Weekend

This weekend we went down to visit Ryan's mom and the rest of the family. Last weekend was Ryan's birthday, so he got to open his present from his mom and stepdad - matching Vikings jerseys for him and Owen!

Jared Allen jerseys

We pretty much just hung out at his mom's house and grilled and more family came over as well. Owen got to see 3 of his cousins, but he was being a momma's boy pretty bad, and really didn't want to have much to do with them. I think he wanted to hang out with the grown ups and be a ham and get them to laugh at him (which happened quite a bit!) :) He did get to jump on the trampoline, though, and had lots of fun chasing the puppies and finding the kikis (kitties).

On our way home on Sunday, we stopped to shop in both Coralville and Cedar Rapids. We wanted to try to find Owen a baseball cap that fit his head. He's always hated wearing hats, but last Thursday and Friday, he found one of Ryan's hats and HAD to wear it to daycare both days. Just flat out refused to take it off. It was so cute, but obviously way too big for him. I took his picture on Thursday, but my phone died (because Owen dropped it in a bucket of oil), so I don't have it anymore. But anyway, we found him one with a puppy on it at Gymboree in Coralville and then an Iowa Hawkeye one in Cedar Rapids. He wore the puppy one out of the store and did a pretty good job of keeping it on. Here are a few pictures:

Is he going to ride the bike or fix it?

Running with the puppies

Mowing the not-so-green grass

I don't have a picture of his Hawkeye hat yet, and the puppy one says, 'Brave Like Daddy' on it. :) CUTE!


We also got a new car! We got 4 years newer, 70,000 miles fewer, and lots more miles per gallon because we traded in our SUV for a Nissan Altima. We really like it, and have already seen how much gas we save when we took it to Muscatine this weekend. It's weird driving new vehicles, especially going from an SUV to a small car - I feel down so low! But it drives so smooth and I just LOVE it! Still getting used to the touchy brakes, though! :)

2010 Nissan Altima

Animals

Owen loves animals. His favorite book is an animal book and he's always pointing them out on TV, in real life or in his books. We've been working on some animal sounds. Here's a cute little video:




My favorites are the lion and the kitty :)

Owen also loves to jump (or as he would say, "bump"). He takes every pillow off the couch and puts them in a pile on the floor so he can jump off the couch onto his landing pad. I tried to get some action pictures, but this is the best I got.

Another thing we are working on is saying "Please". He is such a little smartie, and it didn't take long for him to catch on. The other day he was eating lunch, and said, "more". Well, he still had lots of hot dog and peas left, so I asked him, "More what?" because I genuinely didn't know what he wanted. His reply: "Wease!" (Please). I was kind of surprised he said that because it was a pretty new word and not what I meant by my question at all! It turned out he wanted more ketchup. He actually says it quite often now, but most of the time we ask him to say it. There have been a few times, though, that he's asking me for something, but I can't understand him, so I say "What do you want?" and he'll just say, "Wease". Makes me smile every time. :)


Owen loves to take baths, which he has now learned to say "bath", so he requests them a lot. I have a hard time getting him out of the bath most days, but I now have a secret weapon that hasn't failed me yet...I tell him it's time to brush his teeth. He loves it! He'll yell, "TEETH!" and wants to get out right away and is so excited to brush them. He lets me brush them for a while, but then he wants to do it and after a few minutes, you have to pry the toothbrush away from him. But that's ok with me. I just hope he doesn't get my crooked adult teeth that takes years of braces to fix! But for now I'll just worry about keeping them clean :)

Brushing!

Being silly

Here's another cute video



The quality on both videos today aren't that great because they are from my phone video camera. It's just so convenient to use because I can upload them right to YouTube from my phone without having to plug anything in. But it looks nicer on my phone than on the computer :(

Two months later...

Cheesy boy!

Wow, I have been slacking! Two months since my last post! Do you realize how much one year olds change in two months?! A LOT!

We have a jabberbox on our hands - always talking, screaming, asking questions, learning new words, using the same words over and over and over. I can't believe how many words he knows now and how fast he can learn some words. His favorite words right now are: Dis? (This -he's asking for the name of whatever he's pointing at, and asks this about a million times a day), Ayth (Ace, our dog), bite (which he uses for drinks, too, which I think is so cute!), mine, muck (milk), kiki (kitty), bike, and Where ___ go? Along with "mommy" and "daddy", of course! He surprised us the other day by opening a book we haven't looked at in MONTHS, and pointing to Elmo and saying "Elmo!" He obviously learned it at daycare, but it still surprised us! Our pediatrician said that they hope for 20 words by 20 months, and he's just in his 19th month, and I bet he has WAY more than 20 words. What a smarty pants :)

This summer is a 180° turn from last summer when it comes to the swimming pool. He ABSOLUTELY LOVES THE POOL! The first time Ryan took him to the pool in town, he was still pretty hesitant, but there were quite a few people there and I think he was a little overwhelmed. Luckily, a friend of our has a grandma who has a pool, and we went over there one day and he had a BLAST! Eventually, he was jumping off the side of the pool, and didn't care at all if water got in his face, which was new. And it was nice that our friends grandma also had a little life jacket that fit him. We still always had to be hanging onto him, but it made things much easier. Here's a picture of Owen and Ryan that day:

We went back to that pool another time and he was just as crazy as ever! I had to pull him out for awhile so the adults could play water volleyball, and he fought me the whole time to get back in!

We also got him a baby pool for our house, which he loves, too, especially because it has a slide on it! It's so funny to watch him play in it and go down the slide.

Sliding on his belly

Being silly

Face first!

Telling Ace to take a "bite" of water from the pool

We went back to the pool in town last week and he loved it, except there is a HUGE bucket that fills up with water and then eventually tips over onto the people below, and he hates that :)

We also took him on his first boat ride this summer. Our friend's dad has a pontoon that we took out on Clear Lake. Owen had a lot of fun. He even got to drive the boat and go tubing with Daddy! Lucky!

On a boat!

Driving with "Uncle" Mike - he took it very seriously

Tubing with Daddy. It was a pretty short trip, because he kept trying to jump out!

Tuckered out after all the boating excitement

Owen loves to "drive" things. Sometimes when we get home from places, he wants to stay in the car and pretend to drive it. I took Owen to Wal-Mart in the truck one day, which only has two doors, so he has to go through the driver's door to get to his seat in the back. Well, he refused to go to his seat, and instead waited until I sat down and then plopped down on my lap and wanted to "drive". He always makes a car noise while he's doing this, too. It's adorable, but I'm not going to sit outside in 90° heat and humidity while he pretends to drive in a car that's not on! We are thinking about getting him one of those cars that kids can drive that are battery operated. Maybe for his birthday/Christmas present, but then he can't use it until spring! We'll see...

Owen has also gotten to spend some time with both sets of grandparents this summer. Here are a few pictures from my parent's:

Swinging high with Boppa!

Riding Nana's moped with Boppa!

Pushing the tractor

And here are a couple from Ryan's mom's:

Jumping on the trampoline!

Swimming

I'm sure there are tons of things I'm forgetting to talk about, because A LOT really does happen in two months, so I'm going to try a lot harder to keep up with my posts. I'm kind of a hypocrite because I always get antsy when my sister in law takes "too long" to post on her blog, but I'm sure she's never gone THIS long! :)

Good Morning

This morning, when I went in to get Owen up, he popped right up and said, "Hi (small pause to see who I was) Mommy!" Man, I love that kid!

What's New

Swinging at Grandma & Boppa's

Update on the "Mommy" situation: The day I posted MOMMY!, it was basically a fluke. He did not say it again for a while, but he is really starting to catch on now, though he doesn't say "Mommy" he says "Mama". He still will point to my chest a lot when he says it, but he will say it other times too. One reason I know he is catching on is that when he finds something that is mine, like my phone, he says, "Mama!" He does this with Ryan's stuff (only says "Daddy", of course) and when we are at my parents house and he finds the remote, he says, "Boppa!" and takes it to my dad. So the Mama thing is really coming along!

He's also adding a few more words. In the last week or so he's added "uh-oh", "buh-bye" and "buh-bo" (bubble). Sometimes it's hard to know what he's saying because "bah", "buh-bo", and "buh-bye" (ball, bubble and bye-bye) all sound very similar, especially when he says "bah-bah". Does that mean "ball, ball," or "bye-bye" or "bubble"? Or sometimes it even sounds like he could be saying "Boppa" (my dad). But most of the time you can tell what he means just by what he is doing or what's going on around him. Like in this cute video:



I think it's pretty safe to say he is saying "bubble"!
Right at the end, after he says "buh-bo" a couple of times, he starts to throw a fit because I put the wand back in the bubbles. He LOVES bubbles!

He also started making this "Oh my gosh!" face. I don't really know what else to call it, but his eyes get big and he drops his jaw, like, "Oh my gosh! I can't believe it!" Sometimes he does it just at random times, but it's even funnier when he does it at "appropriate" times. He's such a goof ball. I tried to get a picture, but haven't been able to yet.

A couple of facts about Owen:

*His favorite toy is any ball he can get his hands on, but I think bubbles are coming in at a close second.
*His favorite word lately has been "puppy". He says it ALL the time and likes to find pictures of them in his books so he can say it over and over and over again.
*He makes the sign for milk with both hands when he wants it. It's really cute.
*He loves shoes, and really likes his new Crocs because he can put them on by himself. He even managed to get one of his velcro tennis shoes on by himself the other day. On the correct foot and everything!
*He walks around with Ryan or my shoes on, too. It's pretty funny when he picks my high heels!
*His snack of choice on Easter was baby carrot sticks...plain.
*He loves watching videos of himself, especially the one where he is playing Peek a Boo.
*AND, he's the cutest, best little boy ever in the world. :)

Happy Easter!

For Easter this year, we celebrated down in Muscatine with Ryan's family. We went down on Saturday afternoon and had our "Adult Party" in Ryan's uncle's new basement bar that night. All the kids had crashed before we went over there, except Owen and his cousin Lexi, so they got some quality time together.

The weather has been pretty crappy the last week, but thankfully we got a fairly nice day on Sunday for the big Easter egg hunt.

Four of Owen's cousins were there as well (all of them are 5 and under), so the Easter egg hunt was a BIG deal. After grilling out for lunch, all the kids went upstairs to play in Hayden's room while we went out and "hid" over 100 plastic eggs. Most of the eggs we just scattered in the yard (which is huge), but there were a few that were a little more challenging to find.

When we were finished, all the kids had to come down and put on their shoes and jackets, and line up at the door to get their bags. Owen obviously had no idea what was going on, just kept waving and saying "Buh bye", thinking we were leaving. When we got outside, all the kids took off running, and since I hid a lot of the eggs, I knew where to take Owen. Once I pointed out the first egg to him and showed him to put it in the bag I was carrying, he knew what to do from there. It helped that he was calling the eggs 'balls' because he LOVES balls, so he wanted to pick up as many as he could find. Here are a few videos:



It probably would've been easier without the cracker in his hand, but he wouldn't give that up!









Owen had a blast running around outside again finally, and it's nice because most of their backyard is fenced in, so we didn't have to keep running after him all day. He found a couple of balls to occupy his time and the picture on the right is a "cheese" face.






After the egg hunt, the kids were a little tuckered out, so I pulled them around for awhile in the wagon. I told them all to look at me and say, "Cheese!", but this is what I got. Like I said, they were tuckered out.

Just Lexi said, "Cheese!"

 Owen got another ride, too!

By mid-afternoon, Owen was so tired, but he was a REALLY good boy all weekend. I knew we wouldn't get far in the car before Owen was sleeping, but I didn't know Daddy would join him!

Owen made out like a bandit this Easter, too. He got a t-ball set from my parents, a bubble-blowing lawn mower from Ryan's parents, a water ball and bubbles from his "Aunt" Megan and "Uncle" Chris, a stuffed tiger from Ryan's Grandma, a basket of goodies from my Grandma, and a basket of goodies from his daycare lady, Johnna. PLUS all the goodies that were in all the Easter eggs he found, which included $2! Oh yeah, and Ryan and I got him some Easter shoes: a pair of blue Crocs. They are SO cute! (You can kind of see them in the videos.)

HOPPY EASTER!!

MOMMY!

Owen is a smart little boy. He understands a LOT of what we say to him. He can point to noses, eyes, ears, toes, bellies and yes, his "weewee". He will get a diaper from his room when you ask. He will bend his elbow and hold his arm up so his hand is by his face face to ask, "Where?". He strings noises together that sounds like "waz-ziz-ih?" to ask (at least in my mind he is asking), "What is it?". He tries to say "balloon" but its too hard so he just make a "ll" sound. He has been saying "Daddy" (da-daddy), "light" (yigh), "Boppa" (my dad), and "puppy" for a while now, and just added "ball" (bah).

BUT HE JUST CAN'T GET DOWN THE CONCEPT OF "MOMMY"! I don't know what it is, he just doesn't get that I am Mommy. I talk in third person to him (which I don't know if that's good or bad), I say "Mommy" and point to myself to him all the time, but it just won't sink in. Lately, if someone asks, "Where's Mommy?" he will point to my chest at the bottom of my neck because that is where I point to on myself when I say, "Mommy". So we are getting closer.

The weird thing is, he does the same thing with my mom. He knows Boppa, no problem, but Grandma won't sink in. Even if we tell him to "Throw the ball to Grandma", he'll turn and throw it at my dad instead. Weird.


BUT TODAY, AFTER MONTHS AND MONTHS AND MONTHS, when I walked into his room today to get him up, he looked at me and said, "Mommy." What an awesome way to start my day!! I just hope it wasn't a fluke! I'm excited to pick him up from daycare to see if he will continue to call me "Mommy". I just loved hearing it.