I'm dreaming of a Pike Christmas

Pike County, that is...which is where Gran and Pop call home. We loaded up and rolled out of Nashville the afternoon of December 23rd on our way to McComb for Christmas, Minor's birthday, and Miriam's wedding! We spent the Christmas Eve relaxing after our long drive the night before. Then we headed to the Christmas Eve service at Gran and Pop's church. Owen did okay for a good bit of the service but he started feeling antsy and spent the second half hanging out with Richie in the men's dressing room. We got to see so many old friends and got to introduce Owen to a lot of special people. After a lovely Mexican dinner, we wrapped up our night by preparing a plate of goodies for Santa. Owen made sure to give him a lot of options: 3 orange balls, an apple, an orange, and a Kashi bar. We also left a nice cold glass of soy milk--something Santa has never had at Gran and Pop's before!

We ran downstairs Christmas morning to find that Santa had been there the night before!

After celebrating Uncle Minor's birthday, we cruised over to Tylertown to check out the Christmas lights:

The next morning, we packed up and went to New Orleans to kick of Miriam's wedding weekend. The wedding and reception were held at the Hotel Monteleone right in the French Quarter. It is a gorgeous historic hotel and we reallllly hated to leave! The night of the 26th, Owen practiced his very important role of ring bearer:

Then we went to the rehearsal dinner at the fabulous Tujague's. It goes without saying that the food was to die for--shrimp salad with remoulade dressing, gumbo, crawfish risotto, fried drum fish. It was all so good! As the toasts and merriment kicked off, sweet Owen made himself comfortable and just took a little nap:

Sunday the 27th was Miriam and Will's big day! We met Gran, Pop, and Uncle Minor for a big brunch at Le Cafe' in the hotel. After getting nice and full, we all got ready for the main event. The wedding went off without a hitch! Miriam looked so beautiful--she wore our mother's wedding dress and mantilla. Owen did a fantastic job as the ring bearer! He started walking down the wrong aisle and then tried to cut through a row of people before Keith, the wedding coordinator, steered him in the right direction. He made it up to the front and waited patiently for Pop and Aunt Mimi to come down the aisle. During the opening prayer, he squatted down, the started holding the pillow by the strings, and looked up at me to ask, "Is this the wedding?" Luckily, that was the point in the ceremony when he was supposed to go sit down, so I sent him to sit by Gran. Apparently, he laid his head in her lap and then decided to go sit with Richie, who was an honorary groomsman. He provided just the right amount of comic relief to keep us all from getting too emotional, I think. I decided not to post many wedding pictures until the "real" ones come out. I can't wait to see them! But I had to show a couple of cute Owen pictures. Doesn't he look so handsome in his little tux!

Owen had a ball at the reception! At one point, I looked up from eating to see him on the stage playing tambourine with the band! He danced his little heart out and did cartwheels all over the dance floor. He tasted and approved of all the food and both cakes. When we asked him what his favorite part of the wedding was, he said "the dancing."

In the end, all of my mom's hard work and planning paid off--everything went just perfectly, and the new Mr. and Mrs. Bond seemed to have the time of their lives. I think we all did, actually!

Over the river and through the woods

to Gi Gi and Granddaddy's house Owen went...for a WEEK! Owen's Christmas vacation got started off with a bang, for sure. Gi Gi had a present for him each day he was there. He came home with so many goodies! Some of the highlights of his trip were:

Visiting the cows and seeing Santa at "Chick-a-let":

Decorating a Transformer cookie:

Opening his "Pick a Present" gifts:

Playing with the ice skaters in the Snow Village:

Playing with Uncle Jon, the cousins, Nana, Papa, Gi Gi and Granddaddy and just being his usual adorable self:

What a fun start to the holidays for our little guy! Thank you, Anderson Listers, for treating Owen to such a fun week!

Life since June...

It's hard to believe I haven't posted anything since JUNE! Wow, what a slacker! Here's a brief run-down of our summer and fall fun:

• Owen decided he didn't really like t-ball so much after all. He got very bored when it wasn't his turn to bat, and it was awfully hot. So we sat out the rest of the season after just a couple of games. Maybe we'll try again next year!
• At the end of June, we took a trip to Anderson for Nana and Papa's 80th birthday party! Owen wound up staying 2 whole weeks with Gi Gi and Granddaddy. He had so much fun, but we missed him terribly.
• In July, we took a trip to the beach with Gran, Pop, Uncle Minor, Aunt Mimi, and Uncle Will. One of the highlights was our day at the zoo. Owen was able to hold a baby kangaroo! Looks like good practice for when the new baby arrives!

• We spent a lot of time enjoying our front porch swing and the sprinklers.

• In September, we took a trip down to Mississippi to visit our family on the farm. The weather was wonderful and we had such a great time living the country life for a few days!

• After spending the weekend in McComb, we headed back to the beach for an awesome week with the Cassells. It was the week after Labor Day and we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. We had absolutely perfect weather except for one day of rain. The boys had a blast swimming in the pool, making sand angels, and playing in the waves with their daddies.
• October brought a visit from Aunt Mimi! She came to Nashville for her bachelorette party weekend. It was a quick trip, but it's always so good to see Mimi!
• Toward the end of the month, we were very pleasantly surprised to learn that we would be welcoming baby #2 to our family in late June! We intended to share the news with our families on Owen's birthday weekend, but our excitement got the best of us. We had Owen call our parents and tell them the news...he is so excited to be a big brother! He just insists that we are having twins...yikes!
• Owen was very excited for Halloween again this year. He continues to love costumes of all kinds. He debated for quite a while about what he wanted to be, but he finally decided to be the Red Power Ranger. We made the rounds to a few friends' houses and tried our hardest to limit the amount of candy he got!
• November is a very special month...both Owen and I celebrate our birthdays in November, just 5 days apart to be exact! Our entire families came to town for Owen's costume birthday party! Lots of our friends came dressed up and Owen had several wardrobe changes himself. After opening presents and eating cake, everyone headed outside to enjoy the warm day and play in the leaves. It's hard to believe our sweet little baby is now FOUR!
  
  
  
• We had a very low-key and food-filled Thanksgiving Day. We made the horrible mistake of going to Cracker Barrell for lunch (I have NEVER seen a restaurant so packed!). After some afternoon laziness, we headed to the Conrans for a delicious dinner. My only contribution was a green bean casserole, but I guess it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it. Owen and Liam playing together all night long and barely took a break to eat. Liam asked everyone what they were thankful for and Owen replied, "Bugs and Jesus." What a fun memory!
• Now it is December and we are looking forward to the holidays and Miriam's wedding in New Orleans. Owen met Santa Claus at the mall this week and Santa assured him that he is on the good list, so hopefully he will get lots of goodies under the tree this year.

New baby, new blog!

Welcome to our new blog! With our new addition on the way, we figured it might be good to make a blog about our whole family rather than only the current star of the show, Owen. I'm a lousy enough blogger anyway, and I seriously doubt I could keep up two different blogs about two kids. So I'm taking the easy way out and just pouring alllllll of my blogging efforts (ha!) into this new site. Hopefully I will be a little more consistent with this site than I was with Owen's. I plan to somehow figure out how to get all of the "All Things Owen" posts over onto this blog, but until then, I've created a link to his blog over on the right-hand side of the page where you can easily click over to reminisce over all the many, many posts offered on his site (again, ha!). Enjoy!