Owen turns TWO!!!

Happy Birthday Owen!  It's hard to believe that you are TWO now! 

Your birthday party on November 19 was LOADS of fun!  You are very much into "Cars" so we chose that as your party's theme.  About 30 people came to celebrate with you...family and friends who love you dearly.   

Mommy got some of the ideas seen below online but tweaked some of them to make them more her own.    

Fillmore is the hippie van who tries to sell organic fuel to anything that has 4 wheels...

This is Fillmore's Organic Fuel station.

Guests could choose between Antifreeze (lemonade Kool-Aid colored with green and yellow food coloring) or Motor Oil (unsweetened iced tea).  We also had bottles of water on hand for those that wanted it. 

Doc is the judge in Radiator Springs (RS from now on), and although he does not have a "diner" in either Cars movie, I thought it would be fitting to put a Doc's Diner sign with the main course of the evening. 

Mater is Lightning's best friend and the town's tow truck.  Mater's Munchies is where guests could find the 4 flavors of potato chips. 

Flo owns the gas station in RS so as a play on "V8," I made this the veggie tray and dip spot.  I was going to buy a 6-pack of V8 juice to set out, but I knew no one (or myself) would drink them, so I opted to save the $3 and hope that people "got it". 

Luigi and his companion Guido are sweet little Italian cars who own the tire shop in RS.  It's actually called Casa Della Tires, but I made it "House of Tires" instead.  The chocolate covered Mrs. Baird's donuts fit beautifully over the wooden skewers that were stuck down into a styrofoam block. 

Sally is Lightning's girlfriend, RS's town attorney, and the owner of The Cozy Cone Motel.  Sally's Sweets is where we placed all 44 cupcakes!  The flavors were chocolate with chocolate icing and strawberry with vanilla icing.  Each cupcake got a sprinkle of red sugar.     

The cupcake toppers were so wonderful!  I had so much fun designing them, cutting them out, mounting them to card stock, adding a few decorative touches, and taping them to the white lollipop stick!  Some of them say "Happy Birthday Owen!" while others said "Owen is TWO!"  Others just had a "2" on them.  You can't really tell, but the cupcake papers were blue with little Ligntning McQueens all over them.  You can also see Owen's cupcake in the lower left corner of the picture.  It's the one with the glittery #2 candle!     

Owen was scoping out the cupcakes before the party and said "I want iss one."

I had seen traffic cone straw cups online and really wanted them for the kids as well as for decoration on the kid's table, but they were kind of pricey!  Austin's mom went halves with me so we could have them...and I am so glad we did!  Sadly, we ended up with 6 or 7 unused cups.  The 8 you see here were for the 8 kids who came (including Owen) but we had to order enough in case the other kids who had been invited showed up as well.  It's always tough to plan not knowing for sure who will and won't come.  We ended up having a cancellation from little Jacen Phillips the morning of the party because he woke up with pink eye that day...poor little guy!  We sure missed him!

These were a hit!  Little race cars made of apple slices, grape halves, and toothpicks.  They were laid out on a laminated piece of black construction paper with little white lines running through the center. 

Owen and his little ham-of-a-gal-pal, Emerson.  Sweet sweet sweet girl!  We met her family this summer and immediately knew we had a great trio of friends.  Emerson will have a baby brother or sister in April, so that was exciting news!!  (You'll notice her thumb is wrapped up...she broke it recently when a chair fell back on her.) 

Owen and Miss Andrea's son, Ty.  Miss Andrea keeps Owen before and after PDO Mon-Thurs and every Friday so he has gotten to know her kids as well as a few other kids she keeps.  (Ty does not have the straw going up his nose even though it looks like he does!)  It was the best picture we had of the two of them together. 

Just to the left of Ty's ear, you'll notice another sign on a card table.  Ramone is the character who owns Ramone's House of Body Art.  He is responsible for painting Lightning just before he leaves RS to go to California.  We had temporary tattoos for the kids to adhere to their arms, hands, faces, whatever, at "Ramone's House of Body Art" during the party, but the wind was blowing on and off before and during the party so we never quite got it set up in fear of the tattoos and small cups of water blowing off the table.  We ended up giving the tattoos as part of their party favors instead.    

7 kids who came to celebrate with their pal Owen: (L to R) The twins Hannah and Kara Poff (I have NO idea which one is which!), Caleb Johnson looking at his straw, Emerson Parker squinting, Owen looking backwards, Timothy Poff, Kaitlyn Poff, and Ty Ontiveros.   

LOVING this birthday boy more and more each day! 

This was inside the house as guests walked through to the backyard party!  A collage of 15 pictures from the last year (1 each month except August and October -- 2 each of those months).  Owen's framed school picture taken on November 9 just to the right of the collage!!  Gifts galore!! A pennant banner in the background that reads "Owen is 2"...another homemade creation that was LOTS of fun to make.  I wish I had a close-up of that one. 

Owen stood sooooo still while we sang to him.  He knows The Birthday Song so we had prepared him and practiced with him in the days leading up to his party.  He did a great job blowing out the candle too!   

Mmmmm.  Cupcakes!! 

Our family of 3. 

It looks as though I chopped all my hair off in this picture, but it was in a side-swept, bun-like up-do that I really liked!  Kind of messy, but kind of on purpose.  From this picture, I KNOW I could never pull off a boy haircut.  Bleh!   

Don't mind me, Mom!  I am just stealing chips while you aren't looking!! 

The boy rarely gets chips, so when he does, it's a real treat!

Gramommy bought this fun set of 6 inflatable tires to have for the party!  The kids had the BEST time playing with them, throwing them, rolling them, sitting in them, etc.  It was fun to watch what the different kids did with them. 

Did I tell you what a HAM Emerson is?  Well, just look at these last 3 pictures and you will see.  SO PRECIOUS!!  (Owen had just finished coughing ---from swallowing a stolen chip down the wrong pipe--- so he looks red-eyed and grumpy.  He wasn't though!)

What a wonderful day, wonderful weather, wonderful guests, wonderful gifts, wonderful food, a wonderful little boy worth celebrating, and most of all, a WONDERFUL BLESSING!!!  Thank you, Lord, for the gift of Owen!  We love this little boy with all our hearts and thank You so much for letting us be his parents! 

:) Carianne and Austin



Halloween 2011

We had a fun week leading up to Halloween!  We have lots of pictures, but these represent the highlights! 

On Tuesday and Wednesday (October 25th and 26th), Owen's Parent's Day Out had a hayride!  Well, sort of.  It was more like a trailer hooked up to the back of an SUV.  And instead of hay, there was a large blanket.  In any case...it was great fun!  I was able to make arrangements to go on Tuesday so for that, I am thankful!  I arrived at PDO during gym time so I was able to play with Owen for 15-20 minutes before the non-hay hayride began!

Here is Owen in the gym. 

...and here he is in the back of the trailer.  The lady driving drove around the church's large parking lot twice. 

On Friday of the same week, Austin, Owen, and I headed to Odessa for the big OHS vs. PHS game.  It was a chilly evening so here is my sweet little man all snuggled up on his mommy's lap. 

On Saturday, we gave Owen's Halloween costume a test run.  Here he is in a wagon at a pumpkin patch in Midland.  He was not interested in the pumpkins AT ALL, so all the pictures of him with a pumpkin anywhere nearby are pretty "blah"...

...and here is the final version of his costume! 

For several weeks (maybe even months), we were just going to let Owen be a monkey again.  We knew he would fit in his year-old costume and to be honest, we weren't ready or willing to fork over money for another costume when he had a perfectly good, VERY gently-used one in the closet.  For some reason, though, I started feeling guilty about the "recycled costume" idea since this is his only his second Halloween.  I guess it boiled down to wanting a variety of pictures to look back on while I remembered his first two Halloweens.  Will he remember either Halloween?  No, probably not.  Would he have cared at all if I had dressed him in the brown, fuzzy cuteness from last year?  No, probably not.  Would I have gotten over the fact that Halloween #1 pictures and Halloween #2 pictures were nearly identical?  Yeah, probably so.  I know, I know.  Silly me.  It's not like we go crazy on Halloween...it's just fun to dress up, visit a few people, and have a good time.  Some candy is a bonus, but we are more interested in visiting than we are all the sweets. 

Anyway, my mom had the idea to make him a quick-and-easy spider costume.  Brilliant!  In just two evenings, I had this little black outfit ready to go!  The turtleneck and sweatpants were $3.88 each at Wal Mart.  The 3 pairs of black socks for his "legs" were $3.00 (total) at Dollar Tree.  The fishing line was my dad's...FREE!!...and so were the 24 plastic grocery sacs I used to stuff the legs!  The final touch was sort of an afterthought...glow-in-the-dark fabric paint for the spiderweb and spider.  That was $2.97 (also at Wal Mart).  So, for less than $14, wha-la!!  

I cut the side seams out of the shirt, turned it inside out, sewed the legs on one at a time, and then connected each leg to the previous one with clear fishing line and a needle.  I started the "thread" at the wrist of the shirt, went down through the first leg, tied a knot, down through the second leg, tied a knot, and so on.  Every time he moved his arms, all the legs moved with them.  It was really cute. 

It only took 40 minutes for the leg-stuffing and sewing and then several nights later, I spent another 10 minutes or so on the spiderweb and spider.  I was VERY pleased with the results and Owen looked adorable.  As soon as I showed him the costume, I said "What is it?"  He knew right away and said "a spider."  Hooray!         

On Halloween night, we went to a photography studio that was doing a fundraiser for Meals On Wheels.  For 3 cans of food or a $5 donation, the photographer would take a picture of your child that would then be downloadable from his website.  Of course Owen was perfectly well-behaved while in the 20-minute line.  As soon as we set him on the hay, he squirmed and cried, and you would have thought his world was ending.  Whether he was tired or hungry or hot or growing impatient or any combination of the four, we don't know.  After 3 attempts, we gave up.  Here are two of the three pictures we got.  (It seems I downloaded the same one twice.)  

After the less-than-ideal photo shoot, we ran by Uncle Kyle's apartment and Grammie Lu's house for a quick visit.  Then, we went back home to eat jack-o-lantern shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's.  A little before 8:00, we went to our church's trunk-or-treat.  For some reason, we thought it ended at 9:00, but it ended at 8:00 so we caught the tail end of everything.  :(  Next year we'll know!  

We wanted to visit a few friends too, but only made it to one house since we were dangerously close to Owen's bedtime.  James and Amy were excited to see our little spider and gave him some peanut m&ms as well as a Thomas the Train Uno game.  (Pictures of that in a future post!)  

Overall, Halloween 2011 was lots of fun!    

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween! 
Carianne