Beeeeeeeeeee!

My mom, Owen's Bee, came up this past week. She spent part of Monday and all day Tuesday w/ Owen and I and then all day Wednesday and Thursday and part of Friday w/ Owen all by herself so Kyle and I could get away for a couple of days. I think everyone had a great time and Owen definitely got some official grandma-spoilage out of the deal.

She bought him his first couple of trains (Thomas, Percy, etc.) with a little track that is a huge hit. He was already obsessed with them and loves playing with David's as well as watching train videos on the computer. (When he sees Kyle or I at the computer he comes in and says Choo Choo or Nay meaning he wants to watch a train or horse video.) Also, she took him to McDonald's for a soft-serve ice cream cone (his first), and no surprise this was a big hit too. Apparently there were quite a few spectators there...

They also spent a LOT of time outside and at the park--I'm so thankful she had him during fairly nice weather. Owen loves loves to go down the big boy slides all by himself now!

He can even swing in the big boy swings if we help. He also really likes to pick up rocks and put them in the bucket and them put them (or throw them) other places. (In hindsight, I think the rock-throwing at the waterfall on our hike may not have been the best idea.)

I am so thankful they had a good time since moving back means we'll have the opportunity for a lot more of these extended playdates w/ Bee. Oh, I didn't mention that he totally knows who she is and says her name (very long--Beeeeeee!) and points. So fun! Maybe it was learning her name that finally made him make the connection that I have a name too (other than Dadda), so he's FINALLY calling me Mama! It still doesn't come as easy as Dada, but he's getting there. :)

His talking is coming so far and seemingly so fast. More and more animal noises and now he can say "more" (as well as sign-it, he does it together) and a very clear "bye bye" and "nigh night", "baow" (ball) , "doh" (dog) ,and moon, also he knows that Christal and Phil's baby is "Nay Nay" (Nathan). I ask him to try to say something and he totally does. Words/phrases like "breakfast" and "I love you" are hard, but he's getting the sounds right even if there are consonants missing, etc. It's so amazing to literally almost be able to see the wheels in his head turning as he figures this stuff out. It's evident his comprehension is ahead of his ability to actually speak what he knows (which must be frustrating!) but it's still amazing! Oh, and he knows the letter "O" and points to it in things.

Anyways, Kyle is back to working days this week so we should have a pretty regular one...

I almost forgot--this may be one of the funniest videos we have of Owen to-date. We discovered a new "game" w/ Owen and he was quite proud of himself (as you can see). Oh, the little "hop" at the end is Owen jumping--which is a new favorite activity. If he actually does get off the ground he usually lands on his rear, so it's usually just a forceful deep-knee bend. :)

Oh, and (praise the Lord!) we have had a good 4-day stretch of good naps! (We've been struggling for a while w/ the transition from 2 naps to 1 in the afternoon.) Some days he'd just take one in the morning (bad) and other days I'd try to keep him up until after lunch and he would almost be in hysterics. Anyways, w/ some advice from the Bible Study girls/moms and Bee there to help, I think (cross my fingers) that Owen has settled into a 1-nap routine. He's going down after lunch around 1 and sleeping from 1.5 to 2 hours which is totally acceptable. So, yea!

March

Just a few photos from well, recently. We keep getting little spurts of spring which is nice but it definitely hasn't stuck yet.

Last week Kyle had a day off (actually he had quite a few, but we'll pay for it the next few weeks) so we went to Hanging Rock to hike around a bit. Owen weighs a lot more in The Backpack than the last time we went hiking with him, but he also cries a lot less, so it's a good trade-off! The highlight of the trip was Kyle letting him throw pebbles into the pond/waterful and getting to see real live Cows ("Moo") and a Horse ("Nay"). After seeing the Nay, Owen just repeated that over and over and over again, as if asking when are we going to see another?

My mom commented that this picture makes it look like Owen wears a curly kid toupe. I don't disagree...

Not sure what He and Lauren ("La") are looking at but I think this picture is funny--like they're some old couple just hanging out in the front lawn--the Mr. pushing the wheelbarrow around and the Mrs. wearing a moomoo. :)

He and David ("Day") having a good old time on the way to or from the park.

Owen LOVES to walk around in big shoes--he especially likes Kyle's big sheepskin slippers, but he'll try to walk in anything including my flip flops. He's at least figured out how to turn them the right way in order to get his feet in w/ them facing the right direction which means he doesn't get frustrated as easily. It's pretty funny to see/hear him scooting around the house like this.

SNOW DAY!

Monday was snow day here in Winston-Salem. A solid 4-6 inches of nice powder fell Sunday night--how's that for the beginning of March! Kyle was off on Monday which worked perfectly because it definitely took both of us to get/keep him "geared" in all his (borrowed) snow clothes and pick him up from face plants, pull the sled, and take pictures.



Here's our house.





Here are our dear friends David, Ann and Lauren. David--thanks for lending Owen your old snow shoes and letting us play with your sled!

Momma (or as Owen calls me still, Dadda) and Owen after our family walk to the park w/ him in his backpack. Yes, those are Kyle's mittens. Hey, they work.

Owen and the real Dadda after something fun.

One of Owen's favorite ways to play in the snow was to scoot down the hill in front of our house or on the side of the Ketch's house on his rear. Very cautious.

The Ketch's slide was a really big hit. We were out early enough that the snow on the street was still powdery too so the sled course went from the top of our hill, across the street, into the Ketch yard and down their side hill.

We ended up putting Owen's jacket over Kyle's mittens (pulled up to almost his shoulders) which meant he sort of resembled Ralphy's little brother. I'm not sure exactly what he was doing here but I know he kept trying to put his little mits in my face.

Dadda taught him how to suck on ice sickles. That'll definitely come in handy some day.

And now for the videos. This one is right after Owen did some rear-end scooting.

Here is Owen's first sled ride on the short course.

It really was a great day. The perfect way to (hopefully) end our seemingly endless winter here. There's still snow on the ground this morning but it should warm up some this weekend which we're looking forard to. All the while we hear its been nice and warm in Texas. Sounds wonderful...until you think about what that means for August!

First Big Boy Haircut

As I mentioned in the last past, we took Owen to get his first haircut by an actual barber. It was time, the fro/mane was out of control. His locks are still curly and in tact, just a little more manageable. He was such a trooper. Here he is on Kyle's lap holding his blanky with Mr. Greg snipping away.

Two More Videos

Can you tell I'm trying to redeem myself? Here are two more videos.

"All gone" and "more" are great things for a toddler to know how to communicate. Owen's all-gone came about sort of unintentionally. Apparently I do this (not so exagerated) when telling something is all gone. Now he does it too. We're still working on more.

Here he is just jabbering on after a bath. Talking. Singing. Either way we love it.

We're back...and it's about time!

I know I know. I have to be honest, I've been dreading doing this post. I've sort of fallen off the wagon. Sort of like getting out of the habit of exercising or something--getting started again fills me with dread. I think I've felt like in order to post something again I have to cover the last 6 weeks...well, that's just not possible so I'm not even going to try.

Not to bore you with excuses, but you might actually find these interesting...There are two primary reasons I have been MIA...

1) We've been CRAZY-busy getting our hosue ready to put on the market (and now dealing with it being on the market--keeping it clean all the time for showings, etc.)...AND...

2) We're expecting BABY NUMBER TWO IN AUGUST! So, do you forgive me? We actually found out right before Christmas and told our family then but decided to wait a bit before informing cyber-world. The due date is August 20th and (again) we won't be finding out if its a boy or girl, so your guess is as good as mine...although (and this is the real reason for the lack of communique)...I've been sick as a dog. Even in the 2nd trimester I'm having to take anti-nausea medicine, which definitely helps. I'm just really really tired and still kinda barfy.

But enough about that. I know the real reason you're here is to hear about the little guy...and like I said, I can't possibly cover everything, but here's a taste, and hopefully (not a promise, but a strong desire of mine) posts will happen much closer together from here on out (it's actually much less stressful to not have to deal w/ the non-posting guilt!). (Oh, another part of the not posting has been that with our busyiness and my yuckiness we've totally not been good parents about taking pictures of Owen and blogging just makes me feel worse about that!) We do however, have quite a few videos and in the next few days I'll try to post a few...

Here is Owen trying to help Dada drill a whole in the wall behind our refrigerator (don't ask). I guess he's related to Uncle Luke after all!

Here he is enjoying some yogurt with a SPOON! We're making big strides in trying to feed ourself with fork/spoon. Some things are definitely easier than others. This is all Owen's doing--we weren't pushing it, but he would fuss and fuss when we tried to feed him, grabbing for the utensil. He's good at ravioli b/c it says on. Yogurt is messy. He usually spends about half of the time working w/ the spoon and then the hunger is just too much so he starts sticking his hands in and sucking his fingers. Whatever works little dude!

He seems to be talking up a storm these days. Most of it is still incomprehensible, but there are definitely words that have meaning to him. Here are a few (I may have put some of these in an older post but I can't remember...and if I can't I bet you can't either).

chu: shoe

ju: juice

bee-o: balloon (and maybe book too?)

dada: Dada and Momma

lots of animal sounds, my newest favorite is for owl: ooooh (really soft and sweet and sort of high pitched)

chu-chu: train (oh, he loves to watch youtube videos of trains w/ Kyle, also animal videos...fun until we realized we had basically turned the computer into another tv which he does not like being turned off!)

What we find even more fun and impressive is the amount of words he recognizes/understands. It seems like a good portion of every day is filled with him pointing at things (dat-dat) which we realized was him asking what something is called. It only takes a few times and when we ask where ______ is he can easily point to it. (This makes following simple directions--like go sit in your chair, bring me your jacket, where is your blanket? really fun/easy!)

Words he knows: eyes, ears, nose, cheeks, hair, lips, toes, shoes, chair, juice, blanket, sippy, doggy, ball, David, Lauren, Ann, outside, inside, water (like in the tub), bathtub, diaper, fork/spoon, kiss, book, balloon, all sorts of animals (beyond basic pets and farm ones too!), dance...

That's all I can think of right now. I wanted to sit down w/ Kyle and do this post together so we could talk about all the things he knows/does now, but you might have had to wait another 6 weeks!

So, other news. He's transitioning to one nap, but it's not that smooth. Some days he still takes a morning and afternoon nap. Some days he just takes a really long morning nap. Other days (and this is what we're going for) he says up (happy!) all morning and through lunch and goes down for a nap in the early afternoon. Today, he seemed okay until right about lunchtime where he proceeded to scream intermitently between falling asleep in his booster seat. By the time we had the ravioli cleaned off of him he was asleep in my arms. Surely he'd be sacked out for hours...nope, 20 minutes. What???

We've been a little stir-crazy w/ the seemingly endless winter here. We've made it to the park on a few occations when it's warmed up into the 50s or low 60s but we're really really ready for spring (and yes, we know what the weather in Austin has been lately...sounds great until you think about August)! We've been playing with Ann, David and Lauren A LOT which has been a lifesaver. It used to be just Owen and David and Lauren sort of watching. Now Owen has just as much fun w/ both which is super fun--they just do different things. Their house has been on the market too (but just sold!) so there has been a lot of swapping kids and cleaning/showing and playing in the backyard. What a lifesaver. I can't even stop to think about how much we are all going to miss them when we are no longer neighbors come June. They really are our family here. Okay, enough or I'll cry.

I'll leave you w/ a little square dance party video. I've got some other great ones and I'll get a few others up this weekend--it's going to be cold and rainy so I'm not expecting much house activity (oh, see www.830bellviewstreet.com if you're interested). Hey, and thanks for your patience and for checking back in with us!

Oh, I forgot: Owen got his first haircut today! Still got his curls, just tamed the matted-fro look a bit. He did great--better than we could have imagined. Just sat in Kyle's lap and read his Thomas the Train book like a champ. I did get a picture or two (though didn't save a lock) and I'll get one up asap. :)

Christmas Past

I know I know I know...weeks and weeks since our last post. We're just now getting back into "normal" since the holidays. Owen and I went to TX for 2.5 weeks and Kyle joined us for the last part. Then the day after we got back I went to Nashville to watch Vandy WIN the Music City Bowl against Boston College (Go Dores!) and when I got home after 3 days we all came down with a nasty little bug that seemed to hang around forever! So, those are my excuses...thanks for your pacience.

Christmas in TX was great, but busy as usual. We spent time w/ all my family and Kyle's, saw both of our grandmothers, ate lots, had 3 rounds of opening Christmas presents, etc. Here are some pictures...

Here's Owen trying to get to his favorite thing--a doggie! He had lots of fun playing with all the dogs that our family has in Austin.

Owen and Bee
Owen, Nana and BB (w/ his jack-in-the-box)

Owen and Nana talking about the lion on his pjs

Me, Owen, Katie, Emmy

Joel, Emmy, Kyle, Owen (eating some good ol' Rudy's BBQ!)

We attempted double and even triple-baby bathtime a couple of times with varying success...Here is Owen w/ cousin Bailey in a huge bubble bath (I think Emmy had just been yanked). Bailey went in like a little scuba-diver--she ended up with a bubble beard and tried to wash Owen's bath. Owen (as you would expect if you know him) was more timid, but he did enjoy it in the end.


Here is Owen w/ Alex (my brother) and his sweet girlfriend Deidre (future babysitters). He's wearing a t-shirt commemorating the Stratford Elks' 2008 1A football championship--even more fun is that it was signed by a couple of players that lived in Meridian for a while--their family knew the Mezgers--small world!

Here's Owen w/ his new tricycle--from Bee. He couldn't quite do it by himself yet, but it won't be long. In fact, it'll get here later this week (Mom had to ship it--thank goodness) so we'll see how it goes--should be fun.

In addition to his tricycle, Owen got a seriously lifesize stuffed lion, his very own nativity set (so cool), an old-timy jack-in-the-box and lots of other fun stuff.

In a general Owen update...

He's doing great. He's definitely learned who "Da Da" is...he is actually going through a phase (a phase?) where Dada is by far is favorite. If he's not home, he points at his pictures and says his name over and over again, or he points outside where Kyle parks or upstairs and says his name, essentially asking me where he is. The only problem is, he sort of thinks my name is Dada too... He responds to the name Mama for me, but doesn't say it, and calls me Dada.

He also has lots of other words/sounds (can't remember what I told you last)..."Tsu Tsu" for what at rain says, "Yay Yay" for what a cat says (yes, that one is a little bit off, but he's consistent), still lots of boofing (dog) and roaring (lion), djus (juice/milk--the white juice!), Dodoo (doggie), he makes a vrooming noise for cars and trucks which is fun.

Last month he really started liking his wooden rocking horse...but in the last week he's decided that riding it isn't enough--he likes to stand up on it. Yes, we've made this a "no no" but I have to admit that the first time he did it we laughed pretty hard. Especially when he let go and waved to us. Oh my goodness.

He also really likes to dance--we turn on the music and he sort of does these little squats and then he spins around and makes himself dizzy and falls down. Now we can just tell him to spin and he starts going in circles. It's great.

Can't think of what else is new with him although I'm sure there is something...Won't be so long until we post again. :)