Mr. Smartie Pants

Yesterday, my boys were drawing with crayons.  It is fun to watch Owen's skills with a writing utensil increase and improve.  He drew all sorts of pictures, including a picture of our chicken coop, with a smiling sun.  Then he brought me a paper with "OMM" scrawled across it.

"Look Mom!  I drew your name!"

I have got to say, I was impressed.  We have been working on his letters, mostly trying to learn their sounds.  We have not done much with writing the letters, and I have not even gone near teaching him how to sound words out.  So I asked him if he could draw all the letters.  He sat down with his crayon, and went to work.  He would occasionally ask me what letter came next, but within a few minutes later this is what he had produced:

What a smart kid I have! 

Its a ZIP

The other day Owen discovered that he had a bump on his shoulder. He was incredibly fascinated by it, and showing me, and asking me what it was. I told him it looks like a bug bite, but he did not believe me, so he asked Grammy what she thought it was. She said, "Well Owen, it looks like you've got a little pimple."

Owen's response, "NO Grammy, its not a pimlo, ITS A ZIP!"

Forts and Rock n' Roll

Our cousin Liam came over today. When Owen and Liam get together, they always think up the silliest things to do. Today started off with building a fort, in which they insisted on eating lunch within the safety of its walls.

Unfortunately, the fort fell to an attack from the enemy, the Big Bad Monster (aka Daddy/Uncle Tommy).

So with the fort gone, the boys decided to move onward, and upward. Discovering the box of musical instraments, they quickly formed a rock band, and started to preform. It was definitely the most exciting concert I have been to in a long while.

Happy Birthday Owen

Owen turned 3 last week. I know, I know, I am a total slacker in blogging about it. We actually had his birthday party this past Saturday, because more family could come then. It was a lot of fun. We had Owen's favorite meal of Hot Dogs and Chips. And he got an Elmo cake.

Grandma and Grandpa, and Grammy and Papa came, and so did Cousin Liam, and Kendell and Lucy. It was quite a full house, but we had lots of fun.

My Big Brave Boys

My boys are growing up. They are venturing out, trying new things. Talmage started walking last night. I gotta say, it happened a bit earlier than I expected, Owen did not walk until 13 months, and Tal is not yet one. He has been taking a few small steps between Tom and me for a couple of weeks. But last night, Tal was standing up, holding on to the couch, and Tom was sitting in the chair across the room. He just looked at Tom,put his hands up in the air, and off he went. He hasn't stopped since.
Here is an action shot of some of his first solo steps:
Now, Owen, is doing his own kind of growing up. He has been a bit hessitant to play with his new bike. I think the whole Two-Wheel thing is stairing him. So I desided to show him some videos of other little kids playing on their bikes, in hopes to incourage him. So this is what I showed him (these are videos from the makers of his balance bike):





Man, that did the trick. He loves his bike now. He still doen't quite sit on it, but he loves running with it between his legs, and his favorite thing is to do "jumps." It is so cute, he just pulls up on the handle bars, making the wheels bounce. Love it!

Shop til' you drop!

Ever get tired of all this Christmas shopping?



No kidding, he really fell asleep on top of Tom's shoulders. And man he was out, we are talking snoring, drooling, the works. He did not wake up for two more hours.

Vo-KID-ulary

I love to watch my kids grow. I love to see them figure out things, and make new connections. And I especially love to hear their vocabulary expound. Owen had been learning and using a lot of big words in the past couple of months. He does a pretty good job using them correctly, but his pronunciation of some words is pretty funny.
For example:
Motorcycle: he says Michael-cycle
Lightning McQueen: is pronounced Lie-Queen
Scriptures: Scrap-chores
Macaroni: Racaroni
Talmage: Taw-widge
Interesting: Distressing
Football: Hop-Ball, although he used to say Foodball.
"To Infinity and Beyond!": "Sitting in a car!"
Life Cereal is called Cracker Cereal
And KIX he calls Kendell Cereal (Kendell is his cousin).

But here is my favorite. Yesterday, Tom poured himself a tall glass of Orange Juice, then put it down on the table so he could make himself a sandwich. Owen sneaks up, grabs the glass, and takes a big ol' gulp, then says with a smile, "Mmmmm, that was Lidicious!”

In case you were wondering

If you ever wondered what it would be like if you let a two-and-a-half year-old dress himself, you might get a result like this:Notice the shirt is inside out, and the both the short and the shirt are on backwards. Not to mention, SHORTS!!! In November? Really?

***Sorry about the picture quality. They were taken with my cheep phone.

If only it were so easy

I must admit, I love the way kid's brains work sometimes. Today Owen was sitting on the toilet, trying to do his business, when he says, "Mama, its not coming. I need help. You push down on my head."

What cleaver thinking. If only everything was that simple and intuitive.

Potty Party at Pizza Papa's

Today is a very BIG day! Finally, after what feels like months, Owen POOPed on the potty! He has had going Number 1 on the potty down for a while. But for some reason he was afraid to go poo on the potty. He always said "There is a spider in there that is going to bite me." Don't know where he got that from.

I have tried every thing to get this kid to do his business on the toilet. Finally, I told him that once he goes poopy on the potty, we will have a party at Papa's Pizza Place (my In-Laws own Pier 49 Pizza here in Cache Valley). That was great incentive, and he has been trying really hard for the past week, and today, he finally did it! He woke up from his nap and said that he had to go. So we ran to the bathroom, he sat down and promptly stood up, saying, "No the spider will bite me."

We played this game for the next hour. We even called his Daddy to see if Tom could talk him through it. Finally, I said, "Owen, I need to make dinner, so I am going to leave you pants off, if you need to go, then run to the potty." Not five minutes later, I hear Owen calling form the bathroom, "Mama! I did it!!!"

I ran to the bathroom, and sure enough, SUCCESS!

I asked him if he thought we could do that again, and he said "Yeah! No spider bit my bummy."

So tonight, we are having a Potty Party at Pizza Papa's. Hooray!

Sleeping Under the Stars

Bed time has always been a struggle with Owen. He refuses to got to bed by him self, and insists that either Tom or I stay with him until he falls asleep. Needless to say, we are rather sick of this game, so we though up a scheme to teach Owen how to fall asleep by himself. Every night before he goes to be we put a glow in the dar star up on his ceiling, if he cries, or gets out of his bed, we take it down. It took a couple of nights of loosing his one and only star before he figured it, out, but now he has a pretty good collection of stars on his ceiling. He was really proud to show them off to me the other day. This was his explanation of them:

"Mommy, these are my starts! I go to sleep by my selfs, and I get them, 2-4-5 of them!"

We are Going Home!

First off, let me point out that todays day is 8-9-10. Cool, ehh? Now on to my story...

For a couple of months now, Owen will periodically say something about how he wants to go home. Usually this is when we are in our house, so we tell him that all ready are home. A couple of weeks ago, when he said that he wanted to go home, I asked him if he meant Portland? He just looked at me like, "I have know idea what you mean."

Our friend, Jenn, is getting married this week, and we are going back to Portland for the wedding. I was telling Owen that we were going to visit Aphia (Jenn's daughter) at the end of the week, and he got so excited, and exclaims, "And Emma? And Jarom? Oh Mama! We are going home!!!"

Holy Cow, he was so excited. I started to cry, because realised how much he has missed Portland.

I am so excited for our little trip. I am surprised at how much I miss Portland, becasue I miss it A TON. I have some great friends, and found memories there. Don't get me wrong, I am glad to be in Cache Valley, but I will forever love Portland.

I can't wait to get to go back. Just a few more sort days.

Breakfast Help

This morning I woke up to the sound of pots and pans banging. Tom had already left for work, so I knew that Owen was up to no good. I got up and went to the kitchen to ask him what he was doing. And he says, "Hi Mama! I wanna make breakfast."

"You do? What do you want to make?

He had pulled out a sauce pan, and a miniature Jo!e Egg frying pan, which looks like this:

And he explains that he wants to "cook eggs and cer-we-ou."

"You want to make eggs and oatmeal?"

"We mama!" with a huge nod.

So, I pulled out the foot stool, and Owen stood at the stove, very excited to help make breakfast. He stirred the oatmeal, even flipped the egg, and even added the raisins to the oatmeal (he learned quickly that it is best to drop the raisins in, and not place them in: oatmeal is HOT). He especially liked the salt and pepper shaker; breakfast was VERY seasoned. Mmmm, delicious.

Holy Cow, I don't think I have ever seen that boy so excited to eat, and the best thing is that he ate his entire breakfast! Wow, I think I will have him help with dinner from now on if he eat everything he makes that well. I love having a little helper!

What Cute Kids!

One of my close family friends is a very gifted photographer. Yesterday she was so sweet and took pictures of my sister's new baby and 2 year-old, and my boys. look at this cute slide show she put together.

Click Here: Charisalie

Thanks Danette!

Tempo!!!

Last night we had are first successful Family Home Evening. Tom gave a little lesson about the Temple. After the lesson, we said a closing prayer, and asked Owen if he would like some Ice Cream for dessert. To our surprise he said, "No!" Then he went and picked up his coats and said, "Tempo, lets go!" Tom asked him,, "Owen, would you like to go and look at the temple right now?"

"Yea."

So we piled in the car and and drove to look at the temple. Every time he caught of glimpse of it, he would get so excited and say, "Look! Tempo!"

I love it! Tom and I could not stop smiling.

I have a Two Year-Old!

Owen is now officially Two! Ever since Talmage was born, I have been telling people that Owen is 2, but as of yesterday, He Really is two!!!!

We decided to go sledding to celibrate his birthday. Here are some pictures of Owen, Tom, Cousin Liam, and Uncle Bill:

After Sledding we had a little Pizza Party at our house. Of course we had cake and Icecream. Owen LOVES Trains, so I attempted to make a Train Cut-Cake. I got the pattern Here. Look at how cute it is!!!!! I think I did a good job.

Here are some more pictures from the party:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Bubba!!!!!!

Playing Mom

Right before Talmage was born Owen developed an extreme fascination with all things Baby. We ended up getting him a baby doll because he loves babies so much, and we figured he might like to have his own baby when Mom had her baby.

Well, our brilliant plan has not worked quite as well as we thought it would. Although Owen loves his doll, he loves his Baby Brubber a lot more. When ever Tal starts to cry, Owen runs right to his side, and tries to calm him down. Owen is constantly asking to hold the baby. And he loves to help bath and diaper Talmage.

Today, Owen tried to feed Talmage. He asked if he could hold the baby. A soon as I placed the baby in his arms this is what Owen did

Family Dinner

Owen has already taught me a thing or two about having more than one kid in the family. The other night Talmage was asleep in his car seat when Tom, Owen, and I sat down for dinner. Owen was such a monster during dinner. He refused to eat, and kept pushing his food away, saying, "NO, No, No!" His temperament just escalated from there, and eventually he was throwing his food on the ground and bawling. So I told him he was done, and took him back to his room to have a talk about how we Eat dinner not throw it on the ground. As we started to have this little talk, he just looked at me with wide open, tear filled eyes, and simply replied, "Mama, Baby. Baby, Baby! Baby eat."

"Oh," I say, "Did you want the baby to eat dinner with us?"

"Yes." Owen replied, rolling his eyes, as if to say, Duh Mom, I can't believe you forgot about him.

So I struck a bargain with Owen. "Ok, if I bring the baby to the table, will you be nice and eat the rest of your dinner?"

With a big nod of the head, "Yeah!"

So we went back to the table, I brought the baby over, and Owen finished his dinner while talking to the baby the entire time.

Holy cow, I did not realize until that moment that even little kids understand the importance of family time. Now I know, even when they are little, they understand understand even little concepts like Family Dinner mean the ENTIRE FAMILY.

I think I have a Mechanic

Have you ever looked at you kid and wondered what they are going to be like when they get older, or what they will be when they grow up?  Well, I am pretty sure that Owen is going to be a mechanic.  His two favorite toys are: 1) Cars, and 2) Tools.  

Playing with them together is his favorite thing to do.  Check it out:

Who knows, if it all works out, I just might not have to pay for car repairs in the future.

Hot Dog!!!!

I saw something today that I honestly thought I would never see in real life.  Owen and I were driving to the store, when I see a childhood dream parked in the parking lot of a hotel.  There sitting proudly, and ever so identifiable was the WIENERMOBILE!  Holy Cow, I was so excited!  So I pulled into the hotel parking lot, got Owen out of the car and took a picture of this exciting moment in my life.

This is huge.  I mean it is not everyday that you get to see the WienerMobile!