Owen's Birthday Party

Well, my sweet little Owen is...ONE.  We pulled together a few party items and had a nice little party for him, complete with his cake smash.  I'm finding as I meander through motherhood, now with two children that, smaller is better, haha!  Big parties stress me out and and I'm also discovering that I stress about more than I used to and would care to stress about.  But I digress...

Marin helped grandpa and daddy blow up balloons...well, actually, she more 'corralled' the blown up balloons. 

 Ok, and maybe a little catch and toss, too.

 The cake!  I saw this "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" cake on Pinterest, and I loved it from the first.  It just seemed to be a perfect fit with Owen.  So, I made one!  I bought some large cake tips and that made frosting the cupcakes ridiculously easy, wohoo!

 Also another idea from Pinterest, stringing balloons from thread, what a novel idea!!  No mess, no tape bunches, just a prefect row of non-helium (read: expensive) balloons.

 There's the birthday boy!!  And he sure does look like a little boy in this picture, wow!  He looks far too old to be my sweet little son!

 Some family!

 Ok, if this cute fella doesn't melt your heart, I don't know what will!

 Ahhh, the cake smash.  I gave Owen the big red cake that was acting as caterpillars head, and Owen went straight for the frosting eyes...picking the frosting out with his fingers!

 Ugh, I think I'm starting to feel a little queasy, mama!

 But, I sure did have fun!

 Grandpa gave Owen a quick bath to clean him all up.

 Some friends brought the cute kids to the party, and they were just sitting down to cupcakes and ice cream.

 Grandpa showing one of his two magic tricks, the children were amazed!

We were so happy to have my dad here for Owen's birthday.  It was wonderful for the kids, and I am SURE it was very therapeutic for a grandpa who really misses his grandkids!  Thanks to everyone who came to show their love, we really love you all so much!

Temple Square with Grandpa

So, Wednesday we took Grandpa to the aquarium, and on Thursday we took him to Temple Square.  You just can't come to Utah and NOT go to Temple Square!

In the morning, Grandpa helped Marin get dressed.  Grandpa likes to utilize shirts in many capacities such a ear warmers or in this case, a nice purple hat.

 Oh my little handsome fella.

 First stop, the Church History Museum.  We took a rather hurried walk through the grown-up section downstairs so that we could appease children by taking them to the kids section upstairs.

I'm always amazed to see the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.

Marin being silly.

Owen stretching his legs and peeking around.

Marin and Grandpa, she loved following him around.

And we ended up in the kids section.  I really love that they have a section just for the kids.  It makes it possible to get out of the house, it's safe, clean, church oriented and free (minus parking). 

Aaaaand Marin ended up in the kitchen, whaddya know?

A picture of one of the rooms.

And another of the rooms.

Haha, the kitchen where Grandpa was waiting for Marin's creations.

BIG angel Moroni!

Awwww, Grandpa and the grandkids.

A short stroll around the Temple.

So glad we had a sunny day with bright blue skies!

You can't deny that the Salt Lake City Temple is just gorgeous.

My dad loves to be able to put his hand on the stone of the Temple.  It's almost like being able to feel a small connection to the incredible history that pulled together to erect an enormous monument of faith.

Am I allowed to be scared when I look at this picture and be secretly afraid of losing my daughter to marriage someday?  To be sure, I'd rather lose her in marriage to a worthy man than anything else, but oh how the  thought pulls on my tender heartstrings!

The little cheeseball.  I told her to pretend she was Rapunzel, hoping I could get a sweet smile or pose out of her, and this is what she gives me?!

Here we all are!

We had ourselves a little treat for dinner, and my husband had been looking forward to it for a week; Fettucini alfredo with sauteed mushrooms and pan seared chicken.  Mmmmmm, yeah, it's ok to drool ;)

And later that night we roped dad into a friendly game of poker.  Clearly the Navy taught dad a thing or two about poker because he cleaned HOUSE!

Look at that winner-takes-all smile, eh?

Our rather giant pickle jar.  Yup, that's a pickle jar!  As a joke, before Kristoffer and I were married, we put a giant jar of pickles on our gift registry...and someone actually got it for us, haha!!  Now it holds our spare change which is what we use for our poker games.  I jokingly told dad after his big win that night that he just won our Temple funds ;)

We LOVED our Thursday together, nothing was wasted!

Aquarium With Grandpa

Grandpa came into town on Tuesday night, and we did our best to squeeze in TONS of fun while he was here.  SO...on Tuesday, we went to the Living Planet Aquarium, and it was perfect.  And by perfect, I mean the perfect size for little kids.  It was about the size of a large supermarket, so it was the perfect size for small ones (and looked just like one on the outside!), had an easy to follow layout so you didn't get lost or too far from a bathroom and was relatively moderately priced.  The whole thing was clean and well kept, I would totally go back again. 

Some fish!

 Owen having his snack.

 I *love* this picture of Marin, she is just so sweet!

 Grandpa and Marin.

 We were lucky to see an otter come out of his cubby hole for a swim, upside-down of course!

 Through a magnifying glass, those gray-ish areas looked like upside-down jellyfish.

 Some real jellyfish!

 Owen LOVED the large tank with the brightly colored, fast swimming fish inside.  He liked to pat the glass with his hands.

 Look at all the fishies, mama!

 Marin wasn't quite into touching the manta-rays.  One of the rays was quite friendly and would come to the side of the pool and raise his flipper (?) out of the water to get some attention.

 Little boy is *almost* walking, he's kind of a wimp if he's not holding on to anything, but he's getting there!

 Grandpa and Owen.

 The penguins were putting on quite a show for us!  Leaping and diving into the water, we were pretty lucky!

 I had to post a picture of the BIG snake...for my mom.  She actually hates snakes, and this anaconda was about as big around as a basketball, yikes!

 Looking at the glow-in-the-dark scorpions.

 Marin found an otter mask in the gift shop.

After the aquarium, we went to lunch and came home for naps.  And I have maaaaany more pictures to post, I may need to pare them down and touch!