three words

owen now knows how to spell 3 words.  "hat" was added today at the word whammer.  i asked him tonight (after watching him spell that word earlier in the day) if he could spell "hat".  he grabbed the A, put it in the middle, then the H in the left slot, and finally the T in the right slot.  all very deliberate.  he is very close to reading, that's for sure.  school will be a very good thing for him next year.  he also saw the word "open" in one of his books and got excited because he knew what it was.  

older pictures

These pictures are from various points in the last several months.  Pictures from the birthday will be posted when I get them on the computer...

In Helena for the family reunion.  This is the carousel that was right by the hotel.  

Owen's saying, "Cool!"  and giving it two thumbs up.

This is O's suit for my sister's wedding.  He is absolutely darling in it!

He's jumping on our bed in this picture...

With Aunt Suzanne and "Umpa" (Uncle) Jeff in the Denver airport.  

Notice that both boys are two-fisting it with the ice cream...

Playing the violin at the instrument petting zoo at the farmer's market in July.

With Daddy at his first drive-in movie.  We saw Wall-E.  

I wasn't too impressed with it and we were too far from the screen 

for Owen to realize what was going on.

we survived

well, here we are in year four.  new year, new color.  

owen was a champion the last couple of days.  last night was our friends birthday party.  owen had a blast, as did everyone else.  the pizzas were a hit (yummy good!), so were the cupcakes.  we had 7 kids total (two under a year, three who are 3, a 4-year-old and a 5-year old), plus assorted and affiliated adults (me, jeff, katie and rob, faye, eileen and her m-i-l pat).  owen got a really cool puzzle, that is actually a set of 20 word puzzles, money in his "beer and pizza" account (read:  college fund), and a hulky-pokey incredible hulk toy (think along the lines of tickle me elmo).  

today was the family party.  there were a total of 21 of us in our tiny house.  our family is loud.  add in windows that don't open (or cold weather so you wouldn't want to open the windows), and it gets really loud.  there are 7 kids in o's generation.  he's smack dab in the middle.  we had asked the family for clothes since owen has a gajillion toys and no space for more.  they happily obliged.  we basically have his entire winter wardrobe.  all size 4T (and they fit!)  we might have to buy a few more items - more jammies, another pair or two of jeans, and maybe a nice pair of pants to match his dress shirt/tie that he got from grandma joanne.  he also got an alphabet puzzle and a black and decker toy power tool set.  from daddy and mommy (in that order...) he got a cars slot car race track.  i had nothing to do with it, but i love it!  jeff's going to attach it to plywood so we don't have to keep setting it up and taking it down.  owen loves it.  at one point tonight, he was watchign it and yelling, "go cars!!!!  go!!!!!!!!  go!!!!"   total hit.  he thoroughly enjoyed being sung to both last night and tonight.  he got a cool backpack, plus two foam puzzles in trays from my mom and jim.  

he's in bed now.  in brand new jammies.  

Progressing

three years ago right now, i was in labor at work, but didn't realize i was in labor yet...

owen had a big day yesterday.  first, we had our 18 month check with the ent for his tubes.  he looked in owen's ears and told me that both tubes are out of the ear drums, but still in the ear canal, and both ear drums have closed up nicely (there may still be a small hole in the left side, but it's inconsequential at this point.) so that means that the fact that i forgot owen's ear plugs for swimming lessons on thursday isn't a big deal.  the dr. told us that we can be done with the ear plugs (thank goodness!  i was getting tired of using them, but knew we needed to.)  the only problem with our appointment yesterday was that owen did not cooperate with the guy giving him the hearing test.  o wanted the doggie that was in the room as a visual/auditory reward and to bring the young kids back to looking straight ahead during the tests.  he was pitching a fit because of it.  we go back in 3 months to recheck his hearing.  hopefully he'll cooperate better then.  i'll make sure he has eaten a full breakfast that morning.  i think that had something to do with it yesterday.

the other big step owen took yesterday was starting to pee standing up.  just like daddy!  i think our little experience at 5 mile drive did it for that.  he's great at aiming, and just needs to learn to put both the seat and the lid up, not just the lid.  actually, that's how i figured out that he was going standing up...the seat was covered, front and back.  what a big boy!  

my mom and her fiance ("dude" to owen) are here for owen's birthday tomorrow (3!?)  last night my friend faye came over to babysit while the four adults (me, jeff, mom and jim/dude) went to dinner at the space needle.  i'd never eaten there before.  we had a gift certificate from an auction last year for dinner for four that had to be used by the end of this month.  we toasted to time together, jeff's new job(!!!!), to battle (mom's cancer), and to owen, the reason we are together right now.  it was fabulous.  i tasted a little bit from jeff's plate and a little bit from jim's and at nearly everything from mine.  it was so yummy!  the restaurant revolves so you get a 360-degree view of the city.  we were looking out over elliot bay and the sound at sunset.  it was gorgeous!  we made it around 2-1/2 times (a full revolution takes about 45 minutes).  the company was wonderful, the food was fabulous, and the service was excellent.  i loved being treated like a lady by our waiter.  we spent some time reminiscing back to three years ago.  mom was a god-send at night - she spent three nights with owen on her chest so jeff and i could get some sleep.

as i mentioned in the last bit, jeff found out yesterday that he got a job.  it's swing shift (3:30-midnight) m-f.  he starts on monday.  yay!!!!!  it's been a stressful six months since he lost his last job. 

owen turns three tomorrow. yesterday marks 4 years since we lost jacob.  every time i think of that, i also remember that if we hadn't lost jacob, we wouldn't have our wonderful owen.  we went to the children's museum in olympia yesterday and owen had a great time.  he loved the produce area and the water table.  he pitched a huge fit when we left.  guess he wasn't done.  we had lunch at a pizza place on the way back.  owen once again shined at lunch.  he is such a good kid when we're in public.  makes me proud.    

we're having two parties this year.  today is the friends party.  brendan, peter, carlie, josh, mariah, and michael are all coming.  that makes three boys owen's age, plus their siblings.  peyton might come too (bren's sister, she's 15 months old).  tomorrow will be family.  that's 21 people, including the three of us, plus mom and jim.  the kids are making their own pizzas tonight (using biscuits) and tomorrow night is burgers and dogs.  i'll try to get pictures and post them later.  

oh, dear...

but i mean that in a very good way.   j and i are in trouble, though...

tonight owen and i were doing his alphabet puzzle (upper and lower case letters that fit into slots).  as he was putting the letters in their places, i was asking him what each letter said.  for the most part, he could tell me.  this i knew was in his abilities.  the next thing i tried was giving him a letter sound and having him show me the letter, which quickly progressed to making short words based on phonetics.  he did amazingly well.  i just sat back and watched as he quickly found the correct letter.  there are a few he has trouble hearing the difference between, but for the most part, they are very close in sound (long 0 and r for one)  other words were spelled phonetically (cat/kat).  he really has this pretty solidly.  we did it for 5-10 minutes, at which point he grew tired of it and started playing with his blocks.  oh, and he knows how to spell/recognize two words so far.  owen and open.  

in 6 very short days, my baby will be 3 years old.  i marvel at all of the things he can do now that he couldn't do a year ago.  yesterday as we were going to j's sister's house to watch the football game (ugh...our team didn't even show up.) o saw an "open" sign.  he spelled it out for us.  i asked him what it spelled and he told us.  "uh-oh" i thought.  other skills that my almost-3 year old has include good verbal skills and the ability to tell us what he wants and be understood most of the time, he is sleeping in his big boy bed without rails, going potty all the time (save sleeping times), we can have a conversation with him, he likes playing games, and will talk on the phone with people.  he can count past 30 (and to 10 in spanish), recognizes all of his letters (upper case, lower case, and sign language), and generally blows me away with all of those unexpected things he does.  i can only imagine where he'll be in a year.