Thankful for friends

Being far from who and what we know, we are thankful this year for the friends we have made in this new locale.  We'll be eating Thanksgiving with a couple of those families and merging Thanksgiving foods/traditions from all over the country.  I love this time of year!!


Since we've been on house arrest last week from illness, and the weather is keeping us indoors when we're not sick, let's take a look back at sunnier times.  Most of these pics are of Owen and friends.


September playground
Not sure what they are doing in this picture, but it probably involves throwing dirt on the slide.  One of their favorite pastimes!

These 3 (Carson, Owen, and Jacob) are good buddies and like to do whatever the other ones are doing.

Again the 3 boys, this time being supervised by Kenzie, who has a calming influence on them.  :)

Different playground, but still fascinated by the ground material.  At least they are playing cooperatively!

At the gym
This is how Owen spends most of the hour during my stroller bootcamp class, pushing a garbage can around the perimeter of the gymnasium.  Although we joke about this being a sign of his future career interests, I'm pretty sure if the benches had wheels, he'd be rolling them around too.  :)  Here he gets some help from Carson.

The gymnasium also has some racquetball courts adjacent to it.  The protruding glass walls have been a source of amusement for the boys who make smushy faces to each other, sometimes at the same time from opposite sides of the glass!  Wish I had caught a picture of that!

Sporting Event
Football is a little less prominent here.  We did make it down to Pocatello to watch an Idaho State vs. Montana game with a few of our friends though.  Here Carson and Owen are playing with a mini football at the tailgate.

Indoors
I'm sure this is what the next few months will look like.  When one of us opens a book to read, all 3 boys flock to it like pigeons on breadcrumbs.  

And lastly, a little bear says hello.  Does he look familiar?

23 months

So close to the big 2!  Unfortunately, he seems to have a bit of the croup this week.  It's been making the rounds in the playgroup, so that's my best guess.  Hopefully, it's a short stay!

New notable words include: "outs" - ouch, "buhbuhl" - bubble, "cohme" - corn, "candy", "bus", "coh" - cold, "puckin" - pumpkin, "kies" - cookie (Fig Newton), "boot", "bowl", "hello" - phone, "house", "home", "go", "pocket", "buhball" - football, "down", "Carson", "button", "pah-yi" - potty, "bucket", "moom" - moon, "poom" - spoon, "up"


New activities:

• It's not new, but one day I got a few pictures of him smushing his face up against the glass doors. :)

•  running very fast from one side of the room to the other, usually prompting himself by shouting "Go!" and sometimes wearing the frisbee on his head like a halo while doing laps around the living room

• pulling on your hand to get you out of your seat so you can chase him around said laps, sometimes while you are wearing the halo
• sharing food and toys with friends (depending on the situation, of course!)
• getting more proficient feeding himself with a spoon (more solid stuff like oatmeal makes it easier on mom)
• one of the local gymnastics places has a Toddler Open Gym time where they have free run of the place.  Although he loves to watch other kids when it gets crowded, he definitely had a good time running and jumping into the foam pit.

Sweater weather

Just a few pictures from the last week, starting with one of my boys.

One day, Owen and I killed an hour or so at the mall when I just needed to get out of the house!  He was really drawn to the mannequins in one of the stores, particularly the child-sized ones (and dog!).  I think that was probably his first encounter with fake people.  :)  He's in the foreground, middle (kind of blends in).

And lastly, it snowed all weekend here.  Not much though, and it wasn't bitter cold, so it didn't really accumulate.  Today it started to melt and is mostly gone, but Owen liked stomping through what was left!  The gloves are one-size-fits-all-kids, but you can see they are still huge.

Halloween Hullabaloo

It's finally over, and I must say I'm glad.  We've been celebrating since Friday, so I was over it by the time the actual day rolled around.  Lessons learned*: 1) Avoid headpieces, unless they are attached to the rest of the costume.  2) Do not give lollipops to satiate a grumpy toddler, since pink slobber tends to stick on everything; try "cleaner" candy, a la Sweetarts, or no candy at all (not sure how to do that once candy is spotted). 3) Select only one or two festivities to attend, preferably the least popular ones.  More on the lessons below.  Now to the pictures, starting with his free Scary Face Pancake!

Mom's group Halloween party - beautiful day for a bouncy house, 2 weeks before Halloween

Kindermusik Dress-up day - Friday morning, he seemed to be more receptive to wearing the ears when all the other kids had their ears on, too.

Trick or Treat Street - Friday afternoon, we waited for about 20 minutes before deciding that the line wasn't moving fast enough.  Another friend near us waited for 2 hours to get in!  Are you kidding me?  We got some warm drinks from the coffee shop and let the boys (Jacob the tiger, Owen the Ewok, and Carson the lion) run around the grassy field next to the line.  It was good enough for them this year!  :)

Boo at the Zoo - Saturday evening, very crowded, but manageable.  Owen had just woken up from a late nap and was a little lethargic.  He did like the wandering giraffe though!  And this is where he started to understand that people would put candy in his bucket.  They had lights and decorations all over the zoo, but it's probably more impressive in the dark.

Stroller Bootcamp class - Monday morning, all the kids got dressed up and the moms had to run back and forth to deliver their candy piece by piece.  Owen also was more apt to keep his ears on if he was distracted by candy.  He's at the left end below.

Library Parade - Monday morning, didn't get any good pictures from the parade because I was chasing after Owen too much, but the librarians did do some stories and songs to start out.  Then the kids paraded all around the library picking up candy from costumed librarians.  About halfway though, he cut in front of 5 families, put his bucket down in front of the candy-giver with his hand out, and took off for the next one once he had candy in hand, leaving his bucket behind.  Terms like patience and stay here don't really mesh well with the Under 2 crowd when candy is involved.  

Trick or Treating - Monday night, Mom was done, but Dad was nice enough to take Owen up and down the street where he apparently got the whole routine down pretty well!  The skeleton PJs were a back-up under his Ewok costume.  After his trip down the block, he was a pretty good assistant handing out candy to other kids and telling them "buh-bye" as he shut the door.  His face lit up every time another group of kids showed up.  I think he liked Halloween!

*1) Although it was nice to get lots of use out of his costume, it was pretty exhausting to trudge around to the various events this town has set up for the kids.  Half of the effort was probably attributed to me continually trying to get him to wear his "ears".  He would keep them on for about 30 seconds at a time before ripping them off and handing them back to me.  It would have been nice if his costume was more recognizable sans ears.  


*2&3) He was grumpy because all of the events were overcrowded, chaotic, and thus slow.