School Pictures

Here are Owen's (hilarious) new school pictures.  The look on his face is something between suspicious, confused and not amused.  

What did you do to my legs?

Owen's 1-year old class.

At least all the kids have the same look on their face.

Mug shot

Those giant crayons are scary

Alluring Arabella

We finally got it together and rescheduled our playdate with alluring Arabella.  Playdates and Owen are an interesting mix.  Arabella and Regan (the other little girl there) played very nicely, sat in the swing for a long time, sat in their high chairs for a long time, but Owen just is not like that.  He doesn't just sit or stand in one place.  We're constantly chasing him around making sure he doesn't discover the next great thing to get into.  One minute he's throwing a fit and the next minute he's throwing a bigger fit.  He wants to play with the ball, then eat some cheese, then the ball again, then the slide, now some juice.  While I love talking to other parents about their experiences and tips, some days I feel like we're just on another planet.

Even so, we had a good time.  We went to a really nice park for a few hours.  Then back to Bart, Vanda and Arabella's house for lunch.  We know Bart and Vanda through UCR.  They both work there as well.  Bart is the Mac guru on campus and always has time for a chat.  Vanda works with graduate students in Computer Science, so we have a lot of interaction.  Vanda made us some super yummy steak sandwiches for lunch.  Mark ate two and asked for the recipe.  

Arabella and her Daddy, Bart

Getting in touch with his feminine side

Playing at Arabella's house

Bookworm

Owen is currently OBSESSED with reading books.  Hence, we are reading a lot of prime baby literature lately.  Some of his favorites are:

10 Little Ladybugs - A very wonderful hand-me-down from the Elerts Family.  He really loves the last page with all the animals and ladybugs on it.  When he gets there he always goes "WHOA!".  He'll even flip away from the last page then flip back just so he can go "WHOA" again.  

Gallop - A cool book from Aunt Erin.  Mesmerizing fun for adults and kids.  Watch the animals move!

Any book by Karen Katz - Flaps are cool!  We started with one and now we have about 7 different ones.

Little Farm People from Fisher Price - Thanks Grandma T, he still loves it.  More flaps!

I Love You This Much - Thanks Ruth Family!  There is a CD included with this one.  It is too far gone and scratched to ever be listened to, but he loves taking it out and putting it back in its place.

I am still working through Richard Russo's newest, Bridge of Sighs.  Loving it!  Mark is reading anything that has to do with having fun with kids in Southern California.

Assume the position Daddy

Sir Sweeps-a-lot

To the rescue!!!

Cat Chasing and Wrestling

Mark is a bit horrified that I let Owen do this, but I think it's just normal cat/kid interaction, right?  Plus, Amos is a big cat, he can run away if he really wanted to.  I also told Mark, if you are alone with the kid all weekend, you would start letting him tackle the cat too.

All of these photos transpired in a total of about 60 seconds.  

Yee Haw!!!!

Say Uncle!!

Pinned!

The "kitty go to sleeper" hold.

Hey, come back here, I'm not done!

I can tackle you in locations all over the house!

You can't escape...

Let me at that fluffy tail!

Owen the Bowler

Our latest visit to John's Incredible Pizza - Owen loves balls of course, that fact we have established.  But now he loves bowling too!  They have a mini-bowling alley at John's and here is a video of Owen doing his thing.  He ended up bowling a 6 for the round.  Not bad for a baby.

the obvious

Even though Owen is a card carrying mama's boy at the moment, there is no one he would rather play ball with than his Daddy.

Rubidoux Butterfly Festival (w/new pics)

Butterflies!

Taking in the scenery

On the loose...

Bunnies!!

Multitasking

Drumming with Daddy

Tidbits and Tales

It seems like Owen is doing a new and quirky thing every day.  Here are a few examples:

Owen is becoming quite the mimic.  You read about how he copied the Pastor's sermon on Easter. He is now doing stuff we do.  I pulled a weed the other day, Owen start yanking on the plants.  I sneezed, Owen says "Ahh-choo!".  I did my Donald Duck for him today and he started making this hilarious noise, but it did kind of sound like duck.  Mark was stamping his foot on something outside and Owen trotted over to him and started stamping his foot too.  But you have to be careful, I was going to pick him a flower off a plant in our backyard, but thought better of it.  I'm sure I would turn around and he would be stripping the plant of any blossoms.

  

He still remains a big fan of rocks.  Everywhere we go he finds rocks and wants to play with them. When we walk through our neighborhood there are two houses with front yards made entirely of rocks.  One of us has to walk between him and the house so he doesn't see it.  If he does there is much arm stretching and yelling for those precious rocks.  We were at the zoo, he found rocks.  We went to the Butterfly festival, he found rocks.  He runs into the neighbors yard to raid their planter.  Plus the dry creek bed at grandma and grandpa Thompson's!  Don't get me started on that!

Bath time is very entertaining.  He now does this thing where he squats down and then POPS back up with a yell.  He likes it when we all do it together.  We play "Ring around the rosy" in the bath too.  He loves the part where we "all fall DOWN!".  Most of all he likes splashing mommy and daddy.

Cat hugging/chasing is new too.  Owen will walk up to where Amos is laying and just flop down on top of him.  Amos is pretty tolerant the first few times.  Then he wises up and starts running away.  That begins the cat chasing portion of the game.  

Owen's last quirk on the list is the desk drawer.  I guess it is not a quirk, but if someone is sitting at the desk he begs to sit on their lap.  Once there he will open the lap drawer and systematically remove everything and throw it around the office.  What fun!

Oh, I forgot one.  We have these wool socks we put on when we go for a walk with the stroller and he doesn't have shoes on.  He likes to play with the socks.  Then today he handed the socks to me the stuck out his foot.  So I put the socks on his feet.  He's looking at me like...well?  Now we go for a walk right?  So I brought out his stroller and he practically jumped in there.  It is funny the associations he makes. 

We bought Owen this table for outside.  It has sand in one side and water in the other.  He LUUUUVVVVS it!  It makes for many minutes of entertainment outside.  He likes digging in the sand, throwing sand, putting sand in the water and eating sand of course!

Mark is in Santa Barbara "working" this weekend.  I will attempt to have some misadventures!