Owen Said

At bedtime last night Owen said, "Mommy and Daddy got married." I said, "Yes, do you want to get married someday?"  He said, "OwenChase scared to get married."  I just smiled and giggled on the inside and told him that he didn't have to get married for a long long time and he would live with Mommy and Daddy for a long time.  He smiled and seemed ok with that. 

Chase and Owen refer to the themselves as "OwenChase".  It's not "Owen and Chase", it's just "OwenChase". 

A Knight

Owen played dress up a few days ago.  Isn't he cute? I think he looks like a drawing of an old knight.

Super Super Cute

Chase says to me this morning, "Am I super super cute?" with a very super super cute look on his face.  Would I say anything but, "yes!"?

A Visor

This piece of paper was left stuck on the wall from Jeff's birthday banner. He pulled it off the other day and taped it on Chase and it became a visor. 

Mother's Day 2012

Last weekend I had a lovely Mother's Day with my family.  After church we went to brunch with Jim and Sandy and had a nice time.  In following with tradition, I planted my garden and flower pots.  The weather was gorgeous so we were outside most of the day-it felt so good.  Jeff made a wonderful fish dinner!  I had to make my weekly grocery run and when I got home the door was locked.  I thought it was strange until the door opened and two little loveys ran to me with their creations just for me!  They made me the most wonderful Mother's Day cards!  I could tell they had worked a very long time on them because of the straight lines and lots and lots of shapes! Thank you Chase, Owen and Jeff for making my day so special!

 The night before this we went to a wedding of a friend of mine from work.  It was nice to get out-just the two of us.  Jeff drove me by his old house in Bloomington on our way to the reception and I got to hear about his childhood memories. 

Caterpillars

This year we have found so many caterpillars in our yard!  The boys love them to pieces.  They love to have them crawl on their hands and arms and giggle as they tickle.  They wanted to put them in their bug barns but I felt really bad about doing this. I want them to turn into butterflies and not die!  The boys won out.  They each have 2 caterpillars and last night we checked on them.  They were gone, and guess what?!  There were cocoons in their place!!! We were amazed.  I truly didn't think they would be able to survive.  Just last night we found 3 more caterpillars in the dogwoods. Those got to stay. 

Owen holds out his fuzzy friend.

Chasey holds out his caterpillar for me to see.

The boys and their bug barns with just a caterpillar in it.  We needed to add some leaves.  Thanks Aunty Kate and Uncle Lane for the bug barns!

Putting foliage in the barns.

Chase runs to the garden to look for more bugs.

Owen is off!

They each got to add one of these beauties from our arbor.  Aren't they lovely?

I love to watch nature unfold its beauty and this bud is evidence of that beauty.

Homecoming

Jeff's parents returned from FL late in April and believe it or not, I have not taken any pictures of them with the boys lately.  Luckily we celebrated Papa Jim's birthday on Tuesday with some dessert so I got a few good shots!  The boys were so happy to have Nana and Papa home.  We had been talking about it for weeks, so much in fact, that each day they thought Nana and Papa were coming home.  It's been wonderful to have them back in our lives to play, celebrate events and just "be".  When I told the boys it was Papa's birthday the first thing out of their mouths was, "Yeah cake!"  They know what birthdays include and were happy to be having yummy cake.

Chase crawled right up and wanted to snuggle in with Papa

I like this full body shot of Chase because it shows how little he still is!

Daddy is trying to clean Owen up while Nana tries to snuggle.

Talking about something important.

Nana nad Owen

Birthday boy and his boys.

Family.  Chase kept pulling Owen closer and closer to him!

The most exciting part of a birthday is the cake.  Chase and Owen helped me deliver it to Papa, singing the whole way.  They love to sing Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday Papa, we're glad you are home!  Chase and Owen sure are too!

A Visit

My parents came up the weekend of Jeff's birthday and I'm just getting around to writing about it.  Chase and Owen had been talking about them for weeks and were so excited to see Nana and Papa Bobette. :) They brought C & O these adorable Iowa State sweatshirts.  The boys already have a love for ISU so they were thrilled.

 Owen and my mom.  We had a nice dinner for Jeff and then he and I went to a movie. 

 Chase shows Papa something.

 Papa and Chase

 Papa is trying to put on Chase's pants.  Not going so well, huh Dad?

This was the scene on Sunday when Jeff an I came home from church.  They had buried my Dad under all those toys.  You can kind of see his legs sticking out.  We love you Nana and Papa!

Sunscreen

As I continue to navigate the world of "safe" products for our bodies I came across this website.  I really like this site and look to it often for information.  As we begin to buy sunscreens for summer I'd recommend you look at the link below to find a safe product for your little ones and yourself.  Just because the products at Target etc. say "baby" on them does not mean they are safe at all.  The list of toxic chemicals in them are just as bad as the regular sunscreens.

http://safemama.com/cheatsheets/sunscreen/

One of my favorite sunscreens is Blue Lizard.  It has a very low rating by the EWG and works great. I've used it the past couple summers and found it at most CVS stores.

Hard Work

The boys worked so hard on the Happy Birthday Banner for Daddy.  We were home sick with pneumonia and it was a perfect time to create.  I was proud of their efforts and creativity.

Owen loves glue.  He doesn't necessarily like to glue things on to paper, just likes to glue.  This time he did glue pictures on the banner though.

Owen's picture collage.

Chase drew this picture of Daddy.  He wanted some help with the eyes, nose and buttons.  He also glued on the night cut outs.  What a great job!

I found some monkey, tree and banana stickers and Chase worked very hard, all by himelf, to peel the backing off.

Proud Chase and his work.

Proud boys. Owen, on the left, wanted to make "brown" for Daddy. So he took all the colors, mixed them together and made brown on the left under Happy.  He also drew a balloon around the "B", and made the "I".  Chase made the "T H". 

Daddy's Birthday

We had fun celebrating Jeff's birthday on Saturday.  The boys were especially excited and thought each day this past week was his birthday.  I bought a little gift on Saturday and showed it to Owen, asking him to not tell Daddy.  Sure enough the minute I walked away he told him.  Jeff couldn't understand him, but later in the week at bedtime Owen told him again.  "We got you golf balls."  So funny.  Chase and Owen were excited to have a "big cake", which is what they wanted and thought of when they heard it was Daddy's birthday.  When we were home sick on Thursday they spent a lot of time working on the birthday banner for him.

And Again!

Pneumonia, take 3.  Chase has it again.  Man it's been a long 15 hours.  I was up 5 times in the night with him so neither of us slept.  Been at the Dr./Pharmacy for the last 2 hours with one super energetic boy and one coughing/crying boy.  I'm about ready for the funny farm.

Pneumonia Take Two

Saturday Owen started coughing and I knew, from the sound of it, that he had pneumonia too.  Sunday we headed to the Dr. and got the diagnosis.  He's doing better now and did so great with the nebulizer!