Personal Hygiene

Owen has recently taken his personal hygiene into his own hands. The following is evidence of why this is not a good idea for a 14 month old.

Bathtime with his friend Kyley (yes she's a girl)Taking a shower with his clothes on

This face is only going to lead to trouble

Brushing his teeth (ok, this is great...until the toothbrush ends up in the toilet)

NFL Widow

It's true. I am officially an NFL Widow for the next 16 weeks plus 1 by-week plus playoffs. And as you can see, my one-year-old has abandoned me as well.
But look at the bright side. You are now pretty much guaranteed to get a blog update from me every Sunday afternoon and Monday evening :)

Walking

Yes, Owen is walking. Well, sort of. He is very capable of walking and has gone great distances while hanging on to the very tip of my pinky finger. But he seems to only walk when it is his idea and on his terms. So right now he is just building confidence and deciding for himself that it's a good idea to walk. Here is a short video of some of his first steps last week. Someday I'm going to be in trouble for showing this video to the world.

Sand and Water

While my parents were here last week, they bought him a Sand and Water activity table to play with outside. I think I was even more excited about it than Owen. I had this picture in my mind of a nice, clean, organized, outdoor activity similar to the picture shown on the box which you can see below.

However, this was the reality. What a mess! But oh, what fun! Owen sure looks like he is having a ton more fun than these kids with their parted hair and spotless T-shirts.

Notice how the sand seemed to somehow make it's way into the water... a mystery.Sharing the sandbox fun with his friends Ethan and Kyley.

NKOTB

Ok, in order to know what NKOTB stands for you had to be a girl with big bangs and tight rolled jeans in junior high in the early 90's. Why am I blogging about New Kids on the Block you might ask? Because this is the scene I happened upon last week while my parents were here visiting. Yes, that is my dad dancing with my son to NKOTB.

Ok, ok...

Enough with the threatening emails already! I'll put some pictures up!

A lot has happened during our month hiatus. Ryan went to NYC. Tara's parents came for a stay. Owen learned to walk. Hurricanes. Oh yeah, did I mention Owen learned to walk. Yup. However, that's for another day because those pictures are still on our camera. But until then, Owen has learned to...

Smoke a pipe - he picks up his mother's bad habits! ;-)

Devour a popsicle. Before...

After!

...and cook. Apparently he's so good he's already giving Tara instructions on what goes in next.

A little cinammon ought to do the trick, mom!

Updates

Please notice a few updates on the left side of the screen.

We've added Aunt Ta, who was gracious enough to provide us non-Facebookers (aka old farts) with a way of keeping up with her as she begins life at LSU (booooo). ;-) You should all check out the latest post about boxes - we got a good laugh out of that when we received that picture in an email this morning.

We also have added a link to Uncle Dune's blog. He's doing a good job of keeping us up to date with his daily fight with cancer and chemo. But he also likes to drop in these "Dune-isms" that will make you think. Thanks to all of you who have been asking us about him and praying for him.

Words are Overrated

Why use words when hand gestures accomplish the same thing?! We always know when Owen has a question - he looks just like this. We think once he can talk that every one of these will probably equal 5 questions. I think we're in trouble!

A New Backyardigan

Owen loves his back yard. If everything is falling apart around him (which seems to happen a little too often these days), all you have to do is open the back door and a whole new happy world is opened up to him. Below are a few pictures related to his back yard fun. He loves to play with the rocks - he hides them all over the place and comes back later to find them. Sometimes he goes off on these little adventures. One day Tara said he looked out at the bush in the farthest corner of the yard, stared at it for a minute and took off. Once he got there, he touched a few leaves and made a face like "So, that's it, huh?" and came right back.

But, the back yard does have its bad moments. Like last week when Owen, despite his mother's warnings, fell out of a chair right on his face. His 4 new top teeth went right into his lip and he came up with blood and dirt mixed together all over his face. It was quite tramatic for everyone. And his little lip puffed up bigger than any lip you've ever seen. We tried to catch it on camera, but he wasn't in the mood to cooperate. I think you can see it though.

Darren & Terri - he loves Jacob's old bike. He rides it all the time.

We're training him young to work in the circus. He loves to stand up on his bike and do stunts.

Riding in the Boat

We went to Louisiana this weekend to bring Tara Elizabeth back home (she spent last week with us) and to celebrate her birthday a week early before she moves down to Baton Rouge. And what's a trip back home in the summer without a morning skiing? So, Owen got his first boat ride. As you can see below, he was not exactly a fan of the life jacket and he didn't like the wind blowing in his face, but he thought it was pretty cool when Daddy was one the wakeboard and forgot about the jacket! He was clapping and waving like crazy. It's kinda fun having a cheering section!