Have you seen this man?

Cody Muhs, last seen at Adventureland driving his "Semi-Truck" scaring toddlers while attempting to lure unsuspecting women into his "truck" with his scary "happy" faces. He was eventually asked to remove himself from the ride, as he was having way more fun than a 29 year-old man should have on it. Be on the look-out for him, ladies. He could be pulling his rig into your town next!

Pella Corp. Day at Adventureland

On Saturday we spent the day at Adventureland, an amusement park that is about 20 minutes from our house. Pella sponsors a day out for their employees there every other year. We spent the day walking around with Travis and Jasmine and their girls and had a great time! Owen went without a nap but stayed in good spirits all day long. He was pooped!
Our first ride was the Tea Cups. Mr. Serious didn't quite know what to think of any of the rides. He didn't cry on them, but he never did get excited about them.


Here's Dad and Owen while we were waiting for Jasmine and the girls to get off the balloon ride behind them. I had to include this one because I thought it looked like they were standing in front of one of those green screens and the background wasn't really real. Anyone agree?
Travis won a basketball at one of the games and Owen LOVED playing with it. He and Daddy bounced it around while we waited for the girls on a ride.

Here's Owen, Grace, and Lizzie on the Ladybug ride. He kept turning his head toward the center of the when it started and just watched those big flowers in the middle.

He did like the steering wheel on the Ladybug.
Here's Owen and Mommy riding a Dragon ride. He kept his head up to me like that the whole ride. Still not sure what he was doing, because he never did cry in terror.
I had to include this one us since these kinds of photos are so rare! I'm usually behind the camera!

A happy boy pauses for a photo while enjoying his snack.

Walking through the park with Daddy. He LOVED walking around but he was hard to keep up with!
Cody and Travis right before they rode the Space Shot. This ride catapults you up really fast and then drops you. Hence, the look of terror on Cody's face.
Riding the semi-trucks with Daddy.
He was so pooped by the end of the day he had to take a rest on Daddy during the ride. It was too cute!

Mama's Little Helper

Owen's newest thing is "helping" Mommy around the house. He loves it when I ask him to help me and he gets so excited! Here are some pictures of him doing some of his favorite "chores."

Throwing his diaper away. The other night I put his jammies on in

the living room and, of course, changed his diaper. I had forgotten for

a few minutes and left the diaper sitting on the floor. Owen saw it,

picked it up, and ran straight to the door where the trash

is to throw it away! It was so cute! Now he is doing it all the time.

Here he is closing the pocket door where the trash can/laundry is.

He has been doing this for a while now and he just loves it.

You have to be careful though, or he will shut it while you are in

there doing something!

Putting his dirty clothes in his hamper. One day he just picked up his dirty clothes and took them over to the hamper. Now it is definitely one of his favorite things to do. The only problem is, when I go to put away the clean clothes, he takes them out of the basket and puts them in the hamper! He has also been known to open his dresser drawer and take them out of there and put them in the hamper!

Closing the door to the dishwasher. The bad thing about this one is that he wants to open it once you start it! My dishwasher is wonderful, but the one thing it doesn't have is a lock on the door!

Here he is clapping for himself after shutting the dishwasher door. This is a very important ritual. Like most men after they do a chore around the house, you have to clap for him and make a big to-do about the whole thing! He claps while saying "Yaaaayyy!" after every chore that he does.

Of course, Cody is very excited about this newfound love of chores as it means that Owen is one step closer to mowing the lawn for Cody. I'm pretty sure that's the only reason Cody wanted to have kids--so he could train them to do things for him around the house. I now have a vision of Owen going to the fridge to get Daddy a cold one.

Owen's Birthday Message

Today is Owen's great-grandmother's (affectionately known as "GiGi" to all her great-grandkids) birthday. I set out to post a message much like the one we did for Daddy on Thursday. However, I did not realize the "first-timer's" luck I had in getting him to pose for that picture with that sign. So here are some of the photos that we took in trying to get to THE photo:

I tried to get him to sit on the couch and hold the sign in front of him. But he kept wanting to stand and look at the mirrors above the couch so I took this picture.


When he wouldn't cooperate on the couch I thought maybe I could hang the sign on the wall and have him sit next to it looking cuter than ever. No cooperation there either. He kept wanting to either look at the sign or just rip it down altogether.



There were many other photos that took place before this next one, including me trying to attach the sign to his walker and get him to walk toward the camera. He DID NOT want that sign on his walker and kept ripping it off every time I put it on. So, I tried the couch one more time and we finally got this one. Although the sign is a little mangled and sligtly difficult to read, Owen still hopes you get the message, GiGi!


Owen would also like to note that this should really show how much GiGi means to him, as he really does not enjoy his mother chasing him around the house with a camera like a madwoman and trying to get him to hold that sign. He loves you GiGi, really he does. Of course, he is just thankful that all of this madness ended just in time for him to be able to watch "Wheel" in peace. Hope your day was great!

Fashion Doctor

So today was my baby boy's 18-month check-up at the doctor. I can't believe how fast he's growing! Last night Cody and I finally turned his car seat around to forward-facing. So this morning I loaded my big boy up into his new car seat--he loved it! He loved being able to see out the windows a little better. He was so cute in it! But so big, also. :( He's just starting to look so much like a little boy now. Where did my baby go?!

Anyway, despite the windy day, we made it into the Dr.'s office. We had to wait about 5-10 minutes in the waiting room, which was fine. Owen had a good time playing with the toys they had and I chatted with our pharmacist who was there with her son. They called us back and the first thing we did was weigh him and measure his height. This time he stepped onto the scale rather than having to sit on the little baby scale. Then instead of measuring his height by lying him down on the table, he stood against the wall. I couldn't believe how much things changed in just 3 months! He looked so cute standing there up against the wall, straight as an arrow. He weighed in at 28 lbs and is 31 1/2 in. tall. My baby is getting so big!

It was then time for us to head to the examination room. The nurse did his head circumference in there and chatted a bit and then said the doctor would be right in. Now, I love Dr. Pak and so does Owen. He is always so nice to us and gentle with Owen. He always talks about how serious and well-tempered Owen is, which is always nice to hear. However, today as I'm sitting in this room with a toddler all over the place and trying to get into stuff I hear the Dr. outside talking to another Dr. and the nurse, "I got the brown belt to go with the new brown shoes. And then if I have this color socks and x amount of them, I can wear these x amount of days..." and so on and so on. Yes, I am sitting in this room waiting for the Dr., after having already waited in the waiting room for 5-10 minutes, while he is out there talking about his recent fashion purchases!!! He's not saving a life, he's not examining a sick child, he is wasting my time with his watercooler talk about his matching belt and shoes! Mind you, they were nice shoes and a very snazzy belt, but did my time need to be wasted in order to discuss them? He could have at least talked about them elsewhere other than directly outside the door of the room we were in so I could hear him! He's such a nice man, but it just angers me when doctors act like their time is more valuable than anyone else's.

So, he examined Owen and we chatted and then we were off. When we left, my pharmacist and her son were still in the waiting room. I said, "You're still here?!" She said, "Yeah, we're going on an hour now." Maybe their doctor was busy talking about his snazzy new scrubs he just bought that go perfectly with these great new tennis shoes his wife got him. Sometimes I wonder why they even bother to have us make appointments.

The Big Two-Nine

Today is Cody's birthday.

Please join Owen in wishing his daddy a happy one!

We love you, Daddy!

Showered with Love

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures of my cousin Beth's shower that we had while I was home. I started to put all my photos on here and there were just so many so I just decided to do a few of the details that we worked so hard on! Check out "The Brooks Family" link for a few other photos if you like. We had a great time putting the shower together and an even better time at the shower!

Beth and the hostesses from L to R: Jessica, Melinda, Beth, Megan, Erin, Brooke, and me.

We had sort of a dessert theme going on. We had different types of desserts to eat so we carried the theme over to the decorations. Jessica made diaper cakes for all the centerpieces on the tables. She made 8 cakes in all and each of them had a different theme. This is the Baby Einstein cake. We loved the idea because Beth can use everything on it so nothing went to waste! Jess did an awesome job! She spent HOURS and HOURS putting them all together. We hated to take them apart the next day!

This was the favor that I made. It's an iced cookie in a little bag. I ordered the labels from the same place I got the invites so they would match. I thought they turned out great.

The cupcakes which were a joint effort by myself and my friend, Molly. She made the little booties on them out of icing! I couldn't quite keep my hand steady enough to do it so she stepped in and did an awesome job! Everyone thought they were plastic! I couldn't have gotten any of my baking done without Miss Molly! I did the "Cade" writing on them.

Here's the cake I made. I am really starting to get into this cake decorating thing! Although I do wince a little when they have to be cut into! But I'm starting to get over that a little. :)

Are you ready for some footbaaaaaall?!?!

For those of you who aren't football fanatics like my husband, this weekend was the opening weekend for the NFL. This was the first of MANY Sundays to come where my husband revolves his entire day around football. And we can't forget Fantasy Football. You know, where grown men get together and pretend that they are football managers by making up teams composed of real players (yes, they do have an actual "draft night"), then "play" each other every Sunday. This is a spectacle so hilarious that even BUDWEISER made a commercial poking fun of it! But I digress.

Cody was especially excited this year because he has a little person he can mold into a football, and more importantly, a Bears fan. He suited him up in his Bears jersey and by 10am he was teaching him to say, "Touchdown!" Owen actually picked up on it and was walking around going, "Dut daaaaa!" Ok, so it's not exactly touchdown but he's trying! It was the cutest thing as he walked around all day saying it. I think we called about 10 people on the phone so they could hear it! He would even clap and say, "Yaaaay!" when daddy got excited. It was a great day! Here are a few pics of Daddy and the new fan:

Go Bears!
Watching the game with a smile on his face! He actually sat

for a couple of 5-10 minute stretches watching with Dad.

The ultimate Bears fan in Daddy's Bearhead.

Then he wanted Daddy to wear it.

Looks like Sundays are going to be fun around here this winter!

Somebody's gonna bingo....

might as well be Jasmine!

Last night my friend Jasmine and I had a Mommies Night Out and went to Meskwaki Casino in a town about 45 minutes away to play bingo. It lasts for about 3 hours so we had a nice relaxing time. We even got these little computers that have our bingo cards on the screen. Then when the number is pulled, the computer recognizes it and blots it out on all your cards if you have said number. It even tells you how many you need to get a bingo! You don't do a damn thing! You just sit there staring at your screen waiting for your number to come up. Is that not the laziest game ever? I gotta say, I like a game where I have a possiblity of winning $1,000 and I can sit and eat a big 'ol plate of nachos while I wait! Now there's a sport I can get on board with!

So we start out on the first game and Jasmine gets all but one number on one of her cards. There's a little dog in the corner of your computer screen that starts getting excited when you have one number left. It shows the number you need right next to the dog while he's going crazy. It's the funniest thing. So Jasmine and I see on the TV screen that her number, O72, is coming up next!!! We started going as crazy as that damn dog! They actually call the number and Jas yells, "BINGO!" Alas, two other people bingoed at the same time so she had to share her winnings. We didn't even know how much she had won but we were still as giddy as 2 little girls. The guy next to me says, "3 winners, so they each get $34." I said, "Oh, well that's not much. That doesn't even pay for your game!" But we were still excited. Then the lady comes over and starts counting out her money. Turns out, I misheard the man next to me and she actually won THREE HUNDRED thirty four dollars!!! We could hardly contain ourselves!

We finished playing bingo with no other wins, although we did thoroughly enjoy ourselves. I told Jasmine I was determined to win something while I was there so I wanted to go try my luck at video poker. I gave the machine $17 and ended up leaving with $32. As I was playing, Jas says she's going to go find a Triple Cherry slot machine. Not 10 minutes later she comes back with a big bucket of quarters and says, "Um, Sarah, I think it's time for me to go home!" So she goes over, cashes out her winnings and it comes to $220!!! So, my friend is now going home with $554 save for the $45 for bingo and the $20 she put in the slot machine. Needless to say, I was jealous and wanted some of this good fortune. So I said, "I'm going to play a little longer." Jasmine, being the good little sensible girl that she is, says, "I'm done, I'll wait for you by the front door!" So I proceed to feed the $32 back into the video poker machines that I had just won and lost it all!!! I stuck my tail between my legs, admitted defeat, and drove home with my now rich friend. She was kind enough to by her poor pal a hot chocolate on the ride home. Congrats, Jasmine!

Playdate with Aidan

My cousin Meghan's son, Aidan, who is 6 weeks younger than Owen came over to play at Grandma's house on Wednesday. I swear we didn't even plan the matching outfits! The boys had fun playing together but they were a handful!

"We know we're cute!"

"We love this clown thing!"

Matching Cousins

Watching for Grandpa to come home.

Fun Times in The 'Boro

Owen and I made it home safely tonight after a wonderful week at home with my family in Murphysboro. Owen was so excited to see his Daddy and Daddy was, of course, glad to have us back home. Our trip down was horrible last Thursday, as we were much later than I'd hoped getting started and then I got a VERY expensive speeding ticket! It was my first and I hope it will be my last! Once we arrived though, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We went for Beth's baby shower, which I will do a post about tomorrow with lots of pictures! For now I'm so tired so I will just post a few pictures of Owen. He had so much fun visiting with everyone. He actually started a lot of new things while we were there. He now says, "Bye!" It's funny because he yells it and it has a little bit of a southern twang to it. He started saying "Baby" but he doesn't really say it when he sees a baby. He just walks around saying, "Baby! Baby! Baby!" He's starting to actually laugh at things rather than just laugh when he's tickled or you make a funny face at him--like when the Jack-in-the-Box comes up, he just starts laughing. It's so cute! He also started saying, "Yaaaaayyy!" when he claps and is clapping in appropriate places--like when people solve puzzles on Wheel or at his DVDs when they are clapping or do something good or exciting. Who would have thought he could make clapping even cuter?!

Laughing at the Jack-in-the-Box

He loves his Grandma!!!

Laughing with Auntie Beth

Helping Grandpa water the flowers. He LOVES to be outside with Grandpa!

Reading Grandpa's golf magazine

More pics tomorrow after I get a good night's sleep!!!

ANOTHER new look!

Due to the many number of people telling me that they were having problems with the blog and that it all started when I changed the look, I decided to change the look again. I'm assuming the previous template I used had some bugs in it, so hopefully this one does not. Please let me know if you continue to have problems.

As for the new photos link provided with this template, I'm still kicking around with that and trying to decide whether I'm going to use it. This would allow you to see more photos of the family without me having to post a ton of them to the blog. But right now I'm trying to figure out if I really like using the Flickr site and what kind of things I can do with it. This is somewhat difficult considering I am still in M'boro and can't upload my pictures to Mom's computer! So I will probably have to wait until I get home to tinker with it and see what I come up with. I also don't really want pictures of Owen available to just anyone on the web and I'm not sure if I have a privacy option with Flickr. Hopefully I'll figure it all out soon and I can replace the vague text that's just sitting there on the blog! But for now, hope you enjoy the new look!

Owen and I are having a great time visiting with the family here in the 'Boro. We decided to stay until Thursday (with Cody's permission, of course) since Grandpa has a meeting tonight and isn't going to be able to spend much time with Owen. So just a few more days and I'll have lots of new pictures to post when we get home! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend!

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is my best friend Molly's birthday and also my cousin Beth's birthday. So I just wanted to wish them both a wonderful birthday and a wonderful year to come! I would post pictures of the birthday ladies but I'm at my mom's and don't have any! Oh well. Today Owen and I are taking Beth out to lunch for her big day, along with Auntie Gaye. Then tonight I'm taking Molly out to dinner and drinks and then we are going to rent "Friends With Money" and watch that. That's about all the partying these 2 old moms can handle anymore! LOL So join me in wishing these two lovely ladies a happy birthday!! I love you, girls!

On the Road Again

Yes, that's right the Nomads (I'm thinking about change our last name to this...what do you think?) are on the move again. I swear my child is going to grow up thinking he lives in our van! I keep telling myself that although I'm dragging my child all over this green earth, he is getting to spend lots of quality time with all his grandparents and the rest of his family that loves him so much. But I have to say, honestly, I will be glad when there's a lull in the traveling and I don't have to pack and unpack bag after bag after bag. Unfortunately, I don't think that lull will come until November!!! But we are loving every minute we get to spend with our family.

This week we are headed to Murphysboro. It will just be Owen and me this trip as we are going while Daddy is working. We leave tomorrow and come back next Wednesday. We have Grandpa Steve to thank for the extended stay. He is going on a trip himself and won't be back until Monday so we agreed to stay a few days extra so he could spend some time with Owen. Really, I think it was some sort of scheme on Grandma's part to not only get Owen all to herself but to get him to stay longer as well! Either way, we are excited to be there for almost a week. We're also hopeful that Cody might be able to finish painting our new front door, paint the shutters to actually match the new door (right now door is blue and shutters are green!), and stain the woodwork around the door. These are all tasks that are difficult to do with Owen around the house. Wish him luck!

We are actually going for my cousin Beth's baby shower that I am helping host. I am so excited for the day to finally be here! I feel like we have been planning this thing for a year! So much anticipation and it is finally here. Cody and his friends at work make fun of me for all the planning that I put into stuff like this. But I enjoy it and I hope she enjoys it Sunday as much I did planning it! We decided to do a night shower since everyone has the day off on Monday so that should be fun. Owen will be spending the evening with Uncle Ryan (Beth's husband) and Uncle Matt (Beth's brother). Ryan has also volunteered to watch another 1 year old at the same time so this should be very interesting. Ah, to be a fly on that wall. My only hope is that my child is breathing when I get home. I feel this is about the only expectation I can have!

Well, I have been trying to include pictures of Owen with this post for 2 days now and for some reason it's not working. So I guess for now you'll just have to settle for my writing. :) Have a happy Labor Day weekend!

M-I-C-K-E-Y...

Cody went to Downtown Disney the night he was in California and brought back presents for Owen and myself. I got a Disneyland ornament--I love to get ornaments from places we've been so Cody usually brings me one when he goes on a trip without me. I also got a book about Disney gardens which is really cool--something I can't wait to share with both my mom and Cody's mom. And here's what Owen got:

I can hear the Mickey Mouse Club calling now....

Not so savvy after all...

So my cousin told me that she's having trouble with the site and it started when I changed the look. She says that after a few minutes on the site it's telling her there's an error of some sort and then closes her out of Internet Explorer alltogether. Anyone else having such problems? Guess I'm not as talented as I once thought and I might have to change the layout again. Let me know if and what kind of problems you may be having. Thanks!

Fun-filled weekend with Travis and Jasmine!

Travis and Jasmine are our friends who Cody met through work. They have 2 little girls and we all love getting together from time to time. However, on Friday night the girls were at Grandma's for the night so Travis and Jas came over for a night of dinner and poker! I made a great Weight Watchers dish which everyone enjoyed and then we proceeded to drink and eat Twizzlers and pretzels while we played poker. Pretty much defeats the purpose of the WW dinner, eh? But we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless! Jasmine and I took the guys out and then we duked it out. She offered to quit and split the pot but I got greedy and said I wanted it all. I was eating my words in the end when she took me out! LOL Here's a pic of the proud winner:

On Saturday Jasmine and I woke up bright and early to head over to Iowa City for a spa and shopping day. The boys bought us gift certificates for Valentine's Day and we're just now cashing them in! We have all been so busy that this was the first chance we had. The spa was WONDERFUL! We each got a full body massage and a facial. Our only complaints were that my room was a little chilly and Jasmine felt the woman beat her up a bit. Other than that, we had a great time! I had never had a facial before so that was a neat experience. I swear she put about 10 different things on my face. But it was great!

After the spa we had lunch and then did a little shopping. I didn't get home until 6:45pm! I can't remember the last time I got to leave the house and miss feeding Owen ALL 3 meals! Of course, wouldn't you know the one day I leave he decides he's going to start signing "eat." I guess it only matters that he did and not that I missed it! He was also wearing socks when I walked in the door. His own socks even! This is the child who would never keep his socks on so I was quite surprised to see him walking around the house in them.

Today was the Dads' day and they played 27 holes of golf. I'm told Travis played his best 18 ever so they decided to go for another 9. I really think they just wanted to get back at the girls for being gone so long yesterday! Either way, they had a good time and it was a nice way to cap off a great weekend.

I'll leave you with a funny conversation that ensued when I came in yesterday and asked about Owen wearing socks. Here's how it went:

I said to Cody, "Why's he wearing socks?"

"We went outside to play for a bit."

"Oh, so you put his tennis shoes on him?"

"No, I just put the sandals over his socks because I couldn't find his tennis shoes."

"They're in his closet."

"He has a closet?"

Gotta love those Dads! :)

Take Me Away

So today was one of those days where I totally "get" the Calgon lady. I suppose it wasn't a typically busy day, just one of many annoyances and patience running very, very thin. To start my day, Cody has been in California on business since early yesterday morning. So after an entire day of all-by-myself Owen duty, I awoke to yet another day of the same thing. Don't get me wrong, I love my child but he is really starting to test me lately.

Our biggest problem as of late is his eating habits. Owen has always been a wonderful eater, eating everything from broccoli to carrots to roast beef to peaches. He has always eaten a well-rounded amount of fruits and veggies and never really complained. I guess now he figures he needs to make up for lost time because he is not happy with his menu. Needless to say, I loathe mealtimes around here. I know there is going to be some arguing at some point throughout the meal and I don't look forward to it. I do everything I can to make these old foods look appealing. I started with a new spoon. The excitement of adding a utensil to the meal was enough to keep him eating well for a week or so. Then we moved on to a new fork. This also proved to be exciting for him. He won't take it from my hand or even pick it up himself, but throw it on a fork and let him hold it and he'll eat it. Who knew one could draw so much excitement from utensils? When that started to get old, I had to break out the airplane. So tonight, here I am with the peas and carrots on the new spoon saying, "Here it comes! One, two, three, YUMMY!!!" and I "fly" the airplane into the hangar. Oddly enough, this little trick worked! He ate the peas and carrots from the spoon and even smiled about it. Unfortunately, it only worked a few times and by the end of the meal he was spitting out said peas and carrots, throwing the once-loved spoon and fork on the floor, and tossing the bowl of peas and carrots into the air. I took that as a sign that he was taking no more of my "tricks" and dinner was now over.

After dinner I found myself counting down the minutes to "Wheel." I hate to be a mother who uses TV to pacify her child but after a long day of whining, temper tantrums, bad eating, and a little bit of sucking on his thumb (this is a new development of which I'm not sure how or why it started and I pray it does not continue) I NEEDED THE WHEEL!!! Thankfully that bought me a little half hour of peace as we watched and cheered and then it was off to bath time.

We got through the bath relatively peacefully but my crabby boy soon returned as we tried to brush his teeth and get him ready for bed. He just was NOT having ANY of it! While the clock read 7:23pm, ( I usually wait until AT LEAST 7:30pm to start rocking) I was ready for a little reading and rocking!!! So we read our usual bedtime stories and then the time comes for rocking on Mom's shoulder--arguably my favorite part of the day--and he doesn't want to cuddle with me! My heart is breaking!

So, I ask all you Moms out there, the newbies and the veterans, what has happened to my sweet boy? Are we already gearing up for the infamous Terrible Twos? Is it just a bad week? Do I need to start buying Calgon in bulk?

A New Look!

Well, after MUCH time and effort on my part, Muhs News finally has a new look! It took me a while to find a template that I liked and then even longer to figure out all the html language in order to get it work. I'm happy to say that I am a little more computer savvy than I originally thought and I am quite proud of myself for figuring it all out. Ok, so it took 3 days of working on it to do it, but I still did it! Let me know what you think and if you have a site you'd like me to add to the "Links" section. Thanks!

A Chip Off the Old Block

So my son is just like his daddy in that he is obsessed with "Wheel of Fortune." That's right, folks, he's a Wheel Watcher! Every night at 6:30pm we tune in and Owen stands in front of the TV watching. He can be in the worst of moods at 6:29pm, but then 6:30pm hits and all is right in his world. Last night, he was having a huge fit, crying and whining. I turned on the Wheel, he hears the crowd clapping and the music blaring and immediately he turns around and stops crying like nothing was ever wrong! He'll stand there and start "talking" to the TV, "Ba dee ba dee ba dee!" as if he's "solving" the puzzle. A commercial comes and he will walk away and start playing with his toys but the minute the show is back on, there's Owen in front on the TV again. I think someday he'll be dragging his wife and young child to a mall to try to be a contestant, just like his Daddy did! I can't wait until he's old enough understand that his daddy was on his favorite show. He'll probably make us watch that episode over and over again!

Here's a picture of him watching diligently tonight: