Owen Turns Five!

My baby boy turned five! His age seems to sneak up on me more than the other two kiddos. That may be the plight of the middle child, or I just want him to stay my baby boy forever...

Owen knew exactly what he wanted to do for his birthday. He had his meals all picked out: homemade donuts for breakfast, PB&J for lunch, and pizza for dinner. He woke up to red balloons on his door and all new baseball gear for tee ball. 

He was adamant about having his party at Chuck E Cheese's, and he didn't want cake. He wanted donuts. It really was one of the easiest parties we've had. 

I didn't get any pictures of Owen's birthday time with Mimi and Papi, but he chose to spend the night in a hotel with them. They watched the Lego movie, swam, and ate McDonald's. Owen had his bag packed to go with them three days in advance. I love the memories that they're making together!

I feel pretty blessed I get to to be Owen's mom too. He's focused, hard working, determined, sweet, compassionate and has an infectious giggle. I love how he takes care of his sister (most of the time), and makes sure to tell me he loves me multiple times a day. He's one special five year old!

Happy Valentine's Day

Amy and I felt very accomplished as we let all our kiddos help make Valentine's cookies.  The kids mostly wanted to eat the dough and icing, but they did manage to get several decorated in the process!

Just Because

We've been home more lately, and so the kiddos only have each other to play with. It's been fun watching them become buddies and all play together. 

Harp sure loves here Dad! These two babies-of-the-family are certainly peas in a pod!

And you can definitely tell that Harp has older brothers... Thankfully whether she's wearing a football jersey over her pink shirt, talking about Ninjago or Skylanders, or driving around the yard on a tractor, she still maintains her girliness too. 

Potty Training

 Harper has been saying that she would be potty trained when she was three. She was pretty set on that age. It sounded like a good time for me too, but as we got another big snow that shut the entire town of Bville down (again), I decided we should put to good use the time being stuck in the house... Thankfully, she complied and potty training was nearly as traumatic as I'd anticipated!

I let her pick out several kinds of juices, borrowed a pink potty from friend, and we watched a lot of Doc McStuffins. She did fantastic. We may have had 2 accidents early on, but she got the hang of it pretty quickly. Going #2 seemed to be scary and that took a little longer, but overall the process was smooth.

I'd promised her a ballerina outfit once she was potty trained. It hung in her closet for about 3 months before we took the plunge. She was very excited to finally get to wear it, but once the camera came out she busted out some very intense/Black Swan type moves. She never ceases to surprise me. 

Now we have no children in diapers!!! HALLELUJAH!!!