Legare Farms Pumpkin Patch

In October, we went to the Legare (pronounced 'LA-gree' in these parts) Farms Pumpkin Patch. It was a veritable festival of autumnal delights. There was a hay labyrinth:
A horse:
A donkey:
Chickens:
A cow:
Pumpkins galore:
And some good strolls through the patch with Boo:
We were officially in the Halloween spirit...

First Black Eye

In mid-January, Owen and Bill spent one of their Thursday mornings at the Aquarium. Owen was running toward the shrimp boat, stumbled, and wound up falling into the corner of a bench nearby. He had a big ole' black eye to show for it.

Here he is, sporting his shiner on a John Deere:

First Set of Wheels

When we got back home from our birthday celebration in Chapel Hill, we presented Owen with his birthday gift from us: a blue tricycle (complete with bell and handle tassels).
Here he is taking it for a spin:
There was lots of practicing getting on and off:
Lots of bell ringing and tassel holding:
Lots of general pride:
And lots of smiles:
(We were hoping that the new bike would take his mind off of wanting to drive a car...so far, he's maintained a high level of interest in both...)

Dreams Come True

As if Owen hadn't already had the most spectacular birthday celebration of all time, he had one more major gift in store.

Still in Chapel Hill for Owen's birthday weekend, we were getting ready to walk into Harris Teeter when, lo and behold, a fire engine pulled up right in front of the store. First we both stared in silent awe and then we started waving madly. The gentlemen inside got out (they were grabbing lunch between calls as it turned out) and within a few moments, one of the guys had invited Owen onto the truck. He happily and eager accepted:
This was SUCH a dream come true. We fantasize about this happening on a regular basis. When looking at pictures of fire engines, Owen says that he wants to drive and then we launch into an entire pretend sequence where he asks the driver if he can take her for a spin, secures the keys, starts the ignition, gives it some gas, and off we go.

Sure enough, about 30 seconds after getting up into the driver's seat, Owen asked the fireman for his keys (he cracked up and called out to his buddies, "Did you hear that, man? This kid just asked for the keys!"):
The fireman did not choose to hand over the keys, but he did let Owen turn the lights on:
Then he carried him around to the front of the truck so he could see the flashing lights (I'm sure this is a fine-tuned trick for getting little boys the hell out of your truck so you can finally get something to eat after a long morning saving lives and what not):
The guys couldn't have been more friendly and - witnessing our level of fandom and excitement over the whole situation - told me that I should bring Owen down to the station sometime.
I never imagined that a fire truck sighting and boarding could be so exciting. I have followed fire engines around downtown before so Owen could get a better look (not ones with the siren on, mind you, we just like to get as close as we can). Bill and I were driving to work together yesterday and I saw a fire engine and my heart leapt and then I realized Owen wasn't even in the car...

Two Years Old

On Saturday, October 9, we celebrated Owen's second birthday. Poppie hosted the party at his house in Chapel Hill, and all of Owen's family and friends gathered together for some birthday festivities. The day started off with LOTS of balloons:
People traveled from all over the place to be there. Lynn (Pooh) and Henry (PapaRuss) flew in from Lawrence, KS.
Owen reunited with several friends that he had not seen in awhile. Here he is sharing a hug with Monty:
He blew a birthday horn:
And he blew lots of bubbles:
Charles and Patsy Harrison cooked up a spectacular feast of fried catfish, green beans, hushpuppies, french fries, and corn pudding. Southern traditionalists and Whole Foods regulars all agreed: the food was to die for.
Owen ate three pieces of fried catfish to kick things off, and then roamed around charming his guests into feeding him whatever was to his liking on their plates, including approximately fifty hushpuppies.
It was kind of like a wedding reprise of sorts with so many of our favorite people in attendance. I could have happily spent hours on end catching up with each person there, but the whole party went by in what felt like 15 minutes:
Then it was time for some cake:
TIME OUT, PLEASE. Before Owen blows out his candles, can we get a closer look at that cake??

Oh, sure you can.

Homemade yellow cake with chocolate frosting (two of them, actually): yum. Having never baked a cake before, I was ridiculously excited and proud to have made Owen's cake myself. And by "made it myself," I mean that I read each instruction and then asked Helen worriedly what it meant and what to do and then she showed me and helped me do it and stayed up with me until after midnight the night before the party. One thousand thank yous, Dee Dee!
After 40+ people serenaded him, Owen successfully blew all of his candles out on his own:
Proud parents (I'm 14-weeks pregnant in this photo, and, with hormones surging through my body, I was putting forth significant effort to hold back the tears):
Get in there, baby. Lick those candles:
During the after party, Owen played some pool and opened a few presents:
He got to stay up way past his bedtime. When I finally carried him upstairs to his crib, he protested before almost instantaneously passing out.

It was an amazing day.

Birthday Pregame

A few days before we headed to Chapel Hill to celebrate Owen's 2nd birthday, Alex (Owen's babysitter) came bearing gifts and got the celebration started early:
How sweet are they together??

Hello, Baby

At the end of September (there are SO many things that happened at the end of September, it seems...next post will finally be about OCTOBER!), we headed to the doctor's office to get our first glimpse of Owen's new baby brother or sister.

We waited giddily in the waiting room first thing in the morning:
Owen blew off some steam with a few laps around the waiting room:
When it was our turn, we headed back to the ultrasound room, and I got up on the table. Owen wasn't sure what to make of this:
Then the baby appeared up on the TV screen. The baby is in Mama's belly and on the TV: weird. Owen has Skyped plenty of times, so perhaps this just seemed like a Skype with the baby.
Just to be on the safe side, he came over for a hand squeeze:
He went back and forth between climbing up in the chair to sit beside me and crossing the room to stare up at the TV. Here he is flashing a smile at Mama's request:
And here he is waving to the baby, saying, "Hello, Baby":
Our ultrasound technician was in training, so after she did everything one time through her supervisor came in and did everything over again to check her work. Dada entertained Owen and kept his hands out of the hazardous waste bin and what not while they finished up:
And here he or she is:
(I think this picture looks so much like Owen's ultrasound picture - second one down on the linked page)

Although the blog hasn't caught up yet, today (January 4) I am 27 weeks with three months to go...

Last Days of Summer

At the very end of September, Owen took one last romp through the sprinkler:
He's sporting Uncle Alex's old bathing suit...it is hard to believe that my baby son is now wearing something of my baby brother's. Even harder to believe that it is now 2011 -- the year, when I was 10 years old, that I calculated that my new baby brother would graduate from COLLEGE. It seemed insane at the time: surely our cars would be flying by then and SURELY I would never be 32, much less 33...

I can't even bear to calculate what year Owen will graduate from college. We watched a movie the other night with parents dropping their daughter at her new school and hugging her goodbye as they sobbed, and we looked at each other with fear and horror and then Bill suggested that we go wake Owen up and just get him out of bed and tell him that he has to be our little boy forever and that there will be no college if that's alright with him. (We restrained ourselves.)

Welcome, 2011. You and your kind are already turning my kid brother into a man and my baby into a little boy.