11 Months Old!

Owen's had a big and busy month! He went from army crawling to full-on crawling to pulling up to kneel to pulling up to stand to cruising along holding on to the furniture. All this movement has encouraged us to double our efforts to childproof since this kiddo gets into things that Brennan would never have dreamed of! He loves to give high-fives and blow raspberries. His happy shrieks frequently fill the air (I think he likes to feel like he's contributing to the noise and general chaos of the house!). What a joy he is!

Three Years

We rolled into Richmond three years ago today. Has it really been that long already??? John drove the gigantic Penske moving truck with all our worldly possessions for 14+ hours. I got to travel with an infant (whom I was also nursing at the time!) and a cranky cat who didn't like being in the car. But it's been a good fit and we've certainly loved our time here!

Two cute boys

Owen is quite mobile now, crawling everywhere, pulling himself up and scooting around. It's super cute to watch him discover new things and interact with the world around him. It creates some extra work for us ... putting books back on the shelves, turning off things he's turned on, plugging the phone back in, etc. Baby-proofing items only go so far.


He's a happy boy who loves to smile, blow raspberries and give high-fives. At the dinner table he likes to cock his head to one side and smile at us. He laughs when I mimic him. He's enjoying finger foods like tiny pieces of grape, cheese and bread. He has good gums for smushing things and one little tooth coming in to help with the "hard stuff"! If you look closely at the photo below you can see the top of his first little "tooth-um" (as Naomi likes to call it).


From the photo below you can see that Brennan wants to have a goatee like his father. Brennan is having a hard time embracing the responsibility that comes with being a big brother, but has super cute moments that off-set the trying times. Most of those moments have to do with things he says, like:

Take me away! (when he's being sent to time-out),
Owen Nathanael! (when Owen is doing something he doesn't like; he picked this up from Naomi)
Pillow fight, Dada? (when he wants to wrestle on the bed)
Can I come with you? (sometimes, when I'm going out somewhere)
Family time! (when we're eating dinner or all together somewhere)

Each day he becomes less like a toddler and more like a little man. Some days that transition happens just a little bit too fast. Sigh.

Close Up

These are just because I can't get enough of his big blue eyes or his chubby little cheeks...

Workbook

We are pretty well decided on postponing preschool for Brennan until the year before he starts kindergarten, mostly from a financial perspective than any other. With this decision firmly in place, I still want Brennan to get some sort of practice doing "school". I found a great workbook at Borders from Kumon that focuses on tracing, letting him practice drawing different lines. He loves getting the chance to do his workbook and has definitely been improving with some practice. I'm already looking forward to seeing how he does with some of the other workbooks once he has this first one down as the foundation!

Breaking Ground

After sitting on thoughts of planting a garden for a year (spring was little interrupted last year by Owen bursting on the scene), we finally got to realize the goal this year. Borrowing a tiller from some friends, we broke ground this morning and are getting excited to get some seeds in the ground. Thoughts of a bountiful harvest kept us going through some definitely heavy labor this morning!

Determination

In our house, having the computer in the living room is a necessity based on space. Normally, it works quite well. And then...Owen started crawling. There's something about the bright, glowing buttons and legions of cords that is irresistible to the younger set. We set up a portion of a gate to try to keep him away from this area of our living room, but he quickly figured out how to thwart it. Then it was time for plan B: stick a rolled up Sports Illustrated through the gate slats to help prevent him from pushing the gate aside. It's worked. But the little turkey is still determined to defeat the gate. He's now figured out that the magazine is preventing him from pushing the gate aside so he's using every ounce of determination to try to pull or push the magazine out so he can reach his forbidden goal. Gotta admire his persistence!