Christmas Photo Shoot!

I had Owen's Birthday/Christmas photos done at Sears today. He was so cooperative, you wouldn't believe it!! I'm praying that his good behavior holds out long enough to get through his first skating lesson tonight. We'll see!

There were two additional photos that turned out really cute, but I am saving those for our Christmas cards. So, you'll have to wait and be surprised. ;O) For now, these are the runner ups.

How old does our little man look in these photos, it kind of caught me by surprise when I first saw them. The hair cut probably doesn't help make him look any younger I suppose! ;O)

Hope you are all having a great week and recovering from Turkey Day!

Carving Pumpkins

Because of Gram's heart attack, we postponed Aunt Shawnie Day which is when we typically carve pumpkins. So, it wasn't until the night before Halloween that we finally got the chance to sit down and take care of these. Unfortunately, Shawn already had plans and didn't get to do it this year...she hates doing it anyway! ;O)

Owen really got into it this year. He wasn't too particular about following patterns however....
Owen got bored at one point and took quite a few pictures on his own....this one of Diana and the one of Will were Owen's shots!
I messed up saving this one, this is how blurry all of them were to begin with...mom, let me know if you want these and I'll send them full-sized to you so they are clear.

Halloween Day!

Sorry for the delay!!! I'm having issues with this latest version of Photoshop. I saved all the pics I wanted to post as I usually do, but it re-sized them to about 12kb making them really fuzzy!! Anyway, before I could get them fixed, Owen and I came down with a nasty head cold. I ended up taking Wednesday and Thursday off as well as Friday afternoon. We sent Owen to school on Thursday to give me some time to recover since he seemed to be recovering, but we decided he was even stuffier Friday morning and kept him home. We headed into town Friday evening to help Shawn move the last of her stuff and on the way in, Owen started to scream in pain and complained that his ear was hurting. Long story short, I am very thankful for my pediatrician's office being open until 9 (and fitting us in even though they were already overbooked) as well as our new Walgreens with a pharmacy open until 10 (we sat at the doctor's office for over 2 hours waiting for a break in patients, it was almost 9 before we got out of there)!!!! It turned out that Owen's ear was so infected, his eardrum was ready to burst. I felt SO bad!! He'd mentioned his ear off and on earlier in the day, but I figured he was just stuffy. He certainly didn't seem like he was in pain!!! Besides, the doctors won't prescribe antibiotics for mild ear infections typically. Anyway, he's been on super strong antibiotics since Friday and still seems to be suffering with a cough and congestion. I feel like I'm getting better, but still have to have my Kleenex at close hand!! I'm sure everyone will be thrilled to see me back at work tomorrow...;O).

O.k., so on to the pictures... We wanted to get a skating day in before Diana headed home and decided Halloween day was the day. Unfortunately, the skate rink had a carnival for the kids that day, so it was busier than usual and they had all the lights turned off. Not exactly an ideal situation for a little boy that's just learning! Owen gave up pretty early and was kind of a turd in general. This is him sitting in the bleachers with his hat tied tight so he wouldn't take it off, watching his dad and Aunt Shawn. I think he still didn't feel good which of course, didn't help the situation.

We grabbed sushi for dinner, so we made a practice trip to Uncle Doc and Aunt Lori's house in Eagle River on the way. Aunt Lori loaded Owen up with candy there! He didn't quite get it, but thought the candy part was great. We looked for a cape for Will to go with his vampire make-up, but couldn't find anything. It was just too last minute. So, this is how he went...

If it hadn't been for Will, I don't think Owen would have been willing to go out to trick-or-treat for real. But, once Will convinced him to get started, we couldn't get him to stop! ;O) It was only 27 degrees and Owen hit quite a few houses. I think Will and I were ready to quit long before Owen gave in to heading home!!

Hope you are all having a good week! We're hoping everyone is feeling better by tomorrow!! Unfortunately, Dave is starting to come down with this cold now and will only be at work for a couple hours today. Gotta love cold season (doesn't help that its sub-zero temps around here this week!!!).

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

Well, it's been a long month here and I've been really bad about getting on the computer to post pictures. In fact, I haven't taken many pictures at all if the truth were told. Owen's completed his first week at his new daycare this past week and seemed to enjoy every minute of it. I'm so proud of how independent and easygoing he is when it comes to meeting new people. I'd worried all month about whether or not we were making the right choice, but on Tuesday when I went to drop him off on his own for the first time and he turned to me and said, Don't stay today, otay mommy?, I knew we had! ;O)

Sunday morning we dropped my mom and Will off at the airport. They'd been here for two weeks taking care of grandma after she was released from the hospital and Will had wished for snow every day. So, of course, Sunday night we got about 4 inches. The first snow of the season!!!! Shawn said she heard on the news that we were within a week of beating a record for the first snow fall. I don't ever remember not having snow by November, although, we have had a few years that we got dumped on pretty hard and then it would warm up and melt come November/December. It's been plenty cold enough for snow though, even as early as September. I'm glad its finally arrive and it looks like we should plan on more in the coming days (we got about another inch last night). Of course, Shawn just closed on her new house yesterday and was hoping it would wait until after this coming weekend!!

Hope you are all having a great start to your week. I've got some more pictures to post this week and will plan on working backwards, so check back!

It's Getting Colder!

Owen and I went outside earlier today for a little photo shoot of his costume this year. We decided not to bother getting pictures done at Sears this time to save money and because I'm not sure I'm up to the battle right now!! He's so hit or miss these days as to whether or not he's going to cooperate. The costume photos will come later...

The dogs haven't been out in the backyard to run in forever. It's been pretty wet for about a week now and on top of that, Max keeps sneaking under the fence!!! Dave put up an electric wire that runs around the bottom of the kennel. Since then, Max has at least remained captive within that area. We'll do the same on the entire perimeter of the fence next summer, but its not going to happen as planned this year. Stupid dog!! Makes me feel like our $12k was well spent on the fence!!! At least Owen and Daisy are too chubby to squeeze under! ;O) So, anyway, after we were done with our photo shoot, Owen and I played with them for a while. Here's a picture of Owen climbing around in the trees, its hard to see, but around 11am there was still frost on the leaves!!

Skating Day!!!

We finally made it out to the skate rink to take Owen skating for the first time ever!!!! It was soooo much fun. This is how we started out....

Owen was really unsure about the whole thing (his eyes were huge!), but seemed like a natural, the way he could stand up in the skates on the floor!!! Notice Shawnie in the background, that's her getting Dave to tie up her skates. We decided that if for no other reason, the fact that she'd have to go in the men's locker room before each game to have Dave tie her skates was enough to keep her off the Granite hockey team that both Dave and Geoff play on! She cracks me up...Dave has been tying her skates since college, if that doesn't make a good brother-in-law, I don't know what does! ;O)

Here's our support team!! Shawn, Geoff, and Jenna all came out to skate with us. I'm sure that having all of them there was the motivation Owen needed to get out and try it. I was really thankful that they all made it. Owen was especially thrilled to be skating with Jenna, although he never let Geoff get out of sight either.

We started out without a stand for Owen to use to support himself. We tried using a traffic cone instead, but Owen is just too tall for that to be effective. So, this is the method we settled on...or I should say, Geoff and Dave used. He's too heavy for me to support like that for very long!

Here's Owen taking a break in the player's box. That smile was permanently glued on his face the whole time we were there! Definitely a 180 from his original panicked look! He had such a blast and we were so proud of his willingness to get out there and try it, he's definitely a trooper.

Aunt Laurie came to support him too, although she chose to be a cheerleader in the bleachers...you can never have too many cheerleaders!

We weren't on the ice too long before Shawnie talked a little girl into giving up the stand for Owen...leave it to her! ;O) Most of the kids using them, don't need it which is really frustrating to watch. It was a whole lot easier to help Owen with this thing. By the end of the afternoon, Owen was standing up and just had his hands on the bar, it was the perfect height for him. We ended up skating for almost an hour!!!! I figured if we could get him to skate for 20-30 minutes we'd be doing pretty good, but Owen didn't really want to leave even after an hour. He was too exhausted to complain much though. Besides, the zamboni came out about that time and that's really Owen's favorite part anyway! ;O) There's a skating class for 3 year olds that I am going to try to sign him up for beginning in mid-November, but if all else fails, we'll definitely get him signed-up for the December class. He's definitely ready to go. In the meantime, I think Dave and I will make a point to take him out there as much as possible and if I have it my way, it will be cold enough to skate outside very soon!!! We still haven't had any snow down here yet, but it will be any day...I so can't wait!!! In the meantime, pretty much all the leaves are gone and we've had quite a few rainy days, I'm ready to move on!

Our whole day was super busy yesterday, after skating we raced home for Owen to take a nap...he didn't ever go to sleep however, so that was time well spent! Then we headed over to Shannon's house just around the corner for her two littlest's birthday party. Kendall turned one just two weeks before Brady's 2nd birthday...glad it's her and not me!!! We only got to stay for about a half-hour before Dave picked us up and we headed to his game in town. He's only got two games this season that are at a decent hour. So, we definitely didn't want to miss it. Besides, they are on a winning streak! I think this made 5-0. Owen got a big kick out of trying to figure out which one of the players was his dad. He actually did just as well as I do! ;O)
Hope you are all having a great start to your week! I'm home again most of this week and then we'll pick Diana up from the airport Saturday evening. Owen seems to be adjusting well to being at home and his attitude is continuing to improve. I'm hoping he behaves just as well for his Grandma!!

Today...

Owen and I were goofing off at the house killing time before we met Dave and Shawnie in Eagle River for lunch. He was being so goofy, I decided to take a few pictures. About the time I started, Max and Daisy came out of the house. Doesn't Max look regal? He's such a protector and this picture really shows it! ;O) Owen calls this sweatshirt his "flame shirt". He thinks its a race car shirt. Ever since we bought him the movie "Cars", he can't get enough of what he calls "race cars". He even points them out to me when we are driving down the road or walking through a parking lot. I'm not sure what he believes classifies a race car, but it seems to include everything from mini vans to sedans...he definitely keeps us laughing!!