Updates

Don't bother me, I'm working

• new words: bye bye, up, shoes, shirt, bus, ta da, all done
• loves to color
• when he finds something he is excited about, he says, 'ooooo hooo', (sounds like woo hoo)
• plays peek-a-boo by covering his own eyes now
• spinning around and around, well more like just turning around while giggling hysterically - it makes me dizzy just watching!
• talking on the phone - he will take our phones and lean his head over, so he's holding the phone between his head and his shoulder - and chats away
• first full day of Nursery at church and he did awesome!
• walking on tip toes
• lining up toys, especially on the windowsills; I find stashes of hot wheels cars sitting on the sills behind most of the curtains at every window he can reach
• galloping
• super chatty during books, laughing, talking, clapping, and starting to name stuff he recognizes, or pointing to what I ask
• pretend play with Fisher Price stuff - pretending to walk the people in and out of the house, slide off the roof, sit in the chairs inside, etc. I realize that maybe this is a nerdy exciting milestone for the speech therapist in me, but I love it!

Creating a masterpiece

First official creation

The Big Trip

A door just my size

We went to Montana, east of Glacier, to visit with Ariene and Johan over 4th of July. We packed lots of fun toys and of course the iPad for Cat and the Hat in the car. Owen is not a huge fan of road trips, but we tried to time it so that he would fall asleep about 3 hours in, right after a stop for lunch and some time to run around. We thought by the time he woke up, we could do another outside play and be good to go. But.... no such luck. Road construction and back roads (mapquest let me down on the 'fastest route') meant a lot of sit and wait, which made Owen think it must be time to get out. When we reached Flathead Lake, we found a small town with a boat launch and since the beach/playground had a big sign that said tribal members only, our only choice was to use the boat launch area. It was cold and windy near the lake, but Owen thought the waves lapping at the shore were pretty funny. Back in the car he only slept an hour and our next attempt at finding a spot turned out to be somewhat disastrous with a small town's version of Chuck E. Cheese having only a super dark corner aka Creepsville for little kids. I switched to the back and we played every game we have for him on the iPad to make it through to Cut Bank. Poor little guy. Cut Bank is only about 1 1/2 hours south of Lethbridge, and with the wind and big banks cut out along the way into town, I felt like I was in Alberta. It was so beautiful there, I forgot how big the sky looks when you can see over the fields for miles. Barbara and Klaus, Johan's parents, totally spoiled us while we were there. I didn't have to make a meal and Owen had so many fun people to play with! Johan and Todd treated us to a fireworks display at the house on the 4th; the lighting of the fireworks struck some terror in my heart, but they were beautiful; and on the 5th, Ariene and I drove to Great Falls for a girls shopping day. It was a two hour drive so we had lots of time to talk, fun shopping, and the best part, a throwback to BYU/Provo times by eating at Cafe Rio! Yum-o!

On the drive home, we took the freeway, which was supposedly the long way, but soooo much easier on Owen. We found a cute town just off the freeway to stop for lunch and Owen played at the school playground for over an hour. Even with the hour stop, we made it home faster than the other way. It was so good to visit with them and Owen was the road trip champ on the way home. A little Cat in the Hat and Smart Food popcorn (kernels removed by Mama first) and he was pretty content!