8:22pm, April 27th, 2012

At 8:22pm, April 27th 2011, Owen Jeremiah came into this world.

At 8:22pm, April 27th, 2012, Owen, Bill & I stood together in the auditorium of our brand new church building worshiping the amazing God we serve along with our Freedom House family, for the first time. 

And this was the song we were singing at 8:22pm.



I couldn't believe how appropriate it was.  For the story of his conception.  The story of his birth.  And the story of our new building finally being open, and the three of us standing in it worshiping together.  I kind of lost it and was crying a lot.  But it was a good, sweet, happy cry. 

I am beyond blessed with this life God has blessed me with.  The people he's put in our path and the church family he's given us, not to mention our perfect little family. 
I'm positive I won't make it through tomorrow's first church service in our new building without tearing up... now where'd I put my pack of travel kleenex.....

A Trip to the Fair!

Owen had a pretty good time at his first trip to the fair!  It was just a half mile down the road, so we walked over the other night and let him explore the petting zoo.  He was NOT too keen on this guy... pretty sure those giant horns scared him :)

 

Also he thought these guys were pretty funny...

 

Next up was the carousel!  He wasn't too sure of it at first, but he started liking it toward the end of the ride :)

   

We also watched some motorcycles race around a ball-cage thingy, he thought that was pretty neat, but I didn't get any pics of it because... I'll confess- I was eating a funnel cake and feeding Owen some raisins.  :)

It was a good time for the whole family though - we had fun!

 

Getting Growed Up!!

Our little bear is getting so grown up!  He can eat with a fork (if we put the food on for him)...

And he's standing up a lot these days too! 

  

  

 

And we even caught him taking a step on video the other day before bed!

::Sigh:: Where does the time go?!

To My Sweet Owen Bear...

Happy birthday little Bear.  I can't believe it's been one year since I heard your sweet cries in that delivery room.  From the first moment I laid eyes on you I was head-over-heels-deeply-and-madly-uncontrollably in love with you.

It has been such a joy and a blessing to watch you grow, learn and develop every day.  I'm so privileged to be your momma and I'm excited to see the plans God has for your life. You can do anything, little Bear, anything that you set your sweet heart to do!

I'll close with this song that I made up for you.  I sing it to you before nap time and you always snuggle into me real close and drift off to dream land while we rock in your chair...

All the way to the moon and back
As deep as the ocean goes
As many little stars as the sky can hold
None of those even come close
To showing you
How much I love you
I love you
I love you Owen
I do
I love you

~Happy 1st Birthday little Bear!  Momma & Papa love you SO much! XOXOXOXO

Denial

I'm in a bit of denial.
Just a teensy bit.
That in three days.
Well, three and a HALF days.
I'll be slipping my latest crafy-creation over my little bears head.

 

Yup.  He's gonna be one.

 

In just three and a half days.

:sigh:

Easter

I remember last Easter very vividly.  I was a house.  My mom was herewith the expectation of meeting her grandson.  And I was still a house.  So we got to spend Easter together. We went to an awesome service at Freedom House, then came home and ate an amazing dinner sent to us by my Grandpa & his wife from Honeybaked Ham.  It was delish.  And I was huge.

There.  There's proof.  And that was a few days before Easter.  Holy. House. Batman.

Anyway, this Easter was our little bear's first one and he was pretty excited to walk into Kids Church surrounded by bubbles!

  

After having fun in Kids Church, we headed out to the petting zoo (FHC never does 'ordinary' on Easter!), where he met Hershey the lamb.  He thought he was pretty cool, and even tried to nuzzle him like he does Oliver :)

  

Then he got to see some baby chicks and ducks up close, he thought those were cool too, but not as cool as Hershey.

He also got to pet a huge bunny rabbit, but wasn't as impressed with that... considering our cat was almost the same size as the bunny, I wasn't surprised. :)
We stopped at the 'photobooth' on our way out for a quick family photo!

After church (and his nap) we headed to the park and Owen had SO much fun playing!!

 

 

It amazes me how much he is growing and developing every day... he now has several 'words' in his vocabulary, waves 'hello' and 'goodbye', gives high-fives, fist-bumps, shakes his head 'no', signs for 'more' when he's hungry, cruises all over via crawling and is getting very fast at walking with assistance of the furniture/push toys, and he's been practicing standing up solo! I can't believe his first birthday is just around the corner... our little bear is growing up!

Another First!

Owen got to go in a pool for the first time the other day!  Our friends invited us for a swim at the Y and we had so much fun!  Owen LOVED the water - I wasn't too surprised considering how much he (still) loves bath time.  I loved that it was a zero-entry pool so Owen could play independently.  We did take the kiddos into the 4 foot end and let them 'float' and 'swim' while we held them toward the end, and he liked that a lot too.

 

  

 

  

  

 

He loves to splash!!