Playing Catch Up

I should have known, from my days of keeping a diary, that I would not be good at keeping up with a blog. And since tomorrow is Owen's SECOND BIRTHDAY, I better write a post to play catch up with the last three months!

First of all, his obsession with the moon has waned (get it?). He still likes to find the moon and the stars at night, but he doesn't think it's necessary to constantly shout about it anymore. :) His new obsession I would have to say is daddy's truck. He talks about it all the time, wants to ride in it every day, and gets so excited when he gets to. One day I had to take the truck to work, so I loaded Owen in and took him to daycare...which is about 30 seconds away from our house. HE WAS SO MAD! Or maybe the word is heartbroken. The ride to daycare was not long enough for him and he threw a fit. One other time, a couple of weeks ago, riding in the truck was the highlight of our 2am ER visit! He woke up in the middle of the night screaming and crying and his breathing was so raspy and weird that I thought there was something in his windpipe. He also kept pointing inside his mouth like there was something in there. Ryan was out of town with the car, so Owen got to ride in the truck to the ER, which brightened his mood quite a bit. Turns out he had croup. Poor kid would cough so hard and so much that he threw up a few times.


Owen also really loves the ABCs (or as he always says, 'the ABCDs'). He has gotten SO good at them. He can name every letter and for most of them, will tell you a word that starts with that letter. That's how he learned them. A Ace, B Boppa, M Mommy, D Daddy, P puppy, etc. He doesn't know the song real well, yet, but individually, he's got the alphabet down. It's awesome! I got him some foam letters to play with in the bath, which he loves.

We finally took a trip to Omaha to visit my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew, and also go to the Children's Museum and the Henry Doorly Zoo. It was so much fun! I think Owen had a really good time at both places. I thought he was going to be more animated about the animals at the zoo, but he was just kind of quiet. He seemed very interested in everything, but I was expecting yelling with excitement! He ended up falling asleep right as we were getting to the Cat House, which I was a little sad about because he loves to roar like lions and I wanted him to see them, so I picked him up out of his stroller and woke him up! :) He was fine with that, though, because he just loved the cats. We even got to show him a puma, which was fun because he has Puma brand shoes and he talks about pumas a lot now because of them.

In the rainforest at the zoo

Walking through the tree roots in the rainforest

HUGE gorilla!

Daddy holding him up to see the stringray

The Children's Museum was fun because there were so many fun things for Owen to do and look at. It was nice to be somewhere that had stuff that even little kids like him can do. I think he had the most fun in the ball room and on the various playground equipment.

Playing in the ball room with Boppa

Playing with cousin Annaliese

Slide!

With cousin Ian in the fire truck

He was having more fun than his facial expression is showing!

I have also missed Halloween, which went much better than last year. But before we get to Halloween, I better show pictures of us going to the pumpkin patch with Ryan's family!

Owen's a scarecrow and his cousin Bri is the Pumpkin Patch Princess!

Sitting on the pumpkins!

Owen looking at the "bunny rahs"

The pumpkin patch was a lot of fun. Owen got to pet bunnies, cows, a goat, a pony and some baby chicks, and we saw really cute little pot bellied pigs. Then it was time for a hayride to the pumpkin patch, where Owen picked up a bunch of little gourds, but then finally decided on a pumpkin just his size. 

For Halloween this year, Owen went as an Iowa Hawkeyes football player. He wore his jersey over his Hawkeye sweatshirt, his Iowa hat, and we put black stripes under his eyes with ash. He was so cute. I'm having camera issues right now, so I don't have any of those pictures right now, but I'll update later when I get the pictures. 

We decided not to trick or treat in our neighborhood (for lots of reasons), so we headed to a really nice neighborhood with lots of houses with their lights on. My boss actually lives in that neighborhood, so we started at his house, although he was hiding in the basement while his wife and kids were trick or treating. They had left a big basket of candy on their porch, though, so I took Owen up to it and his eyes got really big and he said, "Canny!" (Candy) He was so sweet, though, and only took one, while Ryan on the other hand went up and grabbed two or three of the kinds that HE likes! :) Owen wasn't really sure what to think about going to all these houses and getting candy, and he didn't say ANYTHING to anyone except Ryan and me. I tried getting him to say Trick or Treat! and Go Hawkeyes!, but he wouldn't. He did talk to a dog that some lady had with her, though. :) By the end of the night, he had a lot of candy, and I think he had a pretty good time, considering he had no idea what to think!

Fast forward to Thanksgiving: We went to Elkader on Thanksgiving and had a delicious meal at my brother and sister-in-law's house. Owen had lots of fun with Ian and Annaliese, as well as everyone else. He learned how to play Ring Around The Rosie, which he thinks is tons of fun.

That weekend, we went to Muscatine and celebrated a couple of birthdays - his cousins Jaxon (turned 3) and Lexi (turned 4). We went to a hotel and swam and the kids ran around and had a really good time. Lexi asked me if Owen could play Ring Around The Rosie with her, which was perfect, since he had just learned it a few days before!

And after Thanksgiving, we of course had to put up our Christmas tree. To get in the holiday mood, Owen "read" the book The Night Before Christmas, which actually is a recordable book that Nana and Boppa recorded themselves reading.

Owen helped us put the ornaments on the tree, and did an awesome job!

"Mommy! My hiding under twee!" -Owen Burke

Tired out from decorating

The biggest news of the last 3 months (actually of the last 24 hours), is that Owen went potty in the big boy potty!! Last night, after his bath, he was running around naked for awhile and playing, which he loves to do. Then, all of a sudden, he announces that he's going to get a diaper. Well, he would never decide to put on a diaper unless he needed to poop or pee, because he has done both without a diaper on, and he HATES it. So I asked him if he had to go pee pee and he said yes, so I asked if he wanted to go on the big boy potty and he said yes. So I sat him down on the potty, and I know from my nephew's potty training experience that you have to make sure "it's tucked", and he just sat there for a little while. After a bit, I asked him if he had to pee pee and he said yeah, so we waited a little longer and sure enough, I heard a little tinkle in the potty!! I was so excited for him, and I could tell he was pretty happy with himself. When he was done, I told him to tell  Daddy, so he runs out of the bathroom and yells, "Daddy! My pee pee in potty!" It was so cute.

I'm sure I'm forgetting about a lot of stuff that he's accomplished and fun things we have done in the past three months, so I'm going to make it my New Year's Resolution to do a better job at keeping up with the blog. One more thing I'm going to add is that Owen is talking SO MUCH! He learns new words so quickly and is such a smartie pants. I can't believe some of the stuff he says. The best thing he says (because he hasn't said 'I love you' yet!) is, "Sanks (thanks), Mommy!" And most of the time he says it, I don't even have to ask!! What a sweetie!