At Home With The Billetts: November 2013

It's been just over one year since I logged in to the ol' blog to write a post. While I can't believe it's been that long, the dates don't lie. Much has happened between November 19, 2012 and November 23, 2013...Owen turned 3, we went to New York for Christmas 2012, we celebrated several other holidays, played with our boy and learned A LOT about being parents (age 3 has been the most challenging to date!), I finished up librarian certification school, Austin changed jobs, we moved from Lubbock to Shallowater, found out we are expecting a little one, and most recently, Owen turned 4! I wish I could get caught up instantly so I didn't feel quite so overwhelmed with the amount of undocumented events and goings-on, but it just won't happen that way. With that said, I do have a plan! The plan is to catch up a little at a time with blog posts including 2 years at a time (i.e. pumpkin patch 2012 and pumpkin patch 2013 in one post). It won't be chronological and it won't be as easy to find thing when I want to go back and visit posts in 15 years, but it will do.

Now, on to the big week we had this week.

Sunday, November 17 -- Owen's 4th birthday party

Rather than go for an at-home party this year, we had it at a place called Ready Set Go. It's a place with trampolines, a foam pit, climbing wall, balance beams, and bounce house. We had never been there before, but we had been to birthday parties at similar places. Owen was very excited in the days leading up to the party. We had a countdown going during November using his bedroom calendar so we "X"ed out a day each night at bedtime. The picture below shows the countdown continued a couple days later to his actual birthday!

He chose a monster truck theme, so that was fun to incorporate into the invitations, decorations, and cake. We weren't sure what the turnout would be because last year's party was a bust -- only one of Owen's friends showed up after 3 or 4 families cancelled just 2 hours before the party started. This year was quite different! Nearly everyone that was invited came!

Just for documenting purposes, invitations went out to the following friends:

Caleb Johnson

Nick, Leah, and Titus Grassie

Aubrey Ridenour

Luke (from Andrea's)

Cutter (from Andrea's)

Mattelyn (from Andrea's)

Ty Ontiveros

Rowdy and Ryder Johnson

Kadance Bullard

Zeke and Matthew Hernandez

Conner Powell

(Only Luke and Conner didn't come!)

Family who came were:

Grammy and Papa

Gramommy

Grandpa

Uncle Kyle

Mommy and Daddy

Everyone had a great time!

Invitations were created by Yours Truly in MS Word in order to copy

Ready Set Go's play release form on the back.

You can see that most of the pictures I have posted here are of Owen...and you can probably also see that they aren't very good quality! The nature of the place is movement so everyone was moving, no matter what they chose to play on! I have pictures of some of our guests playing, but they really are pathetic...so I am leaving them out and only highlighting what the birthday boy was doing most of the time!

We had the cake made at Market Street and added the toys once we got to Ready Set Go.

The cake was wrong when we went to pick it up (despite VERY clear instructions), but they fixed it for us in a timely manner. Apparently, in the monster truck arenas they have seen or been to, there is lovely green grass outlining the dirt and hill. Ha! :)

Owen LOVED the decorated cake!

Most of the gifts given at the party were monster trucks, so Owen's collection of the enormous-wheeled giants is nearing 30! We have all sizes ranging from half-dollar trucks that came with mini launchers all the way up to remote control beasts! It's a lot of fun at our house these days!

Other gifts he received at the party and afterwards included cars and other Hot Wheel/Matchbox vehicles, art supplies for his art table, the movie Turbo, dinosaurs that you take apart and put together with a drill and/or screwdriver, a Cleveland Browns shirt, mini cars and a car garage carrier, 2 music CDs, an exploring flashlight, book with sounds, and some money he doesn't want to spend! Ha! I whispered to him just this morning "What do you want to spend your birthday money on?" and he whispered back "Nothing."

That's my boy! Save those dollars!

Wednesday, November 20 -- Owen's actual birthday

We woke Owen up by singing Happy Birthday and took him to the kitchen to see the art desk we got him. After that, all 3 of us then sat down to a bowl of cereal together. (Austin normally takes a couple plain and dry toaster waffles to go, but this morning, I asked him to stick around a few minutes longer!) After our normal morning routine, we loaded up and headed out for our day. Owen and I made cupcakes Tuesday evening for him and his friends to enjoy at Andrea’s house – chocolate with white frosting and sprinkles, just what he wanted! (I had every intention of taking a picture of them finished, but apparently I didn't!)
Gramommy picked Owen up about 3:30 that afternoon and took him to one of our stores that goes ALL OUT for Christmas – Holland Gardens. They walked around to see all the theme-decorated Christmas trees and then went out for ice cream – just the two of them. After we all came together at Gramommy’s house, Owen received his other present from her – a new bike! Owen loved it and got to break it in for a little while before we headed to Taco Villa for his birthday dinner. When we came home, we watched the monster truck movie we got for the birthday boy.

We had this banner hanging at the birthday party, but I was so anxious to get from the party room to the play room that I only took a picture of the cake beforehand. We also had snacks -- chips and dip, fruit, veggies, and drinks...but no pictures to prove it!

November 20, 2013 -- later that evening – revealing the gender of Baby #2

Since Gramommy had Owen pick-up duty, I left work at my normal time to run an errand. We needed 3 pink balloons and 3 blue balloons to carry out our gender reveal plan. I had actually gone to the doctor Tuesday, the 19^th, and had her look but NOT tell me the gender. Since Austin could not be there and we wanted to have the experience of revealing the gender in a more unique way, I asked her to put the news in the envelope I provided! I had written BOY and GIRL on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and asked them to circle what it was and then seal it. They were more than happy to help! Since Owen knows all his letters, we thought it would be neat to open the envelope toward him without looking and let him tell us what letters were circled. He executed it perfectly! He actually said the sounds for B and OY (as if sounding out the word). I asked if he was sure and said “What letters are inside the circle?” He said "Y,O, and B." :) It was at that time we looked and then proceeded to take some pictures. It took us several shots, but Owen was a trooper and never gave up. The final trio of snapshots was exactly what we wanted! He is extremely excited to be a big brother to a little brother! Austin and I are equally thrilled to think about our pair of boys, sweet brothers, two gifts from God!