The Past Couple Weeks...

I first want to apologize for the extreme delay in blogging. The past couple weeks in the Burgess household have been pretty exhausting. Last week all of us came down with a nasty cold. It started with me, then Autumn, then Brandon and I think Owen has the tail end of it now. We have used boxes upon boxes of Kleenex, endless amounts of cough drops and lots of Advil cold and sinus. I have also had some struggles with Nursing. After a lengthy conversation with a lactation consultant we decided it was time to switch to bottle feeding. It was really hard to accept since I didn't get to nurse Owen either and was bound and determined to make it work this time. The pediatrician and the lactation consultant were both concerned with Autumn's weight gain, or lack there of, and were also concerned with my milk production and both agreed they would like to monitor the amount of milk she was consuming in a day. Luckily I had a large milk supply in the freezer and I have been pumping, as much as possible with 2 kids to care for, that we haven't had to switch to formula just yet, but its only a matter of time now until we do. Autumn is already showing lots of progress from eating more on a daily basis. She is much more alert, awake more during the day, and showing great signs of weight gain. O yea, and she is working on cutting her first 2 teeth. Yes, 2 teeth coming in at 3 months! Crazy, I know. Owen was a very early teether too so I guess we knew it could happen. Orajel here we come.

As for Mr. Owen Potty Training is going great & Temper Tantrums are still the daily norm. We have very minimal accidents and he is loving all the M&M's he is getting on a daily basis. Yes, we need to start cutting down the rewards now that he is going regularly or the dentist isn't going to be very pleased. We have not fully tackled the public Potty Training just yet but I bought a bag of Pull Ups so we can start that real soon. Now we are just getting ready for Halloween this weekend so check back in for some adorable pics of the kiddos all dressed up. Here are a few pictures from the past couple weeks to tie you over until then.

Did I mention how cold it is getting now? Here is Autumn all dressed in her adorable sweat suit.

Owen & Autumn are getting to be little buddies. Autumn loves to watch every thing Owen does and is even starting to smile at him. It melts my heart.

Little Stinker loves to get his picture taken.

See what I mean. They love each other.....at least for now.

And here is what I mean by more alert!

And here is the little Angel after her last bottle for the night. So Happy!

Here is a quick Halloween Sneak Peek. Owen and I made spiders out of his and Autumn's pumpkins they got at the pumpkin patch. I stole the idea from a good friend so please don't give the creativity credit to me. Thanks Ann.

Here is Owen and Nana singing "Take me out to the ball game". Owen loves playing with Nana.
Nana brought Great-Great over the other day to visit the kids. Autumn loved her arms. Yes, my grandma gets cold really easily, hints the attire. Lol.
And here is what a typical day looks like for us.

Autumn is starting to love her bouncer. Do you see she is even holding a toy in her hand, what a big girl. She loves chewing on anything she can get a hold of because of her aching gums. Poor Baby!

She is so stinkin adorable it kills me!

How am I ever gonna say no to that face?!?!?!

2010 Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

This past weekend Mimi came down for a visit, Yay! Since it was about time for our annual family trip to the Pumpkin Patch in Moriarty, NM, we decided to plan our trip now so that Mimi could join us. We also invited my Parents and my Aunt who was also in town visiting and some good friends of ours the Poe Family. We had a blast and there is so much fun stuff for the kids to do. Owen got to go on a Hay Ride, see the rabbit farm, feed goats, go on a giant tunnel slide, play in the Corn Box and eat an endless amount of kettle corn. Seriously, how much better could his day have been? Here are some pictures from our wonderful day...

Brandon, Autumn and I on the Hay Ride.

Mimi, Owen, Pampo and Nana on the Hay Ride.

And here is the whole gang, minus Mimi who was taking the picture.

The Hay Ride took us out to a giant pumpkin patch where we all got to walk around and pick out a pumpkin to take home. Here is Owen and Pampo on their mission to get a pumpkin.
Me, Autumn and Mimi picking ours.

Not sure if you can tell but Owen is holding a giant grasshopper in his hand. We found it hopping around the patch so my Dad grabbed it to show Owen. Well, of course, Owen was not satisfied just looking at it he had to hold it too. Eeeewwww, gross! Don't worry I cleaned his hands super good with hand sanitizer after! Yucky, I hate bugs, even the nice ones!
Meet Rabbit Owen.
Owen was so excited to go play in the giant box of corn. This is one of his favorite parts of the trip.
Mimi and Autumn watching Owen play.
Owen saw a few older kids who were burying themselves in corn so he decided to give it a try.
And here is the silly boy all buried! He is too funny.
And this is by far Owen's favorite part of the Pumpkin Patch, the giant tunnel slide! There is a giant mountain of dirt with two tunnel slides built into it and Owen absolutely loves it. They actually go really fast.
And yes, Mommies and Daddies can have fun on them too!
Here are our friends that went with us. Above is Andrew and Abby and below is Laura and Sam.
And while Brandon and I were having fun on the slides with Owen, Autumn was hanging out with the rest of the fam.

And here is Brandon and Owen feeding this adorable baby goat.

2010 Family Picture at the Pumpkin Patch!

So once we got home we were all a little exhausted. The kids took nice long naps, while Brandon, Mimi and I hung out and relaxed on the couch. Since we enjoyed a nice fall morning outdoors picking pumpkins I decided to make a nice fall dinner to go along with our day.
Here is the amazing Roasted Chicken and Butternut Squash soup I made. It tastes just as delicious as it looks. If anyone wants the recipe let me know. Its a little time consuming but well worth it.
And after dinner, we all slipped into our comfy PJ's and watched some TV, cartoons of course, thanks Owen!

The Time Has Come, I Think?!?!

I knew this day would come eventually, but I really had no clue when. Does that make sense? Probably not. Well, that's exactly how I feel. I kept putting off starting because I really didn't know how or where to start. But then I got thinking, does any first time parent ever know how or where or even when to start potty training? Again, probably not. So after this big long conversation with my self in my head I decided today is the day, and I will start how ever I feel necessary. I took Owen on a very special trip to Target yesterday to pick out his very own first pack of underwear! He had a lot of fun picking them out and finally settled for the Diego ones. I have read a lot on potty training lately and have decided on the cold turkey method which is basically to say "forget it" to pull ups. Basically my strategy is whenever we are at home he wears underwear and until he gets it down he will remain wearing diapers when we leave the house and at naptime & nighttime. So far so GREAT!!!! I am very pleased to say that at a day and a half of being in underwear Owen has only had 3 accidents. Yes I said THREE! It is going amazingly well. I have been using M&M's as a reward for using the potty, 1 for #1 and 2 for #2, genius I know! After he went once in the potty and got his 1st M&M it was on, he was a little peeing machine. I am sure by know you guessed that he LOVES candy. He has been doing so good he will even stop in the middle of playing to go use the potty and then comes running to me to get his reward. My goal is that he will be completely potty trained by Christmas and we are on the right track in getting there. So I am not embarrassed to say that I still have no clue exactly what I am doing, but whatever I am doing at 2.5 years my son is well on his way to being potty trained! Yay!

Here he is so proud standing in his new Diego Underwear! I'll let you all in on a little secret, Owen is obsessed with the show Dora the Explorer and he his first choice was some pink and purple Dora panties! Lol, I had to explain to him very politely that panties are for girls and underwear are for boys. So after a lot of discusstion and a few tears he finally settled for the Diego ones. It just so happens that Diego is Dora's cousin. I love kids, they are so innocent!

And here he is on his potty. He loves this potty because it sings to him when he tinkles! I'll keep you all updated on his progress over the next couple weeks. Wish me luck!

Autumn's Bath Time...

What can I say, I absolutely love bath time pictures! Here are some cute ones of Autumn...

I am already a sucker for those beautiful blue eyes.
She is becoming such a smiley little girl.

Okay minus the different colored eyes, I think they look so much alike in this picture.

I think Owen likes Autumn's bath time as much as she does. I think it makes him feel so big to help mommy bathe her. So precious! Look how focused he is.

Owen's Weekly Chore...

Here is Owen's 1 chore he has to do once a week with Daddy's help. I have no clue how he knows when Thursday is, maybe because its Brandon's day off, but every Thursday morning when he wakes up he asks to go take the trash can & recycling bin down for trash day! It literally brings him so much excitement. More power to ya son, have fun...

Here he is doing his chore!

When he is done he runs inside to tell me exactly what he did like its the biggest accomplishment of his life. Lol, he brings so much joy to my life. I wish I had the same energy and excitement he has for chores because quite honestly I get really sick of all of mine.

GG & Papa Nick's Visit

This past weekend Brandon, Owen, Autumn and I were honored to have Brandon's Grandparents down for a visit. They came to meet their very 1st Great-Granddaughter for the fist time, have some play time with Owen and of course take a trip to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta for the first time. We had a blast with them and I am so happy and thankful they took the trip down to come spend some time with us and the kids. It is so important to Brandon and I that our kids know all of their family especially the ones they don't get to see very often. As always the weekend went by way too fast but we will hold onto the memories until next time. Hope to see you soon GG & Papa Nick!

Owen and Autumn with their Great-Grandparents.
I know all of our out of town family that don't get to see Owen very often fear that he will not know them and be shy when they come, but that was definitely not the case this weekend. When they pulled into the driveway Owen ran strait up to the car and gave them a huge hug & kiss. No warming up needed, Owen loved them.

A good way you can tell Owen really likes you is when you get invited into his playroom. As you can tell GG is in!

So cute.

Papa Nick had a great time holding Autumn and she seemed to love being in his arms.

This was hilarious. GG was taking some Tylenol for her headache and Owen was throwing a fit because he wanted to take some medicine too, so to avoid the fit we gave him 2 jellybeans and he pretended that was his Tylenol. Here they are taking their "medicine" together! lol.

Owen seriously LOVED GG, can you tell?

GG & Papa Nick went to the Balloon Fiesta on Saturday morning but unfortunately we could not join them because Brandon had to go to work. We decided to all go to the Balloon Glow that night since we missed it in the morning. Well, unfortunately it was cancelled due to Thunderstorms and bad Wind but they were still planning on launching off some fireworks. So since we drove all the way there we all hung out in the van and watched the fireworks from there. Owen had a great time because he loves fireworks and was really sad when they were over. Above is GG & Brandon patiently waiting for the show to begin.
Owen waiting...
and way back in the 3rd row was Autumn and I.