Liam's First Christmas

On Christmas Eve, Liam turned 5 months old!!! We could hardly believe it. Unlike most parents who are "so sad to see how fast their children grow", J and I are ECSTATIC that Liam is getting bigger, interacting with us more, and obtaining his own little personality. It's much more fun than the colicky infant we brought home from the hospital. While the colic is over, the teething has begun. Ugh. So, we get what sleep we can before our poor baby wakes up screaming and arching his back in pain. We were hoping for his two front teeth for Christmas, but did not get them, so we continue to wait patiently. Anyway, back to Christmas.

Christmas Eve was spent with my parents, my Uncle Mike, my sister Amy, her husband and 3 girls, and my brother Pete, his wife, and their 8 kids. Liam was bombarded by cousinly love. However, when I tried to take a picture of my sweet nephew Oliver playing with Liam, he immediately played dead so you're going to have to take my word for it. Liam loved the attention (for the most part) and a good time was had by all. We spent the evening at my sister's house where her girls told the Christmas story and Emma sang a ROUSING rendition of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Then we took our overly exhausted baby boy home.

Liam woke bright and early Christmas morning to open his presents. Can you just see the excitement in his face???

The truly exciting part was eating the wrapping paper. After opening our stockings, we went to church where I took part in singing in the choir for the Christmas program. It was a lot of fun and Grandma and Grandpa Bello came to hold Liam for me. Afterwards, we loaded up all of our gifts and went to J's sister's house for a brunch of cheese on toast which is Owen family tradition. We opened presents while the babies took naps (sort of took naps, I should say). We had to take Liam home for a real nap before heading over to J's parents for a BIG Christmas dinner with loads of family members to boot. It was a wonderful way to spend Christmas and I think we wore Liam to the bone, tired. As a disclaimer: this did not mean he slept through the night... Ah, well.

Hoping your Christmas was filled with just as much family and love!

The Owens 2010-2011: Two Years in Pictures

A lot has happened in the past two years, so in order to catch everyone up. I think I will SHOW everyone what has happened rather than bore you with my ramblings. So here is the past two years of the Owen family in pictures!

In January of 2010, I turned 22 and celebrated with a trip to Skyzone with my work family, Memphis Barbecue with ALL my friends, and then Sweet J got me FRONT ROW tickets to the Lion King! Which was amazing. What an amazing hubby.

Also, Jason changed his major from Econ to Sports Administration. I was still studying Sports Management, but we were in two completely different colleges.

In February, we continued our tradition of going to San Diego for the San Diego State vs UNLV basketball game. We stayed at Lowe's on Coronado island and had a great time!

March consisted of work, work, work! Which I enjoyed immensely. I was working as the Aquatics Graduate Assistant at UNLV's rec center, so I supervised 20-25 lifeguards, organized swim lessons, and oversaw the maintenance of the pool. Jason continued to work at the US Attorney's office, but envied my job SO much that he decided to apply for a GA position at the rec center as well.

In April I went to my first NIRSA (National Intramural and Recreational Sport Association) conference in Anaheim California! It was a BLAST and I got to hang out with all of my awesome coworkers!

In May, I returned to the city of my heart: Alicante, Espana! (To hear more about my previous adventures there, please visit dianejelton.blogspot.com).

Oh, and Jason came too!!! Looking back, he says he has never been to a prettier beach. The Mediterranean is beyond compare and I recommend EVERYONE visit it someday.

Then, we proceeded to travel around Europe with Jason's dad. We visited Italy, Austria, and Germany, but in the end, decided Espana is still EL MEJOR!!!

The summer consisted of everything a summer should consist of: Baseball with my adorable nephew, Girls Camp with my ward,...

Disneyland with good friends

Quilting

Elton family reunion

And canoeing with my (and Jason's) work family! (Yes, Jason started working at the rec center with me, and no it did not destroy our marriage, haha!)

So, the last year of schooling for both us began in August of 2010 and our obsession with the Rebel basketball team continued...

Jason and I both went to Recreation conferences in the Fall of 2010. Mine was in San Francisco and I went with my Campus Rec Other Half, Whitnie Kimball. Jason went to Memphis. I would post a picture of his trip, but he only took pictures of the barbecue which was the only thing he was really impressed with anyway.

Thanksgiving dinner was with the Elton clan in 2010 and as you can see it was a HUGE affair. We had to take it over to the chapel in order to have enough room! But in the end, everyone fit and everyone was STUFFED (With 3 turkeys, 30lbs of mashed potatoes, and much more). The morning of Thanksgiving, I got some very exciting news that I wasn't able to share with Jason until that evening:

That's RIGHT!!! I found out a baby was coming!!! (Disclaimer: This "picture" is quite a few weeks later when the little peanut had developed.)

Christmas was super exciting as we shared our news with everyone in our family!!! What a hard secret to keep, right?

As I continued to grow, J and I were very busy! We not only went to San Diego for our annual basketball trip, but we also went up to Provo to see my sister and her family as well as to go to a BYU vs UNLV basketball game as BYU would be leaving the Mountain West conference in 2011. We both continued to work hard at the rec center, but school proved difficult as well as I finished up my professional paper and Jason worked on his research. I'm grateful that I was not very sick during the pregnancy and somehow was able to muster enough energy to do everything that was required of me!

And then... WE DID IT!!! We graduated with our Master's degrees (with Liam in tow). Jason graduated with a Master degree in Sport Administration and I received my Master of Science in Sport and Leisure Services Management! Jason began a full time job at UNLV's rec center overseeing the University's Physical Exercise classes as well as the rec center's marketing. I took a part time job teaching swim lessons in Boulder City while I finished my assistantship and my pregnancy.

Then, Sweet J and I became parents and our lives have never been the same ever since! Liam was born July 24, 2011, 5lbs 10oz and 17in long.

The first couple months were difficult. Liam had a tongue tie that needed to be clipped, then became extremely fussy, crying for four to five hours every night.

But we slowly learned that Heavenly Father had sent us this gift to teach us love, and most of all, patience. And that He would not have sent us Liam if he did not think we would be the best parents for Liam. So we continued to love him with all our hearts!

And Liam continues to grow and grow everyday and we continue to have WAY too much fun being his parents.

We are SO excited for Liam's first Christmas and to begin a new year together as a little Owen family!!!