Simon is Owen's friend from mom and baby group when they were infants. Delia is Simon's baby sister. She's 9 months old.

Snow (still)

i decided today, after spending the day playing in the snow, first with owen and then with our neighbors building a snowman, that this is wonderful weather. it is beautiful, peaceful, and reminds me of my childhood in denver. we were invited out to a friend's house this afternoon to play in the snow. owen went sledding for the first time and had his first snowball fight with his friend, simon. i'll put pictures and video (hopefully) in a new post once i'm done with this one. people were being really smart on the road, too. it took me 30 minutes to get there, and it usually takes 15 or 20 so that's not too bad. it took a little longer to get home, but the weather was getting bad again so the roads were sorta icky. not a problem. owen fell asleep about 2 miles from home, which meant that he only had a 5 minute nap. he's down now, trying to talk himself out of his room. fat chance! he's using every trick in the book. potty, water, milk, "my get out?"

i found myself really enjoying the snow tonight. i've been sitting on the couch in the living room, with only the christmas tree lights on, looking out the window at the snow falling. we're supposed to get 2-4 inches tonight. that's on top of the 6 or so we already have. i also put on muppets christmas carol tonight. i was talking with my godsister, suzanne on fb and she and i started quote in lines back and forth. we got even the obscure ones! if we were off, we were pretty close. it was sad, but funny all at the same time. d, her hubby, was wondering what she was laughing at. if jeff had been here, he would have wondered the same thing. i had an advantage as i was watching the movie as we were quoting.

i hope tree sales are going well, especially with the snow that's been coming down lately. i also wonder what time jeff will be getting home tonight. it's 8:00 now. i'm not really expecting him for at least another hour at the very least. with these roads, it could be longer. the one problem with living here is that we don't have the infrastructure to deal with snow when it happens. sand and deicing fluid, yes, but plows? i'm not really sure. i've actually only seen one in the last week.

the one thing i'm really worried about right now is that the snow on the power lines that run over my car doesn't snap the lines. that could be bad. unless my insurance pays for a new car, if that's what needs to happen. it's the only bad part about not having a garage.

snow pictures part II

He wasn't too sure about going off of the snow. Last year Owen stopped dead in his tracks before he got to snow. He refused to walk in it. Scroll down to see the difference a year makes.
Walking in the snow! I decided to get him out in the snow while it was still snowing last night. He did pretty well, don't you think?

Close-up!

Pictures

What a ham! He even counted to three before the picture to tell me that he was ready.

Cheese! As you can see, the tree goes floor to ceiling. Those are 9' ceilings!

Taken from the front porch.

The snow is piled half-way up the letters and numbers on my license plate

Oh the weather outside is frightful

and there's no delightful fire here. no fireplace for the fire... but the christmas tree is so delightful. it's snowing for the ?th time in the last week. it's been snowing for the past 4 hours or so. i'd guess that we have between 1 and 2 inches of new snow. they were predicting up to 8" tonight from this new storm. i'm just glad that this is winter break, less school that we'll have to make up at the end of the year. so far we're at 2 days to make up. i wonder how much more we'll have when it's all said and done.

i need to get pictures of owen in the snow and in front of the tree. i'll post them when i get them.

i got an hour of total freedom this morning. jeff took owen to the lot while i did some last -minute shopping for both of my boys at target, then i picked up owen at the lot and we went to eddie bauer where i spent the gift card i got from my mom and jim for my birthday. i bought a skirt, sweater, and turtleneck. i went over the amount by 14 cents. not bad. i was so excited to buy mediums and a size 10 on the skirt - and have nothing be too tight!!!!!

can't trust him...

...any farther than i can throw him.  yesterday was my birthday.  jeff has a tendency to pull things over on me on special occasions.  earlier this week he informed me that i would be getting my present from him at dinner.  he also said that we were going to have dinner and then either go to a movie or dancing at mccabe's.  well, there aren't any movies that look decent right now and we couldn't have gone dancing as late as we would have wanted with our sitter. when jeff got dressed to go out last night, it wasn't for dancing.  as we were driving, i started to get suspicious.  i knew that bill engvall was playing at the dome last night.  jeff put on one of bill engvall's cd's in the truck on our way to dinner.  also, there was no box that got brought into either the truck or  into the restaurant.  i was right!  the show was great.  turns out bill engvall's daughter is a senior at the same university i went to, here in town.  it's cool to have that local connection to him.  

as we were leaving the show, it was starting to snow.  there's only a dusting right now, but that's ok.  i'll take whatever snow i can get!  when you live here, that's what you gotta do.  

relief!

at least somewhat.  many things have either resolved totally or are close to resolution right now in terms of my stress level.  

1.  concerts at school are over, with one more at the local church next friday, but that will be fun!

2.  Lou update:  all brain function is normal.  He meets with the neurosurgeon tomorrow and barring anything different from the NS, all of his strokes have been caused by an irritation of his brain by some of the left-over blood that had leaked and caused his surgery on thanksgiving.  not all of the blood was drained, and what was left was expected to be absorbed by his body.  i guess it was basically making his brain itch (michele, you can correct this if it needs to be corrected.)  when i talked with my mother-in-law this evening after my concert, she sounded so relieved and relaxed.  

3. tree season is nearing an end, and we finally have our tree.  it needs to be decorated, but it's in the house.  this is a long month.  

4.  i found a sitter for saturday night so that jeff and i can go out just the two of us for my birthday.  i used to babysit this girl years ago.  now she's taking care of my child.  to every thing (turn, turn, turn) there is a season, huh?

one more full week of school before christmas break.  mom has chemo (#3 of 4) a week from today.  i'm so ready for break!

more stress

my father-in-law has had a very rough go of things these last two weeks.  last weekend he had surgery (on thanksgiving) for bleeding on the brain.  last night he was readmitted to the hospital after suffering a stroke.  luckily, my brother-in-law, aaron - a medic - saw the whole thing happen and got him to the hospital right away.  while at the hospital, he had a second stroke.  the first stroke was most likely a TIA (mini-stroke), and aaron is suspecting the second one was too, judging by what Papa was doing last night following both.  he's in the hospital being observed.  

jeff has been working 12 hour days at the tree lots with no break at all.  hopefully, he'll be able to take a good portion of today off.  he sounds like "an old woman lounge singer" right now (those are his words, not mine.  i'm guessing this is the last year for trees.  

four eyes...two of them pink

owen was exposed to pink eye at daycare yesterday. i woke up with it this a.m. when o got up from his nap just a few minutes ago, one of his eyes looked pink and had a little bit of goop in it. the good news is that we already have meds here and they're on board. between the two of us, we have one good left eye (me) and one good right eye (owen). what a pair!

YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!!!

we're officially done with the pt. owen slept in underwear last night and stayed dry (and asleep) all night long. he also stayed dressed the way i put him down. i've basically decided that he doesn't like the feel of pull-ups any more, hence taking them off at night. now that he can stay dry all night, it's not an issue! i'm such a proud mama.

it's looking like o won't be going to school tomorrow. he's got a temp of 100+ i have a waiver day tomorrow and need to go to my morning session, but will likely take the afternoon off to stay home with owen. jeff will take him to the lot in the morning for a couple of hours.

going commando!

that's what owen did last night.  this in and of itself isn't new.  it's the exact reason we've been putting a duct tape belt on him every night.  last night, however, he woke up at 4:30 and started fussing.  when i finally heard, "mama!" i got up, figuring that he had taken off his pull-up and wet the bed (i hadn't put the tape on last night.)  i was only half right in my assumption.  not only was the bed dry, but he was too, and the pull-up was on the floor.  we quickly went to the potty and climbed into bed.  we're testing with underwear tonight to see if we can make this work again.  i'm seriously thinking that we are totally done with potty training!  and it's only taken us  11 months!  lol  he went through a 3 hour nap yesterday (sunday) in his underwear, too.  no problems!  way to go, mr. o!

An unstandard Thanksgiving

boy, has this been an interesting weekend.  filled with the wrong kind of excitement.  thursday morning, we get a phone call from my mother-in-law saying that my father-in-law is in the ICU at the hospital with bleeding on the brain.  he had been in the hospital since wednesday night and  was going to be going into surgery thursday.  we got dressed and headed over, first dropping owen off at jeff's sister's house (she has two little ones so wasn't going to go, plus her husband had the car seats in his car).  when we got there, papa was in good spirits, and about 95--97% himself (aside from being a little grumpy and drugged).  surgery was scheduled for 11 a.m.  the took him a little before 11 and we got to walk nearly to the OR with him.  they told us to expect 6 hours from the time he left his room until he got back.  as it was thanksgiving, we were the only ones in the surgery waiting room.  around 1:30 or so, maybe 1:45, the doctor came in and told us that everything had gone great.  papa was in recovery and would be back in the ICU between 2:00 and 2:15.  three hours was so much better than 6.  needless to say, dinner that night was cancelled.  we went to jeff's sister's house for shrimp fajitas.  they were quite yummy.  

papa was moved from the ICU to a regular room friday afternoon and came home last night, just in time for Thanksgiving dinner.  we are all very thankful for him this year.  if the bleed had been quick instead of over a period of weeks, we'd be planning a funeral.

owen had a first at dinner last night.  he ate some of everything on his plate - turkey, stuffing, baked beans, green been casserole, mashed potatoes with gravy, and a roll.  the turkey, stuffing and green beans had ketchup on them, and he thought the turkey was chicken (misled by mommy, but it worked!)  he also had apple pie for dessert.  this has been a very long road getting owen to eat what the rest of us are eating.  i think we've finally made it.  it was so exciting last night to see him eating what was put in front of him.  

we are now in tree season.  papa can't do much but take money and walk around the lot this year, per doctor's orders, so jeff has stepped up to the job of running the lots on-site.  he's been doing this most of his life, so he's ready.  the tricky part will be convincing papa that the lots ar in good hands with jeff and his brother, scott.  we're wondering if this might not be the last (or second-to-last) year of trees.  jeff wants to do it one more year after this year to make it 30 years of selling trees.  time will tell.  it will be nice to have my husband back this time of year when they finally do stop doing the trees.

Where were you

45 years ago this weekend?  As for me, I wasn't even a consideration.  I'd love to hear from those of you who read my blog and are old enough to remember back that far what you remember about November 22, 1963.  

350

this is post number 350.  yahoo!

owen is too smart.  he just took one of his alphabet puzzles and spelled the word "house".  it was very intentional, because after he got all of the letters out, he said, "h-o-u-s-e, house."  oh, dear.  

see my other blog for an announcement.

check-up

owen had his 3-year check yesterday.  he's doing great!  he's 40.5" and 35.5 lbs.  as the doctor (dr. kreg, according to owen) put it, he's the size of your average four-year-old.  (95+% for height, 75% for weight.  i remember when he was under 50% for weight.)  he got two shots, which he hated.  he watched our nurse (who we both adore) poke him for the first one and screamed bloody murder.  she got the second (and last one) done quickly and were were ok.  i'm glad we only have to do this once a year - and that with an october birthday, he can get the flu shot (which was one of his two shots) at his check-up.    he has a very snotty nose right now and his ears look great!  yay!  i think we've outgrown the need for tubes.  that makes me a happy mommy.

swimming lessons continue to go very well.  last night he not only jumped off of the side of the pool, he launched himself off at me, swam the 4 feet to get me, then preceded to swim across the pool with help from mommy only to come up for air.  he's got the propulsion thing down.  he's floating on his back with me supporting his head with only one hand.  he wasn't doing that a week ago.  he's also was doing the arm part of the elementary backstroke (chicken-airplane-soldier) yesterday for the first time.  he spent nearly all of the free time jumping off of the edge, swimming to me, then swimming back to the edge to do it all over again.  he is amazing.  he was also the most vigerous splasher in his class.  he's gone from being one of the least-accomplished kids in his class to one of the leaders.  he loves swimming.  maybe he's the next michael phelps!  

Halloween

orange for the holiday!  

owen went trick-or-treating for the first time last night.  we started out at a street of treats in our city, which was fun.  owen sorta got the idea there.  then we had dinner and headed over to grandma's some of owen's cousins were there and they ended up all going out trick-or-treating in that neighborhood.  owen came back with a total haul.  his pumpkin was just about full.  they had a blast.  i enjoyed some peace and quite (and jeopardy) with grandma while they were out.  

today is a party with play group.  i'll try to get pictures and post those.

owen nearly lost trick-or-treating this year.  he is every bit of three.  two nights ago, it took us an additional 20-30 minutes to get home from swimming lessons because someone wouldn't leave his seatbelt alone.  he kept pulling the shoulder strap away from his body.  we didn't leave the lot at the Y until it was staying where it was supposed to.  then, as we got off of the freeway, he started doing it again.  i pulled into the center turn lane two blocks from home and stopped the car.  at some point, the guy whose house we were in front of came out to check on what was going on.  i told him that everything was fine and that my son wasn't sitting the right way in his seat belt and that we weren't moving until he was.  the man seemed convinced that everything was ok.  before he went back in, he told me, "good job, mom."  needless to say, owen went straight to bed when we got home.  if i had had my cell, i would have called jeff to come pick up owen (walking, most likely) so i could drive home.  my other thought was just walking home with owen and going back to pick up the car after he was in bed.  i finally just ended up winding the seatbelt around the guides and going from there (we can't pull our seat belts out all the way and have them lock.  i really hate that!)

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.