Post 9: My future hopeful

We are so happy!! I finally got a positive home pregnancy test today! It was so so faint this morning I wasn't really sure... I didn't think my husband would believe me, but I kept thinking "a line is a line" and so I called him at work and about cried telling him the news! On the way to work I splurged on a digital early results test and was super-suoer-psyched to get a "pregnant"




even if it was in the bathroom at a Cumberland Farms. I did feel like a weirdo walking around with a pee stick in my purse all day, but hey I put the cap back on!

My regular OB can't see me til the end of next week, so I was gonna hold off telling folks, but couldn't wait... I told my mom and dad tonight, they are so excited to be grandparents again. I kind of wish I could have waited to tell them in person, but I was too excited!

Smiles all around today!! but hey if you happen to by my Facebook friend lets keep this between you, me and the blogosphere, k-thxs!!

Loving Lazy Sundays... post #8

Today was a great day, we didn't even leave the house! Well I guess J went into work at 4:30 to check on something, but I slept right through that! And Owen wowed us with his potty skills! No diapers today and no accidents!! He was naked a lot of the day so that always seems to help him. The other thing that helps us is he gets to use the cloth diaper sprayer that is hooked up to our toilet to rinse out his potty. It's really handy to have the sprayer. It also plays into his fireman phase nicely. I love getting some more use out of that thing since Owen started refusing to wear cloth diapers about 6 months ago, so we only really used them for 6 months and only part time... hopefully a future #2 will get a lot more use out of them.

Speaking of future hopeful #2 (that kind of sounds like a farm league ball player) we are in our waiting period and its the most frustrating thing! I am on cycle day 30 now, but got a negative test this morning. This is our second cycle using the medication Clomid to help me ovulate better, I often have very short cycles. Whether this is our lucky month or not, it has extended my cycle which is good.

In other news, Owen did his first somersault today...







he loves his "gynastics"

#7 starting to shoot manual

Our week was great. My friend joined us for a fajita dinner and I made my own salsa! After dinner, we went to a local park to photograph flowers and such without any little people... so nice when you can take your time and when the subject is not moving. I am proud because I shot mostly in manual! Here are some of my favorites:






I just love this park, the gardens are so well maintained and there are pretty stairs, a covered bridge, stone paths...



and bugs, don't forget the bugs


it was getting dark and I was having trouble keeping up with the lighting in the manual setting... but look at the improvements using photo shop elements... I can't wait to go back to this spot in a couple weeks when those water lily's are in bloom!


the sunset was kind of hard to capture at first, I guess I had on my longer zoom lens, but when I switched it out to the kit lens, it worked better!


So, I think I am going to enter a couple of photos into the amateur category at a local fair, I just can't decide which ones to enter. I ordered an 11x14 of the wet feet on the dock photo and it was blurry, :( so need to choose another to enlarge as I already bought the frames...decisions, decisions
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The theme at Owen's daycare this week was community helpers and he made the cutest hat for it


we also decided that he wants to be a fireman for Halloween! So cute! We actually picked out a dress-up outfit/costume today that will be his next potty prize. We decided he is gonna need 15 stars on his chart for this sweet prize! He is really good at going at home, but when we are out its harder for him. He hasn't gone at daycare yet, but today he did go in the grass:



hey we were a ways from home and traffic was so bad because of an airshow in the area. But we pulled over at a really cool spot - a place with dinosaur footprints!



can you make them out? It was pretty cool.

We also stopped for lunch, can you tell Owen enjoyed it?



The air show traffic was bad, but at least we got to see some of the planes in the grocery store parking lot


wow sorry about the long posts I really should have posted Wednesday after the photo shoot.

Post # 6: memory lane

My little man was born on Dec. 13, 2007 and faithfully on the 13th of every month I take his picture with this teddy bear


J and I made it at Build-A-Bear while I was pregnant. Before my big ultrasound I bought a message recorder from the store. We took it with us and recorded Owen's heartbeat. Then we took it back to the store and put in the cutest bear we could find. It had to be a Red Sox bear! We also saved it to the computer but I don't know how to put that in here...anyone?


I can't believe another 13th was here today, that makes my little man 32 months old, thats two and two thirds! Here is today's photo


Wow, too bad I didn't think to close the drawers sooner... a couple, ok a few, others from our "shoot" today - totally shot in auto because indoor photography confuses me.



Here are some other cute ones from the past 32 months!

Home from the hospital ........... 1 month



4 months .........................................5 months



7 months ............................................. 11 months


13 months ........................................... 15 months


18 months .............................................21 months

27 months ...............................................29 months


30 months

what a fun 32 months it has been!

My fifth post - balance

This has been a really great week at work, three of the toddlers I work with had great language spurts this week, I heard first words from two different little boys - one said ball and roll, the other said cup and apple, a third little girl used her first two word phrase and first grammatical morpheme "I jumping!" - supersweet verb + ing!!

Some days it is really hard for me to balance work, mommy-hood and life. Especially when Owen is having a fit about "slippery" socks on the morning that we are already running late, but I am blessed with a flexible job and some amazing kids to work with. When kids make big gains like I saw this week, I feel great knowing I had some part in their development.

This week has been going so well, Owen is doing better on the potty, I had a dinner out with the girls, and my hubby volunteered to do the dishes tonight!

The fourth post

It was a scorcher today - what better way to cool off than Six Flags! My Mother in Law bought my hubs and I season passes for our May birthdays, and Owen is free! Owen's MWF daycare is closed this week so his grammy came down to help take care of him. J and I took half days and we all headed for the Park!

I met the rest of them near the park to save me driving all the way home. I had our stuff all packed and in my car so it wouldn't get forgotten. Owen was being very difficult at home for poor daddy and Grammy and insisting on wearing shark shorts, these shorts were of course the ones I had packed and had with me. Some days he can be SO stubborn, or difficult, or maybe he's just being two.

Once Owen was fully dressed, we were on our way! Thomas Town is a favorite for us. Owen loves riding on Thomas and seeing the other trains parked in the shed.



He is afraid to go on Harold the Helicopter again though. Parents can't go on (well parents above 54") so he went on it alone back in May



he still remembers "I cried on Harold," poor thing.

The waterpark there is great too, there's an area for little ones with kiddie slides, a tiny wavepool and little lazy river!


We just keep him in his trunks all day because there are also splash pads in the middle of Wiggles World and Thomas Town.



Other than Owen's fit about his shorts and some general indecisiveness about when and where to eat at the park leading to some stress, it was a great day, but we were so glad to get home!


So I also want to use this blog to share photos and enter photo contests on other blogs. So, this week I am trying out the Shutter Love photo contest on the Trendy Treehouse. The theme is vacation. Here is my entry, I already blogged it as one of my favorites from the lake.

Wet little feet

Post # 3

Our weekend was fun and relaxing. Owen started potty training a little more seriously, he was proud of wearing big boy underwear when we remarked on how well he could jump without diapers on. We watched Elmo's Potty Time together and there is a scene with bigger kids playing in a band and little kids dancing. Owen asked "what are the big kids doing mommy, are they guitaring like daddy?" So cute, I couldn't even correct him. Bad speech therapist.

We went to the mall and he refused to try to sit on the public toilets and I can't blame him. We used diapers for part of the day and of course at night time. It was a big enough step for him to agree to wear the big boy underwear. When we first got them (back in Feb - look at all that hair!) he put them all on,












but hasn't wanted to wear them since.



Saturday evening I had a great night out with the girls. We had a few drinks and a great time. I left my camera at home, opting instead to bring a big bucket of margaritas!

Today we went to Wally-world for a potty to have upstairs. While there I scored some "soft" shorts on clearance. Owen is in a phase where he only wants to wear soft material - hello he has some really cute shorts just being wasted in his drawers- but some mornings it is not worth the battle. He also hates wearing flip flops, and has been complaining that socks are too "slippery" hope he gets over that one before the fall weather kicks in.

When we got home, Owen and I got creative...
































This is our double batch, we took half and added several drops of red food coloring to make our orange dough, its a bit peachy though.

We had lots of fun, Owen wants to make some red play dough next time, we are gonna have to stock up on the cream of tartar.




I used this recipe, it doubled easily...
1 cup warm water (with food coloring added)
1 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
2tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp cooking oil

stir continuously over medium heat until dough forms
maybe I took mine off a bit too early but I found it to be tacky so we sprinkled more flour into it as we kneaded it