so many photos...so little time

So much has happened in the past couple of weeks!
We went skating, have had lots of playing time (of course!), had a visit from Gran, Gramps, Uncle Tom, and Aunt Claire (which was tons of fun, even if a bit cold here!).
Elliot is still a no go on the teeth front...and on the crawling front, although he is getting closer as he keeps getting up on his knees and rocking!

yup, that's my giant mitten thumb photobombing in the foreground

peeling the fish off the top of his rice...b/c who wants rice, when there's raw fish to eat?  ah...after my own heart!

he's learning early...sitting with his "tea" on the potty

my happy, mellow guy!

insisted on wearing his "painting hat" (?) and gruffalo apron to do some pre dinner painting

With Auntie Claire!

with Uncle Tom

sharing a love of trains with Gramps

enjoying some cuddle time with Gran!

I'm so behind!

These pictures are from 2 weeks ago...I just haven't had time to post them...I blame starting back at work.  sigh.

Luckily, I don't teach on Fridays this semester so I get to hang out with the boys instead!  Our Friday activity a couple of weeks ago was a nice romp in the backyard...back when we still had snow.  Then we didn't have snow for almost 2 weeks, but now we have snow again.  Apparently we are in a snow deficit here...which I'm okay with as it means less shoveling.

Anyway, we got suited up, and pulled out the sled.  O loves to be pulled around the backyard in the sled (AKA the train), and we pretend we are making stops at various train stations, where he flings himself off the sled into the snow...it's fairly hilarious.

all aboard!

El seems far less enthralled with this.

lying down on the job

and of course back to eating snow...his favourite winter pasttime

El just likes eating fingers...

note the drool patch on his chest

and here are O's 3 year stats (a month late, but so be it!)
height: 37"  40% - he has not yet hit his growth spurt
weight: 29.87lb  31%  - or put on much weight...despite his good eating


And in other news...it has begun.  I found my first grey hair(s).  It started about a month ago, I found one small one in all that weirdo new hair growth that has come in since the post-pregnancy hair loss (what I have dubbed "The Great Shed").  So I did what any normal parent would do...I blamed my kid (El to be exact, as it was in the new hair growth since he arrived).  Then about a week later, I found another one...then a week after that, I found a whole patch!  To be fair, it's more of a streak, hidden underneath, so not super noticeable until I went searching...and it's long.  So I guess El is off the hook...I'll blame O instead ;) And there's a matching streak on the other side of my head too.  Perhaps if I go grey, my students will finally believe me when I tell them my age.  I feel more distinguished already.

At long last...

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from Christmas and beyond!  It's been a busy month...
Dave left to do field work in Uganda on New Year's Eve and my parents arrived here for a visit (and to help out!) on Jan 5.  Dave returned here, and Mom and Dad returned to their home yesterday.  And I completed my first week back at work!  Whew!

So, let's start with Christmas.  It was a great Christmas morning...it's so fun having a kid that is so excited for Christmas!  Because, I LOVE Christmas.  So I LOVE having somebody else to share in my complete love of Christmas.  Next year, he will get it even more...and then Elliot will get in on the action too!  It will be awesome!

Owen asked for three things from Santa:

underwear - note the Thomas set in the foreground

street sweeper - O decided Piggy should be the driver

 and a hippopotamus.  Thank goodness for books!

xmas morning selfie

who needs presents when there's paper?

book break!

post present play time!

play time continued

 And a couple pics from before Dave left

post 6am bottle snooze in the big bed

at Midwest Mountaineering trying out the kayaks while Dad shops for new hiking boots

Once Dave left, this was a pretty typical early morning for us.  Books in the big bed before breakfast.  

Then Grandma and Grandpa arrived!  Some of those pics were posted last time, but here are the remainder (in general I was horrible about taking pictures while they were here!  I really have to be better this...). Lots of books were read, and lots of playing was done with the grandparents while I headed back to work.

snuggled up in Grandpa's big shirt awaiting some clothes

E is trying so hard to get his knees under him!

I tried to get a picture of the three of them...Grandma did well looking at the camera and smiling, but O and Grandpa had a bit of trouble.  So you either got O looking like an alien, or Grandpa with his eyes closed...this was the best of the bunch.

 Grandma is a potty trainer extraordinaire!  We got O into pullups while she was here...and he actually stopped screaming about being taken to the potty and has started to hold it for a bit and wait.  Yay for Grandma!!!

Grandma modeling the "potty prize pail"  It's O's reward system for using the potty.  He gets to put a little plastic animal in it each time he uses the potty.  Such a sense of accomplishment!

O has not stopped playing Thomas the Train since xmas morning.  It was definitely a hot seller!

the drooling bandito!

 And, because I didn't include it earlier, here are the 6 month growth stats on Elliot!
Height: 28"  91% !!!!!  This explains why he is fitting in 12-18 month clothes already.
Weight: 17# 2oz  36%  So, still long and skinny...although not nearly as skinny as Owen was, so we think of him as our chunky baby...he has thigh rolls!  I love it!
Head size - without the helmet of course ;) : 47cm  77%  the helmet's not helping make that noggin' look any smaller either

As I said earlier, he is trying so hard to get up on all fours.  He can't quite get his knees all the way under him yet...but I figure he'll be crawling within the month...watch out cats!

And in probably the best news so far of 2015, Elliot is now helmet free!! At least for the daytime.  He was given the green light yesterday to stop wearing the helmet during the day.  He will continue to wear it at night for the next 2 weeks, then we'll reassess and he may be completely helmet free at that point.

no helmet = the return of sock monkey #1

giraffe leg trap

in the fortress of solitude/pillows

Happy Birthday, Owen!

This is a day late, and I have so many other pictures to post from Christmas and after, but I'll save those for the next post.  For now, we will celebrate three years of Owen!

Happy Birthday, Owen!  Here is a little bit of what you are like at three:
You are a very calm and happy kid...most of the time!  You do have your moments of "threenager-ness" mostly in the form of stubbornness (which you come by honestly!).  But mostly you are just happy...and very smiley!

You are a really good player...you can entertain yourself with books and toys and you love to make up stories with all your toys.  Your imagination is incredible!  You have gotten really into Thomas the Train lately and you literally spend hours playing with the train set coming up with all sorts of back stories for the different train characters and then building props for these stories out of your lego to augment the train pieces.  It's pretty awesome to watch...and get involved in, because as much as you are good at playing by yourself, you still love to have someone else to play with!  And I love to play with you...I do really enjoy building train tracks and lego buildings with you!

You also love to read.  You are happy to curl up on the couch and read books with us...I've even caught you at night "reading" in your bedroom...in the dark!  It's so cute!  You continue to love your assortment of Richard Scarry books, Berenstain Bears (argh!  we grow tired of these ones), and Dr. Seuss...plus all the others, we have a lot of books and we read them all!

You have gotten a bit pickier about your eating, I think in part because it is something you are trying to control more, but pizza and pupusas are always favourites! You go through phases of what you want for breakfast...it used to be nothing but pancakes, everyday, but now we are on to yogurt with granola...everyday.

You continue to be a great sleeper, sleeping from 7:30pm to 7am every day, with the occasional wake up...you've started to have bad dreams on occasion.  You won't nap at home anymore, unless of course you are sick.  You will still nap at daycare though...ah peer pressure!

We are still, slowly, working at potty training.  You asked for underwear from Santa, and he brought you some nice Thomas the train ones...but you still don't really want to stop playing to actually go use the potty.  You will pee if we put you on the potty (although this is often accompanied by screaming b/c you are being taken away from your toys), but you won't stop what you are doing on your own if you have to pee while you are playing.   Grandma has been here this week and working on the potty training with you...you scream far less for her and pee far more...it's a good thing!  You still won't poop on the potty though.  But we did start wearing pull ups...so I feel like we are heading in the right direction.

You are a great talker.  I was reading the other day that by the time you are 4 you should be using 4-5 word sentences.  You already talk way better than this, using 7-15 word sentences regularly.  You have an amazing vocabularly...and are a regular parrot.  We have to watch what we say!

That being said, you are a bit slower in some of your gross motor skills...most notably the stairs. I've seen you walk the short 3 steps out the backdoor up and down with no rail, but you continue to crawl up and down the big stairs in the house...or insist we carry you.  Some of this is the Elliot factor (you see him being carried and you want that too), some of it comes from us (you were our first and we were cautious with you and wanted you to be safe and probably haven't let you bump yourself up trying as much as we maybe could have)...and some of it is just you.  I think you are not, and will never be, a daredevil.  You are cautious...and I'm okay with it!

You are an amazing big brother.  You are a very sweet guy and patient with Elliot.  You bring him toys and his paci, and like to give him kisses and hugs.  He, in return, is fascinated with you! I hope you will continue to get along well once he starts moving and wanting to play with your toys.  I think it will go well, you don't have much in the way of aggression in you.

Owen, you are amazing.  I love watching you grow, and giggle (oh my goodness do you ever giggle!), and become this amazing little person who fills the house with love and joy.  Your smile is infectious.  I love you little bee!

nothing but Thomas...all the time!

Grandma's little cleaning helper

reading stories with Grandpa

and not to be left out...the cutie in the helmet!

and the saga continues...

Where did we leave off?  Oh yes, sick at Thanksgiving.  Well, we enjoyed a brief respite from illness (read: 10 day antibiotic induced health high) before fever set in again (the cough never really did leave).  After 4 days of fever and O coughing so badly he was making himself gag we headed in to ready care (what our pediatricians call walk ins) on Sunday (our pediatrician group is awesome and have walk in times available 7 days a week for sick kids!).  But it would seem everyone was sick, as we arrived only to find we were behind 36 other people and sat (on the floor b/c there wasn't even chair space left in the waiting room) for a 2 hour wait to see the doctor.  Turns out the ear infection never really went away, it was back with a vengeance, so we were prescribed a different antibiotic and a steroid to help him get over the cough he has had for 2 months.  Great!  We left very hopeful all would be well soon...we were wrong.  Monday night (day 2 of antibiotic) we noticed O had a couple red dots in one spot on the back of his arm as we were putting him to bed, ok, we'll keep an eye on that.  By 10ish, he was awake again writhing in itchiness, and we turned the light on to discover he was covered head to foot (with the exception of his back oddly enough) in hives.  Yup, allergic reaction to the new antibiotic.  So, emergency call to the pediatrician, and a quick search to find an all night pharmacy to get some children's benadryl (meanwhile I stuck him in an oatmeal bath to help the itch).  Then the benadryl and a hilarious 45min of non stop hyper chatter out of O (omg so freakin' funny...even if it was after midnight!) then he finally crashed and slept.  Then back to the doctor's to get the rash and ear checked again...a new antibiotic (which he is not allergic to, thankfully!), and his cough seems to be diminishing...so he is ::finally:: on the mend...from this cold.  'Tis the season...bah humbug.
And this morning, on his 6 month birthday, E woke up and decided that from the menu of options he would choose pink eye as his next medical ailment.
To top it all off, both Dave and I have finally succumbed to whatever it is O has been sick with (it was bound to happen given how many times we have been coughed on in the face over the past several weeks).
You know it's bad when the baby is getting the longest stretch of continuous sleep of anybody in the house. ;)  So, as much as I love my family, I gotta say, I'm happy we are not traveling anywhere for xmas this year, and that we don't have visitors descending on us for the holidays either.  It will give us a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep and relaxation!

Alright, illness saga aside, here is what else is going on.  First, E, here is what you are all about at 6 months (and I can't believe you are already 6  months old!!!  Time has flown by!!):
You. are. happy.  You are such a happy baby!  You are constantly smiling, and giggling.  You love to giggle!  And you are so ticklish (legs, belly, armpits, you name it!), even diaper changes elicit a belly chuckle from you!  You are also a very mellow baby.  You don't do much in the way of complaining...it's pretty awesome.
You are fascinated by your big brother and by the cats.  You could watch them all for hours I think.
You refuse to hang out on your back anymore.  The instant you are put down on the ground you roll to your belly...and then get stuck there as you can't seem to roll back over to your back.  Eventually you don't like this and complain about it, but you are happy to watch the goings on from your belly position for a while.  You have started sitting on your own a little bit...like 10 seconds or so at a time before you topple, so you still need either me or a pile of pillows to sit with.
You like to chat.  You especially like chatting while I feed you breakfast...it's like our morning coffee hour chat.  You giggle and chat away as I spoon all sorts of yummy stuff into that gaping maw of yours...because you are an amazing eater so far.  We started you on solids a little after 4 months and from day 1 you didn't do much spitting out of food.  You caught on right away.  You eat rice cereal, oatmeal, banana, apple, pear, avocado, squash/pumpkin, sweet potato, and peas so far.
You are also an amazing sleeper.  We feel insanely lucky about this.  You haven't been as good lately (as in the last few weeks) but I think that is due to illness combined with possible teething.  But generally you make it through the night without a feeding, sleeping 11-12 hours (from 7pm to 6-7am), usually requiring one to two paci reinserts somewhere in there (which I can hardly complain about...it's far better than getting up to feed you!).  This holds true for 5-6 nights out of the week.  The other nights you require a little more effort and a middle of the night feeding (I think they generally correspond to days you don't eat well during the day).  We have started putting you to bed unswaddled and you have been doing pretty well with that, but we usually end up reswaddling you during the paci reinsert.  You do love being swaddled!
But most of all, at 6 months, you are definitely part of this family.  I can't even think of what life was like before you were here.  Our family feels complete now that you are part of it too.  We love you so much, little E!

"wazzup, ladies?  I'm just chilaxin' in my infant tub"
This is where E hangs out while I do things like brush my teeth and wash my face, or shower...with no complaints.  Like I said, a mellow baby.  We don't even use this as a tub anymore...we just keep it around as a bathroom seat!

eyeing Owen

a little blurry, but a classic E happy face

O is a very loving big brother.  He always likes to make sure E is doing okay.

The weekend one week after T-giving (during our health high) we headed over to a cut-your-own-xmas-tree farm in Wisconsin to, well, cut our own xmas tree!  It was a decently warm day (only a couple degrees below freezing) and we picked ourselves out a winner!  It's name is Macbeth (they put a tag on and name the trees you can cut, so you can find it after they shake off loose needles and bail it up for you!  quite clever really)

bundled up for their "sleigh" ride

Dad doing the heavy lifting on the tree cutting

the trees look deceptively small out in the "wild".  This one is about 7.5 feet.  

sitting by the bonfire eating cold leftover pizza

look at those baby blues!

then of course we had to play in the snow in the backyard when we got home!

tree decorating.  O helped for about 10 minutes before he got bored.  But in that time managed to hang about 8 ornaments over a span of 3 branches...I did some rehanging after he went to bed.

"knock knock.  Hey, McFly, anybody home?"

This morning, O and I headed to the post office to send off the last of our xmas mail.  After we left this is what happened:
O: where are we going next?"
Me: home
O: No, I want to go somewhere
M: how about the grocery store?
O: no, not there
M: the library?
O: not there
M: really?! where then?
O: somewhere else...like the museum
M: ok, let's go to the museum with the big dog (this is the MIA, fyi)
O: hmmm...no, not there
M: do you want to go get lunch?
O: yes, but not at home
M: okay, we can go get lunch out.  Should we invite Dad and Elliot to join us, or just you and me?
O: no, let's just go you and me

aahhh...so nice! So we went and got lunch just the two of us.  It was pretty great!

his favourite part was definitely the giant class of chocolate milk!