First Haircut

Okay, so that "first haircut" sticker was one we never had to use in Owen's "Baby's First Year" calendar. He was still pretty bald at that first birthday, but that soft, blond, wispy baby hair finally started growing in. I was hoping to postpone the haircut a while longer, but I had three people at the park last week ask me how old my DAUGHTER was*. Time for the clippers!!

We expected Owen to be a pretty tough client - squirmy, squirmy. We used my parents old trick of putting the toys out on the tray, but we didn't need them. Owen did SOOOO well! He sat still and was pretty interested in the whole thing. Now, I realized all these years of Scott cutting his own hair (seriously!) paid off for two reasons: 1) Owen has seen and watched the clippers in action, so getting his own haircut was "cool," and 2) Scott's really good at cutting hair! Owen's cut looks awesome except for the couple places that I tried to help. Oops! Scott's in charge from now on.

Most recent BEFORE shot.


Cutting team in action.

The final product.
He looks like such a little boy now. No more baby!

*We're pretty sure the comments had more to do with Owen's purple sweatshirt (Husky gear!) than the hair hanging over the collar, but the comments were motivating none the less.

Expanding the palatte

Happy Thanksgiving!
We're enjoying a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. Scott's parents came down to stay with us and provide the much needed expertise in the kitchen. Since there would only be a few of us in the "family" category, we expanded our table by adding friends. Diana, Shannon, Brian, and baby Ben were wonderful additions to our day of celebration. The meal was great - salad, turkey, mashed potatoes, gallons of gravy, cranberries, mounds of stuffing, mashed squash, root veggie medley, rolls, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin cheesecake. Needless to say, we've had plenty of leftovers to keep us fed all weekend. Of course, we got thai take-out last night to get some other spices in the palatte. =)

Owen ate none of the dinner - much too distracted. I, on the other hand, have found a lot more on the thanksgiving table to enjoy. Both Scott and I have realized that we really enjoy squash (and pumpkin) and root veggies, since I started cooking a lot of those as purees last year for Owen. Go figure - the 9 month old baby adds new veggies to our diet. Also, as a kid, I never liked stuffing. I think I was afraid of it - not quite sure what was in those mounds of food. Now that I've seen it made...different story! Soooo good. Bread, bacon, apples, onion, celery, herbs, herbs, herbs. Heck, add some chicken and it could be a main dish in our house.

Hope you all are enjoying family and friends and counting your blessings this weekend. I know we are.

Rough and Tumble

Between our rough and tumble kid and his dad, I knew there would be lots of roughhousing in our future. I just didn't know it would be in full swing before Owen was 18 months old. Or that I would be a full participant. =) These days, when we're sitting on the floor, Owen gets this little twinkle in his eye and will come toddling over.
He throws all of 22.5 pounds against the closest shoulder and gets a huge kick out of it when we fall to the ground. Seems like we're having nightly wrestling sessions... with lots of shrieks and giggles. Bring it on.

Other current favorites:
Ring around the Rosey - especially the falling down part.
Turning circles - Owen has just figured out how to spin around on his own, but gets really confused why he can't walk straight after a few spins. Hilarious.

Want, Need, Wear, Read

So I know Thanksgiving is still a week away, but we've been doing some Christmas planning around our house. This year, we're embracing a new gift giving agenda in our little family. This isn't an idea for emphasizing "the true meaning of Christmas," which is, of course, of significant importance. Rather, this is just a new way of selecting gifts for one another. Until now, Scott and I have always set a dollar limit and then each purchased for the other one within that limit. It works fine, but results in us focusing on "maximum bang for the buck" instead of thoughtfully selecting the gifts we truly want to give.

Here's the new plan. Each of us will receive four gifts. One under each of the following categories:
Want
Need
Wear
Read

Four categories. Four gifts. Each with a fancy tag stating the category. For example, Owen's "wear" this year will probably be snow pants and mittens and his "read" will be a book of trucks. His "need" could be new sippy cups or bath towels. Still fun gifts, but hopefully this will help us keep things reigned in both now and down the road. We still have to work out what this means for Santa. He'll probably fill the stockings and leave one significant "Santa Gift."

For now, I'm excited to shop with these ideas in mind. It changes your gift buying perspective to brainstorm, "What would Scott like to read?" Instead of "What would Scott like that costs $27 because that's how much money I have left in the pot."

We'll see how it goes.

P.S. This is one of those ideas that I pilfered from the blog of a friend of a friend of a friend. At this point, I have no idea where I found the idea, so how about a big shout out all those blogging mamas who are posting great ideas for the world to read. Here's one mom's blog that's doing this and even has gift tags you can purchase.

Simple Joy

Every once in a while, I experience one of those rare moments where the sweet joy of motherhood shines through. You would think those moments would show up at significant times, but really, they are usually during the most insignificant of events. On Saturday, we were playing out in the front yard. Owen was chasing the cat and tumbling around in the lawn. When he stood up some of the grass was sticking to his hands. He looked around and immediately toddled over to me, hand extended, knowing mom would fix it. A quick brush off, a delighted smile, he was back on his way, and my heart was enjoying the sweet joy of being a hero to my kiddo.

It's the little things...

From Jon and Kate Plus 8: "This may not be a glamorous job, but it is VERY rewarding."

Running Tired

I've had a lot of people see Owen lately and say, "Oh my gosh, he's running." Sure enough. The kiddo is motoring all over the place. Scott captured this quick video of him doing one of his favorite new activities - running through the house and diving into the little tent we have set up in the corner. He could do this 8 or 10 times in a row and then promptly hit the bedtime wall. Why is it that kids get that burst of energy right before bed?

We wanted to get a video up for the grandparents to enjoy...

Halloween Fish

Happy Halloween!

Kids costumes can be so cute, so creative, and so time consuming and/or expensive for the 2 hours they're going to wear them. Thankfully, with all the kids in Bend, you can get great costumes at the resale stores. We were even luckier to borrow this fantastic fish costume from our friend, Diana. Scott asked if we can just be on Diana's hand-me-down list every year, and I said, "Only until Penelope turns 4 and decides she wants to dress like a princess..."

I now present, Owen the fish:


We met some friends at our outdoor mall to trick-or-treat through the stores. A pumpkin, tiger, german boy (authentic leaderhosen), fish, and purple dinosaur made quite the group strolling from store to store.


The shops were encouraged to hand out things OTHER than candy - stickers, pencils, glow in the dark snakes, etc - so we only got a few pieces. At one point, Owen was checking out a tootsie roll (great texture for teething) and before I knew it, he had eaten the whole thing - including the wrapper! Yum. As expected, the costumes got old after a while, so Owen spent the last 1/2 hour walking around like this...

At leas the hat has ears.