Owen - 21 Months Old

Owen turned 21 months last Thursday. It's amazing the changes we continue to see just in a month's time. The time just flies by. Two years ago at this time we were at our lovely baby shower for him in Austin. Now he's closing in on 2 years and we're about to add a sister. By our blog for 22 months we'll have had Abby for a few weeks - it will be interesting to see what Owen stories we have then! We're pretty sure that he's going to call the baby "Abby's Room" for a while at first. If you ask him what's in mama's belly, he'll say "baby sister." And if you ask him what her name is he'll say "Abby's Room." I guess decorating and getting that room ready made an impression.

His class had hand-foot-mouth disease this month. Owen oddly got some bumps on his hands, but no where else and no fever. So our doctor did not think he had it - thank goodness! Unfortunately he's also teething at the moment. All 4 canines and possible a back molar. So during the hand-foot-mouth time it was a little tough to tell if any "symptoms" he was having had to do with teething or getting the virus. He's finally had one of the canines pop through (giving him 13 teeth total so far). Just waiting on the rest at this point.

He's starting to be more interested in TV which we try to limit. His favorite show continues to be Elmo (just the Elmo's World part of Sesame Street). But now he loves to watch the movie Cars and has added the Bob the Builder show to his list of requests (he calls it Bob, bob, bob, der, der). He has also started singing a lot. He has his favorite songs (The Wheels on the Bus which he calls the school bus song, and EIO which he calls the tractor song, and the Alphabet song which he calls "ABC"). He only hits the main words. For example in the school bus song, when we get to the "all around the town" part he sings "all" and "town."

Our little man is getting pretty bossy. He loves to tell his little friends at school to "walk away." This can mean anything from, move so I can see the book to get away from my toys. He'll grab us by the hands and tell us to "get up" so that we can go "run around." He is learning the concepts of "mine" and "my turn." He'll share turns sort of. For example, if I ask if he wants to close the garage door (push the button) he'll say "Mama's turn" but as soon as I reach for the button he says "my turn" or "Owen's turn" and then he gets to go. So other people's turns last about 2 seconds.

He has created a whole list of stalling techniques that he runs through regularly. Robbie currently does his bedtime, and Owen will ask to "Mama, kiss" multiple times cause he knows I'm a sucker for any attention (he's still such a Daddy's boy that I'll take anything I can get). We also suspect that he can poo on command to stall bedtime. Robbie's had evenings where he's changed Owen's diaper 3 times before getting him down. At meal time, if he's not interested in what we're feeding him he'd rather get down. But he knows he has to wait until we're all done with dinner. So he'll ask to "clean up" which is the last thing we do before getting him out of his chair. You know he's desparte when he's requesting diaper changes and hand/face washing.

We continue to be impressed by his language skills. He's putting together some decently complicated 5-7 word sentences. All time spent with him is running commentary - stream-of-consciousness. He's really got his shapes down - circle, square, rectangle, triangle, star, oval, and recently added his new favorite of octagon. He knows stop signs are octagons (loves to point them out) but will identify most any random octagon that he sees (not that there's tons of that shape out there).

Owen continues to be our little ham. He loves to make people laugh. If you ask him what you do when you're happy, he does this hilarious little fake laugh. He's also started "smiling" for the camera (see all the pics below). He also loves to tell us "Owen funny" when he thinks he's being very funny. We actually do find it pretty funny. :)

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter everybody! Owen's second Easter and we had a lot of fun. :)

On Friday Owen's daycare class had some festivities. An egg hunt and a special snacks time. I was able to go. It was raining, so the egg hunt had to be indoors. I discovered that Owen was more intersted in exploring what was inside the egg than collecting the eggs. Still, I managed to help him scoop up about 10 eggs or so.

Saturday we attended the El Dorado Hills community Easter egg hunt with our friends the Tribbles and Ariel's sister and her family. We also saw our friends the Carillos there (another family from our lamaze class).

There was a magician - which Owen didn't really understand. Then we took pictures with the Easter Bunny. Owen would give Mr. Bunny a high-five, but forget allowing the bunny any closer than that. What made this cuter is that after we left the bunny we asked if he enjoyed meeting him, and Owen said, "yup," and then wanted to go back and look at him.

The egg hunt was chaos of course. Owen only got two eggs because he kept opening them to see what was inside first. But after the egg hunt part was done, another area had Hershey's kisses to find. He really enjoyed that - got tons.

We went to our church service Saturday evening where we bumped into and then sat with several other friends and their kids. Then Robbie, Owen, and I went to a nice sushi dinner afterwards. No I did not eat any raw fish. And yes, this is a non-traditional Easter dinner. :)

Today to celebrate Easter, Owen got his Easter basket. He was thrilled that the Easter Bunny had brought him this great basket of candy (we hardly ever give him candy). He also enjoyed opening cards and presents from us and his grandparents. Then he had a great time doing an egg hunt in our living room for little chocolate eggs. As soon as he saw them he knew exactly what to do - finding each one and putting it in his basket. He enjoyed it so much, we repeated it again in the playroom upstairs by request later on.

We also got him to say "Happy Easter" to both sets of grandparents when we called. Too cute. We had a wonderful Easter this year! We hope you also had a wonderful Easter!!!

More pics... http://picasaweb.google.com/rgehbauer/Easter2009

Abby's Room Fi nished

We've finally finished getting Abby's room set up! For Abby's room, while we're using the multi-primary-color gingham printed bedding that was Owen's baby set, we're going more girly with it. I never think I'm going to go super-girly and then I go overboard girly (like our wedding). :) I guess I'm a girly-girl after all.

Owen's original nursery decor was all blues and animals. Abby's room is a pale pink with a hand-stensiled border of daisies using the primary colors from the bedding set. We bought another set of furniture (the crib eventually converts to a toddler bed and then a full sized bed when needed) but this time in white vs. the natural wood in Owen's room.

It's been so fun choosing and putting together the themes for both the kids rooms. This is the only time when owning a house that I feel one can legitimately go a little crazy with the themes and have fun with it. Next room to tackle is the kids bathroom - an ocean theme! More stensils! Probably won't get to it until after Abby is born. We'll see...

Owen's Room Makeover

Well we finally finished decorating Owen's room this past January and now have pictures to back it up.

We decided to leave Owen in his current furnitre so he'd keep something familiar around him when the baby arrives (the crib converts first to a toddler bed and then to a full sized bed later). We are using the bedding from Owen's crib set for Abby's room. So we've changed Owen's bedding/decor from the primary/colors and animals into a cowboy themed room. It now has tan walls with red and navy stensils on the walls and uses a cute cowboy bedding set and lots of our various Texas-style wall hangings that we already owned.

While my parents were here over Christmas they helped us paint the base colors on the walls in both kids rooms. After that we had to paint the star stensils (yes made from scratch) in the room and get all the various wall hangings up and move the furntiture around a bit.

We love how it's turned out. Owen seems to love it too. Every time he goes in he talks about "stars" and "cowboys" and "cactus." Seems to be a hit!

Owen's Original Baby Room

Owen's original room was all primary colors with animals.

Owen's New Room

Owen's new decor is now a cowboy/Texas theme. Don't want him to forget his roots! :)

Pregnancy #2 - 35 Weeks

35 weeks pregnant and officially in the last month. Abby doesn't have much room to maneuver now that she's over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 1/4 pounds. Her kidneys are fully developed now, and her liver can process some waste products. Most of her basic physical development is now complete — she'll spend the next few weeks putting on weight. Obviously we want her to bake a little longer, but it's now pretty safe to deliver if she does come early.

I was super-swolen by this point in my pregnancy with Owen (as you can see in the pics below - my poor feet!). So far no swelling with this pregnancy which is a huge blessing. At this point I'm about 17 pounds lighter than I was same week with Owen. Let's hope it stays that way!

I am so ready for Abby to be here and to have my body back. This is my last week of work. The person taking over my job while I'm gone is pretty much in charge now and we're just wrapping up training and ad hoc questions. It's also the first week of the quarter - so hopefully pretty quiet and easy. I'm looking forward to the three weeks off before Abby's born to rest and finish prepping. We're pretty well ready as far as set up goes, but there always more that can be done. Is anyone every really ready for the baby to be there. ;)

Only 4 weeks to go to the scheduled c-sectoin on 4/27. So nice to know the b-day ahead of time. Cross your fingers she doesn't come early!

Pictures:

Pregnancy #2 - 35 Weeks

Pregnancy #1 - 35 Weeks

Tahoe Family Vacation

The Family in Tahoe

This past weekend we had a wonderful family vacation in Tahoe. Robbie's parents (Bob and Dotttie), sister Tracy, brother-in-law Mike, and their 2 boys (Collin & Carson) flew in from TX and GA on Wednesday. We had some fun together around town on Thursday/Friday including a trip to the Folsom zoo which the kids loved. Friday afternoon we headed up the mountains and into Tahoe. It's about a 1 1/2 hour drive from our house - beautiful views the entire way.

Our visit to the zoo

Poor Mike had a stomache flu and was pretty sick for the first few days. I doubt he appreciated the pretty drive. :) Luckily he felt much better by Saturday in time for skiing. We also discovered after the fact that at this point in pregnancy I shouldn't have even been in the mountains. The change in elevation triggered tons of Braxton Hicks contractions - every 2-3 minutes. So Robbie and I spent Friday evening at the hospital in Tahoe for a few hours. Abby and I are both ok - I just had to spend the rest of the vacation off my feet as much as possible.


Dotti, Bob, Tracy skiing

Collin & his snowman

We stayed in a great hotel right by the Heavenly gondola with awesome views of the mountains and great access to restaurants, shopping, etc. All the adults (excpet me of course) got some skiing in. Since it snowed hard Saturday night and much of Sunday the skiing on Monday was apparently awesome. Our oldest nephew Collin - who's 4 1/2 - did ski school 2 days. He's never been skiing and it sounded like he had a great time and did very well. Owen LOVED watching the snow and eventually jumping around in the snow. Mike and Tracy celebrated both their birthdays on Monday so we had a nice dinner at Fire & Ice (a mongolian grill style place) and cake afterward. We tried to take the boys sledding on Tuesday, but Owen wanted nothing to do with that. While we were there Carson (who just turned 1 at the end of Feb) also started walking. It was so great to get to share in that!

Carson walking!!

Owen watching the snow

Rob, Tracy, and the boys after sledding

Owen in his snow suit

Owen had met everyone before, but now he's a little older it was really fun to see his reaction. He loved Collin - who was really great with him. He would run after his older cousin just as fast as his little feet could go and laughing all the way. Anything Collin did Owen had to do too. Carson he wasn't so sure about. Usually Owen is great at sharing, but he didn't want Carson near his toys (or any toys that Owen might want). Too much competition? We're a little nervous about how he'll react to Abby after seeing that. Owen has been talking about Nana, Pawpaw, Mike, Tracy, Collin, and Carson since they left.

We miss them tons already and can't wait for the next visit. Robbie's parents will be here when Abby's born - so we'll see them soon. But who knows when the next time we'll see Tracy/Mike and the boys will be. It gets tricky when we're on opposite coasts and with kids. Hopefully soon!

Owen Update - 20 Months Old

Owen is 20 months old this coming Monday! It's amazing how fast this time goes and all the changes. He seems like such a little boy now with thoughts and opionions all his own that he expresses quite clearly.

He is talking tons, mimicking everything we say (including his first swear word "S@*#" which sadly was a mimic of me). He's starting to learn numbers (he can "count" 1-5 - still figuring out the general concept tho). He's learning shapes - identifying triangles, squares, circles, and stars. He can also correctly put the above shapes into the corrsponding holes in a little toy truck he has. He'll try all the wrong holes first so that he can say "No" on each one and then "Yes" when he gets to the right one. And he's starting to understand colors - he can say all of the colors. The only ones he identifies correctly most of the time are red, white, and purple. If he's not sure of a color he always says pink. He can name every kid in his class. He also knows his friend Alexandra's name ("Alet") and loves to spend time with her (below is a pic of them playing in a clothes hamper together).

He's starting to understand giving commands - and in fact is getting quite bossy. He'll say things like "Dada... sit... lap." Which translates into "Sit down Dad, I want to sit in your lap." And lately he seems obsessed with anything about cleanliness (garbage truck, trash, dirty, yucky, clean up, wipes, etc.) The latest things that impressed us the most were naming a keypad (saying "keypad") in a restaurant that the waiters use - he said it and pointed it out long before I noticed it in the room. And the other thing was that it was sunny on Saturday but rainy on Sunday. Sunday we were eating lunch and he pointed outside and said, "Rain, rain, go away."

He continues to be mister activity. He doesn't walk anywhere - it's run everywhere. In stores when we let him walk - holding our hands - he wants to run or hop down the aisles. The hopping gets a lot of chuckles from passers-by especially since Robbie hops with him. I get commands to jump as well - but no way is that happening at the moment. He's also learned how to kick balls - which he loves to do all the time now.

He continues to be daddy's boy. But this has improved somewhat. Owen and I both had President's Day off but Robbie was working and then the following Saturday Robbie was gone much of the day skiing. So I got two days of just me and Owen which was awesome! We had tons of fun - getting together with Ariel & Alex and with Michelle & Angelica. We hit the park and the zoo and a tea house. I think this time of just the two of us really helped because now Owen doesn't scream (as much) when I try to "take" him from Robbie. And he picks some things to do with Mom even when Dad is around. It's awesome. Last week we were watching Elmo together (which he is now obsessed with and has to watch every day when we get home) and he spent the entire show snuggled up to my belly - even though Abby was kicking him the entire time. So cute!

My favorite latest ritual is at nighttime... We have a book about going to sleep with lots of different types of hugs and kisses (fish kisses, gorilla hugs, polar bear hugs, snake hugs, etc.). Every night as Robbie gets ready to take Owen upstairs to start quiet time we spend a good 5-10 minutes doing variations of all these hugs and kisses (going from Mom to Dad) to say goodnight. I love getting the snuggles.