Popsicle on a hot summer night

Sunday morning on the boat

Sunday morning we got on the road early to meet up with Poppy Marshall, Grandma Marshall and Aunt Hillary at the boat in Maryland. We went straight out onto the water since we only had a few hours before having to head home for a neighborhood block party. The weather was gorgeous! Sunny and warm with a nice breeze once we got out onto the water. Ben did some driving and was a pro at maneuvering the boat around the marina where we went to turn around. Owen was very well-behaved the entire time on the boat. He had a ball!

After spending some time out on the bay, we headed back to the marina where Curt and Ben grilled up some brats and hot dogs for lunch. Hillary had made a fruit salad that Owen devoured as an appetizer. We had so much fun spending the day at the boat and look forward to many more weekends this summer enjoying it as a family.

Strawberry pickin'

Hillary had the brilliant idea to head out west to a nearby farm to go strawberry picking this morning! We drove out early and were able to easily find the farm down a long gravel road. There were lots of people out picking, but there were still tons of beautiful plump strawberries for us to find.

Aunt Hillary brought a little bucket especially for Owen to collect his strawberries in. He did so well! At first he would pick any and all strawberries he'd find, including the under-ripe white ones. But once we told him to only pick the red ones (his favorite color!), he then was filling up his bucket with nice ripe berries. He would drop about 5 or 6 strawberries in his bucket before walking over to mine or Hillary's and dumping them into the bigger bucket.

We came home with about 4 pounds of delicious fresh strawberries and I'm planning on making a strawberry pie to bring to our neighborhood Memorial Day picnic tomorrow. It was a very fun morning. Owen was so tuckered out, he took a 3-hour nap this afternoon! Good thing too since we'll be out tonight at our community summer kick-off party. Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone!

Playdate with Sarah Catherine

We missed our friends so much!! Today we drove over to Maryland to spend a few hours with Stephanie and Owen's girlfriend, Sarah Catherine. The kids had a ball playing together both in the family room and in their adorable downstairs playroom. Owen was fascinated by Sarah Catherine's babydoll stroller. He must have pushed that thing around for twenty minutes! (Mommy neglected to get a picture of it because she was so tired and her tummy wasn't feeling the best.)

The kiddos gave us a hard time with eating lunch. They were having so much fun playing, they didn't want to take time out to eat even though Steph made them a yummy lunch. So we let them run around playing some more until they were eventually somewhat hungry. The bunny graham crackers and yogurt were a hit!

We had such a great day and since Owen did not nap on the drive home, he went straight up into his nursery for a well-needed rest. Nice quiet afternoon for Mommy to also rest. :)

Lack of posts

The lack of posts this week is due to Mommy dealing with a bad case of morning sickness. It's similar to when I was pregnant with Owen, but this time I've actually tossed my cookies more than once. YUCK. A call to the the OB-GYN and I was armed with a prescription for Zofran, an anti-nausea medication that is safe during pregnancy. This little pill is fantastic. It helps keep my stomach under control so that I can actually eat without feeling like puking. Thank heavens for modern medicine.

The other reason for the lack of posts is this feeling of exhaustion that has swept over me this week. I can hardly keep my eyes open during the day. Hopefully, within a few weeks I'll be feeling more refreshed as I remember the second trimester with Owen being just peachy. :)

Comb

Today we worked on our hair. Owen's hair is getting long and wild. But it is so, so cute and I can't bear to cut off his curls. So, to tame it we used some Johnson's detangler and did some combing. Owen had a ball. Now it doesn't look so messy.

Bob the Builder

This was the first time Owen actually sat on the couch and watched an entire episode of Bob the Builder. Such a big boy!

Pancakes

Bless his heart. This morning Ben let me sleep in while he took Owen downstairs for breakfast. He decided to make this impressive stack of pancakes to surprise me. Unfortunately, my stomach did flip flops as I smelled them walking downstairs and into the kitchen. :(

I ended up only being able to eat two bites. Surprisingly enough milk seems to settle my stomach. With my morning sickness in full force, I had two glasses of skim milk and two bites of a pancake for breakfast.

Herndon ROCKS ~ #1 of the season!

We had such great weather for Herndon ROCKS tonight! It was warm, but not too warm, and there was a nice breeze. We grabbed food and drinks and waited for Mol & Tim to arrive with baby Nate (6 weeks old and I think it was his first concert!). Kayla kept busy with her stickers ~ she was so good the entire night!




I was hoping the wording on my tee shirt would be easy to read in the pictures, but unfortunately they didn't turn out.

It says, "Miracle in progress". Yup. Baby #2 is on the way. We're due in December! :)

Watchin' the big kids play basketball

Laund-DARY! ;)

Back 2 School

Basket-BALL!!!

Owen's "new" toy!

For the love of....TRUCKS!

Now I know why Kel said to hide the pop 'n shine books!!!

Playin' in the dirt this morning

The At Play Cafe ~ great place for a rainy day

Triangles and circles and the like...

Our Mother's Day

Our Mother's Day was just lovely. We all met up at the boat and unpacked a feast of a picnic! Aunt Hillary slaved away in the kitchen making pesto olive pasta salad with roasted tomatoes, an amazing potato salad with sweet potatoes, fresh fruit, and we also had Ben's famous burgers with cheddar cheese. I almost forgot about the dessert. My absolute fav ~ chocolate cupcakes with PB icing. They were garnished with chocolate chips and raspberries. Owen devoured his as you can see in the pictures. :)

I feel so very blessed. Love to Curt, Tish and Hillary, and of course, Ben ~ he made my 2nd Mother's Day so special!

Basketball hoop & Poppy's tractor!

Mommy wanted to visit baby Nate and Molly & Tim again, so Aunt Hillary, Grandma and Poppy offered to babysit. Little did Owen know, there were a few surprises waiting for him. Grandma had made a quick visit to Toys R Us and picked out a Little Tikes basketball set and a Fisher Price golf set!

Owen LOVES both, but spent more time with the basketball set than the golf set. Might we have a future Michael Jordon on our hands? We'll see ~ both his Poppys played basketball in highschool and Ben and I think he may end up having the height for it.

He also got to ride on Poppy's "tractor" while he was there! He had so much fun he was pooped by the time we got home at 8pm. Thanks so much Grandma, Poppy and Aunt Hillary! Looking forward to spending some more time together tomorrow on the boat!

Multi-tasking

Owen has been feeling a little under the weather with a cold, so we've been watching some Bob the Builder episodes on DVR. It's his new FAVORITE show. :) But he sometimes gets distracted and wants to read and also watch his show. Check it out:

Herndon Big Trucks week

Herndon Department of Public Works puts on an annual "Big Trucks Week" and we stopped by this afternoon. Owen was such a lucky boy that his daddy was able to step out of the office for an hour to join us! He had a ball exploring all the big trucks on display. It was a fun little event this morning which tuckered him out. He went to sleep right as I put him down in his crib after lunch.

First time in a booster seat!

Ben wanted to take Owen & I out to dinner for Cinco de Mayo. We did not object. :) The line was long to get a table at our local Mexican joint, but we waited patiently (Owen too). Once we got to the hostess, she said she didn't have a table ready where they could put a highchair but there was a booth available and they could give us a booster seat. We were hesitant to try it, but thought, what the heck? We sat down and it took awhile for a server to come over to get our order (they were so busy), but once we ordered our food came out pretty quickly. It was delicious! And Owen was incredibly well behaved. We worried he would try to slide under the table, but that only happened once when we were waiting for the check.

Overall it was a success! And we'll probably try it next time too.

Scary ride

This morning Owen and I ran to the outlets to return some shoes we bought for Ben that didn't fit. There were a bunch of coin-operated kids rides outside and Owen kept asking to ride them. Once we were finished with our return, we picked an orange race car to ride. Owen jumped in and I put the 50 cents in to make it run.

He immediately wanted out. It was squeaky and scary.

Once I rescued him from the car, we watched it for a minute and I tried again:

What is your name?

Okay Mom, I said it. Now let me outta here!

Firehouse pancake breakfast

This morning Ben and I decided to take Owen to the local firehouse for a pancake breakfast and an up-close look at one of his favorite things: a fire engine! Since it was a nice day (hot again, but I'm not complaining), we hooked up Owen's bike trailer and got our exercise on the way there and back ~ a little over 4.5 miles round trip.

Owen was a little overwhelmed by the size of the real fire engine compared to his toy. He was a little timid about climbing up into the truck and didn't want to try on the helmet. But we do think he had a fun morning overall. I have a feeling we'll visit the firehouse many more times as our little boy grows up. :)

Hot May 1st

Today was a scorcher! The temperature hit a high of 90 degrees ~ breaking an official record at Dulles airport! Ben set up Owen's water table on the deck so that we could cool off ~ it was so fun and kept Owen busy for 2 hours! (Yes, we slathered ourselves with sunscreen before heading outside. No sunburns in this house!)