This is probably the last year for them to match, unless I order Owen a bigger size.
Cookie Monster Twins!
Category Archives: Grandparents
Cuddling with Grannie!
A new game with grandpa!
Current helicopter pronunciation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG5x59b3r7c
This is how he currently pronounces helicopter—approximately helicop(t)opter. Mom and I couldn’t stop laughing.
Go State!
A gift from Gramma jean for daddy Owen!
A first and fun with Gramma Jean!
Gramma Jean taught Owen how to drink from a hose!
Getting tickled by Gramma Jean!
Playing catch with Gramma Jean!
Playing and watching!
Playing cars and blocks with Gramma Jean. The foyer rug is perfect for roads and garages and it got used A LOT during this visit!
Everyone watching The Backyardigans.
Grammas and Presents
Well, a Gramma and a Grauntie. 🙂
Owen gets very excited about presents, and he had a pile from both Gramma Jean and Grauntie Marge! Grauntie Marge helped show Owen how to open presents, and now he’s really good at it!
And the cutest thing is that after he rips off a piece, he hands it to you. 🙂
And of course there were lots of Thank You kisses…
Sunglasses, pizza, and Skype!
He saw these sunglasses sitting on the counter and has co-opted them as his own. He was super excited to wear them and wore them around the house for quite some time. He just LOVES them.
Tonight was the first night we gave him mini slices of pizza instead of cut up pieces—and he seemed to do just fine!
The glasses make another appearance during a Skype call with Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob!
Happy birthday, papa!
Nomming fruit drawings!
Look what Gramma Jean taught him!
Getting jiggled and tickled!
Reversed!
Owen has been doing great in his new room—and hadn’t tried escaping at all—until it was Gramma Jean’s turn to watch him during his nap while Tom and I ran some errands. He decided to keep following her out of his room and refused to stay in his bed and take a nap. The stinker! (And smartypants, since he knew not to try that game with mom or dad!)
So, following the advice of some friends, we reversed his door knob so we can lock it from the outside. And it worked like a charm!! :up:
Tonight, I put him to bed, locked the door, then stood outside his room to listen to what happened. I heard him get out of bed, rattle the knob, announce that it was locked—and then he cried and whined for a few minutes before he got back into bed and settled down.
New squirt gun!
Learning how to—OOPSIE!!—use his new fish squirt gun! Thanks, Gramma Marsha!
First trip to the zoo!
The first stop? Penguins! He loved them!
Group shot!
There wasn’t much action in the arctic circle…except a tiny seal.
Watching the train pull into the station:
First train ride! We thought he’d love it, but he was fairly 😐 about it.
Owen did an amazing job during the three hours we were there—we had the stroller and gave him rides between stops and he was a perfect little angel. He enjoyed the animals we saw (a lot of them were hiding or sleeping) and said “hi” to and waved to them all (sooo cute!). He never ran off when he was out of the stroller and he would run back to the stroller to ride to the next spot. Such a good kid!
On mark! Get set! Go!
Splashing in the water table with papa. Grannie Lin taught him “On your mark!” which comes out “Onma! Onma!” 🙂
First sandwich!
Owen usually likes taking a bit of whatever papa has (cookie, cake, sandwich), so he’s had a few bites of PB&J along the way…which was surprising, because every time we’ve tried to give him jelly, he’s refused.
But apparently papa was the key, and Owen ate part of a PB&J sandwich while Tom and I were out. Of course, I require photographic proof or it didn’t happen 😛 so I got this video today!
Going Away Picnic
We wanted to have a picnic like last year…perfect weather, fun for Owen in the pool, a bunch of friends over, some good food, and a new family photo. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate…and neither did Owen. We got a decent photo out of the 25 attempts…
But it doesn’t even come close to the apparently once-in-a-lifetime shot we got last year (one of two attempts).
But he was super cute the morning of the picnic when he discovered he could climb up onto the bay window ledge in the living room. What fun!
And he loved Gramma Jean’s mower…when it was turned off. She turned it on to give him a ride and it was “NOISY!”
Then Tom helped him pick a flower for me—my first flower! Sigh. :heart:
And last but not least…Gramma Jean got Owen a pop-up tube/tent contraption…which he LOVED. I’m not sure where it’s going to fit in either house, but we’ll have to find a place.
Busy, busy day!
We went to the park with Gramma Jean and showed her how much Owen liked the slide!
Playing with ants!
Then we came home and Owen and Gramma were reading a new book—and Owen was telling us a big story!
Then we went out for pizza—and Owen sat in a booster for the first time! And he did great! And ate two pieces of pizza!
Then, Tom and I went to Costco…to pick up the huge bear I saw earlier and had decided not to get…but Tom wanted to get it.
Owen wasn’t too sure about it at first…but now he loves it!
Owen went potty!!
Owen peed on the potty chair tonight! Totally unexpected! We went to change him into his night diaper and he was dry. So my mom (Gramma Jean!) said “Let’s put him on the potty.”
And we did.
And encouraged him.
And waited.
And after a few minutes we pulled him off since it seemed like nothing was happening…but there was a full potty!! Oh my god—we screamed and clapped and practically threw a party!! He seemed happy, but I’m not sure if he really even knows what he did (other than from us making a fuss over it) because he was watching TV while he was on the chair and he seemed way more concerned with that than with what he was/wasn’t doing on the potty.
Oh, I know it could just be a fluke and nothing else might happen for a long time…but I have to be prepared either way.
What a way to celebrate his 27-month birthday. 🙂
Owen is 2 years 3 months old today!
Guess what? This is the first time I have forgot it was Owen’s “monthly birthday” (even though my phone reminded me this morning) but luckily I snapped two photos after his bathtime haircut from Gramma Jean…and one of them was suitable.
I got schooled by Owen.
Grandma Jean and I were singing The Wheels on the Bus to/with Owen (a song that we sang at our community center play days but that he never really got into) and I got to horn and said “honk honk honk” and when I was done, Owen said “beep beep beep!” Who knew he even knew the words? So I just got schooled by my toddler.
First bowl of ice cream
Owen has certainly had ice cream before, but today we went to Oberweis Dairy with Papa and Grannie Smith and ordered him his very own bowl (instead of just feeding him bites of ours or letting him lick our cones).
When he got down to the bottom of the cup he was having a hard time, so Tom took over feeding him.
Then the manager came over to check on us, and gave Owen a balloon and some stickers!
Sushi?!!?!?!
At our sushi buffet lunch today with Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob, Owen was intrigued by the stuff on my plate so I let him grab a piece of sushi…which he proceeded to (of course) dip in yogurt and try to take a bite of!!!!!!!111!1!!
He didn’t get much of a bite—and then the roll basically fell apart—but it’s the first time EVER he has reached for something on our plates that was new to him! He then proceeded to eat a few small bites of tempura sweet potato and Korean beef!!
Knock me over with a feather.
Everyone at the table (well, mom and dad especially!) was cheering madly. The other patrons surely thought we were insane. 🙂
Si dow!
This morning Owen was playing with magnets on the fridge and turning them upside down. Of course I told him he was turning them upside down—and then he was saying his version: “si dow.” 🙂 He also repeated heck when Linda said it. We definitely have to start watching our language.
On another note, Owen is not a heavy sleeper in the car. If you brake suddenly or get off the highway or park the car, he’s up immediately. So we planned our departure for an hour before his nap time because we had 30 minutes of driving and then a quick 15 minute stop. So what happens? He falls asleep about 5 minutes into the drive. We figure we’ll still stop because he’ll wake up. Except he didn’t…when we stopped at a stop sign, parked the car, opened his door, and Tom stuck his face in and touched his nose. The boy was out cold! Amazing! So we just got back in the car and skipped the visit. Stinker!
Great Wolf Lodge
Grannie Lin had two free day passes so we bought two extra tickets and we all spent a few hours at the park watching Owen have a complete blast! We didn’t take too many pictures (we didn’t want to carry any cameras around) but we did take a handful right before we left.
Birthday Party!
I was really excited about decorating Owen’s cake as a baseball—I baked part in a round Pyrex bowl and did a flat bottom layer. That part went fine. The frustrating part came when I tried to decorate it—the tiny tube of “cake decorating gel” I bought was basically useless—it was too sticky and didn’t come out of the tube evenly, making the lines and intricate designs of the stitching impossible. So I was bummed.
Owen noticed the gifts on the table and wanted to sit in the chair, so we put him up there and Gramma Marsha gave him a car from one of the bags so then he played with that and the peeked into a bag and found another car. So he was playing with both of them…and making car noises! (He had never done that before!)
Then I decided to give him one of my gifts—a box of 10 Matchbox cars—and this is him seeing them in the box and signing “more!”
Taking a break from playing with his cars.
He loves having Happy Birthday sung to him!
Enjoying the cake!
Everyone who was at the party!
Happy 2nd Birthday, Owen!
Happy birthday, Owen! Smile for your first picture of the day!
I was amazingly proud of him at our play group today. He actually sat in the song circle for the first time EVER…for THREE songs even! And was pretty happy and smiley about it! At the end of song three, he announced loudly “DONE!” 🙂 and then, surprise #2…he went to the playdough table! What? Huh? Awesome! AND THEN…he actually participated in the art project!! He put glue on the paper (and maybe in his mouth) and stuck some stickers on! And he kinda liked his birthday crown! And grandma AND dad were there to see it!
So when we got home, we tried for the “official” birthday photo…and lucked out with this one:
Then he had his nap, and we got to experience this when we got up:
Then since it was pretty warm out (32!) we decided to take Owen outside. I know he doesn’t like to play in the snow, so I didn’t even put his snowpants on him. We gave him a few sled rides and you could see he didn’t really care too much. Grandma Jean coerced him up onto the porch…
…where after a few minutes, he suddenly laid down, crawled toward the bushes, and started playing in the snow between the bushes! He was digging and digging and flinging snow around—his mittens were packed with snow. Then when you thought he might be done, he’d do a low-crawl to the next section of the porch and dig some more. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to mind the cold at all!
After dinner, it was time for CAKE—and he certainly knows cake when he sees it! 🙂
And then for the day’s big finale…a BAF!
First Candy Cane!
