Easter

Remember how much I said that Owen loved Santa? Well, I think that love might pale in comparison to how he feels about the Easter Bunny.  We went to the mall this week and the Easter Bunny happened to be there. Owen couldn't wait to get on his (her? Is the Easter Bunny a girl or a boy?) anyway, Owen couldn't wait to jump up on the Easter Bunny's lap. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen (do I say that about everything when it comes to Owen? I know... but I really think it); he could not stop smiling and laughing. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture because they ask you to not use a camera or a cell phone and to purchase pictures that they take. More unfortunate... their pictures cost $25 for the cheapest one. How ridiculous right? First of all, that's the most outrageous price for one picture, second... it's the Easter Bunny, how do they think they can charge that much to see the Easter Bunny? It's not like he's in high demand or something, there wasn't even a line.  Needless to say, no pics of Owen and how much he loved the visit.
We did however, get a few pictures (not of him actually smiling for the camera, you'll notice that these days those are few and far between) but pictures none the less of Owen doing some other Easter festivities. Like... dyeing eggs:

And then realizing that he can stick his fingers right through the egg shell and crush the egg (his favorite part of dyeing eggs):

Saturday was the annual ward Easter egg hunt. I loved how our ward did it. They had one section for nursery age kids and another section for all of the other primary age kids so that kids Owen's age would actually have a chance of gettting some eggs for themselves.

Sunday we woke up to find the Easter Bunny had visited our house and left treats and a present for Owen. I'll be honest, I was probably more excited about him finding the basket than he was but once he found it, he was pretty pumped.

Easter afternoon we had some friends invite us over for some super yummy dinner (Thanks Katie!), some egg hunting and some frosting of sugar cookies:

Super excited about finding eggs and other goodies around the James' house.

Getting ready for the cookie making to begin



Owen's favorite thing about the cookies: Coloring them with a cookie
marker (what a great invention) and sticking his fingers through the cookies
to make the biggest mess possible.



Mmmmm... yummy (just the frosting though. He wasn't having anything
to do with the actual cookie.

Such a great Easter!

P.S. Don't mind the raggamuffin-ness of our child. I do try to comb his hair once in a while, it just doesn't ever stay and since I feel like he is the cutest thing ever regardless of uncombed hair, I belive every one else probably thinks he is too. Then I start blogging, look at the pictures and realize that the whole lot of us are kind of a mess... oh well.

Elephant Man

Well, I guess I'm super old. I always feel like I'm barely older than the girls in my young women. Tonight we were playing scattegories during our activity. The letter we were on was "E" and the game was asking for "a celebrity", so one of the girl's put down Elephant Man. My reaction "oh man, so sad... poor guy" and all of my girls look at me like I'm crazy. Obviously, I knew who they were talking about... this guy:

Nope... apparently there is some singer called The Elephant Man. This guy:

I guess I'm way out of the loop. Can I just ask though... what is this guy about to do? Rap, go snowboarding or drive a race car?

What's a Candola you ask?

Do you remember this post? Where we went down to Miami to see the Red Bull Flugtag? Well last weekend, Tyler noticed a banner like the one below announcing another Red Bull event that we felt like we couldn't miss. It's the Red Bull Candola and it was just down the street from our house.

 In this event, instead of making flying machines, this was all about people making creative boats and then trying to float them down the river. How could that not be fun to watch right? We decided to meet up with some of our friends and head over. This is what the day had in store for us:



This was our favorite... a giant cooler? I love it.

 

A tent on an air mattress? Are you kidding me? Unfortunately,
when this guy set sail, he lost everything but the mattress.

 

These guys were fantastic, not only because of their
costumes but because they were giving away otter pops to
the kids, therefore Owen's favorite by far.

  

So patriotic!

   

YAY for the Mulcocks who are always up for things
like Candola!

  



I'll be honest, when we first decided to go to this Red Bull function, we were kind of hoping for more boats to fail, or more people to fall off their boats, etc. There were only two out of 20 that weren't successes. We weren't as disappointed as we thought we'd be though. We actually kind of loved watching all of these creative people figure out how to float boats.



Owen loved playing by the water and watching the all the boats.



He also made a new friend. Cute right?





And look how well our favorite one did? Totally floated...
Good work guys!

I don't know about you guys but I think any time Red Bull puts on a function, if it's anything like the last two... we'll be there.

Birthday Continued...

If anyone knows me, they know that I love love birthdays. I think it's so fantastic to have one day that is dedicated to one paticular person so I try and extend them as long as  possible. It was Owen's birthday on Tuesday so we decided not only to celebrate it then but to also celebrate on Saturday so we could have an excuse to party it up with some good friends and extend his birthday just a little bit longer.
My great idea for the party was to do a beach bbq. We have been to this certain beach maybe twice that has a giant parking lot, a bunch of grills, a couple of playgrounds and some picnic tables, so we decided to invite some friends to meet us down there. We though we could hang at the beach, swim, grill and party all night long. Well, little did we know that the majority of the parking lot was under construction so there would be nowhere for our friends to park, we also didn't realize that everyone else would have the same idea that we had (beach bbq on a Saturday afternoon).  When we showed up we found that there were no grills or picnic tables available for us either.  Hmmmm... not such a good idea after all (maybe I should have researched what we were going to do before we actually went to do it), so we had to think of a plan B. Luckily we have some amazing friends who offered  up their house for us to use. They have a pool and a grill in their back yard, plus when we got there they pulled out a bounce house for the kids (house made for a party). Yay for good friends with way nicer yards than we have! So we dialed up the rest of the party  goers and informed them of the new plan. Luckily all of our friends are laid back enough that they weren't too upset about the change in plans. Most of them were actually pleasantly surprised because they had noticed that the beach scene we were about to party at wasn't as family friendly as we would have hoped (just a few scandalously dressed women and some sketchy happenings going on). 
Once we finally made it to our destination, we got the party started:

This pretty much sums up how I felt about the night. Happy.

Owen thought so too.

Started off with a little grub. Nothing better sometimes than a juicy burger. Yummm

Lots of swimming

Beach themed cupcakes. Didn't fit the scene as well as I would have hoped
but still with funfetti cupcakes, you can't go wrong.

Opened some gifts from generous friends.

Owen loved them. Look at the pure joy in this little guy's face.

Little family photo op. Owen saying cheese and of course closing his eyes.

I'd like to give a shout out to our good friend Jeff (the one doing the photo bomb)
for being our photographer for most of the night. Thanks Jeff!

Such a fantastic night with good friends, it makes me wonder if I could use Owen's birthday as an excuse to party the whole month of April rather than just two days out of his birthday week...

Little man is growing up...

I am loving this age so so much, but  it also makes me sad that Owen isn't going to be my baby anymore. Really... I am excited to have another little addition to our family but at the same time, I am trying to spend every second I can cherising these moments alone we have with Owen. Both Tyler and I feel like he is our best little friend and we can hardly imagine someone else joining our little group.
Anyway, Owen is definitely growing up. It was his second birthday today. We started the day with opening gifts and a birthday breakfast:

The loot

Playing with his new trains



Enjoying his favorite gift... he's wanted a bike forever.

 Then we decided to spend some quality time at the beach:

Dinner was spaghetti... noodles are still his favorite:

Can you tell he's enjoying them?

And had a few friends for cupcakes and ice cream...

I just want to jot down a few things that our little guy has been up to lately, you know for family that isn't around and for journaling purposes. Sorry to others of you who read this that may get bored with me talking incessantly about how I think everything he does is cute. I'm his mom, what can I say?
1. He is talking like crazy. I love love love having conversations with him. It's pretty much nonstop from the time he wakes up (maybe he got this from me?). We'll get home from a day at the park or pool or wherever and he'll run in the house and give Tyler all the details (in his own words). I love listening to him explain his day to his dad. So cute.
2. His favorite movie right now is Bolt. He asks for it constantly and he narrates what is happening in the movie.
3. He loves his puppy. Carries him around with him almost everywhere. He likes to feed him, put him to bed, make him go on the swing, the slide, whatever he happens to be doing.
4. At night he likes to have the following things in bed with him: Puppy, birdie, two trucks, juice and as many blankets  as we can gather.
5. He loves these books: Little Blue Truck, Curious George Visits  the Zoo, The Grinch and The Little Engine that Could.
6. He loves singing, dancing and playing any instrument he finds around the house.
7. He loves to tease. For example, we went to the store the other day and as I was getting out of the front seat he said "bye mom", I said, "no way, you're coming with me" and he starts laughing then he says "bye me", so I said "bye Owen" and he says "no" in this super cute voice and starts laughing hysterically. I love that he already has such a great sense of humor.
8. He loves to count but he only knows the numbers one and two so he'll just say those two numbers over and over when he's counting.
9. He loves to color and draw. He draws three things, Daddy, Elmo and Santa
10. He loves talking on the phone. No matter who I'm talking to he wants a turn to say hi and he tells whoever is on the phone everything about what we've been doing all day.
11. He loves buses, trains, trucks, cars, and anything else that moves.
12. He loves to play basketball or as he refers to it "ball balt"
13. When Owen and I are leaving the house, he insists on two things; giving Tyler a hug and a kiss and me and Tyler giving each other two hugs and kisses.
14. He still has a deep love of pushing things; the stroller, the shopping cart at the grocery store and pretty much anything else he sees with wheels.
15. He knows two colors, red and green. He also knows three shapes, circle, star and hearts. Also, every time he sees a star he breaks into the song "twinkle twinkle little star" and does the actions. So cute.
16. Whenever he sees a plane in the sky he says "Daddy, plane, sky" (does this mean Tyler travels too much?)
17. He is super friendly. No matter where we are, he will try and make friends with whoever is around whether it's adults or children.
18. He has been learning to swim and is doing so well. We put his little arm floaties on and he'll jump right in the pool and swim around (with me right by his side of course)
19. His favorite foods right now are eggs, cheerios with honey, pizza, noodles, cheese, pineapple and treats (any kind).
20. He has started going pee in the potty. Number two still freaks him out but he's great with number one. YAY! Hopefully soon,he'll be excited about doing both?

These are just some of the many things we adore about Owen right now. We are so grateful he is in our family! He is our best little buddy! Happy birthday little man!