Loving

Just a few things I am loving about the Owie boy these days:

He can usually be found wearing his aunt's hand-me-down shin guards and soccer socks.

Every night while I make dinner he is right by me in the pantry making his own meal. Complete with Cheerios in a skillet and a Christmas stocking on his hand for a hot pad. He repeatedly warns "don't chouch mom, SO hot!"

He points out letters wherever we go. On the freeway passing Costco he will say "C-O-S-T-C-O....Target!

He loves Aladdin, and watches it more than I'd like to admit. The other day I asked him if Aladdin is funny and he said very seriously "No ladin NOT funny, just Owie's favorite!"

He loves to balance an item of clothing on his foot, stick his foot in the air and say "look at this trick!"

He thinks his Napoleon Dynomite style moon boots are so super cool.

I love this age! Every day seems to bring a little more nuttiness, sweetness and personality of his very own.

The Tree

Last night was just what I needed to get in the holiday spirit. We went and picked out a Tree. Just the right size to fit in the trunk of our car. We drank hot chocolate, looked at all our old ornaments and watched It's a wonderful life...that is until I was outvoted and overruled for the Jazz game. Owen is in love with his "beanstalk" (stocking) and has spent much of the day tackling it.

The girls

I'm so blessed to have married into a family abundant with amazing women. I got to spend three days and two nights with these girls who I love and admire. I learn so much from each of them about motherhood, marriage, testimony, self worth, life and sewing. We spent hours on end in jammies with greasy hair crafting, shopping, eating, crying, laughing, and chatting late into the night. Thank you Peters girls for the fun weekend...until next time.

I love you all!

me.

If you're anything like me, you've felt the curse of the pregnant hormones and the negativism they bring. Some people feel their best when they're pregnant. I, I feel grateful. However It's a gratitude I have to remind myself of. The majority of the time I simply feel fat, zitty, pale and lazy. In an effort to feel like the "normal" realistic me, here's a letter to me:

Dear self,

I love you. I'm lucky I love you. Not everyone loves their self. I do. Sometimes I just forget, and if a sweet angel baby is what these hormones bring the price is well worth it.

I love your healthy moving body. I love your beating heart, your soul and your spirit. I love your fingers and toes and your working mind, and that you've been blessed with a baby growing inside.

I love that you've done hard things and the satisfaction that brings.

I love that you chose to marry a man who makes you laugh every single day and knows you almost better than you know yourself. I don't love that sometimes when your frustrated, you take it out on him. Why don't you take it out on the store clerk, or your pillow? Why on earth would you take it out on the sweetest man who works so hard for you? You're working on it. Thank you for that.

I love that your laid back. I hate that you're disorganized.

I love that your eyes are blue. I don't like that they're too close together, and that a boy you really liked once told you that. Oh well.

You could be better at saving money. You could be worse.

You have a strong and deep testimony of a Heavenly Father who knows and loves you. I love that. You should more diligently study the Book of Mormon. You're working on that too.

I hate that almost every day you over eat. To the point of kind of feeling sick. Why do you do that? boredom I think. And food is just so good.

I love that your a mom to the nuttiest boy around and that overall you're pretty good at the mommy thing. But you aren't quite sure how to handle the toddler tantrums.

I like that you fall asleep the second your head hits the pillow.

I've grown to accept your curly hair, and your lack of mathematical ability.

I like your style.

I don't like that you expect too much out of people. You have got to stop doing that. Appreciate who they are and what they do.

I love you.

And I promise I'll love you even more in a few months.

cooped

What do you do when it's cold outside?

I, get a little grumpy and go a little stir crazy.

Owen, does a whole lot of this.

I'm Flattered.

Lately, on a multi-daily basis Owen has been paying me what he views as the highest compliment one could receive. He says "mom pretty, mom huuuge, mom so heeeavvvvy!" to which I reply "thanks Owen, you're handsome, and huge and heavy". Which never fails to bring a giant and satisfied grin to his face.

New at our house

Owen has a big bed. We brought it home thinking we would give him plenty of time to warm up to it, before he got booted out of the nursery. Well he was asking to sleep in it the first night it was set up. Other than 15 minutes of Treav laying by him, O's transition has been as smooth as his own bottom. More and more I am discovering that this kid is so adaptable! strange having been birthed by yours truly right?! Change brings me so much anxiety. Not Owie boy. He is fine, content and even excited by it. One more thing to prove he is Treavor's son, and one more thing Owen can teach me. There is something I really love about this big change, when I check on him at night, he looks teeny all curled up at the top of the bed. He's still a baby right?

What was he for Halloween? You guessed it. He had a blast.

I read The secret life of bees. Loved every second! Couldn't put it down! I would recommend it to anyone...well any female. Is that sexist? I just can't picture my husband drinking it up like I did.

I enjoyed watching my healthy active baby in an ultrasound a week ago. We decided not to find out what we're having. At one point the baby was rubbing his or her knees, and it was so fun to watch...it always makes it seem so real to see them just living their own little life right inside of you.

Temple

After we talked about temples for family night , and told Owen we would go see one some day, he wouldn't let us forget. Every time he saw a picture of the temple in our house he would be reminded of the promise we made him and say "stand on grass? with dad? temple, Pease?" we talked about it a lot for a couple weeks, and finally made it to the Draper Temple on a clear day.

After pointing out Angel Moroni to him, he asked to climb up to the top.

I think the beautiful building was all he hoped and dreamed.

$30.26 a minute.

On a grumpy note:

For a long time now, our dishwasher has been leaving a weird, white, chalky film on all our dishes. When I was explaining it to our cute 16 year old babysitter she said "oh ours did that too, and then it broke completely". In fear of a necessary large appliance purchase and lots of hand-washing I called an appliance company. The receptionist asked for a description of the problem over the phone, and then put me on the schedule. She also gave me the set price of $85 for the visit, and any parts would be additional. When the employee came out he asked me what was going on with the dishwasher. As I showed him he was looking at me nodding the whole time...like there was no need for further explanation. His response was "yeah, we see this all the time. It's actually just hard water. Almost everyone in your city, and the surrounding ones have it, there's nothing you can do except, throw a little vinegar in during the wash cycle." He opened the dishwasher, wrote down the model number and started writing up the ticket. Then I said "So 85 dollars?". He looked at me a little shameful and said "actually $90.76 with tax".

He was in my home for no more than three minutes! $30.26 a minute!!! Shouldn't that receptionist be informed that everyone in at least 3 cities has this problem ( I think she actually knew)? Shouldn't she notify the caller that it's not an appliance malfunction, but is infant the water, and recommend a 3 dollar bottle of vinegar over the phone?! How do they sleep at night?! Pure robbery in my opinion. They may be getting a letter on ethics from a very unsatisfied customer soon.

On a happy note:

Owie got a haircut. With each trim I think he looses a little bit of curl and a whole lot of his baby-ness, but he looks so "sansome"!

He's still cheering on his cougs with all his heart, in blissful ignorance of the poor season.

We hung out with our dear friends the Fentons. We don't see them nearly enough, but always pick up right where we left off. We love them, and Owen had a blast with their cute kids.

On an embarrassing note:

For about a month I had been experiencing off and on chest pain. Sometimes it would just be a little discomfort, sometimes lots of pain, in my lungs, throat, and even making me nauseous. I was positive it was respiratory, because of the shortness of breath that accompanied it. After letting my mind get a little carried away and talking myself into the fact that I definitely had come down with something like walking pneumonia, or pleurisy I decided to go to the Dr. I wasn't there because the pain was absolutely unbearable, but more because I didn't want to die in my sleep that night. One co-pay, lots of tests, 586 questions, a throat culture that made me cry. (UGH!) a "Gastrointestinal cocktail", and an hour and half of sitting on crinckly paper later, I was officially diagnosed with heart burn. EM-barrassing! I've experienced heart burn after eating spicy food, but it's nothing like this. When I had to come home and tell my husband who had taken half a day off of his busy work schedule what I had, I really wished there was a more validating name than heart burn. Lame.

Celebrating

- First things first. We are excitedly expecting a baby at the end of March! I had my second check up today and that sweet, steady heartbeat is a sound I could listen to constantly.

• How Owen is feeling: Oblivious, and completely unaware of the drastic way in which his world will change come Springtime.
• How Treavor is feeling: Thrilled. Wondering how we'll handle two kids. He keeps saying "one takes so much energy!" Trying to decide if we will find out the sex. I really had to talk him into having Owen be a surprise, so I always told him the next baby would be his decision. He's thriving off of the little revenge he's getting by keeping me waiting, and not telling me if we're going to find out. I like not knowing what the baby is, but I don't like not knowing if I'm gonna be knowing or not. if ya know what I mean.
• How I'm feeling: Excited, grateful, humbled, nervous, happy the non-stop nausea has come to an end, lazy, tired, moody, and like i could (and do) eat almost everything in sight.

- Owie celebrated a happy happy birthday, receiving the much anticipated "hemet" complete with a jersey and pads. The helmet is big, and spins around on his head, other than that, he's in heaven.

Treavor and my sisters got him cracking up, while eating his cupcake.

- I am about three quarters of the way through The Glass Castle. Thank you Jo and Mal for the recommendation. It is definitely a page turner and I can't stop reading. What a crazy life! It's made me so grateful for my own, and heartbroken for her! Sheesh I feel like a queen after reading about her. I am on the family waiting list for The help. I guess Sophomore reading projects come first. I'll get it after Haylie.

- I love Summer and I might love Fall even more, but what I REALLY love, is the transition from Summer to Fall. It's that perfect open-your-windows-weather again, and I love it so much I can't stand it.

Owie boy

Two years ago, this sweet baby boy came into the world and changed my life for good.

Sometimes I wonder what I did without his playfulness, gentle hugs and strong spirit.

Happy Birthday you big, big two year old! I love you with all my heart!!

Treavy

Happy Birthday Treavor Howard!

Just a few of the things I love about my loving husband, best friend and the sweetest guy I know:

• He's down to earth. To him, People are people everybody's equal. He doesn't treat anyone better than anyone else, and rarely tries to impress.

• His freckles.

• He always has fun, and is up for anything, like sleeping bag stair sliding at the age of 28.

• When it comes to being a dad, well...he's simply the best.

I will forever be grateful for September 10th 1981.

With a cherry on top

We spent last weekend with our fabulous friends who had the fabulous idea of spending the night in Park City. It was a perfect end of school celebration and a fun getaway. The weekend included good conversation over good food, amazing caramel apples, hot tubbing, shopping, my very first massage, a beautiful stormy morning at breakfast that magically turned into an amazingly sunny day, and much needed quality time with Treavor. Isn't it amazing how little time it takes to get completely rejuvenated?! 22 hours to be exact in my case. We took about 3 pictures and this was the best of them. Gotta document right?

Also: The only thing better than leaving a nut-case-two-year-old-boy, is coming back to him.

As for Owen, life is good. He's usually pretty whiny, unless all three of us are playing football as a family. I don't know if the terrible twos are kicking in a week early. Hopefully it's short lived.

Here's where you come in:

Now that the days of required text book reading are over, I'm promising myself that I will read more novels. I feel like I've never really had the time to delve into some really good books, and I'm excited for the opportunity. Will you pretty, pretty please, tell me your favorite book? or list of books, or even just a good book. Chances are I haven't read them. I'll take any genre and (try) any level of difficulty. I'm going to start with The Help, because that's Mally's favorite. My promise to you, is that I will read the book you recommend, and I will report on it. And I'll return the favor by telling you, my all time favorite book is To Kill a Mocking Bird.

This is me shouting from the rooftop!

I PASSED MATH!!!!

Can you believe it?

I almost can't.

But, I did. It's no exaggeration when I say it is nothing less than a miracle. Sometimes I wonder if I even have a left side to my brain.

I passed! Which means I am finished with my degree in Behavioral Science with an emphasis in Social Work. I hope to use it in a career someday, but for now I'm just excited to be a wife and a mom and to get to my "after school ends" to do list like wipe down the kitchen walls and vacuum.

It may be the size of a postage stamp

but, Owen has managed to thoroughly enjoy our backyard this summer! Not a day goes by that he doesn't go to the bathroom cupboard and return with a swim diaper for me to put on him. I'm gonna miss the days of sitting on the steps observing his endless imagination. I love watching him lay down on his tummy and splash like crazy, Cause in his mind he's doing exactly what he sees the big kids do at the big pool.

Helping Grandpa Peters fix the sprinklers.

I've loved this summer so much. Over the last 3 months Owen went from baby to boy. He's as busy as ever and makes my life happy. Here are some updates on him:

No more bottle. It made me sad, but had to be done. We'll hold off on the binki for a while.

He loves trucks. He knows and recognizes the difference between all different kinds. When we're driving he'll sporadically yell out "big rig" or "digger" or "dump truck" or "fork lift".

He loves to sing at night. He'll ask for "tempo", "shine", "beap" or "Gog" ( I Love to see the Temple, I am like a Star Shining Brightly, Sun Beam, and I am a Child of God)

We went to a BYU scrimmage a week ago, and ever since he has been asking for a helmet. We have a little toy helmet that he has been so frustrated doesn't fit him. he'll balance the teeny tiny thing on his head, and gets sad when it falls off. I told him maybe he'll get his own helmet for his birthday. Now he asks for it every morning when he wakes up (must be dreaming about it) and through out the day. "Owie, hemet, white, pease" He has to wait a whole two weeks, and we somehow have to find a white helmet. Any ideas?

Him cracking up

We had a fabulous weekend spent at the farmer's market, playing in the back yard, napping in our beds, enjoying the Orem Owls game, and playing at Grandma Bell's.

These pictures of Owen cracking up, crack me up! He has 7 little cold sores right now, a few canker sores, and tender bloody gums, so there hasn't been much cracking up in the last few days. He displays his sadness and pain through tantrums, and kicking & screaming...it's been hard to remember to sympathize when he's acting that way.

I'm so sorry Owen that I gave you my cold sore genes, and I kissed you way too much while I had my own.

Looking forward to hearing that laugh again!