Christmas, 6 months old, & The Latest "Buzz"

Hi All!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a (long) while but we've been busy and sick and now we're well (but still busy). Christmas was great - Owen and Anna Claire received such wonderful gifts (and now we're going to have to move so that the stuff can have the house - ha ha!

We received some wonderful news at Thanksgiving that O & A will have a new cousin! Aunt Dee and Pan Pan will make wonderful parents and we can't wait to meet Baby S in July.

Anna Claire and Owen are both growing and learning lots of new stuff. They are both sniffle free at the moment but I'm sure that will change soon. I got sick after Christmas and it was determined that my gallbladder was on the fritz and needed to be removed so that was done two weeks ago. The surgery went well and I'm feeling back to normal so luckily it was uneventful and is over.

At Anna Claire's six month doctor's visit, she weighed 19 lbs, 3 oz and measured 27". She's a big talker and loves to chat with us and laugh. She recently began reaching for us and will grab my face and snuggle in! She still has only two teeth - at the bottom in front - and she's eating more variety of foods. She really loves oatmeal cereal with milk and I add new flavors to it every few days.

She enjoys playing with new toys; she seems to be bored with her rattles and stuff so I've been giving her blocks and little people and she just loves these. She's also really interested in books (although I think she really likes the chewing more than the looking). She pulls herself to sit up in the highchair and will sit with slight support on the floor. She pushes up with her hands and pivots around to get to new toys and last night she rolled over and over and was trying to move around the floor to chase Owen.

Owen's latest obsession is Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear. He LOVES Buzz! He is constantly telling me "I'm Buzz Lightyear, you're Woody. Press my button." He has learned lots of new things and many of them include how to get to lots of stuff that should be out of his reach! He is a monkey and will climb onto anything (or anyone) to get to something he wants. He also has learned to take the key out of one door, put it in the other, unlock the door and... So now the key is always OUT of the door and OUT of his reach (hopefully). We will be getting a latch for the door to avoid any unnecessary running away.

Owen is very much into "I do it myself!" and this works both for and against us when we're trying to get him to cooperate - it's really a luck of the draw. He still loves to color and paint and read and has begun "reading" by himself which I think is so cute. He has been mimicking me with Anna Claire by changing a baby doll, rocking & singing Rock a Bye Baby, and strolling it but he also loves to shoot the alligators (thank you Swamp People) with his double barrel shotgun!

He can put his shirt on by himself if you hand it to him the "right" way and he'll pull the front of his pants up. He matches shapes, colors, and at least three different sizes of a shape with no help. He still loves to count and knows how to say and sing the alphabet. He is really into singing songs and along with Curious George & Toy Story, he likes Caillou (I think I prefer George). Owen is really good at imaginative and pretend play and will make up a bit of a storyline and tell me to participate. It's so neat to see him doing these things "all by himself"...

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

all four grandkids on Christmas eve

(boy is it hard to get 4 little kids to look at the camera at the same time!)

Ok, what's all this stuff and is it for ME?

(Christmas morning)

Oh, I get it, it's toys for ME!
A happy boy getting into his new tent.
Owen & Ben painting (and eating) Christmas cookies

A cute little elfette

a happy girl

smiley girl - look how cute those two teeth are!

beautiful girl sitting on her Poppa

this post brought to you by the color YELLOW!

Well, it's been quite a while since I've put anything here so there's lots to update about. I think we're finally rid of a few bugs that have been keeping us all sick around here for the past month to six weeks. We've all shared sniffles, sneezes, coughs, and fevers and I'm really tired of it so I hope it's gone for a while. Aside from the colds and yuckies, Owen and Anna Claire are growing and learning new stuff every day. We had a great time for Halloween, a very filling Thanksgiving and we're looking forward to a wonderful Christmas.

Owen was his favorite color for Halloween - YELLOW! He loved the crayon pointed hat the most and wore it proudly to go trick-or-treating. He was a little intimidated for the first few houses so he didn't say much but finally did say "trick-or-treat" a few times towards the end. We had a huge turn out for our gumbo/party that night and we all had a great time. Anna Claire was just a cute pumpkin with a pink hat (so everyone would know she's a girl) and she was happy just being carried by Nanny the whole time.

Owen has developed a few new skills in the past couple of months and he is perfecting his language skills. He is asking full questions instead of just stating what he wants and he often uses phrases and expressions that we use (we've got to really watch it now!). He really "gets" what is going on with stuff and is able to explain "what happened" in a picture, on TV, or in real life. He still loves Curious George and has developed a recent fascination with Caillou. He uses scissors to snip (and yes, he snipped his hair... now we only use scissors with adult supervision). We've started to play with play-doh and he really likes that - mostly to flatten and then cut with the play-doh scissors. He can draw lines (he says, "down, down, down" while he draws) and circular scribbles - and he knows it's a circle! Today, he drew a bunch of scribbles and said he drew mommy, daddy, and Owen! I asked him who was missing and he thought about it for a while and then finally said, "Anna Claire!"

Anna Claire is growing and weighed in at 16 pounds at her 4 month visit. She rolls from her back to her tummy and will put weight on her hands and push up. While she's done it once or twice, she hasn't mastered rolling back to her back from her tummy so she fusses after a few minutes and wants to be rolled over. She reaches for and carefully grabs a toy and then jams it to her mouth. She seems to be bringing anything and everything she can to her mouth as she's teething! And her two bottom teeth are proof! They popped out within two days of one another just after her doctor's visit in mid-November. I'm going to be introducing rice cereal soon since she looks at our food and drools (it's really pitiful - if she wasn't in the 95th percentile for both height and weight, I'd feel bad...) She is a really happy baby and except for when she was not feeling well, she's been sleeping all night!

We feel so lucky when we look at the two of them and still can't quite believe they are ours. Here are a few pictures from Halloween and November. I'll be back with more very soon.

If you look really close, you can see the two teeth at the bottom!

What a happy, smiley girl

boy, those toys sure look like fun!

Easter

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend. We had a great time visiting with family this past week and from the pictures, you'll see Owen really enjoyed himself too. He really loved "baby Max" (as he calls him) and he hugged (and squeezed) and kissed him almost each time we saw him. Max is quite a cutey and has big beautiful blue eyes. Owen's affection for him made Keith and I feel good about his response to a little baby so hopefully things will go well when sister arrives.

Owen is officially 19 months old and between skinned knees (I thought that was worth waiting to take pictures - wrong!), a cold that lasted almost two weeks, and now a busted lip, we've still not taken his 18 month pictures... Hopefully the latest boo-boo will heal quickly and we'll be off to take them this week.

His latest accomplishments include:

• using two- and three-word sentences for almost all communication ("go see monkey" or "want more wa-wa")
• lots of pretend play with kitchen play stuff (I'm trying to figure out where we can put a little kitchen in this getting-smaller-by-the-minute-house)
• walking up steps with one hand held
• stepping off bottom step without holding on to anything or anyone
• memorizing the order of animals, objects, or events in familiar books and "reading" along as we turn the pages
• counting from 1-9 with some help but does begin counting at 6 and goes to 9 or ten on his own; he'll also count from 1-5 on his own without prompting but less often as he likes to start with six
• his car seat is now forward-facing (as he was creeping close to the rear-facing weight limit) and he has a seat in his daddy's truck which seems to really thrill him to ride in
• blows bubbles with a wand

As usual, I'm sure I'm missing a few new tricks but that's all I can come up with for now so I'll leave you with a few cute pictures. Also, Owen flew a kite for the first time - all by himself! As for baby girl, she is growing and growing and feels bigger by the day. I'm 27 weeks and have just 3 months to go so time is flying by quickly now. Okay, on to the pictures...

Owen and baby Max

Owen flying a kite - you can see the kite far away in the background and he's really holding on to the handle and would walk forward to keep flying it - it was so cute to watch!
more kite flying

Easter outfit

showing more love to baby Max (of course, Max may be thinking, "somebody help me please!")

Playing with water & Painting Cookies

Owen received a water table for Christmas but we didn't take it out until this past week when it warmed up. He loves it! He quickly figured out how to scoop and pour the water to make the wheel turn. He "cooks" with his big spoon and usually makes "gumbo." He's had a great time splashing in the wa-wa every day.

Today we went to Aunt Steph's and painted cookies and dyed eggs for Easter. Earlier this week Owen painted with water for the first time so he was ready to paint today. He liked painting with yellow - of course, it's his favorite color - but he painted with the other colors as well. He enjoyed it until he realized that his hands had quite a bit of icing, much of it purple, and at that point he was all done! Just wanted to share a few pictures with all of you. We hope to have lots of pictures to share from Easter.

What? You said to take the one I wanted...

Paint brushes are sooooo overrated - just dip it!

Happy Turkey Day!

I just wanted to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you had lots of great food to eat (I know we did). Here are a couple of pictures from the day.

A boy who loves his blankie... (he had pulled it over with him and sat in his chair but when I walked in with the camera, he immediately jumped up to see his picture so this was as good as I could get)

Happy Fall!

Happy Halloween and Happy Fall to everyone! I've got a few pictures of Owen from October (I can't believe it's come and gone already). Owen had his first Halloween and he now has his first cold! Hopefully it won't last but a few days as I can't stand to see him so miserable. He was really congested and had a dry cough yesterday but luckily he seems his happy self today and is only suffering with a little congestion. For Halloween, he had two cute orange and white striped outfits and a pumpkin hat to go with them (he didn't want to get too crazy for his first Halloween). I had kitty cat ears and was going to paint a few whiskers on my face but never got around to it. Keith was a jailbird and next year we're going to try to make Owen a police officer to go with it. We had a great time at our annual gumbo/trick-or-treat night at our house and I think we had close to 40 people! Owen and I went trick-or-treating with his cousin, Elliot, although Owen slept through the whole thing! He goes to the doctor on Friday, the 7th, for his 2 month check-up (this will include shots which I'm dreading). I am so curious to find out how much he weighs now as he seems to be growing before our very eyes. Enjoy these pictures and the video. I'll let you know how the doctor's visit goes...