Luke's 1st Birthday

I can still vivdly remember the day Luke was born (probably because it was only a year ago!). It was the longest, best day of my life. I can remember after they brought him to me and we were alone as a family for the first time thinking, "Oh my gosh! You are mine!". I couldn't believe I was entrusted with such a precous gift. It was actually a little scary! I immidiatly felt a great responsibility for this baby which I've always tried to take seriously. I want the best for him! That feeling has never gone away. He's still my precous boy and always will be. Being a parent has certainly come with its long and ever growing list of challenges. Sure I have moments where I want to lock myself in my room for a while just to get a break. Sure I have moments where there is nothing else to do but cry in desperation for answers. But I can honestly say that I have loved every minute of being Luke's mom. Even the hard times. He's my greatest blessing!
I'm amazed at what he's learned in one year! Right now he's walking like a champ and has been for a couple of months now. He can say bye, "ba". He's learning what things mean and how to get the things he wants. He really is a little person!
His birthday was November 12th but we celebrated it on the 13th because it was a Saturday and of course we needed to have a party! I have to say that we have such wonderful friends and family who came out to support Luke. I know that he had no idea what was going on that day. In fact I'm sure it's already forgotten. I know Trent and I will always remember it though. It was probably more for us than for Luke but he sure was spoiled!

I was a great day! Happy Birthday Luke!

Here's the Birthday Boy one his actual Birthday!


Like I said he was spoiled!

Luke really didn't know what to think of his cake. He just touched it for a while till we showed him he could eat it. Even then he mostly picked at it. I think the pressure of eating in front of an audience was a little much for him! He eventually got a little more into it.



I can't believe he's 1! What a whirlwind this parenting thing is! Happy Birthday Luke :)

Recap

For posterity's sake I wanted to make sure I recap what we've been up to lately. I've been such a slacker blogger! I'm brewing the idea of trying to do a post a day all next month just to see if I can do it. I know, exciting stuff! We'll see, like I said the idea is still brewing.

First of all my Dad graduated from college this month! {he still has one more semester but he was able to walk early}. I don't think I can put into words how proud I am of my Dad! This has been a long road. He's had to juggle family, work, demanding callings {Hello Bishop!} and many other responsibilities while going to school. He's set such an example of how much he values his education. I love him so much!! Way to go Dad!!!

Grandpa with his very grumpy grandson! It was definitely nap time!

Luke got his first haircut! His hair is already grown back and he needs another one! He did how any 10-11 month old would. He squirmed like crazy and threw a couple tantrums but with Grandma Loomis's help we got through it!

Doesn't he look like he's so miserable!
There were some good times...

But it mostly went like this!
All done and so happy it's over! I don't like it...He looks too Big!!! But he's still handsome :)

Luke had a ton of fun with Dad the other day playing in this box!

What was it for you may ask...

His big boy car seat! He loves it!!! He really loves being able to see what we see. He was a big talker in the car before but now he really likes to ramble!

Ok well that was a lot of information! Hopefully that'll hold things over for a little while longer :)

Gilmore Adventure Race

I want to make sure I do a quick mention of the Gilmore Adventure Race we did back on Sept. 25th with Justin and Audra {Trent's brother and his wife}. It was much harder than I expected it to be and looking back I'm very proud of myself for finishing it! I don't know if you've made the connection or not but I was about 5 or 6 weeks pregnant at the time. I felt lightheaded a few times but other than that I felt ok. Trent did awesome! I think he could've done another 12 miles. When we first arrived in Prescott we grabbed some breakfast at Cracker Barrel {my first time eating there, it was fabulous} and headed up the mountain to sign in and register. We got our number {96} and then we waited! There were two groups of racers the long racers which was 18 miles and the group for the short race which was 12 miles. The long racers went first. Talk about feeling out of place! These guys were serious! Some of them were even sponsored. We all couldn't help but crack up at how unprofessional we all looked in our homemade iron on t-shirts! We joked that if we ever do this again our team name should be "No Intimidation" haha! Once they left we waited for our turn. We got a little pep talk and were told the rules and then had 15 minutes to get ready and look over our map.

Before the race. Don't we look great! So unsuspecting!

When the race started we had to "run" {hello altitude! I was so not prepared for that. running for me was more of a walk/slow jog} to our next stop to get all our coordinates and plot them on our map. When I say we of course I mean Trent and Justin. They did all the map work which was really nice for Audra and I. Our first 2 or 3 stops were all hiking. It was a pretty intense hike! There were no trails so we had to trudge through the wild wilderness! :)

At the very top! All downhill hiking from here:)

The rest of the race was all mountain biking. Trent, bless his heart, has tried so hard to get me into mountain biking. When we bought my mountain bike a few years ago he was more excited than I was! It's just not my thing! So needless to say I wasn't super thrilled that the next 8 to 9 miles of the race was all going to be mountain biking!

We also had a few challenges along the way that we could either do or take a 30 minute penalty if we chose not to try it. We did each one and moved on in great time. The first one was building a bridge out of domino's. The next one was throwing metal washers into a hole that was a few feet away. The last and hardest was a puzzle. Only one of us could try it {we could help from the sidelines though}. It was pretty tricky but Justin got us through!

I'm not gonna lie to you I was miserable on the mountain biking part! {I may or may not have cursed under my breath a few times}. A lot of it was uphill and that's what sucked all my energy! I don't mean to make this all sound negative but I really hated this part! Trent asked me a few times if I thought I'd ever want to do this again. I'd just glare at him and say, "Don't ask me right now because the answer is NO!" I really kinda felt like I was holding everyone back. I was usually the caboose of the group. I can honestly say though that I did my very very best! I pushed myself as hard as I could and I'm proud of the fact that I didn't give up.

Before you could cross the finish line you had to scale a 12 ft wall! Maybe it doesn't look super tall in the pictures but believe me 12 ft is tall! We had a great strategy though and all made it over safely.

We finished with 7 minutes to spare! All in all this was a truly incredible experience and it really showed me what I was capable of. I don't think it's really my kinda thing but I learned a lot about myself and we really did have a lot of fun together. I'm glad I did it! Thanks Justin and Audra for being our teammates! Go team 4.0!!! {We are all Owen's and there were 4 of us...get it :)}

Coming Spring 2011!!!

Baby Owens #2!!!

Yes it was planned...
Yes we are thrilled...
And Yes a little nervous!

We couldn't feel more blessed and excited :)

9 Months

This has been the strangest age for me so far. I LOVE all the new things Luke is doing and learning, don't get me wrong. But I also am feeling for the first time that Luke isn't really my baby anymore. I know he's still a baby but he's acting more and more like a big boy and he doesn't need me as much. Not gonna lie, it's been a bit difficult for me. But He's learning so fast which has been so fun to watch! Here are a few things we've learned so far:
- He's mastered crawling (that's baby stuff) and he's on to walking. He hasn't mastered that just yet (Thank goodness, I'm savoring every last second I have left!) but he can take several steps on his own at a time. Sometimes he doesn't even realise what he's doing. He'll just walk away from the couch to get a toy or something he sees across the room and before he knows it he's walked there all on his own! Oh boy...life will be forever changed!
- He also can wave "Hi" and "Goodbye". One of our new favorite things to do is to wave goodbye to Dad while he drives away for work in the morning. For some reason he thinks it's hilarious when someone waves back to him. We all have a good laugh.
- And MY favorite new this he's learned is giving kisses! Oh it melts my heart!!! There's nothing better in this world than a big, wet, open mouthed kiss from your 9 month old! Sweet joys of life!
- He still loves Baby Einstein and it's a life saver on Sunday mornings while Trent and I are getting ready for church. It plays on a loop and so he'll sit there for as long as we need him to! (Don't worry we don't do it all the time!)

I was thinking the other day that he's been on the outside as long as I carried him on the inside! It seems like he's been here longer than that though. I feel like he's been with us forever! I just got my maternity pictures back not long ago from my friend Kelsey who took them for me. In honor of the 9 month mark I thought I'd post them since I didn't when I was actually pregnant. What can I say? I just didn't really feel like posting pictures of me in my third trimester glory! Now that I look at them again though it wasn't as bad as I thought. :)



Now here he is 9 months later!!!

I know that's a lot of pictures. I'm just a proud mama! :) He's changed my life in almost every way and I couldn't be happier. I'm doing exactly what I've wanted to do my entire life and I have zero regrets!

Backyard Update

So Trent here. Just thought I would show picts of what we did this weekend on the back yard. So I got a contractor to get me a 48" reinforced concrete pipe (RCP) that we are going to use for a fire pit (for free might I say!) They dropped it off and everything. It was left on its side so it was easy to roll around. We dug the hole (Lindz helped. Thanks Love!) and just rolled the pipe over and pushed it in. I was really nervous because this pipe weighed a ton (seriously, 2,000 lbs) but it seriously was nothing. So we are going to pour a pad around it with the pit flush with the pad. You'll see picts once its all done. But here are the picts from this weekend.

Check it out!!

Hey everyone I've started a photography blog with my friend Heidi Rieck. We are trying to turn this into a little business and we want to try a test run to see how it goes. We've created a blog and have done a few great sessions so far. Come check it out!

howsweetphotography.blogspot.com

We are offering incredible introductory deals on photo sessions right now to get our name out there so if you are interested please let us know!