little lambs

Last weekend, Owen and Richard went to the OSU barn to see baby lambs. Zoie wasn't welcome, so she and I went for a hike. Owen loved seeing the lambs and had a lot of fun. He kept saying "baa, baa" for the rest of the day.

Owen turned 20 months this week. At his day care, I was told that he knows the names of all the kids in his class, and all the kids in the older class. They'll be transitioning him to the older class (2-3 year olds) in the next few months. He's very close with his current teacher, so it will be tough on him. But looking at him compared to the 12 month olds, he has grown so much! He didn't even walk when we moved here 8 months ago.

It's getting sunnier and warmer here now and we are spending more time in the yard. We did some weeding last weekend- well, actually, I did SOME weeding. Richard did a LOT of weeding. Owen was an excellent helper, and held a ladybug for the first time. Now he keeps pointing to his hand and saying "bug" and "outside." Richard also had him hold a worm and a slug. Boys.

Owen's been taking his stroller out on walks in the evenings. He looks very cute pushing the pink stroller down the sidewalk.

Two other new things for the week: Owen's been drinking from a cup all week, without the sippy lid. He's quite good at it, though you have to watch him because he likes to pour out whatever he doesn't want to drink... Also, Owen now has strong opinions on what he wants to wear. Yesterday and today

he vetoed the shirt we chose for him. Yesterday, Richard kept showing him shirts till he found one with frogs. Today Owen asked for his shark t-shirt while I was changing him- luckily it was clean. (He says shark, by the way, by pointing to the top of his head- his fin- and saying do-do do-do, as in the Jaws theme song.)

Cabin in the Woods

We spent last weekend in the Cascade mountains, at a cabin rented by my sister on Odell Lake. We only went for one night, since Owen still doesn't sleep well when we're not at home. There was 20" of base snow there, but it was warm and we didn't need to bundle up much to go hiking on the groomed trails. Owen loved the snow and sliding on the ice and jumping in mud puddles.

Zoie proved to have less sense than usual (maybe that's being too nice- less sense than we hoped?) and jumped into the frozen lake. She got out pretty quickly.

Owen got to sled for the first time. He and Richard had a blast.

Zoie proved herself useful as well.

Owen had a great time with his cousin Laurel. He even gave her a great big kiss. This was his reaction to the kissing.

catching up

Since starting this thing, I have yet to invite folks to read it, and I have yet to post pictures. So I'm going to use this post to get updated.

Owen's now almost 20 months, but I haven't done much picture sharing for a while, so I wanted to send this picture from his 18 month birthday. We made cupcakes, and he had 1 and a half candles. I don't know how he learned the word cupcake, but he definitly knows it now. He's a big fan.

A couple of weeks ago we counted the number of words Owen knows, and got up to 90. He seems to learn a new word almost every day now, so we've stopped counting. When he's very excited he speaks in detailed sentences, but doesn't actually use English. I hope to record one of these rants. He's good with naming animals and animal sounds, but not as good at colors yet. He knows pink, then assumes all other colors to be green or blue.

Owen got pieces of a train set for Christmas from his relatives. The train set seems to keep expanding and has it's own room in the house. But he loves it and asks to play with it every day- he calls it "choo choo" and makes the train whistle hand motion.

He also loves playing with balls- the blue one seen in the picture is one of his favorites, as well as Richard's exercise ball and smaller bouncy ones. He often asks for "bu ball". We are still not sure what bu is.

These are 2 more of Owen's favorite things- Bubba Bear and his little pink stroller. We got Bubba in Vermont in Christmas in 2005. They've been close ever since. "Bubba" was one of Owen's first words. He pushes Bubba or any other toy around in the pink stroller- around the house or on the street. He's very cute pushing it around.