May

May started with a late birthday celebration for my mom. We ate on the deck and it was delicious and gorgeous. I had been deathly ill the day before so I was still recovering, but I ate a lot and kind of got sick again. Yucka.

Donuts for dessert!

Owen loved playing with Grandma’s pots of dirt and he made a huge mess, but he was pretty cute doing it.

Josh is Owen’s little buddy every Monday when I go into the office. They had matching superman shirts and it was the cutest thing ever. Owen was more focused on doing “10 Little Soldiers”.

We got a hard cast put on his foot a week after he broke it and it was much better. It took him a few days to adjust to walking on it, but he was getting around just fine with it. We got the cast off after only 2 weeks and it wasn’t soon enough! Anyone in a cast is annoying, but an 18 month old was pretty tough. He was a little wobbly with it off, but was walking around just fine!

We went to baby animal days in Kaysville and Owen liked watching the bunnies but wasn’t interested in touching them and would get a little jumpy when they would hop around by him.

He has always loved horses and dogs. He says “hissies” and “puppies” all.the.time. He also has a little stranger anxiety, so I didn’t know how he would do riding a horse without one of us right by him. He totally understood that he was going to see the horse, so he didn’t even look back and went with the lady and got right on the horse! We were so surprised but so happy to see him be totally fine with it! The best part was when he leaned forward and kept petting the horses neck! I just about died from cuteness.

Looking great in our Sunday outfits after church. He wasn’t thrilled with a picture, but still looks darling.

As part of our contract, we had to fix a small leak under the kitchen sink for the buyers, so Dan took care of it. At first he thought he might have to call in a plumber, but he figured it out and got it all taken care of! He is quite the handyman and Owen wanted to get in on the action. He was right next to Dan the whole time!

We got to see one of our favorite people live in Salt Lake! Dave Ramsey! This guy is awesome and we were stoked to go see him speak. It was really good and inspirational and got us excited to be on the right track for our future and our children with money. I love that he also talks a lot about God and the Bible.

We had street tacos before the show and ran to Blue Lemon for dessert during intermission!

This was one of the last (maybe the last?) times Dan mowed our lawn at our West Point house. Owen loves mowers and had to help dad push it around. Cutest ever.

This is our neighbor’s cute dog Sallah. He is a great dog and Owen just adores him. I’m glad I got a pic before we moved!

And these are our cutest little neighbors, Mia and Lou. They loved Owen so much and he just loved to go outside and play with them on the tramp or swing or wherever. He would yell “Mia!” as soon as he walked outside. Their older kids babysat Owen a lot and they were just the best neighbors ever! We already miss them so much!

We got one decent picture of Owen with Rebecca’s kids on his last day at their house. He had no idea it was his last time playing there, but I got pretty emotional because he just loves them. He says their names over and over all the time. I know he will miss them and seeing these cute kids play with Owen makes me want to have more kids! Staying with the Laws on Mondays was such a great place to leave Owen and he never cried or got upset when I left. I knew he was happy and having fun and I hope I can find some great people like this again!

We moved out of our home on the 31st and it was a crazy and sad day. Moving sucks. Really really bad. I never want to do it again. For so many reasons it is hard. We were very organized and everything was packed and ready, but we had some major hassles with the U haul (canceled reservation and no trucks available?!) which got us pretty ticked and stressed, but it worked out. Luckily we have amazing families who came to help us move all our stuff. We had so much stuff. We had even cleaned and de-cluttered before listing our home but with a big house full of furniture, work out equipment, washer, dryer, freezer, etc etc etc, it was nuts!

They put it all on the grass then amazingly packed it into the back of the truck. I couldn’t believe it all fit and it just barely did. We loaded up the rest of our cars and headed to my mom’s house to unload. My sister in law took Owen which helped a ton, and I was the last one out of the house. I cried a few tears after walking through my empty home. We have so many wonderful memories there and did so much to make it our home. We put a lot of hard work there, and we brought Owen home there! We just love everything about it, except for the location! So it was very hard to drive away, especially not knowing yet where we would end up.

Everyone worked SO hard to get things packed into my mom’s garage and basement. Andrew was the master tetris man and stacked boxes from floor to ceiling in the basement! The garage looks like an episode of Hoarders, but luckily it’s temporary. We are so grateful that my mom is letting us take over her home while we find a new house! We are so excited to be closer to family, but will definitely miss our old home.

St. George girls trip (plus Owen)

My mom and sister and I went to St. George a few weekends ago for a quick trip. We got a hotel room with two rooms so it made it a lot easier to bring Owen along! The drive was pretty long for such a quick trip, and the weather was terrible, but we still had lots of fun! Owen wouldn’t sleep in the crib so he ended up in bed with me. I kind of loved cuddling with him all night (but we won’t be doing that at home anytime soon!)

It was probably around 60 degrees and rainy on Saturday so we were all kind of ticked about that. But we found a park and when it wasn’t raining, we played with Owen and he loved it.

Owen had lots of fun with Grandma and Auntie Steph and he really loves them a lot!

We also went to the children’s museum which was pretty great. I highly recommend it if you go to St. George and the weather isn’t great or just if you have time. Owe is pretty young, but he still loved it and there were a jillion kids there because of the rain.

There were several different rooms and lots to do. He was in love with the shopping cart and just wanted to push it around everywhere.

Owen is absolutely in love with dogs and says “puppies” about 1 million times per day. He almost died of happiness when he saw this life-sized Dalmatian. He was frantically trying to pick it up and carry it but it was bigger than he was so he kept falling. But he was just saying puppies over and over. It was great.

He also loved the computer. I think he must watch me type a lot because he knew exactly what to do and was moving his little fingers super fast on the keyboard and kept sliding the mouse around, just like I do! It was adorable.

Like I said, he slept with me and we both slept really well. He was taking a nap and I was laying by him and he woke up for a bit and crawled on top of me then fell back to sleep. He is hilarious. When I moved him, he was cuddling in the position above. He is just the cutest.

Not the best picture of me, but one picture I got at Pizza Factory. It was delish, but Owen didn’t feel like sitting in his chair so we wandered around the place!

We had a fun trip together and I just love hanging out with my mama and sissy! And Owen of course!

April

April was fun and exciting as we started having some really warm days and getting a feel for summer around the corner! We started the month by listing our home for sale. We decided to list by owner and see what happened. We felt like we had some resources to help us with questions (Dan’s boss at work was hugely helpful, as well as our lender and our brother in law), and we did a lot of research as well. We did a lot of work to get it done and we posted it on KSL, Zillow, Facebook, etc. We emailed a bunch of realtors and of course, got tons of calls from realtors wanting to list it (I REALLY don’t like 99% of realtors ugh!). After 2 weeks of a little interest, we decided to lower the price because we knew it was a bit high. We dropped the price a bit and had a ton of interest, and ended up getting 2 offers in one day! It was basically the dream situation and we were able to get over asking price! We are now under contract and planning to move May 31! We will move to my mom’s house while we search for our new home. Exciting, but very bittersweet. I adore this house and it is perfect for us. The neighborhood and ward are exceptional and I am terrified I will never find this again. Hopefully Heavenly Father has big plans for us somewhere else and I will work on trusting Him!

We spent a good amount of time outside since that is Owen’s constant goal-to get outside. He is obsessed and constantly asking to go outside (with a lisp). Our adorable back neighbors Mia and Lou love to play with Owen and we painted with water a few times and it was a huge hit. The girls did it for a long time and painted everything in site. Owen enjoyed splashing and sucking on his wet (and dirty) paintbrush .

We went to the park in Hooper and the wood chips were one of Owen’s favorite things. Although he did love the swing and going down the slide face first.

We got a sweet attachment for my bike so we can bring Owen on bike rides. I was beyond excited to get it and Owen loved it! We used to ride our bikes all the time and didn’t at all last year because Owen was too small and we didn’t want a trailer. So this was a great idea and it really works great. I love having Owen right up by me and he is so in love with being outside and looking at everything. It’s a blast.

He makes a lot of messes and when he pulled my placemat with a glass of milk on to the floor, we just laughed. Until we realized that he is allergic to milk and was covered in it! Eek. We rushed him to the bathroom and everything was a-okay. Except our rug, which is now permanently a bit wrinkled.

Owen loves to play the piano and he will sing to me. It’s the cutest thing ever to see him learn how to make his voice move around like he’s singing a song!

We got two injuries on one day. Owen got pinkeye (still not sure how) and a scratched face. The pinkeye wasn’t very bad, and went away in one day with drops. The scratched face was a result of going down the slide on 4 year old Mia’s lap and face-planting into the grass. He didn’t even cry, just ran away from Mia!

We had an Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Hills’ house. Owen didn’t get it but he had fun running around with the kids.

He also loved his sucker and playing in Grandma’s fountain is always the favorite activity for all of the kids under age 5.

Adorable Easter outfit! He wouldn’t hold still for a picture so this was the best I could get!

Dad’s picture is much better than mine but I still love it. Owen looks so mad to be taking another picture!

Another exciting event was a broken foot. I was holding Owen on my hip and slipped going down the stairs for some weird reason. I landed right on his foot and broke it. Worst mom ever. I have never slipped on any stairs before and I feel so terrible. He hasn’t seemed too bothered by it, but it has been an eventful week. He got a real cast on a few days ago and it annoys him, but he is starting to walk in it more and we will hopefully get it off in just 2 more weeks!

We had a BBQ at my mom’s house for her birthday. We also went to St. George the weekend before, but I’ll do another post on that. The weather was great for the BBQ and we enjoyed eating on mom’s awesome deck. The dinner was also amazing!

Birthday donut tower!

Owen had fun playing in Grandma’s dirt and getting filthy. His little cast was a mess too, but I was glad he was happy.

We are really sad to leave our neighborhood for a lot of reasons, but one big reason is the Laws family. Rebecca watches Owen on Mondays and her kids adore him. Josh is the cutest and they had matching superman shirts on last week. Owen loves their kids and it is one of the only times he doesn’t even blink when I leave him. He always has fun and her older girls are so good with him. And Rebecca used cloth diapers with her kids so she does it with Owen too! Bonus! I don’t think we can ever replace the Laws!

Owen got a new hard cast which has been good because the other cast situation was really not working and it wouldn’t stay on his foot. But it is hard for him to walk in this and he keeps pulling off the little shoe. Bathing is also an adventure, but hopefully it looks good in 2 weeks and we can get it off for good!

These curls! We have only trimmed the front part (his bangs?) but we haven’t cut it at all and I don’t know if we ever will! The curls are so awesome thanks to his dad. Hopefully he always had them!