My cuties...

Watching a little Mickey Mouse...

4 Months!!!

My sweet Owen is 4 months old today! I know I have said this every single month but it is going by so very fast!

Owen is thisclose to rolling over. I would not be surprised if he mastered rolling by the end of the week. He is still waking up once at night to eat. He smiles all the time. He loves his Mommy! He is such a wonderful blessing to our family.

What to do...

The last couple of weeks Owen has decided not to nap when Ryan is napping which gives me very little free time to get much done around here besides practicing my photography. While I am grateful for the practice, I cannot wait for warm weather and lots of sunshine. I am so tired of February and winter!!!!!

Enjoy a few pictures from our last photo shoot...

3 month old cutie...

Alright --- today I had a successful 10 minute photo shoot with Owen. I feel like I got some pretty great pictures! YAY!!! I love that he is such a cooperative subject! :) Now I just need to figure out some way to store all of the pictures that I am taking...otherwise my computer is going to be full of pictures before I know it. Although they are great pictures! :)

Same picture below in B&W and color...

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day this year. I got to spend the day with 3 special guys so that made it even better. We started off the day with heart shaped pancakes, then gave the boys a little Valentine's gift, went out shopping (yay for more photography stuff!!!), went to lunch, relaxed, I went out by myself for a while (woohoo), had a delicious dinner and after the boys went to bed Jeff and I made some delicious chocolate fondue!!

Ryan was so excited to about part of his Valentine's gift - a sheriff Woody! He kept looking in the bag and walking around looking for Buzz though. I suppose we need to get him a Buzz.

16 weeks!!!

Yesterday was a milestone day for both boys...Owen hit 16 weeks and Ryan 23 months! They are both growing so fast.

Owen is starting to schedule himself really well during the days and nights. He is still not sleeping all the way through the night though. He typically wakes only one time to eat and goes right back to sleep so it is really not too bad. This week we moved him out of our room and into his crib! He has done really well in there and so have we. Owen is getting really strong and showing more and more head control every single day! He is getting close to rolling over as well.

My plan for Owen was to hold off on giving solid foods until he was 6 months old. I am not sure if we will actually be able to hold out that long or not though. Anytime we are eating, he wants to be eating as well. As soon as he is done I will usually hold him while we finish up our dinner as a family. Owen will take his hand and put it into his mouth each time I take a bite. When I put my hand down then he immediately takes his hand out of his mouth. It is funny to watch him practice!

Owen loves to laugh and smile. His big, toothless grin is simply irresistible!

(you think he is ready for a chair of his own???)

23 Months

This is the last month that I can say Ryan's age in months. After this month he will be either 2 or 2 1/2. Some days I look at him and see how much he has changed recently and I just cannot believe it. Ryan is such a little chatterbox now. He talks all day long. Most of the time he gives us the play by play on what he is doing. Other times he just keeps repeating something over and over and over until we do something about it. He loves to let us know when he has spilled or broken a toy by saying "Mommy broken. Fix it." He loves to be a helper any time he can. He carries the list for us at the grocery store, pushes a chair around the kitchen so he can help out with cooking or doing the dishes, assists with laundry, wiping up messes and with lots of encouragement picks up his toys.

Ryan is really starting to notice Owen and interact with him. Ryan will get down on the floor with Owen and say things to him like "goo, goo, goo" to try and get Owen to smile. Ryan also loves for us to put Owen in the exersaucer so he can show Owen what to do.

Ryan still loves to read. His current favorites are his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse books, Good Night Moon (he has us read that one again and again at night) and Peek a Who?.

Ryan is such a wonderful blessing. He is such a sweet little boy and I am thankful to be his Mommy.

Ryan knows were we keep all of the Wii controls. He constantly pulls them out and asks us to play "cars, race". We have played the racing game exactly one time with him and he has not forgotten!

Sweet Ryan, when

did you

get so

big?!!?!?

Photoshoot...

I decided to have a spur of the moment photo shoot with my little one this morning. He was in such a wonderful mood and was all smiles. Why do they have to grow so fast?!?

Shades...

We did some early spring cleaning (as there wasn't much else we could do while snowed in so we cleaned the closets) and we stumbled across these glasses. The boys had fun sporting their shades...so cool!

the orange all over Jeff's shirt is actually from Ryan's messy spaghetti dinner.

Jeff sporting some safety goggles while shoveling in the blizzard...

Just Owen...

There have been lots of posts featuring Ryan lately so this one is just for Owen!!! Owen is doing great and getting SO big. He has been taking a nap a day in his crib in his room and does so well in there. He still sleeps in Mommy and Daddy's room at night because Mommy isn't ready to move him out quite yet. Owen is a little cuddle monkey!!! He has started to laugh and smiles all of the time!!!

such a sweet boy. I am so blessed to get to look at this smile all day long!

I think Owen is looking more and more like Jeff every single day.

Paint!

Since we have been trapped inside we have been trying to come up with fun things to do with Ryan aside from watching Toy Story and baking (we have done a lot of that too and my pants don't need to be any tighter).

Ryan seems to enjoy finger painting in short bursts. It doesn't hold his interest too long yet, but maybe someday it will. Not sure where the majority of the paint wound up -- you be the judge.

the masterpieces

Snow Ice Cream

So I had never heard of this before but Jeff mentioned making some snow ice cream with Ryan. I can't believe that I allowed this in my child's body but I figured it can't hurt too much --- hopefully. And he didn't really eat that much anyway. Ryan enjoyed making and devouring his little portion of snow ice cream.

Snow Ice Cream - it's super simple if you would like to make a bowl of your own.

6 cups of CLEAN snow.

1 cup of sugar

2 cups of milk

1tsp vanilla extract

Add milk to snow to obtain desired consistency (I think I used about a cup and a half) then add vanilla extract and sugar to taste. Stir very well and enjoy.

Stirring it up..

getting ready to taste it...

I think he liked it.

More snow fun

Here are a few more pictures of our fun in the snow. Ryan loves going outside and loves his boots. We have been taking walks up and down the street. Unfortunately his gloves prevent him from actually playing with the snow a whole lot and everywhere is totally sold out of winter stuff now. All the stores do have plenty of swim suits, flip flops and shorts in stock though.

Snow mountain...

Ryan made his own slide and enjoyed going down over and over again..

Snowmageddon

We are snowed in. Friday morning around 10am the snow started falling and it didn't stop until Saturday around 4pm. We were not able to find a spot to get an official measurement, but the snow was up to Ryan's eyes (approx 30ish inches). We were able to dig ourselves out of the snow but are hearing rumors that the plow won't make it to our street until Tuesday! To add insult to injury, they are forecasting more snow on Tuesday! I am not sure when we will get out of the house or when Jeff will report to work. For now we are staying toasty warm and trying to find fun things to do inside other than watch tv.

The view from the front door at 8am..

It was coming down pretty hard still in this photo (out back door)...

Jeff started shoveling and just kept going, I think the neighbors appreciated his efforts...

Still snowing...

Couple of trees couldn't take the weight...

My brilliant idea - our shoveling reward.

My little helper making treats (Oatmeal Raisin Cookies from scratch with Mommy) - he loved to dump in all of the ingredients.

Sneaking a bite..

Covered in flour and cinnamon..

We make good cookies Mommy...

It has been a month and a half since our last BIG snow storm. Ryan was so much more into the snow this time. He didn't even mind putting his boots and snow suit on this time at all. YAY! Do I see cowboy boots in his future??!?!?!

Helping Daddy shovel

Great picture of two of my boys (the third was sleeping)...

have I mentioned that I love, love, love my new camera lens?!?!?!

Jeff shoveled a pathway between our two cars then went behind his car in order to dig it out. This is a good visual on how deep the snow was in the street. It had been plowed the night before after a good 5-6 inches of snow had fallen. You can see that even with 5-6 inches being plowed it was still very deep.

I love the action of this shot!

When the snow stopped, the sun immediately came out and everything was BEAUTIFUL!

Our tree

Out back...