Cuteness alert

    We recently had professional photos taken of Owen to mark his turning a year old and we got a tiny sneak peek at one of the pictures today. I can't wait to see the rest! Isn't he the cutest?

Random Friday

1. Easter Recap. Never fear. Although Easter was almost a week ago, I will still post some photos from our Easter weekend. We had a really great time visiting with the Easter bunny, going on an egg hunt, having Owen's face painted and going out to dinner for Easter. And Owen had the cutest Easter outfit from his Nana. I would have posted earlier about Easter, but all of my pictures have been saved onto Tim's computer which is still in Kentucky. Oh, and I also have pictures from his first haircut to post as well.

2. Owen's party! Is tomorrow! I can't believe that this party that I've been planning for two months now is finally here! I'm very excited and a little stressed about getting all the final details arranged. And I'm a little sad because I haven't gotten to do as many things as I wanted for the party, but oh well. I have had a few big things going on this month that have taken up my attention. And I couldn't really do anything in the hotel room. I will of course, have a birthday post to show you all the details next week.
3. You oughta be in pictures. I had Owen's professional photos taken yesterday and I am so excited about seeing them at some point. We had so much fun. Owen got to wear four different outfits and have photos taken inside and outside in various places. He did so well, though of course it was hard to keep him in one place for long. He also had a major crush on the photographer because he kept crawling up to her and trying to climb up into her lap and kiss her. It was pretty cute. And one of the best things was that I got to be in some of the pictures. Yay! I am never in pictures of Owen, so I'm excited that I finally will have some pics of me with the kiddo. Check out their blog here, and Owen might be featured on it soon!

4. House update. Things are still underway. Our loan officer said nothing is holding him back from moving forward, so hopefully we will be in a house sometime within the next month. In the meantime, I am daydreaming about paint colors and new furniture and hanging art on the walls.

Some Pinterest inspiration for a pretty entryway.

5. New clothes. I finally went shopping at Ann Taylor Loft with the giftcard that my inlaws got me for Christmas. I really wanted to get some stuff for spring and summer because last year I was still going through the post-baby body stage and I didn't buy a lot of stuff because I knew I wouldn't stay that size forever. So I waited until now to get some fun stuff for this year. I wound up buying two shirts and I still have a balance left on the giftcard. Here are the two shirts that I bought. Both are super pretty and feminine. I am also on the lookout for some cute dresses, but the ones at Loft looked better on the hangers than they did on me.

I wore this one for our photo shoot yesterday. I think it looked really soft and nice for pictures in a big white bed. Owen wore jeans and nothing else.

6. Bluum box. I recently got my second Bluum box in the mail. It is a monthly subscription service where I receive a box of five or six mom and baby products to try out. It is really fun to get stuff in the mail in general and the contents of the box are always a surprise until they are all mailed out. This month, the box included several beauty samples for me and a full size squeezie of Peter Rabbit Organic baby food for Owen. I really love getting these boxes, particularly when I am surprised with a full-size of a product. Last month, we got a really cute rattle for Owen and some other fun things. I'm not sure how long I will keep subscribing to Bluum because they mainly focus on infants, but I have seen other subscriptions for toddlers, so I might look into that.

Random Friday (on Thursday)

    Because we're having a busy day tomorrow with several errands, I am posting this early. Owen has his 12-month-old doctor's appointment tomorrow morning and then we are going to go to Lexington to a special hair salon just for kids so that Owen can have his first haircut. Tear. I am actually pretty excited about it because his hair has gotten really long over his ears and in the back. He still doesn't have that much hair so it seems silly, but I want his hair to look good for his professional pictures next week. Here's the rundown of some of the other stuff going on this week.  
1. We are FAM-I-LY! I am super excited because my parents are coming to town tomorrow to hang out with us for Easter and to have a peek at the house that we're buying. (More on that later). I have made plans for the entire weekend and I am so happy that they will be here to make Easter a little more special and also to help give us a break from the kiddo. We love Owen, but we're going crazy in this hotel room so it will be nice to get to relax a little.

2. A tisket, a tasket, what's in your Easter basket? Tim and I have bought a few things for Owen's Easter basket this year. We're not going crazy or anything because he will be getting lots of presents next week, but we did get him a couple books. I might also throw in some Annie's Bunny Graham cookies or crackers to round out the basket since he doesn't eat candy. 

3. Easter plans. Since we're new to the area and I have no kitchen to make Easter dinner in, I had to scour the Internet to make sure we had plans for Easter weekend. On Saturday, we will be going to Irvine McDowell Park (which is near the Eastern Kentucky University campus) for an Easter egg hunt and other activities. They have a special hunt just for kids under 3 years old. We can hopefully get Owen's picture taken with the Easter bunny as well. We're planning to attend church on Sunday morning and then we will be having an Easter brunch buffet at 1 p.m. at the restaurant at Acres of Land Winery. It includes salads, soup, carved ham and fried chicken, vegetable sides, and dessert. I really wanted us to go somewhere special for Easter dinner, and not just to a regular restaurant. 

4. Birthday boy. Because I couldn't find anything cute to give Owen for his birthday at any of the stores around here, I instead ordered him some presents online to give to him at his birthday party in Georgia. We got him two toys and two books. The toys that we got him were the Plan Toys Sit n Walk Puppy and some Haba Zoo building blocks. They are both really unique and fun-looking wooden toys and while both are a little advanced for him at the moment, they will be fun sometime in the next few months. We also got him two books which I remember reading to my friend's kids once when Tim and I were babysitting them. They have really fun, interactive pages with things to pull on and flaps to open. Owen loves books like that. 

5. Birthday suits. Owen's birthday party is swiftly approaching (a little more than a week away!) and I am trying to get all the finishing touches put together. At least the things that I have to get ordered in time for the party. I will be making some decorations next week as well. But the most recent things that I ordered for Owen's party were shirts for Tim and I to wear. They say "Thing Mom" and "Thing Dad." And now I don't have to worry about picking out the perfect outfit for his party. 

6. I love giving presents. Prior to last year, I didn't have any family members with birthdays in April. Then I had a baby and my brother-in-law got married, and now there are two. My sister-in-law turns 25 this month and I have already bought her present. Leah is really easy to shop for because she has really cute taste and generally if I find something that I think is cute, I'm fairly certain that she will like it too. I love her present and kind-of want one of my own. I can't tell you what it is though, because she reads this blog, but hopefully I will remember to put it on here later. I can't wait to give it to her though. And I found out today that she and my brother-in-law will be buying a house and my gift fits with that.
7. The Parent Adventure. I've been reading this book about parenting that I bought at the Lifeway store near our hotel the other day. I'm really enjoying it. It has five main principles for parenting: learning to let go by allowing your child independence at every stage of life, creating a home where yes is the more frequent answer, learning to talk openly with your children about everything, teaching your children that pain is real and that God will be with us through pain, and building a home that looks for regular ways to celebrate God's blessings as an act of worship. I know Owen is still a little baby and a lot of this is not exactly applicable right now, but I think it's good to figure out what lessons are important to me to teach to Owen and what kind-of legacy I want to have as his parent. 

8. House update. Things are moving along in our process to buy a house. We had our home inspection and wood burrowing insect inspection earlier this week. There were only a few things that the inspector saw as a problem and the sellers have agreed to fix them before we buy the house. We are filling out our loan contract with the bank and according to our loan officer, we should close on the house in early May. Yay!

Photo from blog.accesshorizon.com. (Not a picture of our house)

9. That's enough Owen! Now go to your bathroom. Since getting Owen to sleep in the hotel room while we're still awake is a major challenge, we have come up with a new bedtime system. Earlier this week, we spent hours for several nights in a row trying to get Owen to go to bed. He ended up going to sleep at almost midnight those nights. It was exhausting and terrible. So to make it so we can actually relax and talk and possibly watch a little TV in the evenings, we've now started putting Owen's portable crib in the bathroom at night. Then we rock him a little and put him to bed in the bathroom until he falls all the way asleep before moving him back out into the room. It has worked like a charm the past two nights and we are so happy. It was getting to be so exhausting having him fight sleep every night. And he is a much happier, well-rested baby too. Now, if only we could get these teeth to come on out already.
10. New Girl. In case you live under a rock, New Girl is a new comedy this season about a girl who lives with three guys. Basically it's Friends, if you got rid of Monica and Rachel and left weirdo-Phoebe. And while the show may be named for Jess, the best part of the show is her crazy roommates. My favorite character is Nick, a grumpy curmudgeonly guy who is pessimistic and frowny most of the time. He is really funny though, especially in the last couple of episodes. The whole show is very witty and I laugh out loud at it on a weekly basis, as in, laugh so loud Tim has to shush me so I don't wake our sleeping baby laugh. It is one of the only shows that we consistently watch every week and make sure not to miss. It is also hilariously quotable so Tim and I pretty much make a new girl reference about once a day. "Dude, are you sheep-dogging her?" You should check it out.

Owen's BIRTH-day/Photo overload!

  Owen apparently knew that it was his birthday yesterday because he refused to go to sleep the night before ("I'm too excited to sleep!") and he woke up before seven yesterday. I didn't even have time to put his birthday balloons near his bed so he would wake up to a surprise. But he did enjoy his balloons once he woke up and enjoyed bopping them around and trying to bite them. 
     Then we had breakfast down in the breakfast room at the hotel where Owen was wished a happy birthday by several of the hotel staff. The kid is pretty popular around here and everyone knows him by name. Owen wore his new red polo and jeans and a brand new pair of sandals. They are majorly cute. He even celebrated by standing on his own in them for at least ten seconds. 
     We had plans to go to a local park, but Mother Nature had other ideas because it rained steadily all morning and early afternoon. So we went to Subway for lunch, where Owen shared his Daddy's meatball sub. Then we made a quick run to Meijer (the grocery store) where we picked up some more Cheddar Bunnies and a plastic tablecloth. Then we let Owen ride the mechanical horse for a penny. We let him try it a few nights ago and dude loved it. It will now become a new tradition. Riding the horse at the grocery store. And people say you can't get anything for a penny anymore...
    After that we finally gave up on our plans to go to the park for cake, so we returned to the hotel and set up in the hotel breakfast room. We laid out the tablecloth on a couple pushed-together tables, set down the cake, plopped a semi-naked baby complete with new birthday bib on the table and let him at it! It was hilarious. And I took nearly 200 photos. So prepare for some scrolling.
     At first, little man was pretty hesitant about the cake and kept looking back and forth between us like, "What am I supposed to do now?" Then one tiny finger poked into some frosting became a couple tiny fingers poked into some frosting became a foot stuck in the frosting became a whole hand in the frosting until Owen had icing on virtually every part of his body. 

The unofficial birthday corner of the hotel breakfast room.

Owen's cake. It was supposed to be half the size, but they got our order wrong.

I'm excited and I don't know why!

Our boy, cautious as ever. Just in case cakes bite.

First taste.

Hey, this cake has my name on it!

Little tastes at first. Just one finger at a time.

Notice how he sits with his ankles crossed?

Yummy...

Oops. Foot in the frosting.

Slowly, but surely making a dent in the cake.

Mmm... cake by the handful.

Frosted face. Haha.

One sugar-happy one-year-old.

Someone call in clean-up.

     After our cake, we went back up to the room and napped. Owen must have had a full and happy belly because he slept for two hours. And so did Mommy and Daddy. 
     Once we all woke up, we went to dinner at O'Charleys, which is one of Owen's favorite restaurants. He loves their rolls. He also got to taste some mashed potatoes and some apple cobbler. Yes, I said apple cobbler. On the same day that he had birthday cake. Go ahead and judge. It was his day and we let him have anything he wanted. 
    Anyway, it's safe to say we had a rather unconventional first birthday party since we're staying in a hotel, but we had a really fun time regardless and we still have Owen's big birthday party with family and friends in a couple weeks.
     It's hard to believe, but we have a one-year-old!

Random Friday

     Our biggest news to share is that we are under contract for a house as of today! Yay! We will hopefully close on the house pending inspections and appraisals either at the end of the April or early May. We are really excited about buying our first home! And finally getting into a place after staying in a hotel for so long. Here are some other things going on in our lives.


1. Dream home. Tim and I are really happy because the home we are hoping to buy is in really good shape despite being an older house. We're actually looking forward to doing some renovation projects around the house and making it ours. Because we have been having so much fun imagining what we'd like to do in the house, we've been watching a lot of HGTV for some ideas. I love watching them remodel houses and decorate. My favorite show is Design Brothers, where twin brothers, a realtor and a carpenter/decorator, help people find fixer-upper houses and then remodel them into something really special and awesome. 

 2. Young House Love. I have become almost obsessive thinking about some of the things that we can do in the house. Another source for home renovating and decorating ideas that I am in love with is the blog Young House Love. It is written by a young married couple who do a lot of renovating in their older home. They have a lot of great ideas and step-by-step tutorials for updating various parts of the home. We're really interested in their instructions for updating and painting their kitchen cabinets. 

3. Our parenting style. Hahaha! I found this on Pinterest and thought it was so funny. And I'm fairly certain that my parents would agree. Additionally, all our progress as parents has been completely ruined by living in a hotel. Owen will rarely go to bed now without being rocked to sleep. Being in the same room as him at night sucks. He has been sleeping in his own bedroom since he was about three months old, so this is a big step back for us. He was falling asleep by himself and sleeping through the night like a champ before moving to Kentucky. We can't wait to get into a house!

     Other than that, not much is going on. Living in a hotel, doing our laundry at a laundromat, and eating out way too much. Owen's first birthday is Sunday so we're hoping to plan a fun day at a nearby park and eating out (of course). If Owen's lucky, we might get a small cake from the grocery store and let him go to town. 

Random Friday

1. Are you hungry? Because my husband is super sweet and he knows mama needs a break from the baby and the hotel, he arranged for us to go on a date tomorrow to see the new Hunger Games movie. He arranged for a babysitter and purchased the tickets on Fandango several days ago. We will be having the parents of a college friend of Tim's babysit Owen for us. We had dinner with them the other night and they offered to watch Owen for us if we ever needed some time to ourselves. Tim didn't waste any time taking them up on their offer! I'm really excited about seeing this movie. I read the books while I was pregnant with Owen and was hooked. They are young adult books, so they are a really quick read, but I just loved the intense gotta-keep-reading feeling that I had when I read them the first time. And I'm really curious how they are going to translate what can be a very violent book into a movie that can still be rated so that young teens can watch it. I love the casting for the most part, except for the character of Peeta. But I will reserve all judgments until after I have watched the movie.

2. House hunters. After house hunting for two weeks now and looking at several places in person and on the Internet, Tim and I have finally decided to put an offer in on a house. 

3. Shop 'til you drop. Because we came to Kentucky in early March and I consider that to be winter (silly me), I packed a lot of winter clothes and not a lot of spring and summer clothes. Unfortunately, the weather has been really hot here and poor Owen has been wearing the same few short-sleeved shirts I brought for him over and over. So yesterday, I did a little exploring and came across the store The Children's Place in the nearby mall. They were having a great sale so I picked him up a few shirts, including this polo, for $6 each. I also got him a pair of jeans and a pair of khaki shorts. The funny thing though, is that I kept trying to buy him the 6-9 month size. I realized it in the line for the register and went back and exchanged it for his current size, but when I got back in line I realized that I had done the same thing with another shirt too. So I had to leave the line and go back for the right size again. I think I'm in denial about the fact that Owen is about to be one and subconsciously I'm trying to keep him a baby. Also, a ton of their baby boy clothes had skulls on them, including some of the nice polo shirts. Yuck. Who puts skulls on baby clothes?

Tim's mom always buys him blue shirts. And I've started to do the same thing with Owen. 

 4. Game of Thrones. In addition to being my son's first birthday (eep!), April 1 is also important (though less important) because it marks the return of one of my favorite TV shows. Game of Thrones on HBO. It is based on George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Fire and Ice" series. I have read all five of the books that have been published in what will eventually be a seven book series. The television show is amazing. All the characters are perfectly cast and they do a really fantastic job of staying true to the books, which is a feat considering that books are hundreds of pages long. The first season followed the plot of the first book and I assume the second season will follow the events of the second book. The television series is a bit graphic for my taste (it is HBO after all), but I put up with it because everything else is so fantastic. The book series is an epic about kings and rival families and the desire for power. One of my favorite things about the books and the show is how the author plays around with the concept of good vs. evil and how it's not entirely black and white. Characters that you absolutely hated at first can do good things and characters that you swore were entirely noble and just can do things that are horrible. I also love the character of Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf. I consider him one of the greatest characters in modern day literature. He is hilarious and smart and charming in the book and the actor who plays him does an awesome job. The show can be depressing at points so his appearances always help lighten things up. Also, don't get attached to any character because they get killed off pretty frequently. For example, this picture shows the cast from last year and four of them didn't survive the first season. 

It has a huge cast. But not for long. People die on this show all the time.

5. Soup for you! With living in a hotel comes a lot of eating out. We eat out between one and two times a day. I have eaten at nearly every restaurant in the area, but one of my favorites is Panera Bread. Mainly because I can eat fairly healthy there. I generally try new things when I am at restaurants, but at Panera, I pretty much order the same thing every time. The You Pick Two option with a chopped bbq chicken salad and a cup of black bean soup. It is amazing. And less than 500 calories for the whole meal. 

Yum yum. You gotta try it.

6. Toys, toys, toys.  Owen's first birthday is almost here and I have been looking around for some gift ideas for him. And I know I've had a couple people ask what to buy for him. We're trying to stay away from any large, musical, battery-needing toys because we have plenty of those already. There was a store called Nico and Lily that I loved back in Washington that had some of the coolest toys and I recently discovered that the owner has an Amazon shop. I've been checking out some of the toys (all of which are battery-free). She has a lot of really cool things available, like the Plan Toys Sit n Walk puppy and the Rubbabu City Life playset.

This pull toy is so adorable and Owen loves puppies.

I love the little streetscape mat because he could use it for years to come with other cars and toys. 

An afternoon at the park

     The weather has been really nice here lately (the pollen not so much), so we decided to get out of the hotel yesterday and take Owen to the park to play. Tim took the day off work because he's been coughing and generally feeling really bad for the past several days. (He went to the doctor and is now on an antibiotic for an ear infection and pills for his allergies.)
     The park that we went to is right next to the Eastern Kentucky University. The campus is really pretty. And the park is really great. It has two different playscapes and sets of swings, one for bigger kids and one for littler kids. We put Owen on the swings, took him down a couple slides and let him roam around the playscape. We also practiced sitting in the grass. He really hates the feeling of grass so we're making progress.