chuckle monster

Owen would like to name his little brother Chuckle Monster. We are considering it, along with some other options.

Here are some pictures of Owen doing one of his favorite activities: "watering the mulch."

september evening

We are kitchenless during our remodel, and are grilling most of our meals (grilled chicken, quesadillas, pancakes, corn, pork...). And doing a little bit of take out. Wednesday night we did a picnic at the river park with the water fountain. Owen had a blast, and was very photogenic. He's grown up so much! At what point is he not allowed to play in his underwear in public anymore?

gramma and grandpa visit

We had a nice visit last weekend from Gramma and Grandpa Kumpf. We spent one day at the coast visiting seals and the Hatfield center. One day Richard, Todd and Dad spent hours sanding the wood trim in our house while we took the kids shopping. They made several trips to the various parks in Corvallis, and we all had a really fun time. They will be back at Thanksgiving for a long visit- by that time I will be much larger, and our house will be done.

fuzzy baby!

Owen is going to be a big brother. Fuzzy Baby is due Jan 1. This is his 20 week ultrasound. Fuzzy Baby was named at his 9 week ultrasound, where he looked like a fuzzy blob- unlike Owen who at 11 weeks had a clear head and nubber arms and legs which wiggled frantically- thus we named Owen "the Nubber" when he was a fetus. Fuzzy Baby lived up to his name at his 20 week ultrasound- his bits and pieces seemed obvious to the technician, but we could make out very little of them. The technician definitly saw boy parts, verifying Owen's belief all along that he would be getting a brother. This is the only picture we got of him- a bit more frightening than Owen's cute profile picture at 20 weeks. We suspect Fuzzy Baby will come into focus and get a proper name this holiday season.

Owen is very excited about becoming a big brother, most of the time. For a while, I think he thought that the baby was in his belly. Now it's pretty obvious that it's in my belly. He tells us the various things that he will be teaching the baby- like that he has to wear shoes upstairs because it is under construction. Hopefully that won't be the case by the time Fuzzy Baby wears shoes... Yesterday he was a little less sure about being a big brother, but I told him how special he would always be because he got to do everything first, like drive a car. So he is now very excited about driving Fuzzy Baby and Laurel to the coast to go to the aquarium.

As I mentioned, Owen has been sure all along that Fuzzy Baby is a boy- he looked at the 9 week blob picture and tried to show us how this clearly was a picture of a boy. Either Owen is lucky, or will be an excellent ultrasound technician one day.

he did it!

I was waiting to make sure that it wasn't a fluke, but it appears that our boy is now potty trained. He spent the week in underwear at school, without a single accident. He's been also wearing underwear to bed the past 2 nights. OK, that's not true- he's been going commando the past two nights. But without any accidents there either. We did a long shopping trip this afternoon, and Bad Mommy forgot to ask about potty's at the last store, but he held it till we got home. We are very proud of him.

the coast

We took a trip this weekend to the Oregon coast, where we spent Saturday night. We arrived in time for low tide and explored the tidepools below Yakina Head lighthouse, finding crabs, anemones and sea stars. Then we headed to the Hatfield Science Center to visit Jimmy the octopus. They have a Giant Pacific Octopus display- actually we saw Mia- 3 octopuses have been rotated out since Jimmy but Owen doesn't know that. We watched Mia eat a live crab for lunch. Then we spent some time at the Oregon Coast Aquarium before heading to our hotel for the night. Sunday was Valerie's 3rd birthday party, and today was Richard's birthday. We've eaten lots of cake so far this week.

Owen turns 3!

Last weekend we celebrated Owen's third birthday. With the work going on at our house, we didn't want to do anything too big. On Saturday, Owen had his two friends Andrew and Conner and their mom's over for playing and eating cupcakes. We gave him his first present before they came- a turtle sandbox- so that everyone could play with it. On Sunday we opened presents in the morning and played with them all day. We gave him a cement mixer and an excavator for his sandbox. From our families he was given lots of games, a new bear, some new clothes, a kid size digital camera, and lots of fun toys. We had our 3rd annual spaghetti and meatball birthday dinner, and then Laurel and Valerie's families came over for cake and ice cream. Later, Ken and Laura came over with Madeline and their newly adopted daughter Amelia- they had just gotten home from China earlier that week. All the kids took turns on Owen's new "sit and spin". It was a treat to have everyone over, and Owen had a wonderful time.