Early Easter

While the Oswoods visited we also had an early Easter egg hunt.  Owen got a cool Lightning McQueen basket and lots of fun creatures to play with.  

Grandma and Grandpa came on Friday!

Grandma and Grandpa stopped by this weekend on their way to Vegas.  They are celebrating 40 years a marriage!  Congratulations!!

Owen was very excited all week because we had told him they were coming on Friday.  He wanted us to name off the days until they arrived.  On Thursday his teacher wrote that Owen loved telling her about how Grandma and Grandpa were coming on Friday.  He was a very good boy for their visit and everybody had a lot of fun. 

Grandpa picked a winner with the bubble maker.

On Saturday we took a trip to the Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert.  We visited once before when Owen was a year younger.  He had a great time and we all loved watching him explore.  This picture is outside, he found a grapefruit and proceeded to lick it.

This harp makes music when you run your hand through.  He really liked it.

Building things....of course.

Like my action shot of the ball coming out?

Making pizza

Learning about mist

Don't poke my eye!!

We're in week three of our three weekend home stand.  It's been really nice getting some things done around the house.  We've organized the garage and now can successfully park both cars in there.  I also cleaned up the weird garage room/storage dumping ground.  As a result, we can walk without tripping and have some sort of idea of what we've got.  Some yard projects have also been completed.  We're still in the "tear down" phase of yard work on the new house. Hopefully we'll be building it back up soon.  Mark is the human stump remover and has three under his belt so far.  And in honor of spring we planted some flowers in the front.  There are pics below of Owen helping Daddy.

Owen's communication skills are getting more sophisticated each day.  He's got quite a few sentences going on and I'm often amazed at how far he's come.  His new question of the month is "What's your name?"  He asks this of most everyone we come in contact with, from waitresses to flight attendants to cashiers.  Often these folks are wearing name tags and I can get him an answer quickly.  He is also fascinated by "Mark" and "Kara".  He will hold Mark's face in both his little hands, look intently and say, "Your name is Mark."  

Owen is a lot like his Daddy as you can see from the pictures.  I think he looks more and more like him every day.  But there is one other very obvious connection.  Owen loves to play with tape and stickers.  He rolls them around in his fingers just like Daddy.  It cracks me up!  Who knew that weird tape fetishes were hereditary?  

Now that Owen can express himself so well, he is rarely without anything to say.  I recently gave him a kiss on his face.  As I did that, my nose inadvertently touched his eye.  "DON'T POKE MY EYE MOMMY!!!" he yells in the middle of Lowe's.  "STOP POKING MY EYE!!"

One last cute story from the other day.  Owen was sick for about a week with an ear infection and other various problems.  He was sleeping quite a lot and we were having to wake him up in the morning.  Mark went into his room to get him and Owen was laying in bed with his eyes still closed and says "I'm still sleeping Daddy".

Eating Thin Mints while wearing the firehat he made at school.

Oswood Family Birthdays - Feb 2009

We had a memorable visit to the bay area Oswoods recently.  Owen got a trip to the Oakland Zoo out of it.  He loved all the animals of course, but was bummed there were no gorillas or hippos.  Gloria the Hippo from Madagascar is his favorite!  I'm kicking myself because I always try to remember the cute and funny things that happen or that he says, but by the time I get to this point, I've forgotten it.  You'll just have to make due with the pics.

Hey Pat, I know you're reading this - he absolutely loves that barn you got him.  We play with it every day and he says "Pat got this for me!"  

Paw Prints!  He loved this stamp and was talking about it all day.

Grandma, Owen and Mark checking out the Meerkats.

The had about eight or nine giraffes.  Another favorite animal, even if his face doesn't look it.

The zoo within the zoo.

Mark had to get into the act.

Back at the Oswood homestead.  Daddy hiding from Owen.  He is just getting the hide-and-seek concept.  It helps that Mark wants to play it with him all the time.  Now I know why we had a kid, so Mark could have a playmate.

Mariel, Dani, Mark, Owen and Grandma C opening birthday presents.

Owen and his friend Relay.

Relay, Owen and Mariel on the way to the airport.  This was at the start of the ride, he was still happy.  It takes about 40 minutes to get from Clayton to Oakland and as the ride went on Owen got quieter and quieter.  I don't think he liked sitting back there by himself with mommy and daddy up front.  He was eyeing the dog very suspiciously by the end.

Waiving to the people de-planing.  He was in rare form and charming all the flight attendants.