sandbox...and 150 lbs of sand. 50 lbs are now scattered on our deck.

He had to stop playing because he saw an airplane, lol.

And here are his new crocs...they are possibly the ugliest shoes ever made, but he absolutely loves them. In fact, he picked them out himself! If you look close you can see the eyes on the shoes...they are frogs and when he walks through water they make frog prints.

There was so much sand stuck in his hair...wonder why? The next photos will explain...

Yes, if you are sweaty and lay in a sandbox, you will have sand stuck to you.


Apparently sand is cozy to lay on!

And this is what he does 90% of the time he is playing in the sand...he throws it all over the deck.


Oh, what a goof. After his sand adventure, he had a bath, and I kid you not, there were at least 2 cups of sand in the bottom of the tub. Speaking of cups, my poor measuring cups are now sand toys. Oh the joys of being wrapped around your child's finger!

Our Weekly Field Trips

Okay. I have to start this post off by coming clean. The above picture was taken last night. The above picture was taken in the master bedroom of our house. If you put 2 and 2 together, you will see where I am going with this...Owen is still in our room. Sigh. (Although you can tell by my smile that I don't mind *too* much...) He and I are laying sideways in the bed which is why you can't see our headboard...that weird blue thing behind us is the rail that helps make sure O doesn't fall out!

Anyways, now that I have that off of my chest! During the summer, Beckie, Kristen and I have taken the kids on a special field trip each week. We have been to The Legends (went to TRex Cafe and then shopping), we have gone to Crowne Center for a play (which we may or may not have been kicked out of...) and lunch, we have been to the spray grounds at Zona Rosa and City Park, and we were supposed to go to the library's story hour, but it started at 9:30 and Owen slept in that day, haha. Today we took the kids to Wonderscope Children's Museum. It was so much fun!

Excuse the horrible pictures, they are from my phone. I can't find the charger for our point and shoot camera, and there is no way that I can lug my DSLR around! The above pic is of Owen and Izzy playing in the racetrack room where you can race golf balls on different kinds of tracks. Basically the kids just wanted to climb the stairs

Wonderscope is in an old elementary school, and they have different exhibits/activities in each room. This was a weird kinetic thingamajig that Owen was obsessed with! You can see that Hudson is super excited as well!

Here is Owen and Ozzy playing at the station where you can build these weird animals. Owen and Hudson basically just threw the pieces down the hall...

Here is the water room! Hudson was having a blast with those tubes...he may have drenched me at one point, lol.

Here are Owen and Izzy splashing in one of the water tables...they had several different ones set up and they each had different faucets that sprayed water out. So cool!

Another water pic...and can I just say that the White Balance on my camera-phone STINKS!!! I am pretty sure that Owen and Izzy aren't yellow in real life! In the water room, Owen realized that he can use the same technique that he uses in the bathtub to get water everywhere. He soaked the floor in that room. Oops!

Here are the kids playing in the lego room.

Here are the kids playing in the sand room. They had a blast in here!

Another pic...the little girl in white is a random girl, and she kept dumping sand on Izzy's back, lol. The mom had no clue either because she was texting, haha. Poor Izzy! They also had an entire room dedicated to toddlers where they could just climb and explore and have fun. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures in there...hopefully Beckie and Kristen did! Next week we are going to the Deanna Rose Petting Zoo/Farm. Should be a good time!