Happy T-giving!

We had an excellent turkey day here!  Elissa and Tor arrived Wednesday afternoon, and Owen and Tor spent some time playing together with some of my old toys on Thursday before people started arriving in the afternoon.

Tor is giving Owen some pointers on proper playing technique

Owen loves a car! He even makes car noises (motorboating) now
whenever he plays with one!

mmmm...little people are delicious!

The weather was nice in the morning (although turned to snow by late afternoon) so we spent some time outside crunching through the leaves as friends started arriving for t-giving celebrations at our house around noon.

Having fun in the leaf pile together...

and then Tor decided to ride Owen like a horse...

Harvesting spinach with Elissa

all bundled up with Anna!

And a 30 person thanksgiving dinner requires a large turkey - we started this 27lb monster at 9:30am...ready for dinner at 5!

Owen for scale...that bird is an Owen and a half!

and Lars

just a couple cute pics, and a shot of our amazing dinner on Tuesday...courtesy of our daycare providers!!  How awesome is that?!!?!?  They sent us home with homemade chicken in mole sauce for dinner...it was delicious!!  They really are a great couple we found to look after Owen!

tuckered out after a busy day playing

sippy!

delicious, delicious chicken in mole!!

oh yeah...and Lars is back!  He's in town doing some lab work for a couple weeks and staying at our place.  Elissa and Tor arrive on Wednesday in time for Thanksgiving!!  I can't wait to see them!!!! 

these are a few of his favourite things

I was digging through a box of toys in our basement that were mine and my brothers' as kids,which my parents drove down/over to us a number of years ago, and I discovered some real gems!  The shape sorters have been pulled out and dusted off from their 30 year rest and Owen loves them!

mmm...tastes like yellow!

obviously he doesn't quite yet grasp how to get the
shapes back inside...

Toy cars are also a big hit these days!

and this red solo cup has become a standard fixture in the milieu.

ready for the keg party

confusing him with a rousing version of "baby-one-card-monte" Look under the cup, Owen!

he also loves a seemingly never ending stream of motorboating

his forlorn look over at the stereo...an off limit favourite.

Fall cleanup

After a hearty breakfast of cottage cheese, applesauce and toast

we headed outside to prepare the garden for fall, plant the garlic, and rake leaves.  Owen had a great time tromping through the crunchy leaves and watching all the activity!

"hmmm....what does this do?"

"See Dad, I"m helping too!"

"What?  I'm not destroying your pile of nicely raked leaves..."

Crunchy!!!

Official 9 month stats

Well, at 9.75 months we finally had our 9 month appointment so here are the official growth stats:
length: 29.75" (95%)
weight: 18lb 4oz (25%)
head: 44.1cm (25%)
weight to length: still at the 5% - he's my little string bean!

Here are some highlights from the past week or so!

Owen is pulling himself up on everything these days!

but those darn slippery socks still land him
on his bum on occasion!

Owen continues to be enthralled with the kitties and chase them everywhere!

   I took this mostly to compare with the
bumbo pics when he was little.  He's grown so much!

But he has learned that the "baby back arch" is a
 key maneuver for escaping the bumbo prison

As you can see from the above pics, he's also become my duster.  Who needs to sweep the floor when you have a baby with static-y fleece pants crawling around?  (just kidding Mom...I still vaccuum).
On a side note, nice pants, eh?  (They were my recent sewing project - I also made a super cute pair of overalls...I'll try to get a pic soon!)

This is Owen's newest face!  It's so funny!  He uses when he is concentrating!

moisturizing is very important...

On Saturday we headed to Aaron and Allison's for a Halloween party.  Owen is in full stranger anxiety mode, and was not too happy if he got more than 2 feet from me...unless of course it was under his own power and he crawled his way across the room...then it was fine!

Little monkey!!

so sweet! with MJ and Greta - MJ takes such good care of him!

Owen in a box

Step one - put the box on the floor
Step two - let mammals crawl into the box

they'll get you with their devil eyes

museum fun!

It's MEA, (MN Education Association - conference for K-12 teachers...but for some reason, just 2 days off for college faculty!!) so I had a couple days off to hang out with my favourite little guy and for our rain day activity today we headed to the Children's Museum.  Last time we went was with Tor and Elissa before Owen was mobile, but now that he is crawling, it was a whole new world of activity for him!

"look Ma, two of me!"

"Is this thing on?"

Owen made a friend over by the bells

ah, the elusive Tree Beaver..."A Part of Our Heritage"

see those two lower chompers?