Owen's 2nd birthday party

Watch out, dinosaurs are everywhere!

For Owen's birthday party, we decided to go with a dinosaur theme given Owen's abject devotion to dinosaurs. I've never hosted 8 two and three year olds before, so I was a bit nervous about entertaining them all for a few hours while hopping them up on birthday cupcakes.

We kept them entertained with some games. First up was a dinosaur bean bag toss I made from a free box I found at Costco. I painted the dinosaur on and sewed up some bean bags for some fun (and free!) birthday entertainment.

Then I took some inspiration from the internet and made a dino punch game on a big box I cut open. The kids punch through the tissue paper and there is a prize in back.

I didn't have time to finish completely, so Patrick basically handed the treats to the kids once they punched through. But if you're wanting to make one of your own, I did see a good idea about taping brown lunch bags (or very light boxes) to the back to hold the prize.

And I made a dinosaur volcano (paper mache style) that Patrick made explode with lava!  If you're in the market to make one of these, there's a great tutorial here.  It was pretty simple and Owen even got in on helping to make it.

We had some snacks and of course cupcakes!

 

Then Owen enjoyed opening his presents and saying thank you to all of his friends (that's the sign he's doing in this picture).

We sent each of Owen's friends home with a toy dinosaur and a mini dino sticker book.  I made the tags to coordinate with the invite and just folded it in half and stapled it over a ziplock bag.

Owen really had a good time, and spent the entire two hours jumping up and down in joy and running around with his friends. It made all the hard work worth it!

Toddler Time: 2 years

I can not believe I am writing this post. It seems impossible to me that Owen is 2 years old.  I also have a hard time remembering him being any different than he is now, but I look back at his baby photos and see proof of how much he has changed.

So, for my own records... His two year check up stats and some other things to remember about my two year old Owen.

Height: 36.5" (94th percentile)

Weight: 28lbs (56th percentile)  - finally! Above 30 percent

Head size: 49.5cm (72nd percentile)

Owen is extremely physical and curious. He loves to climb, explore and play.  He went through a phase of hitting other people (and especially kids) which seems to be ending (thank goodness).  We're still working on being kind to Gatsby and giving gentle hugs to our friends. Oh and sharing. Always working on sharing...

Owen still uses a lot of signs, and not very many verbal words. He uses a lot of gestures to get his point across and it's becoming clear that understands what the adults are saying. Just this month, he's started stringing together words to form simple sentences. He loves to tell me a whole story about how it is cold outside (point out the window and then he clenches his hands and says 'brrr') and he needs a coat, shoes and hat (all with signs).  His current favorite thing to 'say' is "I no big boy, I baby".   It's about half words and half signs. We're a bit obsessed with babies around here. 

He is constantly classifying everything into 'mamas, daddas and babies'.  Just the other day he added another category: Doctor. As in 'doctor dinosaur, mamma goat, baby dog'.  I guess we've had a lot of doctor visits lately. 

Owen has become very opinionated about how things are done - like where he sits for meal times and which fork he gets.  He loves to place me somewhere, tell me to stay there and then locate himself elsewhere for playing. 

So much personality and opinion in one little body.  He seems to have a hard time with transitions. Leaving the house, pausing play time for a dirty diaper or a nap, or sitting down for dinner are difficult for him. Temper tantrums (thankfully only at home and usualy over meal times or wanting to watch TV) are an art form.

But on the flip side, he'll generally sit for his two minute time outs very patiently.  Then when you ask, he'll tell you what he did wrong, say 'no-no' while shaking his finger, say 'sorry' and give you a hug and kiss. He does this routine well, and fairly often.

He's still a great sleeper, and knows his bedtime routine. When it's time to get into bed, he walks over to his crib and raises his arms.  We lay him down and he goes right to sleep. At night he sleeps 11.5-12 hours and he still takes a 2.5-3 hour nap each afternoon.  I sure hope that never changes.

I sure love my big boy/baby Owen. He makes me laugh and love him more every single day.

Tampa

For our 9th anniversary (February 21st) and also for Owen's 2nd birthday (February 20th), Patrick surprised me with a trip to Florida. We had a wonderful long weekend in Tampa. While we were there we spent an afternoon walking around Lettuce Leaf park wetlands.

We spent the warmest day at the beach with Owen, who loves the water and the sand. He also loved walking around the marina and seeing all the boats.

 

We visited the Florida Aquarium and saw lots of fish.

But probably our favorite adventure was the Florida Zoo (thanks to the Laytons for some free tickets).  We went to the petting zoo where a goat tried to eat my sweater (Owen still talks about this and pretends to be a goat eating my clothes).

We saw lots and lots of animals that thrilled Owen to no end.

And Owen rode the carousel four times.

For me, the most memorable part was Owen feeding the giraffe.  Pretty cool.

It was a great surprise vacation where we got to wear shorts, spend time together and visit the beach. I think it was our first trip together as a family just for vacation purposes (not for visiting family). It was also the very last possible time Owen can fly for free :)

Happy Anniversary to us!

House Tour- second floor

I finally got the new camera charger, and finished a lot of other crazy things on our to do list, so it's time to update the blog.


Our second floor is less exciting than the first floor, because it's all bedrooms. But it was the most extensively redesigned area of the house. There wasn't a single interior wall left standing during demo. We decided in the end to go with the slightly more expensive option of bumping out the rear of the house to be flush with the first floor (giving us more room for the master bedroom). And I'm glad we did.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the original floor plan.

Then for the final floorplan. This is actually plan D. We went through some pretty extensive changes to get to the final design.

Now for the stairs.

I love these stairs. Besides repainting the white on the spindles (is that what they are called?) they are in the original condition as when we bought the house. The detail on them is so pretty.

There are two funny little things about these stairs that make it feel like home to me. The first is that there are two really squeaky steps. It's weird, but for some reason the squeaky steps just seem right. And the second funny thing is that there's a natural pattern in the top stair that looks like the shape of Alaska. No kidding. I noticed it one day after we moved in, and now it makes me smile every time I go upstairs.


The landing near the top of the stairs has an original stained glass window. A lot of the houses in this area seem to have the sort of art deco style window. I think it's pretty awesome. This also got a fresh coat of white paint, but is otherwise in original condition.

When you get upstairs, off to the left is our family bathroom. It has our only bathtub and the laundry area. One of my and Patrick's wish list items was a laundry area on the same floor as the bedrooms. It just makes sense. It's a pretty big bathroom that should be great for our kids as they get older.

Keeping it real with the messy laundry area... On the future project list is putting in some cabinets or shelving above the washer and dryer.

Then we have the three bedrooms on this floor. First is the future baby's room. We're leaving it as a guest room for now for our visitors this summer. Eventually we'll move the Queen mattress up to the third floor for a real guest area. I'm sure I'll be posting more about this room as I decorate it for baby girl's arrival.

The middle bedroom is Owen's. (Remember, I told you these pictures aren't that impressive)

There's sort of a hallway back into our bedroom. The master bath is on the right hand side and 'Patrick's closet' is on the left. I love the original floors in this area. The planks are very narrow and I love how they did horizontal boards around the borders of each room. Unfortunately, we had to put in some new flooring for two of the bedrooms, but I'm glad we got to keep some of it. Actually, the previous owner told us that the floor on the first floor is reclaimed from when they redid the Somerville Highschool gym floor. I guess her dad was a flooring guy and worked on that job and they said he could have the old wood... Pretty awesome history.

Here are some pictures of the master bath. The finishings on the bathrooms probably stressed me out the most (after the kitchen of course). I picked out every single tile, granite color, cabinet style/color and light fixture for the house. The plan for the mirrors actually got messed up during installation. We had purchased two mirrors like the ones in the family bath to be centered under each light fixture. But the electrician (for some unknown reason) put outlets on the back wall which made the space too narrow for individual mirrors. So we had to go with this 'builder's mirror'. On our future project list will definitely be framing this out with wood or something.

And of course my jewelery display/storage frames found a new home. I love these frames because it keeps my jewelry all untangled and helps me wear what I have (bonus: I haven't bought jewelry in a long time because I realize how much I already have!)

The double shower with the glass tile detail. It was an interesting experience to pick out tile within our budget and figure out the styles and colors and sizes to make everything work together.

A closeup on the glass tile accent. I was pretty proud to have come up with this idea to do the accent trim around the shower wall.

And now for the main bedroom - lots and lots of windows!

Clearly we haven't done any decorating in our room. We did get ourselves a big king bed when the box frame for the queen wouldn't fit up the stairs. And the bonus is that it was the best thing ever for my back and hips (especially while I'm pregnant!)

It's hard to get a shot of my giant walk in closet - but here it is in all it's messy glory. It's on the bottom of a long list of things on the project list. Eventually, I'd like to have some built-ins for better storage. For now we have two dressers in here and a whole row of hanging clothes. And there's still a ton of room! Huge closet!

That's the grand tour of the second floor.