Happy BIrthday Marcella!

Happy Birthday Marcella! We Love You!!!

Gifford Pinchot

On Friday we decided to head down to Gifford Pinchot State Park for a camp fire. It's the closest State Park to us, about 30 min. away. We got about 5 other couples to come and we all had such a fun time. Owen loved running around the woods and eating lots of healthy food...

All of our friends left but we decided to stay a little longer. We were just enjoying sitting by the fire when Owen decided it was time to go so he just hopped in the car and put his seat belt on. Then Jeff and I heard a rustling in the trees behind us. Jeff shined his flashlight and discovered a friendly skunk. We decided it was time to go. We had a hard time getting our chairs and putting out the fire because the skunk was not shy and we didn't want to scare it for fear of being sprayed. We were finally ready to go but it was hanging out right by Jeff's car door. He finally just climbed through the other door, over the seat, and we made it out of there without being sprayed!

Tonight after dinner we were cleaning up and Owen came up to me and said (in a matter of fact tone), "Should we make cookie dough now??" I was really looking forward to sitting down and relaxing, but I couldn't say no so we made some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The dough was really great, but the cookies kind of fell apart. But making it was so much fun. Owen is a great helper. He is especially good at tasting it at every stage!

Refreshing

Today was stake conference and we got home from church at noon instead of 4:00pm, our usual time. We were all so tired from getting to bed late last night so we took a Sunday nap and when I woke up I wanted to go for a walk, but this is what everyone was doing:

Owen still hadn't woken up. He was super tired but I finally went in to wake him up. You can see what a kind boy he is, giving up most the room on his bed, and his blankets, to his dogs.


I was slaving away in the kitchen making an apple crisp for a friend who just had her first baby on Monday and then moved from Philly back to Hershey on Friday. I should have made her a miracle pill to take away all her troubles, but I still haven't perfected the recipe.
Jeff was sitting at the computer doing who knows what. Probably stressing about his Step 2 test on Tuesday.

Well I finally convinced everyone to go for a walk. First Owen had to go potty which takes awhile. Hope no one is offended by this shot. Here we are having made it outside!!! It was a nice day, the first one in a long time.

Everytime we go on a walk Owen has to bring this, his bike, or this green doll stroller I picked up at a garage sale. Of course he calls the stroller his lawn mower and makes a lawn mower noise the whole walk. Kids are pretty cool when it comes to imagination! We just took a bunch of fun family shots.

I told Jeff I wanted a natural picture.

This is what Owen does when I ask him to make a face.

Cool 2 year old tricks!

The "leg" hug.

Owen requested this picture. Everytime the gesse flew over us he insisted we take a picture. This one turned out the best.

Owen has really big feet!

My "natural" picture, which didn't turn out too natural.

Now for some oldies: I've wanted a water table for Owen SO BAD because most of you know how much he loves the water. I finally found this at a garage sale and here he is playing with it with his friends, Laura and Steven.

Here are a few projects I've finished this past week. I started this quilt over a year ago but didn't worry about finishing it too fast because I wasn't sure if I was even going to have a girl. I really like the colors and am making some crib bedding to match. The burp cloths are fun to do at work because they are so quick and easy.

Rain Rain

We had so much rain last weekend. Owen had fun playing outside and splashing. We ran errands on Saturday and he loved splashing us while we walked into and out of stores. One afternoon he played in the back for a few hours and came in completely soaked. He found those boots at a second hand store while I was looking at something else. He loves them because he can put them on by himselfHere is a picture of him after the rain stopped. He made a bed outside for him and his animals. Notice everything is so green. All the grass had turned completely brown, but it only took a few days change bright green again.

Underwear Man!

It isn't very hard to get Owen to go to the bathroom. He's amazing and pretty much never has accidents, but the other night I came home from being at YW's and this is what I found: UNDERWEAR MAN!!! It takes at least 10 minutes for me to get him to get dressed again after going to the bathroom and this night Jeff was folding clothes and Owen decided to put underwear everywhere except for where it goes. Not to mention the socks on his hands. My son is so cool.

And here is a pregnant picture so you can compare it to the one I'll post in two months. I feel a lot more pregnant than I look. Thanks for the cute shirt Kanien. And Jon..NO Photoshopping this image. I still remember three years ago.

Super summer fun

We went swimming one afternoon. It was nice and refreshing. Jeff did the coolest motor boat slpash and Owen couldn't get enough of splashing us in the face.

Here is Miriam at Roots farmers market in Lancaster. She is about the dive into a traditional pennsylvania funnel cake.

Owen couldn't find any flowers to pick me so he just brought me this stick instead insisting it was a flower. We kept it as a center piece for a few days. It seriously made me just as happy as a dozen roses. He was so sweet and excited to give it to me.

Owen and I tried to bury ourselves in the sand. Owen kept saying "It's so cozy!"

Owen loved playing in the water. The waves were quite fierce at times and would knock him over so I taught him to run back up the beach everytime a big one crashed. Playing in the water was his favorite, but a close second was rolling in the sand. Once I looked over at him and he had just taken a bite of sand and was holding it in his mouth. "How is it?" I asked. "Get it out mommie!!!!!!!" was all he could say.

In the evening we walked on the boardwalk enjoying boardwalk fries and some ice cream. It was really crowded, we couldn't believe it. We walked all the way down to the end where it was quieter and went out and enjoyed the evening waves. The ocean is so beautiful and amazing!