It's coming....

Winter, that is. As I drive up over the hill coming home, I can see the VT mountains off in the distance, capped with SNOW! So, yesterday the weather was surprisingly beautiful. Owen's swimming lessons ended about a week ago, and I signed him up for a different kind of class, because he can swim on his own now, but isn't old enough to be in the class he's ready to be in. So for this session of classes, I signed Owen up for Play & Splash. He had his first class yesterday and it took up most of the morning, so Owen was only able to play for a little while outside after we got home from his class, and voting.... before he had to take a much needed nap. His Play & Splash class, by the way, was great! All of the kids (9 including Owen..... 8 boys and 1 girl hahaha) are between 2-3 years. The first hour of the class is spent having free play in the gym, and circle time with songs. Then, for the half an hour left, we swim. Owen LOVED it and kept saying "Bye bye playing with the kids, bye bye swimming with the kids" the ENTIRE ride home.

So that class is a great thing to have, especially as it starts to get colder outside. It's nice to have indoor activities to take him to, because as all you moms with boys know, boys have A TON of energy! I'll continue doing a lot of weekday swimming with Owen too to keep him busy and active. But I'll be honest, there are some days when I don't feel like leaving the house because it's either too cold outside, or I just have a ton of stuff to get done around the house. That's why I came up with a plan.... I'm going to bring in a bunch of Owen's outdoor toys, including;









With the water table, I'm planning on filling it with raw rice and beans so that Owen can drive his trucks through it and use sifting tools/spoons etc. He loves that water table. Even now that it has water below a thin layer of ice. So, it seemed too bad that he would have to go all winter without using it. Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes!

Tagged by Britta

1) Where did you meet? Saratoga Springs
2) How long did you date before you got married? We dated for about 9 months until he proposed, and then we were engaged for 8 months before we got married. He spent 6.5 of those 8 months out to sea :(
3) How long have you been married? 4 years this past August
4) What is your favorite feature of his? I don't know if it's a feature, but I love his hugs. I feel completely ok when he hugs me.
5) What is your favorite quality of his? He's really outgoing and friendly
6) Does he have a nickname for you? "my princess" or "my starr"
7) What is his favorite food? mexican
8) What is his favorite sport? it's a tie between baseball/football
9) When and where was your first kiss? on our first date, in the hot tub ;-) he thought I hated him because I totally wasn't into it because I thought he just wanted to get some hahaha! We laugh about that one all the time.
10) What is your favorite thing to do as a couple? we LOVE snowboarding together! Can't wait to get season passes this year!
11) Do you have any children? Yes, Owen Alexander <3
12) Does he have a hidden talent? ummm he can stick out his tongue really far haha
13) How old is he? 25
14) Who said "I love you" first? He did
15) What is his favorite type of music? some good alternative rock
16) What do you admire the most about him? He would do anything for Owen and I
17) Do you think he will read this? Probably not! He doesn't add much to blogger.... okay, actually he doesn't add anything. He might in the future though.... he wanted to start up a blogger-blog for reviewing albums.

> > > I tag: Brooke, Ashleigh, Allison

Owen Live

change of season, change of heart

People always dread fall because of what's in store for after. Personally, fall has always been my favorite season. I love decorating for fall and just enjoying the perfect sweater weather. Maybe I've never dreaded fall because it leads to winter and my favorite Holiday is Christmas... right in the thick of the blizzards usually.

Living right on the NY/VT boarder is so beautiful, too. We're hoping to take a little fall drive this coming weekend. We can literally see the VT mountains from our driveway, so we'll know when it's peak foliage. Fall also brings us football. I've never been a big fan of football, but I have to admit that Brian is getting me into it. I'll sit and watch a game with him (usually because it includes pizza, wings and other greasy snacks that I don't have very often!) This year, Brian is especially happy because he gets honestly, every single sports channel known to man. It's kind of ridiculous actually. I can't even keep track of what game we're watching because he flips around so much. I was completely happy with have cable, but Brian called the Direct TV guys out here to install a dish.... just so we could get el supremo sports package. What did I get myself into! :)

Another part of Fall, is winterizing. Brian sealed the driveway over the weekend, so now it looks pretty and new. It really makes such a big difference to have a nice dark black driveway. You don't realize the damage salt does to asphalt until someone seals their driveway and it looks so black compared to the road and other driveways in the neighborhood. I had been putting off bringing my plants inside because some of them grew SO big over the summer and I had no idea what pots I was going to put them in, and where in my house they would spend the winter. With freeze warnings (in the 20's in some places) I was forced to bring them inside finally on Monday.

So we've covered the change of season section. Now for "change of heart". As of right now, Brian and I have decided we just want one child. Brian always want just one, but I was the one who wanted more.... we had originally decided on two. And that was a compromise. Lately though, we've really enjoyed what our family has become and all of the great things that we get to do with Owen. We feel good with our family dynamics and look forward to getting to go on vacations with Owen and just enjoy him.

Loving our big boy

Owen has grown up so much! He's becoming more of a boy, rather than the baby we've known. Sometimes I really feel like I have a 5 or 6 year old! He's also becoming very even tempered. He rarely throws temper tantrums anymore (He went through the "terrible twos" stage WAY early... like when he was a little over a year he started that temper tantrum phase.) Now, we pretty much only see mini-tantrums when he's tired or hungry. It's so fun being able to take him to do fun things now too. Over the weekend, we took Owen to this amusement park that I have a lot of memories of. The Great Escape (Now, also known as Six Flags apparently) in Lake George, NY. It's only about 25 minutes from our house. Which is GREAT! We're thinking of buying season passes now, so that we can use them for the rest of this year, Fright Fest, and for the 2009 season. Owen had such a good time, and didn't want to leave.

It's just so great to finally be able to make some wonderful memories with him. I'm currently planning a December 2009 Disney Cruise! I'm so excited about it because Brian and I have been wanting to go on a cruise together, and the thought of getting to take Owen and do fun things with him is pretty cool too. We were going to go to Vancouver, BC, for the winter Olympics. But, we decided that Owen will still be a little young to grasp the winter events that he's watching, and it might be better to go to the Olympics when he's a little older. Plus, we decided it's more tempting to go on a warm vacation, rather than a cold one.

Officially fall?

Wow.... is this falls' entrance? A couple weeks ago there was a frost advisory, so I covered all of my tropical plants, and annuals with sheets so that they didn't have an early demise. Well, there wasn't a frost advisory last night. It actually seemed like a typical late summer night. There was a gentle breeze and it was probably about 65 degrees outside, so we kept out windows open at night. (Nothing better than hearing the crickets at night. I always take advantage of a comfortable, reasonably chilly night where we can turn off our a/c and enjoy the breeze) But anyway, this morning we woke up and it was freezing! 62 degrees in our house, and 42 degrees outside! Brrrrr!! We usually keep our thermostat between 68 and 72. Immediately I was like poor Owen! Because he sleeps alone in his bed and doesn't have anyone to snuggle with to keep warm. So we did the unthinkable.... we turned on the heat! hahaha! I can't believe it. It's September 17th and we have the heat on! I hope it will warm up a little bit so that Owen and I can go pick apples today.

From Spring to Fall?

Yes, it's been a while since I have updated... and it's already almost fall! I can't believe how quickly time goes by. The summers have always seemed to go by fast. I remember as a child, feeling like the summer months were the shortest out of the year, when in fact, the sunlight hours were the longest. I guess those sayings are true: "Time flies when you're having fun" "Busy hours are short hours". Which reminds me, that's probably why my summer went by so fast. We have been incredibly busy lately with tons of house projects. I can't wait until we get to see the completed result. The final product. Well, I don't know if there will really be a final product anytime soon because we are planning on living here for about 20 years (Until our kids are out of high school) and you know how we are with our house projects- we are constantly doing something. So I'm sure we will find a million things to do with the house after our projects are completed.

In other news, I'm sure a lot of you have been asking about #2. We haven't started trying yet. I still have my IUD (it's great being able to just plan not to try until a certain date. Because we already had our surprise baby and we wanted to have a little bit of a plan with this one) I knew that I wanted my kids to be 3 years apart so the time is approaching soon! It's still going to be a couple more months until I get my IUD removed. It's really exciting though, planning for another one. I have to keep reminding myself of what it's like to have a baby in the house, because Owen is a toddler now... has been for over a year now. I've been sorting through Owen's baby clothes, and setting up the nursery. (It used to be an office, and I moved the office to another room) It feels like I'm already pregnant. I call it being psychologically pregnant because I'm not physically, but emotionally I'm getting prepared for it. I loved being pregnant so much and I enjoyed every minute of it. I'm just really getting excited for experiencing it all over again with my next.

I'm not sure who even reads this thing because most of you keep up to date with my blogs on myspace. But Holly commented on how I should update, and I realized that it had been a wicked long time ago. Oh and don't take it personally if you're not on my "friends and family" list to the right. It's so time consuming, putting links & labels on here, that I haven't gotten around to it.