Merry Christmas!

It has been a busy Christmas week around here!  Uncle Greg and Auntie Kate came from Vancouver to spend Christmas with us...and we had lots of fun!!  We started our week off with an early Christmas dinner on Saturday at Brian and Tiffany's...which of course came complete with Christmas crackers and the requisite crowns...and Owen's second annual Christmas ear infection (hence the paci in the photo - which he is not usually allowed except when asleep...or whiny-ly sick)

playing with his new Christmas cracker car with Uncle Greg...in crowns.

bedtime stories with Auntie Kate - crowns optional

Some playtime around the house and trips to the Mall of America and the MIA completed our days leading up to Christmas.  Yup, we went to the MOA 2 days before Christmas...we are crazy!  To be fair, we mostly visited the aquarium there.

Learning his provinces

fitting in the final piece!

garden eels!

post aquarium photo opp in the maw of the beast!

mmm...burritos!

sharing his morning sippy with Edgrrr the Tiger...whom he cannot go anywhere without these days!

 Christmas eve we had friends over for some appetizers and back bacon - which for you 'mericans out there is REAL Canadian Bacon...not to be confused with the weird impostor they put on Hawaiian pizza.  In Canada, you can buy it, in the US you can import it for a hefty fee...or you can do like I did and make your own!  Which involves several days of brining a pork loin...and it was well worth it!  It was delicious!!

This is the only picture I managed to get from Xmas eve...I think mostly because Owen was not in his finest form - note the stickers on his shirt, those are courtesy of the Target walk in clinic earlier in the day - turns out Xmas eve was the height of his ear infection (just like last year!) and doctor's aren't really open on Xmas eve, so walk in clinic it was at 2 in the afternoon.  I gotta say, I'm not holding out any hope for an ear infection free Xmas next year...

this was early in the evening when he was still happy to be sharing his little chairs with Greta

Christmas morning we got up and opened the cavalcade of gifts...99% of which were for Owen.  His Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles certainly spoil him!  And he loved all of it!!

What are you so entranced by, Owen?

ah, yule log!!  I totally understand...

sitting in his new booster seat with his new panda before the full onslaught of gift opening.

John Deere tool belt with hat and saxophone...very "country meets city chic"

colouring...with is hat

riding the tractor with Edgrr...in his hat.  The hat has not left his head except to go outside or to sleep since he got it!

An Owen favourite, as always, were the books he got!  

Despite the ear infection (which he has now recovered from), it was a great Christmas and we had a wonderful visit with Greg and Kate.  We hope everyone had a great Christmas as well, and a happy new year!

Holidazzle

On Saturday we headed downtown to have a bite to eat at a pub on the holidazzle route (xmas light parade put on annually in downtown Mpls).  Then we headed out to watch the parade!

chowing down on a burger and sweet potato fries.  "This is not my best angle Mom!"

joining the throngs of people along Nicollet mall

anxiously awaiting the parade!

post parade warm up in front of the giant fireplace at the Hyatt

the bus ride to and from downtown was arguably Owen's
favourite part of the whole thing...this kid loves himself a bus!

'Tis the Season

for decorating a Christmas tree!  We decorated the house, and the tree on Saturday.  Owen was pretty excited to put ornaments on our tiny little tree (we opted to go with a tiny tree this year and when O is a bit bigger next year and understands better what is happening - and can reach higher on the tree - we'll make the transition back to a big tree).

decorating our ghetto tree

"why aren't my mittens connected with a string?"

Maurice, the French Canadian Christmas Moose as our tree topper

Happy Thanksgiving!

As usual, we had a big thanksgiving feast here yesterday...which was great fun and excellent food as always! We were down from a record 29 last year to a "measly" 19 this year...much more manageable, although still chaotic at times!  We miss the friends who have moved away since last year, but hope they had a wonderful thanksgiving where they are now!

It was finally time to admit Owen had outgrown the old sock monkey toque, so here is the debut of the new sock monkey toque a couple weeks ago.

building a coaster tent for his little people pre T-giving mania

ready to head out for our Black Friday activity...the MIA!  Far better than dealing with crazed shoppers!

If you're going to San Francisco....

be sure to visit some much missed friends there...

We headed to San Fran (well, actually Newark - suburb on the east bay) over this past weekend to visit our close, and much missed, friends Lars and Elissa, while we could still get a free flight for Owen and before they move even farther away to Oxford!  We had an amazing trip...a nice mini vacation...and Owen had a great time playing with Tor (who is almost exactly a year older than him) and Dendro (the dog) and meeting the new baby, Col.

Water painting on the wall outside was a big hit!  It also prompted Owen's first 3 word sentence of "No puppy agua" when Dendro tried to sneak a drink out of the painting water bucket.  Owen would randomly turn around and repeat this periodically throughout his painting, even if Dendro wasn't around...just to make sure.

this quickly devolved into them just dumping the water out
(mostly on themselves) and asking for more

jumping practice off the hearth

 Owen had a great time playing with Tor - it was a like a little glimpse of what his days must be like at daycare playing all day with other kids!

elephants make the best tractor drivers

stuck on an endless loop of "Livin' la Vida Loca"
Why Ricky?!? Why?!?!

this was much better music

hay bale jumping at the local farm

riding the train - pulled by a horse!  Which has prompted O's favourite new word...
although he's gone a bit french with it pronouncing it 'orse

duck train!

"That's a good one, Tor!"

Happy Halloween!

We started off a week of Halloween fun by going to a Halloween party at a nearby community center...which mostly consisted of Owen insisting we go outside to the playground.  We also did some leaf raking...which was a big hit!

so soft

milk break!

O also insisted we bring Bear outside to ride in the wagon with him.

hugs!

Bear doubles as a cuddly wagon pillow

For the main attraction we headed over to do some trick or treating with MJ and Greta.  Owen was super excited chasing after MJ down the sidewalk and following her up to porch stairs to the front doors...but that was where he lost the whole concept of the evening.  He never stayed long enough to actually get candy, instead he would wave and say "bye-bye" to the person at the door, turn around and head back down the stairs.  Pretty funny, and in the end probably good seeing as it's not like he would be eating the candy anyway, and I don't need to eat a whole bag of candy!

Aptly dressed as a fox!

Greta doing the chicken dance in the background

Ready for house #1!

It was a lot of fun heading out to trick or treat with Owen, I'm already looking forward to next year!

weekends of fun!

Last weekend D was out of town on a boys camping trip for our friend Joe's bachelor party.  So O and I took the opportunity to hang out with the other "single Mom for the weekend" and his little friends MJ and G.
We headed to the Grand Harvest - a little celebration of the fall harvest that Grand Ave in St Paul puts on.  Which for our purposes really consisted of time spent at the petting zoo.  He kept mooing at the goats...clearly we need to work on our barnyard animal recognition some more!

giggling madly as the goats ate from his bowl of goat-feed

The next day we again met up with MJ And G at the Children's museum.  Where they had a new exhibit that consisted of all things craft.  Owen spent a fair bit of time drawing and gluing, but also really loved the little room that was painted completely white and the kids "coloured" it with coloured tape.

 And of course, a museum favourite, the replica city bus.

the patient passenger

driving this will take 2 people I think...another for the pedals

"BEEP! Outta my way!"

He and MJ were very cute walking back through the skyway to the cars post museum!

This weekend we travelled to Menominie, WI for our good friends' Joe and Anna's wedding.  Owen was looking pretty dapper in his argyle sweater vest courtesy of his Great Auntie Mich.  Thanks Auntie Mich!

best dressed toddler in the houz!

hitting nap time and lookin' it!

 A little afternoon walk and play on Sunday rounded out the last of our weekend.

"fenced in...don't these people trust me?!"

having fun with the "selfie" function of the cell phone camera