The Owens

Long ago in a far away galaxy...

2010-03-04T15:45:00.004-06:00

Okay, so I've not been in a far away galaxy (unless you count what goes on in my head), BUT it's been a long time since I've updated this silly blog. I guess since we live around our family and friends again, I don't see the need to do this blog anymore. BUT, a few family members (you know who you are) keep asking me to update this, so here it goes.......

These pics are bit out of order, and I apologize, but does it really matter?? Nope. Anyway, this first picture is us playing "Guess Who" as a family. Isaac gets really into it, for about 5 minutes, then he wants to watch me and Chris play. His favorite part is flipping the people down, even if they're not supposed to be flipped down. Oh!... and he also likes to take the game completely apart.... all the yellow holders off and all the pictures out of the yellow holders. Yay for us. I'll admit, it's pretty fun to play it with him!

Here's Isaac and his cousin Audrey over at my mom's house, during one of the big snow falls we had. They both went sledding over and over and over down the hill at the side of the house, by themselves! (sigh... they're growing up).

Me and Kate, at the reception hall for a wedding cake we delivered, at the beginning of January. The cake design was far from traditional, but it turned out to be very beautiful. Since that cake, I've stepped away from the cake business, and Kate's keeping it going by herself. I decided I needed something less stressful and less messy. I'll still help her out every once in a while, and for sure on the wedding cakes we have set up for later this year.

This next image is to show you what I decided to do with my time in replacement of doing cakes. I've started a little online shop, called Blackberry Graphics (http://www.blackberrygraphics.etsy.com) where I sell handmade magnets and printable digital graphics. The magnets are my main focus, and they're a lot of fun. All the designs are my own, meaning I design the graphics on my computer, print them, cut them out, and glue them onto the glass bead and magnet backing. I'm selling 6 for $5.00. Check out my site!!

Something new we've discovered to do with Isaac is going to the library. We'll spend some time looking at books and then we'll pick out a few movies to rent.

Well, that's about it for now. Sorry to cut it short, but I'm a busy woman!!! Tah-tah!

Halloween 09

2009-11-04T23:39:00.002-06:00

Isaac was Thomas for Halloween this year, and he was THE cutest Thomas we've ever seen! Instead of trick or treating around neighborhoods, we went to our church's Fall Festival. Before we left, I took this quick snapshot of him. We had a lot of fun at the Fall Festival, and thank goodness it wasn't raining or freezing cold! They had all kinds of carnival games, a petting zoo, hotdogs and snacks, bouncy houses, and even pony rides! And to top it all off, the whole event is free.... even the food!! So, here he is, playing some sort of beanbag toss game. You can see how close he got. I guess he wanted to make sure the beanbag went in!
Here's Isaac and his cousin Audrey. Her dad, Chad, (no rhyming intended) is a huge Mizzou fan. So naturally, he wanted her to dress up as a Mizzou cheerleader!

Here's our family pic!

As we left, we grabbed these yummy chocolate dipped, sprinkle topped, marshmallows on a stick treat. Mmmmm. Isaac's favorite part were the sprinkles!

Isaac's 2yr picture

2009-10-26T09:52:00.003-05:00

Well I finally got around to taking Isaac's 2-year picture. His birthday was September 24th, and it's already the end of October, so I'm just a tad late on taking care of it. :) I took all the pictures in Randy & Trish's front yard, since it's sooooo pretty with all the trees. This first one is the one that's his actual 2-yr picture. All the rest are just silly pics. Enjoy! Ahhhh!
Fishy lips!

Kissy lips.Just weird.

Isaac's 2nd Birthday Party

2009-09-21T14:40:00.009-05:00

So, before little Isaac was born on September 24th, 2007, everyone told us that he'll grow up fast. They said to enjoy every last moment, because it'll be gone in the blink of an eye. Well, I believe you guys!! He'll officially be 2 years old on Thursday, and I can't believe how much he's grown and changed since he was born 2 short years ago. He's such a smart little guy, and lights up the room with his amazing personality. I love every little piece of him (most of the time!), and I'm so amazed that this little person started out so tiny inside of me. And to think of him being a product of half me and half Chris, is the most amazing miracle I can think of. Thank you God for giving us such a wonderful little gift!

We celebrated his birthday on Sunday, at my parents house. We had a small crowd, of about 19 people; just immediate family. I wanted a much smaller crowd than last year's combined party, celebrating Isaac's 1st Birthday and Chris' college graduation.

To prepare Isaac for the party, I've been reminding him for the past 2 weeks that on SUNDAY, he's gonna have a "Thomas the Train" party. Now, even though he didn't quite know what a "party" is, it sounded like a lot of fun. He's been watching me make the Thomas party favor cookies, make pieces for his Thomas cake, and has even seen the Thomas party invitations. Also, we taught him the Happy Birthday song (which he sang right along with everyone else at the party!). For those of you who don't know, Isaac LOVES to sing. He knows all kinds of songs and can sing them by himself. He usually sings himself to sleep at night, and it's so sweet to listen to through the monitor. Lots of times when me and him are in the car, going somewhere, he has me sing songs to him during the whole entire car ride.

So anyway, on Saturday evening, both me and Chris told him that tomorrow was SUNDAY. I asked, "do you know what happens on Sunday?!". He thought for a minute, and then his face lit up with excitement as he said "Thomas party!!!" So the next morning, when I went into his bedroom to get him after he woke up, I walked in the door, he popped up, and the very first thing that came out of his mouth, with great excitement, was "Thomas party now!!!!" I couldn't believe he actually put it together in his head that it was Sunday, and he was gonna finally have his Thomas party. He's soooo smart! I of course had to reluctantly tell him that we had to go to church first, and THEN his Thomas party. oops!

So when he finally arrived at my parents house, knowing it was "Thomas party time", it was alot of fun to see him walk in the door and see the expressions on his face as he saw all the Thomas decorations. Thomas was everywhere. The saddest part of the whole day was when it was all over and we had to clean up. Who knows what next years theme will be for his party, but I only hope he gets just as excited, if not more.

Here are some pics I want to share:

These are the Thomas cookies I made. They took me a few day to make, but I had a lot of fun doing them. I'm really proud of the way they turned out.

Here's his Thomas cake. I handmade everything aside from the red ribbon and Thomas train topper. My sister Kate baked the cakes. The top tier was lemon cake with lemon curd filling, while the bottom tier was white cake with strawberry cream and chocolate ganache filling.

Another shot of the cake.
A closeup of James' face. I drew the black details with an edible ink marker.

Here are some pics of all the family at the party. This first one is of my mother in law (aka Memoo) and my sister in law Tiffany.

Here's the kids eating their lunch. There's Isaac, his cousin Maggie, and his cousin Audrey.

Here's my dad, my sister Kate and my brother in law Chad. They look like they're having WAY too much fun.

Okay, there's a lot of names to list for this one. There's my mom in the top left background and my grandma Heberling standing by the fridge. Around the table, from left to right, is Chris, his grandma Jean's boyfriend Marshall, Chris' grandma Jean, Chris' mom Jean, Chris' uncle Jimmy (standing) and Chris' stepdad Johnny.

This is everyone from the previous picture, in addition to Chris' aunt Sharon on the far left, and her two girls Stephanie and Madalinn.

Here's my grandma Heberling and my mom eating lunch in the dining room.

Here's a cute family pic, as we ended the happy birthday song. There's cute little Isaac clapping and saying "yay!"

Taking a few swings at the football pinata.

Collecting his pinata candy for me...um, I mean for Isaac. Rrrrrright.

Me and Isaac opening his birthday presents together. Surprisingly he sat and opened all of them, without getting distracted once.

Checking out his new tool set.

Saying cheese by all his cool new presents. Thank you everyone!

Its been a while

2009-09-03T11:12:00.003-05:00

I apologize for not updating our blog in forever. I've been superdeedooperly busy with mine and Kate's new cake business, Sophisticaketion. It's a lot of fun doing the cakes and stuff, but it sure has made our lives a little bit more crazy. It seems like God is really blessing me and my sister with all of our 'cake business' needs, so it's hard to complain about how busy my life has gotten. To see what all we've been up to, you can visit our website at http://www.sophisticaketion.com/

So onto our lives here in Missouri: this first picture is of Isaac helping me mix up some cake batter. He likes to be my big helper around the house and his Pawpaw's big helper outside in the yard. He'll be 2 in a month, which is really insane, and he's getting smarter every day.

Here's me and Chris at a Cardinals game, from a couple of weeks ago. If you feel the need to cover your eyes, go ahead. Smoochy smoochy!!!
Me, Chris and Isaac took a family day a few Saturdays ago, and went to Grants Farm. It was so much fun doing something as a family. Isaac loved seeing all the animals up close, as you can tell from this picture. Don't worry, he didn't get any farther thru the wooden fence than this.

Here we are feeding a bottle to the baby goats, at Grants Farm. It was a little intimidating for him, so we each took turns helping him hold the bottle.

This was our trip to Target, and the checkout lady gave each of us a sticker. Isaac thought it was pretty cool that we each had a sticker on our hands.

So that's about it for pictures. As far as details about our lives here, things are going well for us. Chris is enjoying his job, and me and Isaac met him for lunch yesterday, which was cool. He showed us his desk and we got to meet the people he works with. They all thought Isaac was SOOO Cute, of course!!! And Chris let Isaac sit in his chair, play with his keyboard and mouse, and write on some of his postits. If he only knew how cute he is!!!! So anyway, we're hoping to start looking for a place of our own soon. I'm not sure if we'll be able to afford to buy a house, so we might have to rent something.....boooo. Oh well, whatever happens, happens. It's pretty apparent that God has everything under control, so I'm just gonna trust Him. We're enjoying our stay at Chris' dad and stepmom's house, but eventually we gotta leave. They've been so welcoming to us, and things couldn't have worked out any better. They keep telling us that they're gonna miss us when we move out, but we all know they're REALLY gonna miss Isaac.

So that's it for now. Tah tah!

cant think of a good name for this posting

2009-07-29T11:43:00.002-05:00

Here's mine and Kate's first non-family cake order, that we delivered last weekend. We're so proud of it, and already have a few other orders booked during this next month; a wedding and a 50th birthday party. Here's me and Isaac at Grants Farm, from a few weeks ago. We went with Chris' sister Melissa, her fiance David, and Isaac's cousins Maggie and Ian. We had soooo much fun, and I can't wait to go back!
Here we are feeding the goats from a bottle. Isaac wasn't too sure about it, but he didn't mind us holding the bottle together.

Last weekend we had a slipnslide set up in the front yard, while Maggie and Ian were over. Maggie LOVED it, but Isaac hated it, as you can tell from the sad tormented look on his face.

He was much happier standing out of the water, but didn't mind getting in the little pool at the end of the slip n slide.

Our new website!!

2009-07-22T14:36:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone! Aside from a few minor tweaks I need to make, mine and Kate's cake website is up and running...woohoo!!! If you want to check it out, it's http://www.sophisticaketion.com/

Not to confuse you, but the logo on the site says "sophisticakes", and I need to replace it with the correct logo, which says "sophisticaketion". The name sophisticakes was already taken, and I didn't realize it until it was a bit too late. So, I just wanted to clear that up.

Anywhoo, please tell your friends and family about us. Thanks a lot everyone!

new cake pictures

2009-07-13T14:07:00.003-05:00

Check out mine and Kate's newest cake creations, by clicking on our link to the right. For those who aren't aware, me and Kate have joined together to create our own at-home cake decorating business, and we're very excited about it. I've been working on creating an actual website for us, but I'm not finished yet. So for now, if you'd like to see some pictures of what we've done, you'll have to take a look at our blog (link is to the right). Please give us a call if you need any cakes, cupcakes, or cookies for any future event. My cell is 636-698-5644

Finally....some new pictures!!

2009-07-13T09:41:00.002-05:00

Now that we've got internet access at Chris' dad's house, I can finally post a few pictures on here for everyone. I LOVE this first one, with the sepia color. It was taken sometime within our first week here at home, at Isaac's Mamaw and Papaw's house. Oh, and I also LOVE this next picture too. Isaac is wearing his plastic 'Darling' glasses at his Pawpaw and Meemoo's house. We call them 'Darling' glasses, cause when he puts them on, he says "Hello Dah-ling!". He also likes to roam around the house, wearing them, like it's a normal thing, like they're his real glasses.
This was on the 4th of July. I made all of us make funny faces. There's Isaac, me, my sister in law Melissa, and my youngest sister Emily, in the red shirt.

Me and Isaac had a park playdate with some of my friends and their kids, and we all had lunch at Wendys afterwards. Going clockwise from the bottom left is Brock, Emma, my silly friend Meghan, Isaac, and Audrey Schuchmann. Not seen in the picture is Audrey Boscia, Tara, Jenny, and my sister Kate....oh and me!

Here's Isaac's Pawpaw helping Isaac ride a tricycle. He did really well holding his feet on the pedals, as they rotated round and round.

Hopefully I'll put some more pictures up soon. Until then,...tah-tah!!

Another update

2009-07-02T23:47:00.003-05:00

Hello again to everyone. I hope life is treating all of you well. Things are going well for us, and I felt it was time for another update on the blog. I apologize for not putting any new pictures on here lately. Since we don't have internet access at Chris' dad's house, I don't have very many chances to get online. When I do get a chance, I've got about 20 emails to sift through, gotta check facebook, look at our bank account, and a few other random things. It's quite an ordeal to say the least.

Anyway, we're loving being back home. It's a much faster and busier pace of life than we had in IL, so it's been hard to adjust in that sense. But aside from that, it's wonderful being able to see our family so often. There's not been a single day that we've not gone somewhere or visited with someone. I'm thinking I need to take a day to do nothing though, cause I'm completely wiped out from being on the go constantly. But....like I said, I'm loving being back home. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Chris finally found a job, so praise God for that!!! He starts work on Monday, at a company in Fenton, called Kellar Dental Labs. They seemed to have fallen in love with Chris, so I think he'll be treated very well there. It won't compare to the dream job he had in IL, but atleast it's work. Can't really complain, you know? We're just happy he found a job, since he's been looking for about 3 or 4 months.

Me and my sister Kate's cake business is starting to get busy. We had our first 2 paid jobs, that we worked on together, last week. We've already got a few other jobs lined up too. I'm in the process of creating a logo for ourselves, and we're also working on putting together some prices. That's the not-so-fun part.

Isaac is doing good too. He's having lots of fun with all his mamaws and papaws, and his cousin Audrey. He's constantly on the move, getting smarter everyday, and always the life of the party. He's soooo funny!!!

So that's it for now. Love all of you, and God bless.

Home Sweet Home

2009-06-22T12:20:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone. I know it's been a while since I've updated our blog, and I apologize, but our lives have been kinda crazy the past couple of weeks. As of Saturday afternoon, we became Missourians again, so Woo-Hoo!!! As you can guess, we've been busy packing and wrapping things up in Illinois, to prepare for our move back home to Missouri. Although we'll miss our friends in Champaign Illinois, we're super happy to be home with our family and friends in Missouri again. We're dead tired from all the packing and moving, and we've still got most of our boxes to unpack and arrange somewhere, so it might be a little while until I get around to posting some pictures on here. Since we're now living by most everyone that looks at this blog, I probably won't be updating it as frequently as I used to, but I promise to not let it fall off the face of the earth.

So that's it...just wanted to update everyone and let everyone know how happy we are to be back home. Our home sweet home.

Oh, I guess I should also update you on Chris' job hunt situation. As of right now, he's still unemployed. He's still looking and applying at places, but he has an interview on Wednesday afternoon. It's with a place that he interviewed with a couple of months ago, Keller Dental Labs. We're pretty confident that they'll offer him a job on Wednesday, but you can never be sure on these kind of things. Please keep him in your prayers. We love all of you, and thank you.

Weekend up north

2009-06-10T08:18:00.003-05:00

Last weekend, we traveled up to northern Illinois to visit some family and attend my cousins' graduation party. We met up with my parents halfway thru the road trip, and my mom decided to give Isaac and Audrey these gianormous smartie suckers. Of course Isaac LOVED it (and he said "cheese" for the picture), but let's not ignore the fact that it was only an hour away from Isaac's normal bedtime, and he was getting a huge sugar rush to delightfully keep him awake for us. How convenient it was, that my parents were in a separate car, probably with nice big smirks on their faces. I guess that's the fun of being a grandparent. Okay, okay....so it ended up not being a big deal and he eventually fell asleep with no problems. But hey,...I gotta give my mom some trouble, right? We stayed with my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Scott for the weekend, who have a gorgeous home in the woods. Here's my dad and Isaac playing some golf in my Aunt Kathy's front yard.
Here's Isaac attempting to hit the golf ball by himself. This was the best picture of him actually hitting the ball, since 98% of the time he was missing. He was awfully cute to watch though.Isaac and his Grandma sittin' on my Aunt Kathy's front porch. My mom is drinking her hot tea, like she always does.

Getting ready to take a ride on my Uncle Scott's 4-wheelers.Chris and Isaac, coming around to say "hi". Isaac had a lot of fun on the 4-wheelers.

Taking a ride with his Grandpa. Aren't they so cute?!

Isaac and his Grandpa, taking a morning walk together. They unintentionally matched...how cute!

Isaac and Audrey at their Great-Grandma Whaley's house. Isaac kept slamming his choo-choo on the ground, making Audrey laugh.

Building legos together.

"Cheese!" Taking one last picture before we head home. This is Isaac's Great-Grandma Whaley.

Praying

2009-06-04T10:30:00.003-05:00

While Isaac was eating his hot dogs the other day, I told him to pray. He always likes to pray with us when we're sitting down to eat, and sometimes says his own prayer. I'm not sure what he was saying at the beginning of this particular prayer, but at the end, he prays for mommy and daddy, and then says amen.

Better with Letters

2009-06-04T09:36:00.003-05:00

Remember the last time I posted a video of Isaac saying his letters? Well, he's gotten MUCH better since then, so here he is by the same box as last time, telling me the letters he sees. You'll see that he started to lose interest towards the end.

Isaac, Isaac & more Isaac

2009-06-04T08:09:00.006-05:00

Okay, so I'm giving you Grandparents no room to complain about needing your fill of Isaac pictures. He he. I've got a lot to share, so enjoy.

This first picture is of Chris letting Isaac play with his Nintendo DS. Isaac was actually pressing the buttons all by himself and making the game do things. I'm not sure who was more proud of Isaac; Isaac himself or Chris. Here he is again, playing the DS. I think he wanted to sit away from Chris so he could do it all by himself. He's into doing things by himself a lot lately. He'll say "Isaac self!!"
Climbing up the plastic rock wall, all by himself. A few of the parks around town have these climbing rock walls, and every time we go, he REALLY wants to climb up them. We finally let him do it, and he did surprisingly well. He's such a big boy!

Crawling thru the tunnel; I find this picture funny, cause there's a shadow of Chris and his arm to the left of Isaac. I can tell that it's Chris because he's wearing a hat. But it reminds me of an old scary movie, when you see the monstrous shadow coming around the corner. Ahhhhhhh!!!

"I see you Daddy...I'm gonna get you!"

"I'm just so cute"

"I like to watch the other kids play"

"I can reach the next step, I know I can!"

Giving his little choo-choo's a ride on the fire truck.

"Weeeeeeee! Mommy's pushing me all around the house!"

"Mmmmm, this sucker is yummy""Ewww, now my hands are sticky. I hate it when my hands get dirty"

"I'm cool, now that I'm doing this funky thing with my lips and my sucker"

In the back yard, rolling his ball down the slide. We got the slide at a garage sale a couple weekends ago.

"Now it's my turn!"

He lined up all his cars in a nice neat row, just like a train.

Eating dinner at McD's. This was Isaac's first time eating chicken mcnuggets, and he even got to dip them in some ketchup...mmmm. Although he didn't eat them all up, he took more bites than I would've imagined.

Time for a drink of apple juice; I mean, time to drink ALL of the apple juice in one giant sip. I think he has an addiction to apple juice....seriously. I think if he was stranded on an island, and could only bring one thing with him, it would be apple juice....seriously.

Mmmmm, fries!!! He loves fries too. And he likes to dip them in ketchup and lick off all the ketchup. He sometimes forgets to actually eat the fry.

"Look at my first-ever McD's toy!"

By the way, the whole time we were at McD's, Isaac kept saying "M!" "M!". I didn't think about the letter M being his favorite letter, until we got there and he saw them all over the place. Now me and Isaac have something in common; a love for McDonalds.

honk honk, beep beep, choo choo, ah-ooga ah-ooga

2009-06-03T15:14:00.005-05:00

We recently taught Isaac how to do the "honk honk, beep beep, choo choo, ah-ooga ah-ooga" thing, so here he is, doing it to Chris. He doesn't do it quite perfectly, and he sometimes gets them out of order, but who cares, right?! It's the cuteness that counts. Enjoy!

Pretty In Pink Cupcakes

2009-05-29T09:34:00.004-05:00

We had small group last night, so I made some pretty cupcakes to share. Using some leftover homemade pink marshmallow fondant and some buttercream icing, this is what I came up with. As you can see, I experimented and came up with about 5 different looks, including the 5 covered with pink marshmallow fondant. I've been itching to try fondant covered cupcakes.

Okay okay....here's some new Isaac pictures.

2009-05-29T08:22:00.003-05:00

So a select few of you (um...randy) have been complaining about no new pictures, so i'm finally getting around to satisfying your need. Sheesh. You people are hard to please!! :)

This first picture is of Isaac playing with his new Bert & Ernie puzzle. Chris found it at a garage sale for $.50, and Isaac LOVES it. I think it's got about 12 wooden pieces, so it's a bit challenging for him, but he could probably do it all by himself if he tried hard enough. Each piece is a different part of Bert & Ernie's bodies, so Isaac loves to show us each piece and say things like "Ernie's shoes!" and "Bert's elbow!". It's totally cute. This is us walking around the mall. Sometimes we let Isaac out of his stroller to stretch his legs and roam the hallways. We've tried letting him push the stroller too, but that doesn't quite work for us; he wants to push it all by himself, with no help, and ends up running into walls, people and kiosks. It's quite hilarious.
Throwing some pennies into the fountain at the mall.

During one of the nice evenings we had this past week, Chris and Isaac hung around outside while I was fixing dinner. I came outside for a few minutes, to find Isaac sitting in Chris' truck! Here's Isaac having fun turning the steering wheel."Hmmm...I think I'd like to listen to some rap"

A very weird looking "Cheese!"

Sittin' back and relaxin'.

Playing some Wii bowling with an Xbox remote...or so he thinks.

Building a lego tower on top of daddy's big toe. It was my idea; are you that surprised? He he.

"Vroom vroom!" He loves to zoom his cars, trucks and trains around the house.

Baby Cake

2009-05-21T09:10:00.004-05:00

This is a cake I made for some friends of ours, who recently had twins; a boy and a girl. The cake is covered in brown marshmallow fondant, candy pearls, and pink/blue fondant buttons. There's a few things I would've done differently, now that I can look at the finished product, but overall I thought it turned out super cute!A side shot, showing the details I put on the buttons. Here's what it looked like after I added some buttercream wording. It's more difficult to write with icing than I thought. I definitely need some improvement.

A side shot. You can see that I tried to make the buttercream icing look like thread.Here's a full image of the cake. I sure hope it's as yummy as it looks!

A few more Mother's Day pictures

2009-05-12T14:16:00.002-05:00

These are some pictures that Isaac's Mawmaw Owens took on the Saturday before Mother's Day. She LOVES taking pictures, and took a whole CD's worth of 'em on saturday. These are a few of my favorites. This first one is the cutest little tongue in the whole world! Here's Isaac pushing around his cousin Audrey. While Audrey's mom, Kate (my sister), went up to the beauty school with me to get our hair done, Chris, Randy and Trish graciously watched Audrey for her.

Singing along

2009-05-11T10:17:00.003-05:00

Here's Isaac singing along in the car, to one of his many kid cd's. You'll have to tilt your head during the first part of the video. I have a habit of turning the camera sideways when I take pictures, so naturally I turned the camera sideways when I was taping; only, I haven't figured out how to edit the video to turn it upright, like I do with my pictures. Sorry for any kinks I might've caused you! Enjoy the video.

Plenty of Pictures

2009-05-11T08:52:00.007-05:00

This is how I found Isaac during his nap last week. It's cute, but looks really uncomfortable, doesn't it?Taking a family walk with my new jogging stroller.

Isaac and Barney watching morning cartoons together. I took this picture for his Papaw Kinion, since that's who bought him his Barney.

Two heads are better than one, especially with fake bodies.
Watching some kids play.

Weeeeeeee!

Climbing the stairs like a big boy.

Wathing some birds flutter in the beautiful sky.

My 2 boys, cuter than ever with their hats on.

Isaac and Elmo reading together.

Putting his Thomas choo-choo together. He knows to put the 'peg' in the 'hole'.

Putting the front of the train on.

Putting in the clown.

Putting in the elephant. Ta-dah, it's done!

Posing with his hand in his pocket.

Shopping at Home Depot for Mawmaw Owen's mother's day present. Me and Chris went to see the new Star Trek movie last week, so me and Isacc made a picture for Daddy, to honor the great event.

Isaac and cousin Ian playing on Mawmaw and Pawpaw Owens deck, during Mother's day weekend. They were taking turns, running with the baby stroller.

Here's Isaac's turn. You can see how much fun they had!Taking a super fast break to say cheese for the camera.

Showing off his new firetruck bed that Pawpaw bought for him. What a cool bed! It even has a red light by Isaac's hands.

Chris and Audrey reading while we cook our Mother's day lunch.

Saying cheese while enjoying his mother's day cupcake.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, sprinkles and icing...the best part of a cupcake!

It's a plumber, it's Mario.....it's Super Chris!

2009-05-05T09:56:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I just HAD to put this up here; I want to make sure everyone sees what I spend my time doing while Chris is at work. Ha ha. I've already put this image on facebook, and it's also the wallpaper on our laptop, so I figured, why not put it on our blog as well??? I hope everyone enjoys a good laugh out of it....I know I have!

An update for everyone

2009-05-01T14:02:00.003-05:00

I don't have any pictures to share with you this time; just an update on what's been going on in our lives lately. I'm sure most of you generally know that we're in the process of trying to move back home to St. Charles MO, but I thought I'd give you the whole story.

First of all, we moved to Champaign IL a year ago this past February, in pursuit of Chris' career dream, a career in the Video Game industry. He had been hired on at a company called Volition, as a game tester, and it was a dream come true for him!! He's loved his job from the beginning, even though he's had a lot of overtime away from me and Isaac, and it's been an opportunity of a life time. I should also point out that he got his BA in Digital Entertainment & Design from ITT in September, so this job is more than something fun for him....it's something he takes serious and takes great pride in.

Over the past year, we've found a good church, made some good friends, and have had some wonderful 'first' memories with Isaac here.

Unfortunatley, about 2 months ago, Chris was told that he and ALL the other game testers were gonna be laid off on July 1st, due to budget cuts and stuff. Chris was half-way expecting it to happen, so fortunately it wasn't a huge surprise. None the less, it's disappointing.

We decided that if he was gonna get a new job, it might as well be back home in St. Charles. He's been doing some serious job hunting ever since we got the news, but nothing's really happened yet. He had a few interviews with one place, but they decided to hire someone else. Fortunately, since Chris is employed until July 1st, and our townhouse lease ends July 1st, we have a couple months of flexibility. Thank you Jesus.

There is only a slight slight chance that Chris will get Video Game job in St. Louis, since there's only 1 video game company there, and they're not really even open yet. It's an expansion of a company in Springfield MO. It would definitely be a dream come true if it happened, but who knows what the future holds.

And we're looking forward to being with family again. Especially me. Being a stay-at-home mother can be lonely sometimes. My sister Kate is also a stay-at-home mom, so I'm anxious to spend my days with her and her daughter Audrey. And I so want Isaac to be a bigger part of our families lives. He's constantly changing and learning new things.

It's been very frustrating for us, you know, constantly looking for jobs, applying for them, not getting replies back, wondering when and what job he'll get, wondering if we'll be able to afford to buy a house, wondering how much money he'll be making......

Even though all those things are constantly on our minds, we know that God is going to take care of us. We know that He has great plans for us, and everything happens for a reason. He's always blessed us in the past, and we know He'll continue to bless us in the future. He's even blessing us now! But we all know that waiting is the hardest part. Being patient is so foreign to us these days. We want everything now. I'm sure most of you reading this have been in a similar situation, and know what we're going through.

I only ask for your prayers. We really need them right now. Thanks, and I'll try and keep all of you updated.

Love, Jen

Blast from the past

2009-04-29T08:25:00.002-05:00

I found this old picture on facebook. It's of Chris (far left) at Highschool Prom with our friend Amy Toti. This is the first time I've EVER seen a prom picture of him, so I'm pretty excited to have found it. He's grown to be much more handsome thru the years. Love you dear!

Learning Letters

2009-04-27T12:30:00.004-05:00

Our smart little boy is now learning his letters. He sometimes gets them mixed up, as you'll hear in the video, but the fact that he knows the names of letters themselves is pretty genius, or so we think. The letters that he knows the best are the letters M & O. Some other things he's learned recently are his shapes and numbers. He knows the names of a few shapes, especially Circle, Heart and Star. He has this little yellow smiley face cookie jar that has holes on the sides that shapes fit in to. He's learned which shapes go into which holes. And as far as numbers go, he sometimes counts from 2 - 10 all by himself!

My 2 Boys

2009-04-25T12:26:00.004-05:00

Here's Chris putting Isaac to bed. His night time routine consists of us laying him down in his spiderman bed, reading him some books, and saying a night time prayer. Sometimes we even pray twice! Rockstar!
Whoa...now THAT'S a Rockstar! (I made him make that face)
Our little rockstar taking a moment to say "cheese!"

Can't get enough of the "cheese".

Some fun with bubbles in the kitchen. "ooooooh!"

I love the bubble in front of his eye. What a great picture.

My 2 strong men....well....more like my 2 constipated men. Isaac is trying a little too hard to imitate his Daddy.

He just can't seem to do it like his daddy. It looks more like he's swinging a golf club.

Weekend Fun

2009-04-18T18:42:00.006-05:00

Mowing our lawn on Friday evening, before dinner. Unfortunately, bubble mowers don't do a good job of cutting the grass. Hm, maybe if I turn this nob it'll work.
Uh oh! I mowed over my ball!

Isaac's exact words were, "No ball!", as he thew it out of his way.

Sword fighting with dried up bean pods from our big tree in the back yard.

The rest of these pictures are from our afternoon with my Grandpa & Grandma Karen, Aunt Kim and Aunt Corrine. They drove down here from Rockford IL to visit us for a few hours. I thought that was so nice of them! We all went out to lunch at Jim Goulds, and then took a short trip to the park before they left.

Isaac was in a particularly goofy mood, as you can see. Not only did he stick the table cloth in his mouth, he put it over his head and played peek a boo with all of us. Chris and Grandpa were the lucky ones who got to sit next to our crazy little boy.

After seeing Daddy dip his french fries in ketchup, Isaac had to do it too. Isaac's had french fries plenty of times before, but never with ketchup.

He enjoyed licking the ketchup off the fry instead of eating it with the fry.

A 'swingin' good time with my Aunt Corrine.

Giving my Aunt Corrine a push on the swing.

This picture was too funny to not put up here. On the left, looking down into the slide is my Aunt Kim. On the right, looking up into the slide is my Aunt Corrine. Somewhere in the middle inside the slide is Isaac. These two funny ladies had such a blast playing with Isaac. I think they might be ready for grandkids of their own.

"Hey everybody, it's me!"

One last picture before we saw goodbye. (tear, sigh) I love you guys!

Yummy to my tummy

2009-04-18T18:21:00.004-05:00

I made these brownies to share with my Grandpa, Grandma Karen, and two Aunts (Kim & Corrine) that came to visit us today. Unfortunately, we never got around to eating them, since they didn't come back to our townhouse after lunch. I suppose it means more for us....oh darn. To get the perfect heart shapes, I used a brownie cutter from Micheals. I thought they turned out super cute and super delicious, so I'll definitely be making them again. Mmmm...I think I might go eat one right now!

These next two pictures are of a cake my sister Kate made. The chocolate frosting and pink/white fondant flowers compliment each other well. And, she even used raspberry filling between the cake layers. Props Kate!

A lot of pictures (mostly of Easter)

2009-04-17T10:34:00.008-05:00

I hope all of you reading this had a very 'Hoppy' Easter; we sure did. We went home for a few days to enjoy the holiday with family. All of these visits home lately make me more and more anxious to move back and be there permanently. Chris is still job hunting, and we're always praying for patience and speed at the same time. We know that God has something good there for Chris, but the hard part is not knowing what it is and when it will happen. Thank you to all of you who are continuously praying for us. We love all of you.

So on to the pictures, shall we? This first one was taken on Saturday, at the park area by St. Peters City Hall. Me, Isaac and Trish (Isaac's Mawmaw) had a fun afternoon of taking Easter pictures. She took a whole lot more than I did, but this was all I could show you from my own camera. I think Isaac was putting the eggs BACK INTO the flowers at this point. Here's Trish (mawmaw) and Isaac, sitting down eating lunch at Texas Roadhouse. Mmmmm.
Enjoying a big helping of Texas Roadhouse's mac & cheese. You can never go wrong with feeding Isaac mac & cheese; it's always a sure winner. And he's mastered the art of using a spoon...most of the time.

Saturday evening we went over to Chris' uncle Jim and aunt Sharon's house, to celebrate two of their kids' birthdays, Madaline & Ryan. Ryan and Isaac were buddy-buddy the whole evening; here's them going down the slide together. Awwww.

Here I am with my best friend Brooke at church on Easter Sunday. We've known each other since I was in 7th grade; she used to live behind my parents house; she was also my maid of honor at my wedding.

The kids eating Easter lunch at my parents house. From left to right, Isaac, Audrey & Kamora. Audrey eventually started feeding Isaac her corn; she likes to share when she wants to.Here's a close up of the previous picture. I thought the look on her face was hilarious; I've never seen it on her before.

Here we are, outside on my parents deck. My boys are so handsome.

The kids waiting to go outside for their Easter egg hunt.

Hey, they found some! Audrey liked finding all the purple eggs, Isaac started throwing the eggs. Oh, and he also tried wadering off to the neighbors yard AND into the street AND down the side of the house. He likes to go off by himself like that.

Me and my bunny sisters. Kate (on the left) and Emily (in the middle). I think we look pretty ridiculous, but that was the point.

My family. From left to right, Audrey, Chad, Kate, Emily, Dad, Mom, Me, Chris, Isaac.

Pushing his cool new bubble mower he got from my parents (grandma and grandpa Whaley). He loves it! Papaw and Mamaw Kinion got him a Thomas the Train Easter basket with lots of Thomas goodies & a Thomas DVD set; Pawpaw and Mawmaw Owens got him a Duckie Easter basket with a Spiderman book, some race cars, a ball, and some other goodies. He got a lot of good stuff!!

Having a splashing good time in the bath with Audrey.

Sitting with Mamaw Kinion. Once Isaac went to bed, me and her watched Twilight on her projection screen. Yay!!!!!

Papaw Kinion and Isaac giving each other kisses. Awww. I'm so disappointed this turned out blurry, but it's still sweet.

Playing with some bubbles. Isaac's never really played with bubbles before, so he was pretty curious and didn't know what to do with them at first. He had a lot of fun once he got used to them.

Eating some yummy smarties.

Isaac and Grandma playing with Sesame Street. "Come and play, everything's A-Okay..."

Grandma putting some popples on all his fingers. He's like Edward scissor hands, only it's Isaac Popple Fingers.

My mom is soooo gonna freak when she sees that I put this picture of her foot on here. She doesn't even know I took this picture. My intentions were only to bug her, nothing less nothing more.

Here's Isaac trying to imitate his Grandma, putting popples on his toes too.

Isaac and Audrey in a bit of a traffic jam.

Gettin' ready for a walk with me and Chris. We babysat Audrey while Kate had to take care of some car stuff with my parents. I thought the smile on Audrey's face was real sweet.

Playing t-ball with his Pawpaw Owens. It looks like they had a lot of fun; Chris took this picture while me and Trish went up to Walmart.

Sittin' pretty on Pawpaw Owens' tractor.

Since Isaac climbed out of my mom's pack n play 3 times over the weekend (don't worry, he didn't get hurt), we decided once we got home, it was time to move him out of his crib. For now, he's just sleeping on the mattress, but I got him some cool Spiderman sheets. He LOVES them and talks about 'em all the time. This picture was taken yesterday, right after I made his bed and put the sheets on for the first time.

Having a good time, laughing on the floor. What a cute, silly boy.

Random acts of Isaac

2009-04-09T13:49:00.004-05:00

I've been meaning to share this first picture with all of you for a while, but just haven't gotten around to it. Isaac's new favorite thing to do is to have one of us pull the doggie while he pulls the choo-choo, ALL around the house, like 5 million times, all day and all evening long. Okay...so it's not literally 5 million times, but it's a lot. They both already have strings attached (how convenient), and unfortunately the doggie's string is just barely long enough for us to reach without having to bend down. Like I said, it's Isaac's new favorite thing to do. Here's an upclose shot of him pulling his choo-choo, but you just can't see the choo-choo. It's hidden behind him.
On to a more enjoyable, sit down activity....reading. Isaac has found a new passion for reading, which I don't mind, since he doesn't chew on his books anymore.

We took a trip up to the mall the other evening, and the Easter bunny gave Isaac this cute little set of bunny ears. We didn't get a picture of him with the Easter bunny though, since they charge an arm and a leg, and I think a thigh too.Passing around the bunny ears....Daddy's turn! You can tell how excited he was to wear them. I think he was so excited, he just grabbed 'em right out of Isaac's hands. It wasn't very nice or Easterly of him.

Oh look here's the Easter bunny now. He he, fooled ya! It's really me. You couldn't tell with my bunny like fingers and teeth. The squinty eyes were the big disguise though, cause the Easter bunny always has his/her eyes closed. Here's a question for you though, is the Easter bunny a boy or a girl? Hmmm.

Let me apologize to Mamaw Kinion before she sees this next picture. Chris made me do it. I'm serious! He told me that if I didn't take Isaac to get his hair cut, he'd ban me from eating ice cream ever again. I just couldn't sacrifice ice cream. Sorry. Seriously though, he was in need of a haircut REALLY BAD! And since our upcoming Easter weekend is jam packed with family visits, we didn't think we'd have the time for Mamaw Kinion to do it herself. I promise this is the only time I'll ever take Isaac to get his haircut from someone else. Of course, once he's 18 and of legal age, he's on his own.

He was a really good boy at the salon though. He sat still and munched on his sucker the whole time. The beautician was so surprised at how patient and still he was. What a good little boy we have. :)

Easter Cake Pops

2009-04-07T15:09:00.002-05:00

Here's some pics of my latest cake creation, Easter Cake Pops. I stole the idea from my new favorite baking blog, Bakerella. I've got a link on the right side of this page, if you ever feel like checking her out. She does some super cute stuff. So anyway, the first steps to making these cute yummy cake pops is to bake a cake, let it completely cool, and crumble it fine crumbs (as shown in my first pic). You then take a can of icing, and use your hands to mush it together with the cake crumbs. Your end result is a big ball of cake/icing mush. The consistency is sort of like a pre-cooked meatloaf. After that, you take chunks and roll them into little balls. Next, melt some white candy melts, dip the tips of lollipop sticks into the candymelts, and stick 'em into your cake balls (as shown in my second pic). Put 'em in the fridge or freezer for a while to harden up a bit.
Decorating time...yipee! That means we're halfway thru to eating 'em. Mmmmmm. Take your tray of cake balls out of the fridge/freezer, dip them into some melted candy melts, and stick 'em in a styrofoam block to stay upright. After they've hardened up a bit, take some pastel pink candy corns, dip those into some candymelts, and stick them on top to look like bunny ears. Cute, huh?! I didn't do mine quite like Bakerella did; she put her ears close together in a V shape, but I didn't realize I did it wrong until the end. Ooops.

After the ears, take some mini white round candy sprinkles, and glue them on with a bit of candy melts, to look like eyes. Do the same with the heart shaped sprinkle for the nose. Then take some food markers to complete the coloring in the eye, the eye lashes, and the mouth. Voila! I did some easter eggs too. No need to go into detail for those. The process was pretty much the same. All in all, they were fun to make, and yummy to eat. They might not have turned out as cute as Bakerella's, but practice makes perfect.

Saturday was all about fun

2009-04-05T10:55:00.002-05:00

Saturday was all about fun for Isaac. We started our day with a visit to the Champaign Library, where one of his favorite cartoon characters, "Super Why!", was there for a meet and greet. I figured the place would be packed with kids, since the cartoon is pretty popular, and boy was I right! We had to wait in line for about 20 minutes, until it was our turn to take a picture with Super Why!. Of all the kids in the room, Isaac was the absolute loudest of them all. The whole 20 minutes that we were waiting, he kept waving and yelling at Super Why, "Hi why why!!! Hi why why!", over and over and over and over. And every time Super Why would wave at the crowd of kids, he thought he was waving back at him personally, and he had the cutest most excited little giggle. We sure felt bad for the lady standing in front of him, but there was no chance of quieting him down. It was as if he was meeting his hero, and it was the crowning moment of his entire existence. He loved getting the chance to stand next to Super Why, and he gave him a big high-five when we had to say our goodbyes for the next persons turn. He LOVED giving him a high-five, and had to yell "Bye why why!!" as we walked away. It was an opportunity and moment that we'll never forget. After Isaac's crowning moment of his existence, we drove over to the park to play for a while, before it was time to go over to the church for the Easter Carnival and Egg Hunt. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be outstide. Here's Isaac at the bottom of the tube slide, yelling up at Chris "C'mon Daddy!", wanting him to slide down.
Here's Isaac sitting at the bottom of a much much much smaller slide, yelling "C'mon Daddy". I have to laugh at this picture, as I realize that the slide is only as big as Chris is, and plus it twirls around. I don't think Chris ever attemted to make it down this one. Can you blame him?

Here we are at the Easter carnival and egg hunt. Chris took a lot of pictures of Isaac playing the games, but it takes way too long to upload pictures on here, so I only picked one to show you. Here he is bowling, knocking down the animal shaped pins with a soft plush ball. Since he LOVES to play with balls, he got the hang of this game real quick. Some other games he played were the bean bag toss, plinko, the treasure scoop, and lots of others. He had a lot of fun, but with other kids in line, waiting to play the games, the whole experience went way too fast for Isaac to take time to enjoy the games like he could have. The poor little guy didn't understand that it was someone else's turn to play.

Here we are at the egg hunt, behind the church. Well, I should admit that this particular picture was staged. The actual egg hunt was way too chaotic and fast paced for me to take any pictures; I was too busy video-taping, and kids were everywhere!!! So, once it was done, we took a few eggs out of his bag, and voila!....here's the picture! Since the church wanted all their eggs back, we then sat in the grass to open them up and remove the candy. Isaac, being the silly boy as he is, decided the candy were toys, and instead of putting the candy in our bag, he threw it. Are you really that surprised?

"Rollin!...doo-doo...Rollin!...doo-doo..."

2009-04-01T13:37:00.003-05:00

This is Isaac rolling his truck all around the house. A totally boyish thing to do, wouldn't you say? He started on his table. On the ground by his kitchen.

Past the laundry basket.

Into the living room.

And...oh no...he's attacking the neighbor's tree! Ahhhh!

"It's my potty and I'll go if I want to..."

2009-03-30T09:55:00.002-05:00

This is Isaac's new potty chair, and him using it for the first time. We're so proud of him becoming such a big boy. He's used it 4 times since yesterday evening, so the potty training is going well so far. He's only 18 months old, so this is quite an achievement to say the least. Go Isaac!!

Indoor Playground

2009-03-28T17:35:00.003-05:00

On Friday morning, we met a bunch of Isaac's church friends and their mommies at the indoor playground. We didn't realize it was spring break, so describing the atmosphere as "crazy" would've been an understatement. We had a lot of fun though, and I'm totally happy we went. When we first got there, Isaac spent some time playing on a smaller playset. Here's some pics showing him climb up the side all by himself (which he's never done before, so I was very proud of him), and then sliding down.

Halfway thru our playtime, all the kids sat down for a snack. This is Isaac and all his church friends, crowded around the table, munching on their trail mix. I don't think we could've fit one more kid, even if we tried!

Okay, so this picture isn't from the playground, but it's super cute. Isaac found his stroller and decided he wanted to push it around the house, with his monkey sitting in the seat.

Isaac

2009-03-27T09:18:00.005-05:00

Reading the Meadowbrook church newsletter together (that's our church here). Must be some serious stuff in there.Still reading that newsletter! Lately Isaac has been laying on his stomach like this to do different things, like reading a book, watching tv, etc. It's soooo cute!
Horseplaying and running around in the living room.

Giving me some cute smiles at Walmart.

We've been going on lots of walks since the weather has turned nice. We made a pit stop at the IGA and bought an icecream sandwich to share. In the picture, he's pointing to me, telling me it's my turn to take a bite.

Flower cupcakes

2009-03-27T09:00:00.002-05:00

To celebrate Spring, I made these super cute cupcakes. I was inspired by an idea I saw on my new favorite blog, Bakerella. The flowers were made from yummy candymelts.

Spongebob party

2009-03-23T11:23:00.005-05:00

Hello all. How's everyone doing? We're doing good. We just got home last night from a fun weekend at home with family. We did a Spongebob themed 50th birthday party for Chris' dad Randy, and here are a few pictures I wanted to share with you. Oh yeah, for those of you who don't know, Randy hates Spongebob, and it's been an ongoing joke between us. That's why Trish, Chris' stepmom, wanted to theme the party after him. Randy LOVED it, but only because of the teasing that went along with it.

This first pic is of Isaac licking the Spongebob batter from the beaters. It was his first time eating batter, and like the rest of us sinful sugar-toothed snacking people out there, he enjoyed it.The naked version of the Spongebob cake. After I iced the cake with buttercream icing, I covered it with my homemade marshmallow fondant. That's what you're seeing in this picture.Here he is, ta-dah! To get the color, I painted the white fondant with food coloring. Everything was edible and made purely from fondant, excluding the shirt cuffs and pant legs. Those were made from paper towel tubes covered with fondant.Here he is at the party, surrounded by plates and napkins, topped with a 50 candle.When the party first started, 3 of Randy and Trish's neighbors paraded over to the house in Spongebob garb.

A 'cheesy' family moment. You can see Isaac's scabby nose; it's kinda hard to miss it. It's already started peeling off and healing back to normal. Yay!

Randy and all the grandkids blowing out the candles. Most of the kids wore spongebob shirts to go with the occasion.

Me and Isaac taking a quiet moment to read. This was one of the only times throughout the whole day that he sat still. The house was packed with people, kids, and activity all day long.

Chris and his brother Bud acting like silly boys. They never grow up to be mature men.

The Owens family. It's pretty rare to get this many of us together, and this isn't everyone.

Growing Up = Owies

2009-03-18T08:19:00.002-05:00

Yesterday evening we played in the backyard with Isaac's new spongebob ball. For some funny reason, Isaac always tends to be more interested in the back porch steps than playing in the yard. Here he is walking down the steps like a big boy ALL BY HIMSELF! He just sort of picked it up. And of course now that he can walk down steps like a big boy (atleast a few steps; I doubt he could walk down a whole flight of steps by himself) he never wants to hold my hand when we walk down the front steps to go somewhere. It makes me so nervous! And I guess I have a good solid reason to be nervous now, because after going up and down these backporch steps a few times last night, he finally fell flat on his face. What's even worse, is that there's a sheet of roofing shingles laying at the bottom of the steps. You can barely see them in the bottom corner of the picture. I promise we didn't put them there, they were put there by the previous residents. We never thought they'd be a hazard, until last night. You can imagine how rough it was to scrap his little tiny baby nose on those rough roofing shingles. Ouch!!! Here's our little guy wearing his first bandaid. He sure scraped his nose up pretty good. You can barely see a red spot poking thru the bottom of the bandaid.
Taking his evening bath to wash away all the dirt, grime and infection. Poor widdle nose!

This morning, eating his breakfast. We were afraid he'd pull his bandaid off last night while sleeping, but he never touched it. He hasn't touched it at all today either. I just put a new bandaid on, and was hoping his nose would've started healing by now, but it still looks pretty scraped up. Poor guy. I guess we'll call this incident his first Owie. We first started telling him it was a Boo-boo, put he thought we were saying Poo-poo, so that didn't work too well. :)

Mostly outside fun

2009-03-16T08:46:00.003-05:00

All 3 of us spent Saturday afternoon at the park again. This warmer weather is so refreshing! This first picture was the first time Isaac's ever gone down the big kid slide all by himself. Can't believe how fast he's growing up!Checking out the dirt on his hands. He landed on his hands and feet after coming down the slide, and got a bit dirty.
He kept trying to throw the ball up the slide to daddy. I thought this picture was pretty funny, with the ball positioned right in front of his face.

Isaac found this gold soccer ball hidden underneath the slide. We got to play with it for a little while until the kids who owned it came back for it.

On our way home from church, Isaac was looking at his craft he made in Sunday school. It was a little folded paper book he colored on that says "The Bible says love others".

This is one of my new favorite pictures; he found a pine cone in our yard, when we went outside to play for a little while, while waiting for dinner. It's cute cause it looks like he's talking to it.

Throwing the ball back and forth. You can see that he's STILL holding on to that pinecone! He wouldn't hardly let go of it.

Tossing the ball into the plant pot...still holding the pinecone!

Super cute picture!!!

Pictures of the 3 of us together are rare.

One of Isaac's new favorite games is to say "Ready, Go!" and run back and forth, yelling crazy things and waving our arms. It's perfect when we want him to burn off some energy before bedtime.

Saying "Cheese!"

Randomness

2009-03-13T09:00:00.002-05:00

This game started off with Chris wearing the box over his head, but then I gave Isaac the idea of dropping toys in there. I'm so funny! Fun at Walmart, wearing hats like Pawpaw Owens wears.

Here are my new glasses, yay...I love them!

A family afternoon at the park

2009-03-09T14:33:00.003-05:00

I'm so happy the weather is finally starting to turn nice. Saturday was a bit windy, but it was nice enough to spend some time at the park. And can you believe Chris had the day off??!! Here we are playing catch, but Isaac didn't like the wind blowing in his face, so the game didn't last very long. Back and forth on the springy car thingy.
Isaac was ready to leave the little kids play ground, and head over to the big kids play ground. See ya later alligator!

Up and down on the see-saw. The seats were completely and utterly uncomfortable. Our rear ends and legs were sore afterwards.

We see you daddy!

Climbing up the rock wall steps.

"Hi Mommy!"Going down the twisty slide. Our bodies were a bit too big to go down easily, so it was a bit awkward. Isaac had a GREAT time though!This is a close up of the picture above. I thought the look on my face was pretty hilarious; it looks like I'm on a roller coaster. Like I said, it was a bit awkward going down the twisty slide.

Finishing our afternoon with a short game of frisbee. Isaac couldn't figure out how to throw it like mommy and daddy were throwing it.

Sweet moments

2009-03-09T14:24:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was Isaac's second time in the Toddler Sunday school class, and so far he seems to love it. No crying when we drop him off or pick him up. He just walks right thru the gate and starts playing. And when we pick him up, he runs thru the gate, says "HI!" and gives us a big hug around our legs. It's so adorable. This is what he made in class yesterday, with a little help from his teacher. It's supposed to mean "Jesus loves Isaac". I had to take it away from him right after I took this picture, cause he started wadding it up like trash. I couldn't let him destroy it, since I'm gonna save it in his scrapbook. For those of you who don't know, Isaac LOVES LOVES LOVES Elmo. He actually said "I uv melmo" this morning! This is him dancing and singing along to his Elmo movie. I couldn't quite get the shot I wanted to, but this was pretty close. He'll tilt his head back, and open his mouth real wide while he's singing.

Kate, Audrey and Emily's visit

2009-03-06T12:37:00.003-06:00

This past Monday and Tuesday we had Kate, Audrey and Emily come up for a visit. It was so nice to have some company and be with my sisters. I love them and miss them so much! These first 2 pictures are of Isaac munching on some caramel corn my mom made. She makes THE BEST homemade caramel corn!!!! Apparently Isaac agrees with me. On Monday afternoon, we all met Chris at the mall for lunch. Isaac likes the cheese roll ups from Taco Bell.

After eating lunch, we walked around for a bit, and then made a pit stop at the kids play area. Audrey LOVED going down the slide over and over and over again. Isaac, on the other hand, seems to be a bit scared of going down the slide. He'll climb all the way to the top of the stairs, stop, and then climb back down again.

Here's a cute snapshot of him climbing and having fun.

What a sweet look.

I think this is Audrey's cheese face. Either that, or I caught her during one of her many moments of not wanting to share Isaac's toys with Isaac.

Isaac blowing on Audrey's belly. Silly kids!

Fun around the house

2009-03-06T08:58:00.002-06:00

Everyone knows our cute little Isaac is all about having fun. Here are some fun times we've had lately. This first one was of us playing golf in the living room. Lately, Isaac LOVES playing with balls. We'll play catch, fetch, golf, baseball, and even bounce the balls off the kitchen cabinets or front door to watch them bounce right back to us. Isaac and daddy tightening the screws on the bottom of our kitchen chair. Isaac was really focused and intrigued.
Telling me "hi" while running around in his diaper. Such a cute little body...I just wanna squeeze him and kiss him!!!

"Cheese!"

My two favorite boys, playing with a deck of cards while I made dinner.

Mixing up all the cards, screaming like crazy.

"Hmmm, just 5 more to get rid of before I've got uno"

Cupcakes

2009-03-01T17:04:00.004-06:00

Hey peeps. It was time for our fridge to be stocked with some yummy cupcakes again, so these are what I came up with. The wrapping around the bottoms are scrapbook paper, and they're topped with chocolate shavings. The shavings were supposed to be curly, but I couldn't quite figure out how to do it right. Oh well, they still turned out cute and yummy. Enjoy the pictures while we enjoy the snacking...ha ha!

Our Week At Home

2009-02-23T09:28:00.011-06:00

Me and Chris had to drive home separately, since Chris could only stay for a few days before he had to work again. He was a nice husband and daddy, and let Isaac ride home with him in the truck. Here they are right before we got on the road. Our first night home was spent with some friends, playing a fun game of Quelf. Here's Isaac playing with his buddy Brock Wilson. They had such a blast together.
During our game of Quelf, I had to ask my foot for permission to speak anytime I spoke a sentence longer than 3 words.
Another Quelf moment: Chris and Sarah Clark had to stand in the crane pose.
I made the cake for Chris' mom and step-dad's birthday party. She LOVES Disney, so I made a mickey mouse cake. Everything except for the wording was painted onto the (homemade) marshmallow fondant with food coloring.
One of Isaac's favorite things to do this week was play with the push poppers at his Grandma and Grandpa Whaley's house. He'd say "Ready, set, go!" and then him and my dad would push them back and forth real crazily. A couple of times Audrey joined in by dropping her sippy cup, like dropping a hockey puck.
At his Mamaw and Papaw Kinions house, I thought I'd be funny and wrap him up in a blanket. He loved it and thought he was pretty cool.

Playing with his Pawpaw Owens. Randy always plays with him on the floor everytime we go over there. Isaac sure loves his grandpas!

Back at Mamaw and Papaw Kinion's house; Our friend Taylor and her two kids, Kobe and Paige, came over for an evening visit. Isaac had a great time having some playmates to play with.

Here's cousin Audrey putting Isaac's shoes on, all by herself!

We met Mawmaw Owens and Aunt Mo for lunch at R.T. Weilers on Main Street in St. Charles. As you can see, Isaac REALLY enjoyed his fettucine alfredo! He even took a few bites from Aunt Mo's hamburger!Being a cute little cowboy at Mawmaw and Pawpaw Owens house. Yee-haw, ridem' cowboy!

Me, Isaac and his Grandma Whaley went to visit my Grandma Heberling for an afternoon. Here's Isaac being a funny boy. He had a pretty good time over there though. All of her light switches were within his arms reach, so all afternoon the lights were off and on, off and on, off and on, etc.

I didn't make these, my sister Kate did, but I thought I'd share them with everyone. They're cupcakes with marshmallow flowers on top; she made them for Lucy Netzer's 1st birthday party. Aren't they cute?! I thought she did a wonderful job.

Playing with some balloons that Grandma Whaley blew up for him.

Eating some eggs for breakfast at Grandma and Grandpa Whaley's house. The only way he'd eat his eggs would be sitting at this little table, watching his Elmo Dvd. He LOVES Elmo!

Back home in Tolono, IL; Me, Chris and Isaac went grocery shopping on Sunday. Here's Isaac helping us put groceries away.

Sitting on the couch, watching his Elmo dvd, again, for the millionth time.

Lately Isaac has been trying to dress and undress himself. He somehow managed to get his arm out of his shirt. He just kept on playing like it was normal. Silly boy.

Valentine's Cake

2009-02-11T14:27:00.003-06:00

With love in the air, reminding me of the people who are most dear to me, it was only appropriate to make a Valentine's cake. Besides, Chris was begging me to bake another cake. :) It turned out pretty simple, but with Jean & Johnny's party this weekend, I need some time to make the perfect birthday cake for them.

"The Look"

2009-02-09T09:47:00.004-06:00

Isaac does this new thing with eyes, when he's playing around. I'm calling it "The Look". This first picture doesn't really show the true "look", but it's still cute. Here it is...."The Look". He likes to look out of the corner of his eyes, trying to avoid looking at you. It's much cuter in person.
Here it is again.
And again.

Wearing mommy's stuff

2009-02-09T09:39:00.003-06:00

Wearing my hairclip. I have no clue how he put it in his hair. Wearing my sweatshirt.
My sweatshirt became a sweatskirt.

Mamaw came to visit

2009-02-09T09:19:00.003-06:00

Isaac's Mamaw came to visit us Friday and Saturday, so here's a few pictures of our fun time we had with her. The hotel she stayed in had an indoor pool, so we went for swim on Friday afternoon. Here's Isaac chillin' before we got in. Me and Isaac having fun with some of his toys; he had a blast in the pool. There was a girl who came in, wearing a snorkel mask and flippers, swimming around, splashing her feet. Isaac was amazed watching her, and started kicking his feet just like she was! So, we turned him on his belly, walked around with him, and let him splash his feet like he was really swimming; he LOVED it!
Back in the hotel room, playing with the mirror. The shirt he's wearing is new; he's discovered that he LOVES Elmo. I even bought him an Elmo DVD about potty time; it's gotta be the goofiest, weirdest, most uncomfortable DVD I've ever seen. But.....I'm getting used to watching it, since we've watched it about 3 times now.
We went up to the mall on Saturday, and Mamaw bought Isaac this really cute outfit.

Mamaw and Isaac wrapping up his baby in a blanket.

Our Silly Sleeping Cutie

2009-02-02T11:37:00.003-06:00

This was in the nursery at church; he pulled all the toys out of the cubby hole, and climbed right up in there. You can see that it was a couple feet off the ground. This boy constantly amazes me! This was this morning, around 11. His nap time is usually at 11:30, but he decided to take it early. It started out as him laying completely still on the blanket, watching cartoons. I could tell he was getting tired, but I didn't expect him to actually fall asleep!
My little Sleeping Cutie, with a snot bubble in his left nostril...can't get any cuter!

Sweetness

2009-01-30T21:28:00.002-06:00

Our sweet little boy has been sick for almost a week, with yucky stuff like diarrhea, but he's slowly starting to get better. Here are some cute pictures from recently.

Covering his babies with a blanket for night-night. Sunday morning before church. Isn't our little boy handsome?

I see you Isaac!

Playing peek-a-boo from around the corner.

Not feeling too well, so he played with his toys while laying down.

Random cuteness

2009-01-23T11:33:00.004-06:00

Riding around on his little 4 wheeler he got for Christmas from Mamaw and Papaw Kinion. Playing with his little activity cube he got from aunt Mo. He plays with it almost ALL the time!
This is my new favorite picture of my two favorite boys! Isaac is trying to pull his ears out like daddy!

Eating and holding a banana by himself, for the first time. I usually hold the banana myself and let him take his own bites.

So cute. Once he got down to the unpeeled part, he just kept nibbling, so I had to show him how to peel the banana.

My mom came up for a surprise 2 day visit, and she bought Isaac some of these sweet tart suckers from the candy shop at the mall. He'd never had one before, but he LOVED it.

Goofy Moments

2009-01-19T08:39:00.004-06:00

Dragging a 5 lb. bag of potatoes around the house, while holding his baby glow worm. I couldn't believe he was strong enough to drag the potates around, PLUS he's able to lift the bag up in the air. He's so strong! He's also grown really attached to the glow worm. He calls it his "Baby", likes to pat it's back and say "night night", and give it kisses. He's such a sweet little boy. Playing some Guitar Hero.
We finally took him out in the snow on Sunday afternoon, since it's warmed up a bit. We've had snow for about 4 days now, so it's about time we got to go out there and enjoy it! And since Chris had the day off, we got to enjoy the time outside as a family.

He found the snow shovel and decided to clear a little path for himself. He's such a big helper!

Awwwww....my 2 favorite boys!

Me and my little "sugar pie".

I thought this was a cute picture, with his nose and cheeks all rosy.

Dinner at Chilis

2009-01-18T23:18:00.002-06:00

Saturday night we went out to Chilis for dinner. Mmmmmm. Isaac did pretty well, considering he's 1 1/2, and has lots of energy, and doesn't like to sit still for any long length of time. Thankfully, we had lots of things to keep him entertained, and it was a very enjoyable dinner. He had fun with the crayons before we started eating, and liked putting the crayons in and out of the cup more than he liked coloring with them. That's our Isaac! He got tired of sitting in the highchair, so Chris moved him into the booth between him and the window. It gave Isaac some leg room.
Sipping his chocolate milk. This was the first time I'd seen him drink from a straw, so it was kind of exciting.

Isaac got a bit restless, and got fascinated with coloring on the pictures hanging on the wall. Don't worry, Chris was able to smear the crayon marks off with his finger.

All in all, it was a nice dinner. Although we ordered a kids cheese pizza for Isaac, he resorted to eating french fries instead, and didn't want anything else. We feed our son so healthily!

Before, during & after our visit with Kate and Audrey

2009-01-15T12:44:00.005-06:00

These first 2 pics are pre-Kate & Audrey's visit with us. Chris had a day off of work early last week, so the 3 of us went to the indoor church playground that me and Isaac go to every once in a while. Isaac has finally discovered the fascination of drinking from a water fountain, and LOVES it. I have a feeling we'll be frequently visiting the water fountains from now on....yay for me.Chris and Isaac playing in the lego box together. Isaac LOVES building with legos, and is really good at it too!
So the first day Kate and Audrey were here, we all made a trip up to Walmart. We thought it'd be fun for the kids to sit next to each other in one of these weirdly large shopping carts. Even though the kids were content, me and Kate found the shopping cart itself to be uncomfortable for the kids to sit in (since the seats were about half the size of their booties, forcing the kids to be on the verge of sliding off, if it weren't for the harnessed seat belts), and it was difficult for us to maneuver around the store (since the shopping cart was about as long as school bus). We had a good laugh though!
Breakfast the next morning, watching cartoons.

Me and Kate took the kids to the indoor church playground, since Kate and Audrey had never been there either. This was one of the rare moments that Isaac and Audrey were playing with eachother at the playground. They pretty much went their own ways, exploring different things. Audrey spent most of her time by the slide, and Isaac spent most of his time going in and out of the gates, surrounding the play area. The gates are his favorite thing to play with, every single time we go there. Does that surprise anyone??

Playing with some of his toy kitchen utensils. He was pretending to feed Audrey, and she kept biting down on the spatula, trying her hardest to not let go. Funny enough, as soon as Isaac would finally manage to yank it out of her mouth, he'd put it right back in. Whatever son.

Towards the end of their visit, Audrey and Isaac were getting real tired of sharing toys and sharing space. It's funny now to look at this picture and laugh, but at the time, it wasn't so funny.

We all went to the mall the last night they were here, and while we were waiting for Kate and Audrey to come out of the bathroom, Chris showed Isaac how to toss some coins into the water fountain. I thought this was a cute picture of the 2 of them.

Back to normal life, with just the 3 of us, Chris and Isaac were having fun playing video games. Chris bought himself an Xbox 360 with his Christmas money; does that really surprise anyone?? I didn't think so. Boys will be boys, right?

Christmas 08

2009-01-03T12:37:00.006-06:00

Christmas this year was wonderful, and we were very blessed to be with family and receive a lot of nice gifts. Thank you to all. Since I've got a lot of pictures to share, I'll make my comments brief. This first pic is at Mamaw and Papaw Kinion's house, Christmas Eve. A cute pic with Santa.
Another cute pic with Santa.
This is my absolute favorite Christmas picture this year. I just happened to get a quick shot of Isaac having a good time before opening presents.

Enjoying one of his new toys from Mamaw and Papaw Kinion.

Playing a game of 'Would You Rather' at my aunt JoEllens house on Christmas afternoon. From left to right, aunt JoEllen, uncle Kent, cousin James, grandma Heberling, my mom, sister Emily, and my dad.

My mom had to drink from her tea cup like a cat, playing 'Would you rather'. She'd be so embarassed to see this picture of her on the internet!

Family picture at my parents house Christmas evening.

Isaac eating a Christmas cookie, sitting next to his cousin Audrey.

Audrey trying to sit on Isaac's lap.

Isaac and Audrey enjoying their new jingle bell sticks.

Playing Galaga on Mamaw and Papaw Kinion's arcade machine.

The Owens men at Mawmaw and Pawpaw Owens' house, for Christmas. From the left to right, Ian Owens, Randy (Bud) Owens Jr, Papa Owens, Randy Owens Sr, Chris Owens, and Isaac Owens.

Chris' sister Melissa had to drink from a cup upside down, while playing our new game "Quelf". It's so much fun!!!

While playing Quelf, Chris had to yoddle and put his finger up his nose while playing his turn!

For the entire game, Chris had to wear a homemade snorkle, and our sister in law Karey had to wear that goofy winter hat.

Isaac and Audrey having a diaper party before putting pj's on.

Me, Isaac, Kate, Audrey, my dad, and my grandma Whaley all went to the Mills mall, and we rode on the carousel. Isaac didn't want to sit on the horses, so I held him the whole time.

Me and my sister Kate made these cupcakes for a new years eve party. They're a bit on the 'fourth of july' look, but they were festive looking, and yummy too!

Big boy

2008-12-20T09:46:00.002-06:00

Isaac is slowly learning how to color with crayons. So far he hasn't quite gotten the hang of it, but he loves to put the crayons back in the box. Go figure! He was concentrating so hard!
My goofy boys sitting at Isaac's table together.

Zoning out while watching his TV shows.

Hammering the wall. Tap tap tap.

Daisy Cake

2008-12-18T23:00:00.003-06:00

I didn't attend my final cake class that was scheduled for tonight (Thursday), due to Isaac not feeling well. He's been getting his molars in, and the poor guy has been soooo miserable!!! Even though I didn't go to class, I still did the work that I would've done, had I gone. We were supposed to choose a cake design from our course book, and create our 'Grand Finale' cake, using all the techniques we learned. Without my teacher to guide me, I had to follow the directions in the book and figure it out on my own. The only part of the cake that I didn't learn how to do in class were the flowers. That was covered in Tuesday night's class, which I missed as well, due to the icy roads and Isaac not feeling well. This first picture is what my kitchen table looked like with all my stuff spread across it. It's pretty close to what my table area in class looked like too. The unpleasant part of the process is cleanup! You can see my course book and the design I chose to do, in the bottom right of the picture. This is what my cake looked like before I added all the decorations. At this point I had only covered the cake and the cake plate with yellow fondant.

Tah-dah!!!! It looks too good to eat, which is fine, cause it's chocolate cake, and neither me nor Chris like chocolate cake. We still have half of the cake from last week in the fridge! (the one I previously posted pictures of ). It was a lot of fun to make. I only wish my teacher could've seen it.

A close-up angle.

Toys and Cake

2008-12-12T08:52:00.005-06:00

Yesterday Isaac decided to toss all of his toys out of his toy box, and then climbed in. Usually he just gets in & sits on top of the toys (it always looks so uncomfortable).

Last night was the second session of my Fondant & Gumpaste Cake Decorating class. I baked a cake at home, brought it to class, and decorated it with Fondant and Gumpaste. Since it's a 'Sample Cake', you'll notice it has a bunch of random decorations that don't match. This first picture shows a ribbon border and twirly swags.This picture features 2 bandanas.This picture features a large drape with a swirly pattern.The whole cake...ta dah! Next week at my final class, I'll have to choose a professional design from my course book and decorate a cake, using the techniques I've learned.

Isaac's early Christmas present

2008-12-08T10:54:00.002-06:00

I know what most of you are thinking....why did we give Isaac his Christmas present already?? Well, I just couldn't wait! I've been wanting to get him a little table and chairs for a couple months now, so I was a bit excited for him to have it. We set everything up last night, so it was up and ready for him to use this morning. He loves it!! He's been eating his little cheezits all morning, and unfortunately, he's learned he can climb on top of the table! He's done it twice already. He's such a little explorer.

2008-12-04T13:32:00.003-06:00

Last week Isaac ate some spaghettio things, and he got sooooo messy! I had to give him a bath afterwards. To prove how messy he was, the bathtub had an orange ring when I drained the water. Yuck! He was so slimy that he couldn't even hold onto his sippy cup. It kept slipping from his hands. His sippy cup was slimy too.
My mom gave him and Audrey matching manger scenes as an early Christmas gift. The people and the manger are all soft. He especially likes the baby Jesus that he's holding. He even knows how to say "Jesus". It's so cute!

Here he is being silly on the couch, holding the baby Jesus.

Just like everything else, he held baby Jesus up to his ear and starting talking like it was a phone. Even hot dogs are a phone to him!!!

This was him being fussy this morning, when he was getting tired and ready for his nap.

Yesterday I attempted to teach him how to draw with crayons. All the big zig zag marks are from me and him together, and all the little scribbles are him. He doesn't quite get the concept, but he'll catch on soon enough. He mostly tapped the crayons on the paper, or took two crayons, one in each hand, and beat them on the paper like drums!

He's fascinated with his sunglasses for some reason. I'm trying to teach him to say "Dude" when he's got them on.

the First Snowfall

2008-11-30T12:48:00.003-06:00

Well, it snowed here overnight. What a wonderful surprise!! I love how beautiful a fresh white blanket of snow looks. I decided to bundle me and Isaac up, and go outside for some winterland fun. He didn't have as much fun as I had hoped he would, but I think it's mainly because he didn't know what to do with it. If we had a sled, it would've been a lot more fun. Oh well. Here's some of the best pictures I could get. Uh oh. Fussy Isaac alert!
I'm not sure if he was trying to eat the snow or pull his gloves off.

I had to work hard at getting him to smile for this picture.

2008-11-23T11:35:00.003-06:00

Isaac's fake cry. A really cute close-up. This might be one of my new favorite pictures.
Laughing and having a fun time on the couch in his pj's.

Zoning while eating breakfast and watching his morning cartoons.

Baby Footprint Cupcakes

2008-11-22T16:58:00.002-06:00

I made these cute little pink footprint cupcakes for my friend Danice's baby shower today. I used buttercream icing to ice the cupcakes, and fondant for the footprints. I can't take full credit for them though; Chris helped me cut out most of the many many many little toes. Thanks dear!

Underwater pictures from cruise

2008-11-21T08:19:00.006-06:00

These pics are from our excursion on the island of St. Thomas, called a "helmet dive". For 30 minutes, we walked on the ocean floor wearing only our swimsuits and a helmet. It was AWESOME! To keep us from floating up, the helmets weighed around 75 lbs, but we barely felt the weight while underwater. To keep a fresh supply of air inside our helmets, an air compressed hose was connected to the tops of our helmets. In this first picture, you're seeing Chris climb down the ladder into the water. After we were shoulder deep, this woman put the helmets over our heads, creating a bubble of trapped air in the helmet (like turning a cup upside down and putting it in a pool of water).The two of us. I don't know why Chris' nose looks so squished!
The front of our group, following our tour guide (on the far right).Our group's scruba diver, collecting some sea creatures, like this sea urchin, for us to hold.

Me holding some sort of star fish thingy.Me...."cheese!"

Chris..."cheese".

Some coral and sea life.

Our group's scuba diver carrying a bag of fish food, to attract the fish to swim around us.What big eyes those fish have!

Some more coral and sea life.

More fishy fishys.

Me climbing up the ladder to get out; it's all over (sigh)

My "Sugar Pie"

2008-11-19T08:11:00.004-06:00

Rubbing his tired little eyes. Grabbing hold of my finger, walking me around the house.
Helping us fold laundry...sort of.
Walking us around the house again, with a tupperware lid in his mouth. We don't pretend to understand him and his weird ways.

"Oooooooh"

Pulling off his hat.

He put his hat back on, all by himself!

Sitting in a big-boy chair, with such a cute little smile.

Playing with Daddy's hat, putting it on and off of him.

"Hi!"

Trying to turn on the tv.

Today and Tuesday

2008-11-13T15:39:00.003-06:00

Hello friends and family! We're doing well here. I think I've finally adjusted to reality after our cruise we went on last week. I'm thankful to be home with Isaac again. He's the cutest little guy ever! Here he is this morning, playing with his activity cube. He's getting real good at moving the little pieces around the long loops and twists. He's not only the cutest little guy ever, but the smartest too!
Tuesday night we took a trip up to Target to let Isaac run around. Chris had him standing in the cart at first, and Isaac tried to climb out!!!!

Our Caribbean Cruise

2008-11-10T13:19:00.014-06:00

Hey all! Me and Chris got back from our Caribbean cruise on Sunday, and wanted to share a few pics with everyone. Not to rub it in too much, but we had a GREAT time! Ha ha!!!!

Here we are on the top deck of the ship, on the first day. We had a table to ourselves every night for dinner. For those of you who have never cruised before, you get to have a nice, elegant, sit-down dinner every night. The food is to die for!

Up on the top deck, reading our books, lounging in the sun. This was on Monday, docked at our first port, Nassau, Bahamas.
As we were leaving Nassau, we passed by this beautiful lighthouse.
I ordered a special "surprise" cake that was brought to our dinner table, with the waiters singing to us. I forgot to take a picture before we cut into it, but it said "Happy Honeymoon". (We were calling this vacation our belated honeymoon, since we never took one.)
Every evening when the room stewards come to turn down our beds, they create these cute little towel animals. It's a different animal every night. This one is a bunny...maybe.

The morning of our second port, St. Thomas. Our shore excursion on the island was a "Helmet Dive". It's a bit complicated to explain, but we basically walked along the ocean floor with nothing but our swimsuits and a helmet on. It was SOOOOO cool to have all the fish swim around us, and our guide even let us hold a few sea creatures in our hands. I don't have any pictures of the Helmet Dive for you, since we had to use our underwater cameras.

Just a pretty picture I took prior to doing our Helmet Dive. We had to take a bus to a little place called Coral World Park on the island of St. Thomas, to do our Helmet Dive. This picture was taken at Coral World, which was like a super dee duper mini version of Sea World.

A pretty picture I took after doing our Helmet Dive, at Coral World.

Touching a star fish in a little pond at Coral World.

There were TONS of Iguanas walking and sitting about the ground at Coral World. We really had to watch our feet as we were walking around, cause we could've easily stepped on one. I don't want to know what would've happened if we stepped on one....I think they have sharp teeth and sharp toe nails.

On our way back to port from Coral World, our bus driver let us out at a scenic point on the island. You can see our cruise ship in the top left of the picture, along with another cruise ship.

At our third port, St. Marteen, we took a little trip over to the beach to swim in the ocean. We left a little message in the sand for Isaac!

Swimming in the ocean at St. Marteen.

We spent a lot of down time reading our books, either on the top deck of the ship, or somewhere inside the ship. This is obviously when we were reading INSIDE the ship.

There were lots of games going on every day throughout the ship, and this was a game that entailed the guys shaking their booties at the ladies in the disco room. I don't think a single guy had a bit of rhythm in their bum....well, except for Chris, of course! Shake it dear!

I'm in the center of the picture, with a red shirt on, dancing on the top deck. It was a lot of fun!

On the top deck at sunset. How romantic! Although, it was a bit windy, judging by my hair.

One of my absolute favorite parts of the cruise was the 24-hour self serve ice cream machine. We had an ice cream cone EVERY DAY, and I think twice a couple of days.

On the bus to go back to Miami airport. You can tell that we were really ready to go home.

Our Honey Baked Ham

2008-10-29T10:34:00.005-05:00

Isaac is so weird sometimes...Chris says he gets it from me. I like to call him our little "Honey Baked Ham", cause he's not only a ham, he's sweet too. Here he is being goofy at breakfast this morning. The first picture is my favorite.

Isaac's Adventure Through Target

2008-10-27T08:55:00.007-05:00

My story begins on a cold, blustery night. I was being really fussy at home, so my mommy and daddy decided to leave the house and take a trip to mommy's favorite store, Target. As they were pushing me along in the shopping cart, I was getting squirmy, like a cute little squirmy wormy. Mommy and daddy said, "Let's let him walk around the store for a bit". So, they picked me up, set me down on the floor, and there was sweet FREEDOM!

Running as fast as my little legs could, I made my way over to the fitness isle. I found an exercise mat like the one my mommy has.Then, I merrily made my way over to this really cool, blue snow sled. Mommy told me all about snow, and how much fun I'm gonna have playing in it. Then, Daddy said we live in the great white north now. I don't really know what that means, but I can't wait for the first snow!

After dreaming of playing in the snow, I found some shiny silver shoes. I LOVE shoes! I always get so excited when Mommy and Daddy tell me it's time to put on my shoes. That means we're gonna go 'bye bye'. I then took off running as fast as I could through the mens clothing section. That's where big boys like my daddy shop for their clothes. I said, "Catch me if you can!". A lot of people were looking at me and laughing, with big giagantic smiles on their faces. They told my mommy and daddy that I was cute, but I already knew that.
Ooooooooh, I then found lots of neatly folded clothes that I pulled off the shelf. I made a mess just like I do at home. It was a lot of fun!!! The next thing I knew, mommy told daddy to put me in this big blue plastic tote. I usually like getting into boxes, but I was getting tired, and didn't really want to be in there.

One of the last isles I visited before heading home, was the toy isle, with a lot of bouncy balls in boxes. It wasn't very fun at all. I wondered, what's the point of a ball, if it's in a box?

By the end of our trip to Target, I was more than ready to go home and go night-night. I had the time of my life. Freedom was wonderful! The end.

Funny Boy

2008-10-26T13:50:00.006-05:00

Isaac is becoming quite the explorer these days. He figured out that he can climb into his toy box to play with his toys. Getting out of his toybox is a little more difficult, but it doesn't stop him from getting into it again!This is a small basket from the kitchen that I keep some more of his toys in. He dumped them all out and sat inside the basket. He fits in just right, but if he gets much bigger, I have a feeling he'll break it.I bought Isaac a new winter hat, since it's getting so cold outside, and I intentionally bought a Sponge Bob hat, since Pawpaw Owens can't stand Sponge Bob. I can't wait for him to see this picture!! Ha ha!!!This was such a cute moment...I just had to take a picture. We had just gotten back from Walmart (again), and we let Isaac walk himself to the front door. He's such a big boy! We've found a new food item that Isaac likes. Canned macaroni in pasta sauce (I'm not sure of the exact name; it's next to Spaghettio's in the grocery isle). He LOVES it! The only downfall is the mess it creates!These two pictures don't give justice to how messy he really got. It was all in his hair, on the sides of the highchair, all over his face and hands, on his clothes, and every little nook and cranny you could find.

2008-10-22T08:52:00.004-05:00

Isaac and Daddy putting his farm animal puzzle together. Strikin' a pose with Daddy's socks.
Chris brought this home yesterday. Everyone who had some sort of responsibility on the Saints Row 2 project, got this yummy box of cookies. Isn't that cool??!

Rose Fondant Cake

2008-10-20T13:19:00.004-05:00

For those of you who don't know, I'm trying to start a cake decorating business. Although I've not had any paying jobs yet, I've already got a name picked out, "Icing on the cake". I've got a link to my blog on the left side of this page. Right now I'm spending my time practicing, and I'm going to be enrolling in some classes at Micheals in December. Here's my most recent cake I made, with fondant and buttercream icing.

Weekend with family

2008-10-16T10:27:00.005-05:00

Helping me fold laundry, so we can pack for the weekend trip home.Come back with Daddy's sock Isaac! Mamaw giving Isaac his first professional 5 minute haircut. She had to act quick, cause we all know how Isaac likes to be on the move!
He snacked on some cheezit's to stay distracted.
Sunday afternoon at Mawmaw and Pawpaw Owens' house. Since we'll be on the road, traveling back home on Halloween night, we let him run around in his Superman costume to get some cute pics.
I love this picture of us.
Superman having a conversation with his Grandpa Whaley. I wonder what he was talking about??
Having fun in the leaves with cousins Maggie and Ian.

So many cute pics of Isaac!

2008-10-08T11:01:00.004-05:00

Isaac has a set of toy keys, and was smart enough to try and unlock the door!Showing us his cute little belly button.
Playing Rock Band with Daddy...rock on Isaac!
Eating mashed potatoes at Applebee's...mmm!
Eating spaghetti-o's for the first time. He loved them!
I showed him how to eat them with a spoon, and he did pretty well, with my help of course. Most of the time they fell off his spoon before he got to his mouth, but now he always has to eat with a spoon!
Being silly at Curtis Orchard pumpkin patch.
Cheese!
Kissing his pumpkin that we picked out ourselves.
In the wagon with all 3 of our pumpkins.
Of course, we had to get a family picture before we left the pumpkin patch. We had a lot of fun that day, and even video taped a bit.
At Tolono park. This was the first time we let Isaac crawl all by himself on a playground set, and slide down a slide all by himself. After he'd slide down the slide, he knew he had to walk all the way around to the stairs, and climb up to go back down the slide. He's so smart!
Sliding down all by himself. Weeeeeeee!
Rocking back and forth on the choo-choo train.
Having a good time on the swing!