Happy Birthday!

Owen officially became a toddler on Friday..our little boy is all grown up!

Josh was off work and I took off too so we could spend the day with Owen. We started the day with a special Birthday breakfast...a birds nest. It's just toast with an egg (or egg beaters) in the middle, but Owen loved it!

After breakfast, the three of us played and played and played. Although Owen has lots of toys that he likes, he prefers to play with anything and everything that's not a toy. He's favorite things to do are: (1) climb under the bar stools over and over again and (2) play with/wear the strainers (he thinks it's hilarious!)

After a short nap and some lunch, we decided to let Owen try out his new car seat. Josh and I are really excited about this transition...the infant carrier and Owen combo was getting way too heavy!



One of our outings was to Toys-R-Us. We decided to let Owen pick out another Birthday present...but everything he picked up was something he already had. We ended up playing in Toys-R-Us for about an hour and buying nothing, but I am pretty sure Owen loved every minute of it!

Our last outing, was ice cream and the park. Getting ice cream ended up being more of a chore than expected. We googled ice cream stores in the area trying to find low fat/fat free ice cream and we ended up at Braums. However, Braums only sold low fat/fat free ice cream in large quantities (which didn't work with our plan to go to the park). In the end we found a pint of low fat yogurt at Walgreen's and we were off to the park. I'm not sure Owen even realized we were at the part for the first 15 minutes because he was too busy inhaling his ice cream.

Owen had to keep taking breaks from playing to eat more ice cream...he was very upset when it was all gone!


He liked the slide, but preferred to climb up it....
For dinner, Josh made Owen's favorite... a special version of chicken parmesan. The recipe: grilled chicken, spaghetti sauce, penne pasta, and fat free mozzarella cheese. Owen loves it!!

Owen loved playing with his new lawn mower from Beema, Papa Joe, and Aunt Amanda....he'll be ready to help daddy in the yard this summer

We let Owen try some more of his Birthday cake...

he actually got a little messier this time

The day was all about Owen...and we had a blast!

fun in the snow...

I never thought we would be playing in the snow at the end of March....but with 13.5 inches of snow outside, it was hard to resist! Hopefully this will be the last snow we see until next winter.

Gigi and Papa Bart bought Owen his first sled, so of course we had to try it out! Owen seemed to like it, but had a hard time sitting up...

Sitting up...but not moving

This is what happened when we started moving....

So...we decided to let him lay down

while we pulled the sled

"This is fun"

It was really funny to watch Owen try to walk in the snow. The snow was so deep that he had to lift his leg really high to take a step...he was so determined!

He liked crawling around until his

tummy touched the snow...

it's my party!!

We celebrated Owen's 1st Birthday on Saturday!! Our close family and friends joined us at our house for cake and ice cream. WARNING...this may be the longest post ever. There were so many pictures and I had way too many favorites!

We moved most of the furniture out of the living room and replaced it with mats, bolsters, balls, tunnels, a ball pit, and lots of balloons. It was like an inside playground...and all the kids loved it! I think Owen would prefer for our living room to stay like this all the time!

the setup...

The Cake Lady is great! She made a fat free white cake with a low fat cream cheese icing for Owen and made a matching "real" cake for everyone else. Both cakes were delicious!

Is this not the cutest shirt you've ever seen? A girl I work with made it...you can check out more of her stuff here.

family pic...

Owen enjoyed playing in the tunnel with GiGi and Beema before the party. He really like playing peek-a-boo with it!

Owen loved all the balloons...they might have been his favorite thing about the party!

Owen, Judd, and Norah enjoying the ball pit...

Owen and Brenner

Lauren, Matt, and Ashley win the award for furthest traveled!! Lauren and Matt came from Jackson, TN and Ashley came all the way from Nashville, TN. We are so lucky to have such great friends...I'm not sure we would have pulled off the party without them.

Owen helped open most of the presents...he just wanted to play with everything he opened, so it took a LONG time to get them all opened.

Love this shirt! It says "Hand over the Binky and no one gets Hurt"...so appropriate!

Norah helped open the presents while Owen took a juice break...

Owen's Rockin' Hawg! Mommy and Daddy worked really hard on this present...and Owen was so excited when he saw it! He's reaction was priceless!

Happy Birthday to you...

Owen's first Kiss...how sweet!

More fun in the ball pit...he was laughing so hard. I wish I had it on video!

The first day of spring brought with it a snow storm that started during Owen's birthday party and ended on Sunday night with a total of 13.5 inches of snow!