Quickie

This past week we have been at the beach with Brent's family...10 of us adults and 3 babies to be exact! I will be blogging about the trip later but wanted to go ahead and post one picture that we took on the beach tonight.

            

Then and Now

Rowen, you are getting so big and are a little sponge soaking up so much every single day. I love to look at pictures from when you were smaller. It is amazing how much you have changed these past 8 months. Let's take a look!

1 month                        2 months

3 months                       4 months

5 months                        6 months

7 months                      8 months

You are such a handsome boy and it seems like everyone from members at church to family & friends to strangers in the grocery store think so too!! We love your precious smile sweet boy and can't wait to watch you continue to grow. 

           

8 months old!!

Rowen is 8 months old today! He is growing up too fast. He is the light of our lives...such a wonderful blessing! 

Motor Skills: he can sit by himself and doesn't need any support. He doesn't fall over anymore. He has mastered the balance it takes to sit tall! He is still rolling all over the place. He can roll from one side of the room to the other...if there is something on the other side of the room that he sees and wants! He has sort of started semi-crawling. He uses his arms to pull himself forward but doesn't use his legs yet. He hasn't figured how to work all those limbs together. But it will be any day now...we can just feel it! He started pushing up on his arms this past week. He will push up and lock his elbows and kind of rock back and forth. He grabs things now with just one hand where it use to always be two hands. He can also hold things with just his thumb and fingers instead of his whole hand( fingers, thumb, and palm ). He transfers things like toys from one hand to the other easily. 

Hand-eye coordination: Row likes to grab his spoon while I am feeding him and  I let him grab it the other day and he knows right where it goes! Even though it didn't go straight into his mouth it came pretty close. Most toys still go straight to his mouth but sometimes he will look at a toy and then bring it slowly to his eyes! It's really cute. He's not as interested in tags as he use to be but will still grab them with just his thumb and forefinger. 

Evolving Communication: There are a lot of giggles in our house right now! There are lots of ways to get Rowen to laugh...peek a boo, making silly faces, and clapping while saying "yay!!" are just a few. His smiles are the sweetest thing ever. I think lately he has been trying to repeat sounds we make. If I start saying "ooo ooo", he will really study my lips and you can see him try to make an "o" with his lips. He says "ma ma ma" and ugh ugh ugh" a lot. I am trying to teach him da da da and ba ba ba. He is a chatterbox and is constantly trying to say something! 

Teething: He has 6 teeth! 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. I think he is a little ahead of the game! I love his little teeth...they are so cute :) Now I said this on the 7 month post and I was wrong BUT I don't think more teeth will be coming in for a little while now. 

Foods/Eating: Rowen is such a good little eater. He loves everything! And he always gobbles up all of his food. We haven't introduced a new food in a while but I think we might introduce turnips next. He really really likes sweet potatoes, green peas, and pears. We have introduced him to quite a lot of foods all ready. 

Brent and I are so blessed to truly have the best baby in the world! He is a true joy and we love him so very much! Rowen, you make the brightest days even brighter! Your smile is the most precious thing in the world. And we are so glad that you love life and love us :) 

           

Summer Lovin'

Here's what I'm loving today!

I'm Loving...

these clothes I bought today! I headed to Opry Mills to check out the new Forever 21 and it is massive! At least twice the size of the old one...maybe three times the size. It might just be the biggest one I have seen and I have been to a lot of Forever 21's in other cities. I couldn't even make it through the whole store! But I did find some cute things.

I love the gold buttons on the front and the mint stripe on the bottom of this dress

This coral and mint combo will look good with navy or khaki shorts

I also got quite a few new jewelry pieces...here are some of the bracelets I bought

I got another dress, some other tank tops, earrings, and a hot pink and gold bracelet. I wanted about 20 other things but I decided not to spend all my birthday money in one place!

I'm Loving...

these summer outfits for Rowen that we are taking to the beach with us on Saturday.

This shirt makes me smile :)

Snorkel fishy

Turtle shirt/plaid shorts

And of course his seersucker whale outfit

My granny made him 4 jon jons which are suppose to arrive tomorrow morning. I can't wait to see them! 2 are monogrammed with Rowen's initials and 2 have appliques( a crab on one and a baseball on the other). I just love dressing Rowen!

I'm Loving...

this sweet baby of ours! He's the cutest baby I have ever seen :)

Playing today

Look at all of that hair! It's really coming in... and he has long little lashes too.

He loves sitting in his bouncy while looking out the window. He's getting so big!

I'm Loving...

this duo! They really make my heart smile.

             

Zoo Fun!

Angie emailed me last week and asked if Rowen and I wanted to join her and Sarah at the zoo this week and I said "definitely yes"! I have been wanting to take Rowen to the zoo for a while so I am so glad she asked us to go. We went yesterday and had a lot of fun. I hadn't been to the zoo in years and it was definitely a lot bigger than I had remembered. We were there for almost 3 hours and didn't even see everything! I already can't wait to go back! Brent wants to go so maybe we can make it back sometime in July. It was a pretty warm day but we managed to keep the babies as cool as we could and we kept them hydrated with periodic water breaks :) 

These macaws were the very first exhibit and Rowen starred those birds down! He was very fascinated with them. They have the prettiest coloring. They were pretty active too...squawking and moving around a lot. 

Angie and I pushed our kiddos around in their strollers but would lift them out at most of the exhibits so they could see the animals. If the animals were asleep we would just leave them in the stroller b/c without the animals moving, Rowen and Sarah wouldn't really notice them. But boy when those larger animals would move around their eyes were like glue stuck right on those animals. I really loved the meerkat exhibit. Those little animals were scurrying every which a way! I don't know if they are nice animals but they sure are cute!! 

Being the happy boy that he is...very content. 

When we came across the petting zoo, we opted to skip it this time around. We didn't want animal covered baby hands to reach their mouths before we could clean them off. But in a few months they'll be good to go for petting the animals. I think Rowen is going to love the petting zoo b/c he loves petting our cats. He thinks it's soooo funny. We saw so many animals...zebras, elephants, giraffes, monkeys, gators, a cougar, birds, etc...

With the zebras

Angie and Sarah

Flamingos

I really enjoyed seeing the elephants and giraffes. There were 2 elephants and they had a huge piece of land to roam around on. I feel like the giraffes could have used some more space but they seemed fine in their spot. There is a baby and it is so cute. I could have watched it follow its momma for an hour! So sweet.

Baby

Momma and baby

Elephant 1

Elephant 2

This was such a fun activity and I can't wait to go back!

           

Father's Day 2012

We had a good day yesterday! We always have good days :) Yesterday was a special day b/c it was Brent's first Father's day or as the card says that Rowen got him "Dada's Day". After church we went to lunch and Brent got to pick the restaurant. He picked Chili's. He wanted Chili's b/c he wanted to get the fire roasted corn guacamole. It's really yummy! When we got home from lunch Rowen and Brent took naps while I headed to a bridal shower at church for just a little bit. When I got home they were still asleep but I startled Brent when I came in and woke him up. I told him to go back to sleep and Rowen and I would play in his room for a while. He needed to get some rest. He works really hard all week long!

I love this picture of my two sweet "boys"! 

Brent was making Rowen giggle and I caught him mid giggle in this picture :) Those little laughs are the cutest things we have ever seen. Such a sweet little noise to our ears. He is one happy happy baby!! My mom gave me "Jesus Calling" for my birthday and I just love it so far and I know I will continue to love it as I keep reading. Yesterday's page was actually titled "Learn to Laugh...". Part of it says "Laughter lightens your load and lifts your heart into heavenly places. Your laughter rises to heaven and blends with angelic melodies of praise". God delights in hearing us laugh and I love knowing that! Just as Brent and I LOVE hearing Rowen giggle and laugh, God LOVES our laughter as well b/c we are after all His children. And a child's laughter is one of the sweetest sounds. 


After hanging out at the house for a while, we headed over to my parents house to have dinner. My dad just wanted to stay at home for dinner so they ordered Jets Pizza. That's probably my favorite pizza place in town. We had a good time hanging out and chatting. 

Car ride to Nana and Pops' house

Daddy and Row

Pops and Row...Rowen is very fascinated with my dad's mustache!

It was a very nice day spent with very good dads! 

             

My Birthday

My 30th birthday was yesterday. It was such a fun day! My mom took me and Rowen to lunch @ The Picnic! Love that place!! Her friend Mary met us there and joined us for lunch. We all had the chicken salad sandwich with the cranberry salad. And of course the Picnic punch...the best fruit tea ever! 

We visited for a while and mom and I got to catch up with Mary. She made Rowen a bib and it's really cute. After lunch, it was time to shop! We headed to Target b/c there was a dress I had seen there that I really wanted. Well, they didn't have the dress in my size but i found a whole lot of other things. A really cute bag that I can use at the beach and for the pool, a dress, tank tops, a pair of shorts, 2 pairs of sandals, flip flops, a shirt to go with the shorts, and Rowen racked up too! Especially with the huge box of diapers :)

The bag...it can hold a lot of stuff.

Yellow shorts with lightweight racerback top

Hi-low dress( or what I like to call a mullet dress! )

Coral sandals

After Target, we headed over to Sports Seasons. I really wanted some new running shoes and I found a pair that I liked and that fit well. They are Mizunos of course. The guy that helped us insisted that I try on the other brands' shoes that were comparable to the Mizuno shoe I picked out. Soooo, I tried on 4 others including Brooks and Asics but in the end, the pair I came in for were the pair I was leaving with! haha. I got 2 new pair of running shorts and a new running shirt as well. 

:)

New running clothes

Shoes! 2 pairs of sandals, 2 pairs of flip flops, and running shoes

Nothing goes better with running stuff than some new running jams! And I will be listening to those new jams on my new Ipod shuffle!! Brent got me the pink Ipod shuffle and I'm so excited about it. I love that it weighs pretty much nothing and I can just clip it on my shirt and go. No armband needed.

Isn't she cute?! I can't wait to take her out for a run!

Last night my mom, dad, Brent, Rowen, and I headed to PF Changs for dinner. None of us had been there in a while. It was yummy!

It was such a nice Birthday!!