Owen's Monkey Business

Just a bunch of special moments. First time in the FUN cart at Whole Foods "Show us your funny face Owen. Your REALLY funny face!" Making pizza with momma My first P,B.and J! (It was shaped like a star.) Cousin Oqwe and Tia Alice come for a visit! "didi" (that's what Owen calls "baby" i.e. the one in momma's belly) First time eating with training chopsticks (Dec. 26, 2010) Movie night at Grandma and Grandpa's. My first movie, Toy Story. We watched only the first hour, then it got too scary. I love my new boots! If you're happy and you know it! sitting at my table. I eat lots of meals and snacks here. Momma just wanted to remember how big I look sitting here. My new desk at Grandma and Grandpa's

The Christmas season was full of traditions new and old, and lots of fun activities. It seems like we didn't take too many pictures on Christmas itself, will try to remedy that next year. But the flipside is we were all present in the room and not stuck behind a camera so we could enjoy it all. The main thing for O. this year was that he learned lots of Christmas words, like Santa "hanta", tree, stockings, and reindeer, and that he enjoyed unwrapping things. He really wanted to enjoy and play with each gift as he opened it, so gifts took about four days to get through. We had saved all the packages mailed from out of town friends and relatives, and next year I think we will open them as they arrive, so he can enjoy them as much as he wants right away. We picked out our tree before daddy left for a week in Chicago. Owen went to a special four session holiday/winter music class with Miss Moira. When daddy went to Chicago, Grandpa came along and pulled him in the "...

A couple of Sundays ago we got Owen dressed up to go see Santa and thought we were smart getting there at 10:30 to line up when Santa starts at 11:00. Let's just say several people were smarter, and got there by oh, say 10! So we decided we didn't want to wait an hour and then have O. not want to do it anyway so we walked down to Picture People at the other end of the studios. Luckily they were able to get us in right away with no appointment which kind of amazed me because later when we were leaving other people (with appts.) were being told they'd have to wait. Waiting with dressed up kids? ewww! Those having problems had different photographers than we had so at least I know we didn't cause their delay! Anyway, O. did much better at this photo shoot than at the 9 month old one and we left with these (and a few more) great pix. Owen turned 18 months last Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010. He is so fun! I will come back and add more to this post about what 18 months is like fo...

This month we started a tradition that we thought of last year. Instead of (or perhaps in addition to) a traditional Advent calendar, we decided that each year we would wrap our collection of holiday board books and picture books and put them in a basket near the tree. Each night Owen gets to choose one to unwrap, and then we read or reread the unwrapped books each night as often as he likes. He got the idea by the second night. All we had to say was, "It's time to choose a book from the basket," and he got this gleeful look in his eye and hightailed it down to his little couch. He has picked all board books so far, and cute ones! He mostly likes the unwrapping part, and takes all his garbage pieces to the trash can as soon as he rips them off. The only trouble is, he is more interested in the unwrapping than in the reading, but with a little encouragement (and putting the basket away in a closet right away), he sits and enjoys the book with us too. We are excited f...

Owen's friend Cam moved away over the summer but luckily she comes back to town frequently to visit family. During one visit we had a meetup at the local library. Such cuties!

We had fall break all week, so I got to be a stay at home mom and catch up on playdates, fun with O. and household chores plus get a jumpstart on the holiday to-do list! Here is a run-down of our week: Monday: playdate with Tia Alice and cousin Oqwe. The boys had a blast and enjoyed eating lunch together at O's little table. I brought out the second chair and all week since he's left he keeps pointing to the chair and saying "Otwe". It's so cute! After O's nap Tuesday afternoon I took him with me to HomeGoods. I'd been wanting to get there for a month or so just to see and finally I decided to just take him along. He did great! Tuesday: O. and I were up and ready early (by 8:45) to head over and pick up Hannah and Liam so we could all head to Yucaipa, (about 100 miles southeast) to visit Carmen, Jesse, and Camilla Rose. We had such a fun visit. O. ate so much chicken, potatoes and fruit at lunch I could hardly believe it. Wednesday: Up and ready by 9:15 ...

Owen turned 17 months last week. He is a little over 25 pounds and wears 12-18 month size clothes, size 4 diapers, and size 5 shoes. He still loves cleaning and playing with balls. He has been enjoying his baby doll and now likes to pretend to feed her a bottle. knows lots of words and says several of them. The day he turned 17 months he started using "mama" to refer to me instead of dada. Just a few days later he really started calling Grandma and Grandpa by their names too. He drinks from a cup without a lid and continues to feed himself as he has since about 10-11 months old. He loves fruit. New favorites include pineapple, oranges, and the old standbys are still popular. He likes flour tortillas and calls them "tias". He will drink a cup of milk but is not a huge milk drinker. He mostly drinks water, though he's had a juice box or two each month. Momma is 30 weeks along now and starting to nest. She is itching to decorate the house for the holiday...