Steps

Owen took his first steps yesterday! He's very nervous about it and won't do more than 2-3 at a time. It's so cute because he has this excited yet terrified look and laugh while he's doing it. Almost like he can see the freedom he's about to have which is exciting but still scary.
My friend Mindy was here with her little boy that is almost 7 months old and Owen had just whacked Sam with a plastic baseball bat and so Mindy was holding Sam and Owen I guess really wanted to go check on him and since he was standing he just took a couple of steps. He gets scared once he realizes what he's about to do or is already doing and just hits the floor.
I know everyone tells me to enjoy the time before he's walking which I have, but I am so ready for this stage.

Owen has become a FANTASTIC sleeper lately and I can take zero credit for it. He's been sleeping 11-12 hours straight at night then will take one 1.5-2 hour nap and then another nap that's around an hour. He's been doing this consistently for the last few weeks so I'm okay with sharing it here :-) I do think that the transition to 1 nap will be coming soon as he seems to be able to stay awake longer in the morning. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet!

Owen's become clingier lately. Pat dropped him off in the nursery on Sunday morning and Owen didn't want to let go and gave Pat the saddest face. We had our MOPS group on Tuesday morning and he did the same thing for me. They said he was fine until moms started coming to pick up their kids and he got sadder as he saw kids leaving. Up until now he's always gone to other people with no problem so this is new!

Owen has made it known that he knows what he cannot touch lately. He'll often point to things, usually cords, and just shake his head. Usually he has enough self-control to keep from touching things but there are definitely times where the desire outweighs the consequence. He like to pull himself up on the tv stand which is fine but he knows he's not supposed to touch the dvd player or the Xbox. Those times where the desire to touch them takes over and he gets caught and hears me say "no" he will instantly pull his hands away and put the on the other shelf like "I'm not doing anything mom!" The one thing I'm going to have to work on is that there are many times where he will continue to disobey until he sees me move towards him. Our goal in training him is that the time to obey is the first time and not when mom or dad start moving. We won't be doing the counting strategy around here.

I don't want that last paragraph to be the end of this post so here are are few photos and videos of Owen to end things on a happy note!

Am I really going to do this??

I'm doing it!!

Love love love this face. He's also wearing one of Pat's old outfits.

Watching some basketball and eating graham crackers.

Owen LOVES daddy's guitar. Pat led worship on Sunday morning and Owen got so sad when I wouldn't let him crawl up to the stage. He's become and huge fan of daddy in general too.

East coast trip

2 weeks ago we took a trip to Virginia to see our dear friends Joel and Tori with a stop in Kentucky to see my brother and his family. We left at 5am hoping that Owen would sleep for a couple of hours since he doesn't usually wake up until after 7. No such luck. He didn't nap well in the van like we had hoped. I don't think he slept more than 30 minutes at a time and it was only 2-3 of those a day. It was quite maddening. He actually did quite well despite the lack of sleep. I think it helped that we took a day off of driving on the way there to spend in Louisville so he didn't have two days of terrible naps and being confined in a car seat. It was so great to spend some time with family albeit short, as well as a few days with great friends that we have managed to stay close with even though we haven't lived in the same place for more than 4 years.

We spent all of Tuesday with Andrew and Bekah and the kiddos which was great. I love seeing their family and taking in the wisdom they have to offer. Being with family is such a comfortable place to be. The weather was pretty rainy while we were there so we didn't really venture out. We left their house on Wednesday morning at 5am again with the same sleeping results for Owen and arrived in Virginia Beach around 6pm.

We didn't get to see as many sites as we had hoped because we had forgotten to take kids naps into account but we did get to go to the beach and Owen and I saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time! Tori and I hit up several thrift stores sans kids which was a good time. Owen came back with lots of new clothes.
We haven't felt like we've made very close connections with people since leaving Ames so it was very refreshing to spend a few days with them and we're so thankful that we've been able to keep that friendship going.

We left Joel and Tori's on Sunday after going to their church and drove about 45 minutes to Williamsburg to see some more dear friends (Hi Bob and Nancy! Thanks for letting us stay with you and for showing us around!) Pat has known them since highschool and I met them the summer that Pat and I were engaged when we went to AtlantaFest. They've played a huge role in Pat's life and it was great to see them again and have them meet Owen. They are full of godly wisdom and so welcoming. They were gracious enough to show us around Williamsburg and the William and Mary campus which was beautiful. It was so fun being in such a historical place and hearing about all of the things that happened there so many years ago. We look forward to going back again and being able to show Owen a history lesson rather than just reading about it. Bob and Nancy have a beautiful home with a great deck that we spent a couple of hours enjoying after Owen went to bed. 

We decided that this leaving at 5am thing was for the birds and did not benefit any of us so Monday morning we left around 8:30am and drove back to Louisville stayed the night and started the final leg around 9:30am on Tuesday and got home around 5pm. We were so ready to get home at that point so we just pushed through as quick as we could. Owen cried the last couple of hours and was pretty inconsolable for the last 45 minutes or so. Those last two days were rough on him since they were spent in the car with not much of a break. 

When we left home on Monday morning it was just starting to snow and then while we were driving through Eastern Virginia on Wednesday we met up with the same snow storm (I think) and it made for some slow driving. I couldn't believe the amount of snow there was and during one stretch there were trees down on the freeways blocking one lane at least every mile. We stopped at one exit for a bathroom break and there were maybe 3 gas stations and a McDonald's. The McDonald's was closed "due to the weather" and only 1 gas station was open and there were 30-40 cars lined up. We didn't think it was that bad so we were a little nervous that we were about to encounter something pretty terrible. Although there ended up being quite a bit of snow during one stretch I believe that people from the Midwest have a very different definition of bad weather than those that live in the Southeast. :) When we left the following Monday we saw all of those downed trees being turned into mulch on the side of the road.

Wednesday morning Owen woke up with a fever that got up to 102º and stuck around for a couple of days. Poor guy was pretty miserable. I think part of it was from lack of sleep and we're pretty sure his molars are coming through so we didn't leave the house for 3 days with the exception of a 30 minute walk on Friday afternoon because it was too nice outside. One of those days I think he slept at least 4 hours during the day and most of that night as well so I think he was playing a little catch up. He seems to be doing a lot better and hasn't had a fever since Friday morning but you can tell his mouth is still bothering him and I have yet to see any white poke through so who knows how long this will last.

Here are some photos from our adventure!

Owen and Weston watching the rain

Smoky Mountains

The snow was weighing down the trees.

Trees in the road

Owen loved the beach

It was so cold!

Owen enjoyed pointing at all of the birds

The next 5 photos were taken in Williamsburg at the William and Mary campus.

Meeting Thomas Jefferson

Owen loved his face

I was taking pictures of the snow and Owen really wanted to be included

Because nothing is sweeter than a sleeping baby

New favorite game of pulling all of the books off of the shelves

Watching some Signing Time

This is between the door and Owen's seat. After a while everything just got pitched over the side.

Little explorer

Owen has started taking his curiosity all of the house. I think he has opened every door and looked in every corner he can get to. He also learned how to climb the steps recently. One day I looked away for a minute and when I looked up again I just saw 1 little foot peaking out from the bottom of the stairs. He slipped on the third step and bumped his face a little bit which stalled him for a few days but he tried again and made it all the way up!
He's been nursing more often and eating less table food and I'm not sure if one is causing the other. I have no intention of weaning him any time soon since that is not a battle I want to deal with. He's nursing usually 4 times a day but usually asks more often than that.
He's been signing a lot lately which is fun but he has about 3 signs that mean 6-7 things.
I counted the other day that he knows about 10 signs but doesn't always use them. He'll properly sign milk, eat, all done, fan and used to say more correctly but now more, please and eat are the same. He'll occasionally sign bird, dog and water. Owen also learned to pray before his meals which we love. We'll put him into his highchair then say "let's pray!" And he'll put his hands together while we pray. We borrowed some Signing Time DVDs from the library several weeks ago and he seems to enjoy them and I think they've helped him learn.
Owen hasn't been feeling well all day. He's been running a fever of around 101-102 which is sad to see but I'm loving the cuddles I'm getting. I think he may be getting molars in because he's been trying to chew on stuff in the back of his mouth. He ran a fever when his top teeth came in too so maybe that's all it is. He slept about 4.5 hours today so I'm hoping he still sleeps tonight and feels better tomorrow. Since we were traveling 2 days in a row he didn't get a real nap in either of those days which probably wore him out as well.