Owen at Two Months.

Height: 23 1/2 in. (74th percentile)

Weight: 11 lbs 4 oz. (26th percentile)

Head: 15 1/4 in. (39th percentile)

Owen has been such a wonderful baby. His personality is so mellow and pleasant, and it has really made the transition from one child to two much less traumatic that I had originally feared. Like I've said before, it just seems like Owen has always been part of our family. 

Owen just loves to be held and snuggled. In fact, I think he'd be content being held all day, every day. He's usually fine with lying on a blanket and looking around for a little bit or sitting in his bouncer. He also enjoys tummy time in small doses, and he's perfected the "drop and roll"- it seems to be his unintentional way to end tummy time. Just this week we started sitting him in his Bumbo, which has been a big hit- he loves it!

Owen has been very healthy since birth, and the only minor issue has been some dermatitis (looks like baby acne, but it is a scaly rash that was on his face, ears, neck, and chest.) All he needs is some special shampoo for the next little while and he's good to go. 

Owen started smiling at 6 weeks, and has smiled more and more each day. I can usually get the most smiles out of him when he's getting his diaper changed- he loves being naked!

Owen has been a great eater from day 1, and is very quick and efficient in his feedings. He's usually finished eating within 5-7 minutes! I was a little concerned about how short his feedings were- I just wanted to be sure that he was getting all the milk he needed- so I went to the lactation consultant. The consultant assured me that he was getting enough milk (she weighed him before and after his feeding), and it seems like he's just a fast eater. No complaints here! 

Owen is currently on a two hour cycle during the day- stay awake for 1 hour, sleep for 1 hour. Having the day broken up in just two hour chunks can be a little exhausting, but he usually takes one longer nap during the day. He's a great sleeper at night- he has slept for as long as 6 hours at a time, but usually goes from about 10:30-3 or 3:30 am, and then wakes up again around 6 or 7. Only waking up once each night instead of 2 or 3 times has been wonderful- getting those hours of uninterrupted sleep have felt like such a luxury for me!

Owen likes to be swaddled for sleep- when he was first born I was swaddling him with Aden+Anais blankets for sleep, and then I transitioned him to the miracle blanket. Today I started putting him in a Woombie. Let me tell you, Woombies are the best. It seems impossible for their little arms to escape, and it creates a womb-like feeling for babies. If you're wondering if you should get one for your baby, I say do it! I Dylan loved his, and I'm sure that Owen will too. 

{How cute is his motorcycle Woombie?}

Overall, Owen has been such an ideal baby. His happy little spirit has brought so much joy into our home, and I'm so blessed to be his mom!

Cape Cod Vacation {getting there + where we stayed}

Like I said in my last post, we had been looking forward to our Cape Cod vacation for two whole years. This vacation was a family reunion for the Stephens side of my family (maternal grandpa). Every other year they do a family reunion, and they take place at a different location each reunion. Last one was at Ponderosa Ranch by Zion's, and at the end of that reunion it was announced that the next reunion would be on Cape Cod. 

These family reunions are fabulous- the company is wonderful, and the mix of whole family activities (there were 80 of us this year!) and individual family time is perfect. Nothing too structured- just relaxed and wonderful. 

We flew out of the Salt Lake City airport on Saturday morning with a direct flight to Boston. Traveling with kids is always a little tricky, and this was our first time flying as a whole family-- it was Owen's first flight ever. I was feeling really good going into things, since Dylan is a champ flyer and Owen is such a mellow, happy baby. 

{my boys}

The flight to Boston was long, but I could not have asked for a better experience. Dylan was happy and pleasant 100% of the flight (bless you, iPad), and Owen was a dream. Seriously, Owen fussed for under 5 seconds, total. My child is freakishly good tempered, and I love it. This flight was my first time nursing on an airplane... a little tricky, but entirely doable. I'm just happy that I had Ben to be my lookout to be sure that my nursing cover stayed in place and no one was getting an eyeful. 

We got in to the Boston airport about 30 minutes after my parents, who went to pick up our rental cars for the week. My dad had originally booked a minivan for my family and my parents together, but we realized that there would be no way that a normal sized van would fit 4 adults, 2 children, 4 large suitcases, 1 carry on suitcase, 2 sets of golf clubs, and 1 massive stroller. My dad was so smart and rented another car for our group. Whew!

We stayed in a hotel on Saturday night and then set out on Sunday morning to our final destination. That included first making runs to Costco and Wal-Mart. Our villa on Cape Cod had a kitchen, so we wanted to have food for the week, rather than having to go out for every meal. 

Sidenote:  People go gaga for newborns when you leave Utah. Seriously, I was stopped like a dozen times in Costco because people wanted to see Owen and ask me about him. In Utah, every other person is carting around a newborn and no one cares about yours. Sad truth. 

Once our van was full of food, drinks, and vacation gear, we made the 2 hour trek to the Cape. There was a ton of traffic getting out there, since everyone seemed to be heading to Cape Cod for the 4th of July. 

We finally arrived at our destination- Ocean Edge Resort. Holy cow, this place is absolutely stunning. See?

{The Mansion at Ocean Edge}

When we pulled up, there was a wedding going on on the front lawn, and everything about this place said fancy. In fact, this is what I texted my sister when we pulled up:

Luckily, I quickly realized that while this place is absolutely gorgeous, it was not stuffy at all. All of the family here for the reunion stayed in villas down the hill from the Mansion and were located just a two minute walk from the beach. Heaven! My family and my parents stayed in one villa, and my sister and her family stayed in another one. There were gorgeous hydrangeas all over the Cape, and they were all over our resort as well. 

 {gorge!}

Our villa had three bedrooms. Our sleeping situation was a little different this vacation, since Owen was so little and I didn't want anyone to have their sleep disturbed. My parents were in one bedroom, Ben and Dylan took the second room, and Owen and I shared the third room. While I definitely missed having Ben next to me, he was able to enjoy uninterrupted sleep during the week. 

{My room. Darling, right?}

The other 79 family members who were at the reunion were all in the surrounding villas, and we were able to see each other in passing all the time, as well as during the planned group get togethers- it was wonderful!

The week was absolutely perfect. Really, there's nothing that I would have changed (other than Dylan getting lost for about 10 minutes one evening- talk about getting scared to death!) This vacation was a perfect mix of activity and relaxation- stay tuned for my next post, which will be all about our vacation activities. They were divine, I tell you. 

Cape Cod Vacation {a preview}

For the past two years we have been looking forward to our family reunion in Cape Cod, and the vacation was worth every bit of excitement and anticipation. I have about a million pictures to go through, but here are a quick few that sum up the beauty of last week:

This Boy...

 ... has been such a little star since becoming a big brother. I was so nervous about Owen coming and having to share my attention between Dylan and the baby. "I feel like I'm ruining his life!" was a thought that frequently ran through my head during my pregnancy. The idea of rocking Dylan's world in such a big way had me feeling super nervous and guilty. 

Seven weeks into being a big brother, I can say that Dylan's world, while different, has not been shattered. In fact, he already loves his baby brother so much. He has never once said a mean word to his brother and has been nothing but sweet and gentle toward him. He usually calls Owen "My Baby" and always wants to know where he is, or why he's crying. He has been absolutely wonderful as a big brother. 

Sure, he has his stinker moments- Dylan has definitely had times where his listening skills have gone out the window, or my sweet boy has been temporarily been replaced with a mischievous little gremlin. His time-outs have increased since Owen joined our family, and sometimes he cops some major attitude, saying things like, "You listen to me! I'm the boss!"  He's a three year old through and through- while there are definitely occasional rip-your-hair-out moments, there is so much happiness and sweetness too. 

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A few things...

Let's start this post with a picture of the baby, shall we? He's so cute, I can hardly stand it. That chubby little face!

Ok, moving on...

There have been a few things that I've been loving over the past few weeks. If you didn't know, I'm off work on my maternity leave (12 weeks long- going back July 29) so I'm enjoying the time spent with my kiddos (plural! I have two kids! Crazy!) and not putting too much pressure on myself to do anything major (like get dressed before 11 am, for instance.)

Here are a few things I've been loving lately:

Oh goodness, this salad is to die for. I've never been one to choose salad when at a fast food joint, but this one is so amazing. I have a Wendy's very close to my house, and I may have gone to the drive through 3 times in the past week for this salad. It's just that good. My co-workers will be laughing at this one, because they know how obsessed I am with this salad. Yum.

While I'm on the food kick, can we please discuss the deliciousness that is the Chobani Key Lime Crumble flip? Holy amazing, this tastes just like really good key lime pie. I've already eaten one of these today, and I'm trying to convince myself not to eat another one until tomorrow. There are a few different kinds of flips, and I'm definitely going to pick some up the next time I'm at Target. 

It's no secret that I love, love, love to organize, and my linen closet was my latest victim. Things never looked terrible, but there was definitely some work to be done. I'm so proud of my efforts- everything is in its place and labeled. Sorry for the janky iPhone picture, but you get the idea. After finishing this project, I immediately sent this picture to my mom, since I knew that she would appreciate my organizing. 

I purchased the Summer Handheld Color Video Monitor just before Owen arrived, and life has been so much more easy and flexible with it. Owen sleeps so much right now, but I didn't want Dylan and I to be tied to the indoors during each of Owen's naps. This monitor has a range of up to 600 feet, so we have been able to play out in the yard with no worries that Owen would be needing me- I just take the handheld monitor out with me and we're good to go. 

What's this, you see? Yep, that's a big stack of paper plates. In my efforts to make my life easier during these early days as a mama of 2, I've fallen in love with the idea of using paper plates rather than dishes that I'll have to wash. Seriously, it makes things so easy, and I'm all about cutting corners these days! Why didn't I do this when Dylan was a newborn?

So there you have it, some of my recent faves. Enjoy!

Owen at One Month.

Oh my goodness, I can't believe that Owen is already a month old. The time has flown by so quickly, and it's been such a great month. Before Owen was born I had the fear that he wouldn't immediately fit in to our family and it would take awhile before things felt normal. I am amazed that he just fits right in and it seems like he's always been with us, if that makes sense. 

Owen has been such a pleasant, mellow baby from day one. In fact, during our first night in the hospital I was really concerned when I woke up at 2 am and was wondering why the Owen hadn't been brought back to me for a feeding. It has almost been 4 hours since he last ate. I called the nurse's station and they said that he was fast asleep and would bring him to me as soon as he woke up.... which they did, 2 hours later. Even then, he wasn't screaming his head off when he was delivered to me, just whimpering a bit. 

Owen has been a champion eater and sleeper- he took to nursing right away and seemed to know that nighttime was for sleeping from the beginning. I keep comparing my newborn experience with Owen to my experience with Dylan, and it seems like all the hard things I had with Dylan are non-existent with Owen. 

I really feel like Ben and I are just able to relax and enjoy Owen, rather than being anxious and paranoid over every little thing. Seriously, I remember calling my mom at 2 am one morning when Dylan was about 3 weeks old concerned that I had already scarred him emotionally by letting him cry for a few minutes. Oh, first time parenthood. None of that with Owen- it's been smooth sailing so far, knock on wood. 

Not to make it seem like everything is absolutely perfect- poor boy sometimes has a fussy tummy and has a hard time with #2, but I feel like I can recognize the issues much better, rather than just wondering why the heck my baby is crying. 

Owen has been on a pretty predictable schedule- eating every 2-3 hours during the day and every 3 hours at night. He stays awake for around an hour before needing another nap. He enjoys being swaddled and loves nothing more than snuggling up against my chest for some skin to skin cuddle time. 

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past month:

Owen's Birth Story.

On May 7 I woke up at 5:15 am to get ready for my 6:30 induction. I was feeling super tired, since I had only gotten about 5 hours of sleep the night before. Despite getting to bed later than I wanted, I fell asleep easily and was able to put aside my anxieties about the next day's events.

My mom and Ben's mom were both in town, so they stayed at the house with Dylan while Ben and I left for the hospital at 6:15. We arrived at the hospital right on time and were able to get checked in pretty quickly. We asked if we could get the same delivery room that we had with Dylan, but it was already being used. 

Our day shift nurse Becky was a riot and made the morning a lot of fun. She had a lot of funny stories to tell and put both Ben and I at ease. I got started on pitocin at about 7:15 and then we were in business! I really didn't feel like anything was happening during the first hour or so- I wasn't feeling any contractions or discomfort at all. A little bit before 9 my doctor came in to say hello and to break my water. For some reason it hurt really bad when he went about breaking my water, which surprised me. I didn't feel any pain or discomfort when they did this with Dylan. Maybe it was because I was more dilated and effaced when I was induced Dylan. Either way, I felt a huge amount of pain for about 30 seconds, and then it was gone and my water had broken. 

After my water broke, my nurse encouraged me to get my epidural sooner rather than later, since labor really starts to pick up once the water breaks. Also, there were three others moms getting induced that morning and I didn't want to have to wait in line for my epidural. 

I had been plagued by one big fear throughout my entire pregnancy: What if my epidural doesn't work? I had heard one too many horror stories (including my sister's) of failed epidurals and I was terrified that it would happen to me. That, compounded with the difficulties in getting my epidural going with Dylan's delivery (it took them 4 tries to get it right) made me paranoid that I would have to have an unmedicated childbirth. Luckily, all that fear was for nothing- my epidural worked perfectly, and the nurse who administered the epidural got it right the first time- hallelujah! 

Once my epidural was in effect I got super sleepy, and spend the rest of the day dozing in and out of sleep. Seriously, I slept through the majority of my labor, or slept as much as I could despite being poked and prodded every 30 or 45 minutes. This was definitely not the case with Dylan- I was anxious and alert the entire day, and I didn't sleep a wink. This time I just felt relaxed and sleepy... and hungry. I think that I ate about six popsicles during the day. Ben watched Oceans 11, 12, and 13 to pass the time and my mom and mother in law came in to hang out with us too. Dylan spent a few hours at a babysitter's house so that everyone could be at the hospital for a little bit. 

Everyone had told me that childbirth the second time around goes by more quickly, but things just weren't progressing that fast with Owen. Around 2 pm I was starting to get a little irritated that things weren't moving along, since two of the other moms who were induced that morning had already had their babies. I think that I was only dialated to a 4 or 5 at this point. The night before, we all took bets on what time Owen would be born. Everyone was thinking sometime between noon and 3, but it was looking like that wouldn't be the case. I was ready to meet Owen and just wanted him to come. 

My mom left the hospital around 3:45 to pick Dylan up, and we promised to call her with updates as soon as Owen was born. Things finally started up pick up around 4- I was dilated to an 7 and it was looking like the baby was going to make his arrival sometime soon. 

I started to feel some major pressure around 5, and pretty soon after my doctor came in the room. I was a little confused, since he didn't come with Dylan until I had been pushing for about a half hour. I asked him if he was just stopping by to say hi or if it was go time. He said that it was time to push and that the baby was ready to come. 

I started pushing at 5:20, and at 5:25 Owen was here! It was so nice only having to do two sets of pushes- it was so much less tiring! I'm not sure how I can describe it, but I just felt so much more aware of things this time around- there was no sense of panic like I felt with Dylan. Keep in mind that I almost had an emergency c-section with Dylan since his heart rate kept dropping with every contraction. There was no drama with Owen's delivery and I felt like things were just progressing exactly how they should. 

After Owen came out the doctor held him up so I could see him and then passed him off to the nurses and respiratory people to check him out and clean him up. Owen cried for just a minute and then calmed down. About 2 minutes after being born he ended up scratching his cheek with his sharp little nails, but other than that he was perfect. 

As soon as I held him, Ben and I were amazed at how much he looked like his older brother. They had the same sweet, round faces and alert little eyes. He was so calm from the very beginning, and I felt really calm too.

All through my pregnancy I was a little concerned that there was no way I could love this baby as much as I love Dylan- how could it be possible? But wouldn't you know, my heart swelled three sizes that day and I amazingly, automatically fell right in love with little Owen. 

The Pregnancy + A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Well look at that, I'm posting again! To be honest, I'm pretty proud that I've followed through on posting again so quickly, since I'm in a (barely) functional state of sleep deprivation. Just keeping it real. 

Before I start into my storytelling, can I just share a few pictures of my little Owen? He's so cute, I can barely handle it. 

{2.5 weeks old}

He has a major dimple on his right cheek and a little one on his left cheek. This is the only picture I have of his cute right dimple. 

Anyway, I wanted to let you know how things went for me with pregnancy, as well as the ridiculous series of unfortunate events in the days prior to Owen's birth. You know me, ridiculous things just seem to happen at awful times. Lest we forget, the time I ruined Ben's birthday surprise. 

Overall, pregnancy #2 was very good to me. It was so much better being pregnant throughout the winter and spring, rather than all through the summer like I was with Dylan. There wasn't nearly as much discomfort or bloating this time around. My least pleasant pregnancy symptoms only lasted through weeks 6-12, and I felt pretty great otherwise. The only real blips on the radar were my random 24 hour bugs on Christmas and Valentine's Day. Apparently the flu only likes me on holidays.

This pregnancy I was a big-time slacker on taking photos of myself. Here are my three pregnancy pictures:

{28 weeks}

{38 weeks}

{39.5 weeks- delivery day!}

Good gosh, just looking at my pregnancy pictures makes me feel sorry for myself. Like I said, overall I had a great pregnancy, but ask anyone how they feel from weeks 38 until delivery and you'll probably get complaints out the wahzoo. I liked to compare myself to a hippo, manatee, etc. when asked how I felt at the end. 

And onto the unfortunate events...

On May 5 (2 days before baby), I was getting ready for church. I was going downstairs to the laundry room to iron my clothes. As I was walking downstairs, I smelled something disgusting. Imagine my surprise when I got to the laundry room and saw that there was a giant puddle of poo-water seeping up from the drain in the floor. No joke. As a result, church was not attended that day, as we stuck around the house for the plumber to fix the nasty sewer problem. $300 later, the poo-water was gone. The cause? Things that we couldn't have controlled, such as the roots from the tree in the front yard causing sewer drama. 

On May 6 (1 day before baby), Dylan woke up at a freakishly early hour (about 6 am... he usually gets up around 8) and crawled into bed with us. He was being very quiet and had a funny look on his face. After laying with us for a minute he turned to Ben and puked all over him. It was about 90% disgusting and 10% hilarious. We cleaned things up, gave Dylan a puke bowl, and laid down some towels. Over the next 3 hours Dylan managed to throw up in pretty much every room of the house. Just what I wanted to do the day before we had a baby- clean up vomit everywhere I turned.  I was terrified that Dylan had the flu and we were going to have to deal with keeping Dylan quarantined from the baby if he was still sick when we brought him home. Luckily, it seemed like Dylan only had a 3 hour bug, since he was good as new after 9 am that day. 

After the two days of drama, I was a little concerned that there was going to be a disaster of some sort on baby day, as bad things seem to happen in threes. Luckily that was not the case for us. 

Next up...

-The nursery

-Owen's birth story

Oh, hi.

Hi friends! I took a bit of a blogging break, didn't I? Well, I'm really hoping that when I say that I'm back to blogging that I'll really follow through. Getting my thoughts/life events/likes/dislikes out there really is nice... it's my little public journal and scrapbook. And I so desperately need to document some of the changes that have taken place over the past few months, because there have been some major ones. 

The biggest change is that we are now a family of four! Hooray! 

I was induced on May 7, and at 5:25 pm Owen Maverick Harris made his arrival. There is so much that I want to say about that day, and I will, but not today. It was a wonderful day and surprisingly quite different from my labor and delivery with Dylan. Not that my childbirth experiences have been bad, but I was just surprised how different they were from each other. 

You know what else has surprised me? How different Owen is from when Dylan was a newborn. Seriously, Owen has been the most content, laid-back  baby that I could have ever imagined, knock on wood. I think that Dylan was just a little more of a normal baby (he had his days and nights mixed up for the first few weeks, oy) and Owen is just really, blessedly easy. 

You know what has not surprised me? How Owen and Dylan look almost identical as newborns. Seriously, take a look:

Owen, 7 days old

Dylan, 8 days old

Seriously, their little faces are so much alike!

There really are so many things that I want to document on the blog, so maybe if I list them out it will be more likely to actually happen. Here are a few things that I'm planning to post about in the upcoming week or so:

-The unfortunate events of May 5 and 6

- Owen's birth story

- Owen's nursery

- Becoming a mama of 2