Fun Christmas

Owen had a great Christmas this year.  This is the first year that he's been into it a little.  He made friends with the tree, as he would go each morning once he woke up, ask for the lights to be turned on, and then would take one or several ornaments from the tree to play with.  The second picture is of him being caught in the act of taking an ornament.  We had a lot of fun.  All of his grandparents came by to visit for a little while, and by the last one, he was fully aware of what was intended for the boxes wrapped in festive paper.  Here are a couple of pictures.  The last one is of him with one of his presents.  Owen received so many great gifts, and we are very thankful for them all.  I've included the picture at the bottom because it has a funny story.  Owen was excited as we opened the box of the bike.  Though I'm not sure that he's actually been around a bike much, he knew exactly where all the parts went, and he kept himself busy instructing us as to where to put the parts.  Once it was together, he climbed up on it and had the biggest smile.  I pushed him around on it inside the house, and he had a blast.  Cara and I realized that we needed to go ahead and lay the groundwork for not getting on the bike without a helmet.  We told him that he would have to wait to get back on until we could go and get a helmet for him.  He disappeared into the play room, seemingly disappointed.  However, after some rumbling and banging around, he came out of the room with his construction worker hat on his head.  Well, it was good enough for us.  We turned it around backwards so he could see.  Here's the picture.

Birthday & Halloween

Well, it's obviously not close to Halloween or Owen's birthday, but these pictures have just been waiting to be posted.  These are from Owen's 2nd birthday party and from going to Owen's mother's day out church for Halloween activities.  We were surprised at how much he enjoyed be given candy to put in his bag, so we set out in the stroller to go around our neighborhood for trick-or-treating.  However, we soon learned that no one in the neighborhood opens their gates to welcome trick-or-treaters.  So, we came back home and had him trick-or-treat there, going from the house, to the garage, to the "shack", and back to the house.  He had a blast. 

Happy Early Birthday Owen!

Last Saturday we celebrated Owen's 2nd birthday and Granpa's 50th birthday with a fun filled family bash in Granbury. We had a wonderful time visiting with friends and family we greatly missed while we were in Charleston. I was not able to catch many pictures at the party so check out our Snapfish Group Room for pictures Auntie took during the fun.

Pictures of Home

We've had a few requests for pictures of the new home. There aren't many really good ones, but here's a few. These are all from outside of the house, as the inside is still fairly undecorated.

Driveway, garage, and front of house.

Looking out from the front door.

Looking out from the back porch.

From the backyard, looking toward the street.

Settling In

Well, it took longer than I thought to get back to posting, but we now have the computer functioning and set up at home, so it's time to get back to it. Too much has happened since the last post for a review to do any justice, so I'll ease in with something relatively short and sweet. We are now in our home and getting accustomed to our new roles and routines. Owen loves the new place. He has lots of room to explore outside, and he takes full advantage of it. He's getting big; it's hard to believe that he turned 22 months old yesterday. He's learning new things everyday, and he's just as silly as he ever was. Here are a few pictures to catch up since the last post.

Coming Soon

Hello everyone. I didn't realize it had been one month since the last post. It will be a little longer still before I can put something up of Owen. We've been readying the house to sell, and now we are in transition to our next place. Once things are a little more settled, we'll pick back up with the pictures and posts.

Happy Mother's Day

We had a fun day today. We went to the county park after Owen's nap, and we hung out at the "splash town" area. It was really busy there today, and Owen mostly hung out along the periphery. It started thundering and raining pretty heavily, which all but cleared out the park. We hung around until it cleared up, then we had the playground almost all to ourselves. Owen had fun hiding in the tunnel and going down the slides. It was a nice and relaxing day.

Owen and Tucker

Here's a funny video of Owen playing with Tucker. Luckily, Grammy was visiting and had her camera ready for filming, so she captured this. This clip shows pretty much what a typical afternoon with Owen is like. He has a lot of fun with most things that he does.

Owen's Pick

I meant to post this earlier. Owen and I went to Walmart right before Easter Sunday to see if we could find some last-minute candy or toys. Of course, while I pushed him around the store in the cart, he wanted to hold pretty much everything that he saw. We went down the clearance toys aisle to see if we could find a good toy for Owen, and, as I paused to look at a few items, he started giggling and saying "ha, ha." (translation: help, help) I looked over and he was attempting to pull one of those water noodles (the long, foam floating things) off the shelf. I helped him, and he soon had the biggest smile, hugging the noodle tightly. At a price of $1.99, I had to let him keep it. We were only in the middle of shopping at that point, so the rest of the time was spent trying to navigate the aisles with Owen trying reach out and touch someone/something with the noodle. Here's a few pictures of the simple pleasures of a water noodle.

Easter Egg Hunting

Owen had his first Easter where he was able to walk around and hunt for eggs. We got a bunch of the plastic eggs and put little toys inside. He started out pretty interested in the eggs. He picked one up and put it in the basket. Then, he became more interested in the sticks in the yard. He disregarded the eggs and went on his way finding a suitable stick. With lots of cheering and guiding, he eventually began picking up more eggs. That too came to a halt once he squeezed on of the eggs and realized there was a treat inside. A while back, his Auntie had given him a few ping pong balls, and he loved them. So, we bought some more ping pong balls and put them in some of the eggs. When he squeezed open the egg and saw the ball, he got very excited. He no longer was interested in the stick. He just walked away with his ball and toured the yard. He eventually finished picking up the eggs. We went through a few of the eggs, but I'm just realizing that we didn't even get through all of them. He found three or four of the ping pong balls, and he was done.

Happy Helper

Owen enjoys mimicking Cara and me. Sometimes it's with sounds, sometimes with facial expressions, and sometimes with behaviors. He's very observant when it comes to various chores around the house, and he's decided he couldn't take it any longer without being able to do some of the things we do. He's earned his first official "chore": feeding the dogs. Since he started walking, he would follow me around while I would get the food and fill their bowls. He showed his interest early on by running to the door to the dog food when I would say, "Time to feed the dogs." So, I decided to let him have a little more control over it. He loves his job. He gets very excited when it's time to feed the dogs. I fill the cup for him, and he takes it to each bowl and pours it in. When he's done, he throws the cup back into the bag and closes the door. Because of his excitement, I do have to follow closely along to help keep him on track. Also, we've had a couple of mishaps where, in his excitement, he dumped the food before he got all the way to the bowl. Anyway, here's some pictures of Owen doing his chore. Here's also a few pictures of him helping with some other chores.

Bath Fun

Here are a few pictures of Owen playing in the bath tub. This is a water drum that I would put on top of his head when he was littler, and it would cover the entire top of his head. He still loves playing with it and sticks it on his head, though it barely fits anywhere now.