Stuntman's Mom Wins Design Award!!

Hello from one tired family! Owen is working on two more teeth (center upper). They are big and they are hurting him. He has been so whiney the past few days and not sleeping at all the past few nights....this means that we are all three up at all hours in the night.
We are hoping that those things break through some time soon so he has some relief. Even when he is in pain and discomfort, he is always trying to smile and be happy. That's my Owen! So sweet.

There has been lots going on lately. The most exciting lately is that Jen won a design award through the AIGA Minnesota's Annual Design Show of Excellence, which highlights the most exceptional design work being produced in the upper Midwest and showcases the power of design in today's culture.Seems fishy that it is my organization's competition and she just so happens to win? Well, the winners are selected by independent leading design professionals from across the country...I have nothing to do with it. It is strictly her talent!
Here are some screen shots of her winning designs. The link in the upper right of this page will be working soon.
I am so very proud of her......it really is a great honor in the local design community.

ROPE POWER WITH SOPHIE T.
Last night, Jen, Owen and I joined Uncles Mike & Ty and Ava to watch Sophie in a jump rope competition. Different schools compete against each other in all these neat jump rope activities. I know you might ask yourself, what the? but it was the coolest thing ever! These kids were so talented...especially Sophie! She was one of three kids from her school chosen to the double under...she was great!! Not only that, she was jumping rope on her knees. Very talented I tell you. We had a great time!

We hope that Owen is on the Rope Power team for his school. If not that, then we hope he is at least President of the Stunt Club because.......

he does all of his own stunts, you know.

Here is a sweet picture that I took of Uncle Ty and Owen at the Rope Power competition. He loves his Uncle Ty!


OK LADIES....HOLD YOURSELVES BACK because Owen is your man.














One quick story before I call it quits. Dennis sent me an email the other day that said he took Kiana and Kayla to the St. Patrick's Day Parade. On the way, 3-year old Kayla kept telling Dennis to put his seat belt on. Finally she told him that if he didn't put the seat belt on, that she was going to call 111 on him. I thought that was pretty funny! Until next time.....

Love to you all!

Long overdue updates.

I know...I know. There are really long stretches between posts. I am planning to leave my camera out in the living room so I take more photos. I have time to post now and then but I never have any photos. So, hopefully this plan will work.



This past weekend, we met Grandma and Grandpa Bowers, Aunt Terra, Uncle Daniel, Cousin Rigo and Great Grandma Jeraldine in Ames, Iowa. We were supposed to go to Missouri last month but and it's such a long trip for Owen, that we decided not to go. Instead, we decided to meet the family 1/2 way. Thanks to G&G for the hotel rooms and clothes for Owen. He's stylin' now! We had such a good time with everyone. Owen wants the grandparents to move to the DesMoine/Ames area. It would be perfect if their farm was about 3 hours away. Owen and Rigo could ride ponies together all the time. Rigo has gotten so big. He is just as cute and cuddly as ever. He has cutest little dimples when he smiles (although none of my pics show the dimples). He is one sweet kid. We are so happy that we got to spend time with him over the weekend.

On February 18th, we celebrated Owen's Great Grandma's birthday at Grandma Pat's house. Here is a shot of the family. Look who's the center of the photo! We had a nice time and look forward to the next get-together.

Other Owen Updates:

Owen has 4 teeth now...I'll try to catch a shot of them. It's pretty funny because he has the two bottom center teeth and then two on the top...not the center ones but the ones next to the center teeth. It looks like fangs but they aren't the eye teeth.

Kris took Owen and Tess to the Zoo today. Kris said that Owen LOVED the dolphin show....apparently he got pretty excited. We wish we could have seen him. She said he had a great day. This is such a switch from how our day started. First, I bumped his head on the door on the way out. Then, when I lifted his car seat (with him in it) to move him to Kris' car and I DROPPED him. Luckily, only the car seat hit the ground and not him. He wasn't hurt in either accident but did shed a couple tears from being scared. He's been getting scared of things lately...like when we changed his diaper in public restrooms on our trip this past weekend and someone flushed the toilet...scares him so much! Also, when I try to vacuum (I don't do that when he's around anymore).

Owen sitting up and crawling...in a post coming soon??!!?? we'll get there eventually.

I'll try to post sooner than I have been.

New Photos...

No time to write at the moment....just wanted to give you some new pics. Owen is doing great and we love him to pieces! He is 28 inches long and weighs 19.75 pounds! He's getting so big...as a matter of fact, his doctor said that if he didn't know any better, he would say that Owen is 7 or 8 months old. Oh...Owen has two teeth now and he turns 6 months old a week from this coming Saturday. More teeth and updates later!

Steak anyone?

One hanger steak for Owen please!! His first tooth (bottom front left) popped through yesterday and there's another one on the way. He hasn't really been fussy or anything. As a matter of fact, he had a doctor appointment last Monday and the doctor said that he wasn't teething at all. We're going to switch doctors. Not just because of that...but because of a number of little things. He's really really old and we think we want someone a little younger who is more with it. Anyway...he was wrong about the teething thing.













These pictures were all taken at Ava's 3rd birthday party a couple weekends ago. It was Owen's first kid birthday party!

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. There has been so much going on lately. Last weekend we babysat Ava and Sophie from Friday to Sunday. It was tons of fun but left no time for blogging. Three kids is a lot of work....we'll be stopping at two...maybe one.

Owen did something else yesterday for the first time...he reached for Grandma Pat. It was really sweet.

Here is a sweet photo of Uncle Mike and Owen at Ava's birthday party. He loves his Uncle Mike and Uncle Ty. They are going to babysit him Saturday night so we can go to the movies or something.

Sadly Jen's grandma (her dad's mother), Olga, passed away last Friday. Owen's presence was requested at the lunch after the funeral and there was a snow storm that morning. So, we didn't want to drive across the cities to get him for lunch...so he just came with us for the day. He was really good at the funeral....Aunt Jean said it's nice to hear a baby at a funeral. He didn't cry...just happy sounds. So sweet. Then when we got to the lunch, we took his hat off leaving his hair sticking up and fuzzy.....he just looked around and shot smiles to all the people!! He is quite the charmer.

Jen was just in the other room trying to put Owen to sleep while I am updating the blog. He is wide awake and refuses to go to sleep. So, I guess we'll play. Yes!!! More later.

I heart my toes.

So much to tell...so little time. The boy is busy! He's playing with his toes, eating vegetables, trying to sit up, trying to roll over and possibly cutting some teeth. It's constant activity around this house and we wouldn't trade it for the world.

We have a nice family weekend planned (sad...it's only Tuesday and I'm looking forward to the weekend). Dennis, Kiana and Kayla are coming over Friday evening and we are going to have a pizza night....create your own. Should be interestingly funny because I'm going to try to be creative with the toppings. Then on Saturday....we have a free day! Looking forward to that! On Sunday, we are going to Ava Tonander's birthday party. She's going to be three years old. It's hard to believe that she has been with Mike, Ty and Sophie for almost a full year already.












I took Mr. Smiley to the new Minneapolis library downtown last week and we got some movies (some for me and some for him). He loves the movies that they have for babies...I guess they are educational but they just seem oddly scary to me....he loves them though! He usually watches about 15 minutes of one of these movies a day..in the morning as I finish getting ready. He gets pretty excited about them. We also went to the zoo last week....he seemed to like the monkeys pretty well. I can tell he's going to be a monkey himself. He wants to be busy all the time. Looking forward to what all he has in store for us.

One funny thing that Owen has been doing for a while now is he helps us change his diaper. When we unsnap his pants his legs go straight up in the air. Diaper comes off and we put a new one underneath him...as we pull the front of the diaper up to fasten it, he puts his legs down and shoots them out really fast so they are perfectly straight. It's like he knows that it makes it easier for us if he does this....it is pretty cute and he is really consistent. I guess we do praise him for helping us...so, maybe that's why he keeps it up. Regardless, it's the cutest thing ever. Oh the little things that make us parents happy..........we just love him.

Owen's shout out this week is to Great Grandma Jerry! Owen says hello and he enjoyed talking to you on the phone the other night. He'll be calling you again very soon. We love you lots!

One last photo of our Mr. Blue Eyes

Hats off to Owen......

He's been our hat boy from the beginning!



























Here's one for Grandpa Western....he's a John Deere kid.














Here is a pic of Owen in his new cool stocking hat that Auntie Mel sent him. It reminds me of a hat I had when I was a kid.








Here is a photo taken of Owen with Aunti Em and Uncle Boots just this past weekend at Owen's Great Aunt Jean and Uncle Terry's house. We celebrated Christmas with them and Grandma and Grandpa Trudeau. Uncle Brian, Aunt Nikki and Ava were supposed to be there but Ava has been sick. We missed seeing her and hope that she is feeling much better.

Christmas and New Year!

I'm trying to get you caught up on the Holidays....so bare with me. Ok...Christmas in Missouri was great! Owen really enjoyed his first Christmas with all of his family. We got together with grandmas, grandpas, great g&gs, cousins, uncles and the list goes on. He received lots of nice gifts, hugs and kisses from everyone.



Here is a picture of Owen, his cousins and their Great Grandma Jerry. She loves all her grandchildren so much and makes each one of us feel special. We all love her and are very proud to have her as the matriarch of our family! Not only was it Owen's first Christmas but it was also Rigo's first Christmas. Here is the cutest picture ever!
I can't even tell you how cute, sweet and cuddly this little guy is.....perfect! I could just hold and hug him all day long.

We did Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Bowers a little different this year. We opened our gifts on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning like we always have...but it was really fun. Grandma Cindy had all these cute special things for the two boys. She's even mentioned that she wants to have Santa come in and bring toys to them in the future....when they are old enough. That should be fun!

Happy New Year! Well, it finally snowed in Minnesota on New Years Eve! So, we decided to take Owen out on his first snowy adventure. We walked down to Lake Calhoun. Along the way, we stopped and made snow angels and snow chairs. It was fun. We're going to start looking for an infant sled! It would be so much fun.

Here is a photo of Owen in his custom-made snow chair......



...and another one of him in snow angel action (kind of).



Wondering what's on underneath his cute LL Bean snowsuit?




Yep, he has on his long handles!





He was extra toasty warm...so, Grandmas... you don't need to worry!













Here's a photo of him with his new John Deere tractor that he got from Grandpa Western. He now has a tractor, cowboy boots, spurs, Wrangler jeans and a cowboy hat (and John Deere farm cap)...thanks to Grandpa Western! Now all he needs is a pony from Grandma Cindy ;) Speaking of ponies.....if you haven't already watched Owen's Christmas and New Year's jig, just click on the link under the Link section above right that is titled "Owen sends you Seasons Greetings....Watch Now".



Probably our biggest news is that Owen started eating rice cereal on New Years Eve! We have a video of it..it's pretty funny. At first, he got an alarmed look on his face. Then, the next bite...he was trying to figure it out....but a couple more bites and he was opening his mouth before the spoon even left the bowl. He loves it! We have a feeling he's going to be a good eater.












Owen wants to give a shout out to Grandpa Bowers!! Happy Happy Birthday to you, Grandpa!!

He also wants to wish everyone a very Happy and Healthy 2007!!

Do I look like my mommy...or what?

These are just two of the pictures that we've found that share a resemblence. Aren't we cute???!!!! My mom says that he looks so much like I did at this age, that it's scary. Poor poor kid.

Christmas was great! Before I give a Christmas post, I want to catch up on some other things. I am really behind in my postings! Please forgive me. Now that the Holidays are almost over, I should be more consistant (hopefully).

Just before Christmas, Owen, Jen and I were honored to be invited to Kiana's cheerleading recital. For those of you who don't know who Kiana is...she is one of my cousin's (Dennis') two little girls! Kiana did such a great job!! You talk about cute....take a look at her showing her cheerleading moves! Ready? OK!












Her sister, Kayla, is just as cute. Here's a photo of Jen and Kayla at the recital. When I was pregnant, Kayla used to point at my tummy and beg me to take the baby out. Very cute! Anyway, we had a nice time at the recital and it really great to see the girls....warming us up for Christmas in Missouri with them.












Other things:

Owen misses his Grandma Pat....a lot! She is currently in Baltimore through the New Year. She, Aunt Mel and Uncle Michael spent Christmas with Uncle Matt and Aunt Jocelyn and the kiddies (Caleb, Anna and Aaron). We missed them all this year and will hopefully see them next year at Christmas time! We pick Grandma Pat up from the airport on New Year's Day. Owen is excited!

No day care this week! Kris and Tess have both been really sick. So between Jen and I, we've been juggling Owen and work. We hope everyone gets better by next week! :)

Owen was very happy to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Bowers and Grandpa Western over the holiday weekend. I'll be uploading some pictures from Christmas soon. Stay tuned......