Summer begins!

It's been a weird summer weather-wise.  One day it will break 80 degrees, the next won't get to 60, and in between the wind is blowing too hard to feel much above 70, so it's been hard to really get out and enjoy "summer" as in bathing suits and popsicles.  Though it's been pretty good for sitting outside and gardening!  


Here are our first strawberries of the year.   Owen has been excited to find the red ones, since that's what we told him we could pick.  I love these plants, because they don't require one ounce of effort to come back year after year, and they are very productive!

It did warm up to the mid-70s and sunny skies last week, so we went and checked out the splash pad a couple of towns away.  Owen had a great time with all of his friends and really didn't want to leave!  He had a much better time than last year!  They need to put one of these in our town, seriously.

Owen and Everest had so much fun screaming when the huge bucket up top dropped its contents with a great whooshing sound.  I don't think they were getting wet, but they were squealing like little girls and running off before returning anyway.  :)

Looks like a water fountain, no?

And of course, lots of fun with Carson splashing in the water spouts despite the chilly water.

He also adored the adjacent carousel, and threw a fit after his first ride was through.  We had to do one more ride just before we got back in the car to head home, but he was so tired, he was pretty much sliding off the horse.  Needless to say, he fell asleep in the car about 10 minutes later!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!  We had a pretty good time here celebrating with good food, nice weather, and presents.  I don't think Owen really grasped the whole "it's Daddy's day" concept, but he enjoyed helping John open presents, especially the remote-controlled helicopter, and was pretty well-behaved all day.

It just cracks us up when he does this.  He's reading the comics from the Sunday paper at the table after breakfast - totally unprovoked and with a very serious look on his face!  He is, after all, closer now to being 3 than to being 2!

I didn't really get a posed father-son picture for the occasion, but I like this one from a few days ago after playing in the sprinkler.  Owen's holding on tight to his horsey for a ride back to the house.  He loves his Daddy!!!

And, lastly, a belly update on the missing piece of our little family.  I'm nearly 36 weeks along, which is when Owen decided to join us, so it could be any day now!  Let's hope it's right between 37-38 weeks, since I feel stretched like a balloon these days, and sleep is hard to come by already.  One of Owen's little playmates actually asked me if I had a ball in my shirt!  Ha ha - I love it.  :)

I'm With the Band

So we know that he likes dancing to music, but now he's added singing, guitar, and drums to the mix.  Obviously, the singing will be more impressive once he knows all the words to a song, but I think he's got the charisma of a future lead singer.  :)  The guitar is something we like to call "Bo-tar", since his guitar is currently his pillow (named Bo).  We didn't get the drum playing in this video, but he's actually pretty good with sticks on one of his friend's little 3-drum set.  And he loves drumming on the table with his hands, complete with a little cymbal "psst" at the end.

Toddler games

I think I mentioned it before, but Owen likes to request certain clothes when I'm in his closet.  This can be really frustrating when he's being stubborn, and the particular item is in the dirty clothes basket!  But it makes him really happy for the rest of the day, and he'll even tell strangers that "I'm wearing my ___ shirt!"  His number one requests are his car shirt, moose shirt, and Mater pajamas (Thanks Aunt Jenn!).  Here's a picture of the last one:

He loves his friends!  If I can tell him that Carson and Jacob will be somewhere, it makes for a very persuasive argument for us to be there, too.

I just thought this picture of him playing on a slide at a local gym with his friends was pretty cute.  (He's waiting at the top in white.)  They went up and down the slide for probably 20 minutes in an endless loop, until Owen tripped and cut his lip. :(

Lastly, it was warm enough one day last week to break out a new water toy I got for him.  It's a plastic tube with wiggly arms that fixes to the end of the water hose.  He had so much fun, even though it wasn't a very hot day, the wind was blowing, and the water out of the tap was pretty chilly!  He was squealing pretty much the whole time, as you can tell from the video.  I'm sure we'll have much more fun with this as the temperatures rise in July/August!