Traditions

One of the things I enjoy most about being a mom is thinking up and starting traditions for our family. I'll admit that when Eric and I were childless this didn't seem as important, but now that we have Owen I'm really enoying thinking about what habits I want to start now and continue as he gets older.

Here are some of my favorites we've started to establish:

Reading the Bible at meal times and eating together as a family at dinner. My parents actually started this tradition when I was growing up - we would have devotionals after breakfast each morning. We try and all sit down for dinner every night and after we're done eating we'll read a few Bible stories from the "Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes." It's a great kids Bible that I read as a child - big pictures, a few questions and a short prayer at the end. The best part is that Owen asks for it every day and wants us to read more and more stories!

Saturday morning cereal and cartoons. Owen is a big breakfast eater - every morning he eats two eggs, toast, fruit and yogurt. On Saturday I give both of us a break and we just have cereal and fruit in front of the TV. I usually put on Veggie Tales or Thomas the Train and we just hang out for an hour - such a nice change of pace from our busy week day mornings. This is the only time of the week Owen really watches TV and even though his bowl of cereal and fruit doesn't have milk in it, he usually puts his food in my bowl of milk and we share. :-)

No more party in the back

A few days after Owen turned 18 months old he got his first hair cut. I hadn't been able to bear cutting off his curls, but even I had to admit that Owen was rocking a mullet. It was totally "business in the front and party in the back."

Eric and I were getting our hair cut too, so we made it a family event. Eric held Owen and I supplied the suckers. But shockingly - Owen could not stand the candy! But he did like sharing it with his Daddy, so it sill kept him occupied while his beautiful curls were being cut off.

After a lot of maneuvering on the part of our hairstylist - here was the finished result.

He still has a few curls left - but the mullet is history!

18 months

I'm going to admit right now that this post will be a lot of me bragging about my big boy, but this blog is serving as Owen's baby book, so it only seems right. :-)

Owen turned 18  months in September. He still continues to be off the growth chart in height and weight. He weighs 32 pounds 4 oz, and is 35 inches tall. He wears size 8 shoes and is the biggest kid in his class although he's the youngest!

Owen is talking up a storm - he says so many words and is constantly repeating words after us and loves to go through books saying the name of the picture we point to.  He can say quite a bit of the alphabet and his numbers if we say them with him and will often say the next letter or number in the series without prompting. He has color flashcards and can say them all - but doesn't know his colors when they're presented in other situations. :-)

He knows a lot of animals and their sounds - his favorites are cow, duck, horse, sheep, fish, cat, monkey and TRAIN.

He also knows and can say a lot of body parts - he loves singing the "head, shoulders, knees and toes' song and "If you're happy and you know it." Body parts he can  say and point to are: Head, hair, eyes, ears, mouth, shoulders, elbow, tummy, knees, toes, fingers and bum :)

Here is a list of words he says almost every day:
NO - his favorite, which we hear way more than we would like to
yeah - how he says yes. he can say yes, but takes the easy way out :-)
mommy
dada
hi
bye
uh oh
oh no
Whoa
night night
love you - My favorite!!!!
happy
more
all done
please
thank you - I'm hearing this more and more without asking!!!
Bible - love this one too - he always wants more than one story
Amen - repeated after we say it
up
go
milk
water
bannana
eggs
snack
hot
cookie
berries
apple
art
outside
teeth
shoes
socks
stop
dog
book
ball - his absolute favorite toys
mouse - as in "If you give a Mouse a Cookie"
Elmo

He says many more after prompting. It's great to be able to communicate with him more and more.

We are already in the middle of the "terrible twos" Owen is a very head strong and has been a challenge for his daddy and me. Even with our struggles with discipline we love being parents and can't imagine what our life would be like without this little boy!

Summer 2011 via Instagram

It was a LONG, HOT, DRY summer in Texas. So long, hot and dry that we're just now recovering. :-)

I took lots of photos with our nice camera this summer and I'll post a few in later posts, but I love the feel of Instagram pictures - I think it's perfect to remember Owen's first big summer.

Playing with Colored Bubbles

Fun in the Pool

Playing in puddles after one of the rare rain storms

Fun at the beach in Galveston

 A fun trip to Angel Fire New Mexico with Nana CiCi and Papa Rusty.

First time Mommy let me lick the bowl!