Utah Trip-Part 2

My family got together for a swimming party and FHE while we were in Utah. We went to Veterans pool in Provo. I really do love this place. It is fun and cheap. Owen loved playing in the water, but he was more interested in crawling out of the water to find things to chew on. After the pool we had pizza at the park and had a mini family home evening. It was a good evening and so fun to play with all the cousins. I don't have any pictures, so you will just to imagine how fun it was! After the party I went to visit my brother Dan and his family who live in Santaquin. It was fun to see all the kids and for Owen to hang out with his cousins. Here are a few pictures of our visit.

Owen and Nathan bonding in their booster seats

We went to this pond to feed the ducks. Some of those ducks where VERY aggressive. I thought they were going to peck us to death.

This is what Owen was doing for a lot of the time. I guess he was bored by the crazy ducks.

Cute boy

Nathan and Owen again in their pj's

After a couple of days we went back to Oakley to spend more time with Grandpa and Grandma Morgan and to wait until Brent got into town. Owen meet so many new people and faces that after 9 days of not seeing his Dad, he cried and wouldn't let me leave the room without him. It took him a couple of days, but he eventually remembered that Brent was his Dad.

Playing with Grandpa

More playing

Owen with his new cousin Cannon. Not the best picture of Cannon, but this was the best I could get before Owen tried to claw Cannon's eyes out.

The day after Brent got to Utah we headed down to Provo to watch BYU's practice scrimmage. Owen didn't think it was the greatest fun, but his Dad sure did.

Clark Family Reunion

We had a great time at the Clark family reunion. It was camping in Fish Lake national forest. It rained the day and a half, but after that it cleared up and was beautiful. We had fun eating good food and hanging out with the fam. Here are a few pictures of what we did.

This picture is actually before the reunion while we were visiting Rodney and Julie, but I didn't know where to put it in. He loves playing with balls.

Just hanging out

Owen spent a lot of time in the his cousins exersaucer since he didn't really have anywhere else to go.

We played minute to win it games. Brent pretty much rocked the ones he did. One of my favorite things we did at the reunion.

Cowboy quartet. Not sure how much background I want to give on this but all I can say is that it was hilarious. Brent and his three brothers got "talked" into doing an reenactment of a skit that their mom put together for one of there family reunions years ago. All of the guys dressed up as cowboys and did a little dance while the kids sang a song.

I think the best part of the whole thing was watching them all walk out. They could barely walk since there pants were so small.

We went on a hike to a little waterfall. It was very pretty, but Brent was making me really nervous walking around on slick ground with Owen on his back.

Playing at the stream

Owen loved when Brent finally let him sit on the ground and play with all the grass.

Sweet Boy

Playing in the grass with his spoon

We had a fun time, it wasn't the greatest time for Owen since he couldn't get down and crawl and he got an ear infection right before we went camping. Needless to say he didn't sleep very well and neither did the rest of the camp, since everyone else could hear him crying the entire night. But other than that we had a good time and enjoyed spending time with the Clarks.

10 Months

There will be more about our vacation to Utah later this week. I am still trying to round up some pictures taken on other cameras because I of course was too lazy to pull mine out. In the mean time I thought I would write Owen's monthly update. I feel like Owen has grown up quite a bit in just one month. He seems so much like a little kid and not a baby any more. Here are a few updates about Owen.

• He loves the dishwasher. He will drop whatever he is playing with and crawl as fast as he can to climb up and take anything he can out of the dishwasher.
• He learned to do the sign for "please" this month. He gets it confused with waving. We will ask him to say "please" and he will start waving. Or we will ask him to say "hi" and he will sign "please." One morning Brent went in to get him when he woke up and he was just sitting there in his crib signing "please" over and over again. I guess he wanted out of the crib!
• He can actually play with toys now. He will play in the corner with a bunch of toys for 15-20 minutes. It is so nice. Hopefully, he can start getting better at entertaining himself. He especially loves to play with balls. He tries to throw it up like I do and usually just ends up throwing it over his shoulder.
• He has started shaking his head "NO". He usually does it when he knows we don't want him to do something. For example the other day during Sunday school he starting crawling up towards the podium and while he was crawling he was shaking his head back and forth. He also does it a lot when I am feeding him something he doesn't want to eat and he starts spitting. I guess he has heard us say, "Owen, No!" while shaking our head no that he thinks that is what he should do.
• He loves to play the piano or the keyboard and push all the buttons. He also loves to suck on the piano pedal.
• He has started walking with his walker. He loves it. He isn't very good about steering it, so I usually have to help him turn the corners and avoid running into objects.
• He took a 1 and a half steps while we were in Utah, but has only taken one step since then. He really doesn't seem very motivated to walk.
• He loves to wave to the picture his bedroom wall of Jesus. I guess that started when Brent would take him over to the picture before bed and say, "Say goodnight to Jesus." Now he waves at the picture. And anytime we say or point to a picture of Christ, he starts waving. Very cute. Probably my favorite thing he has done this month.
• He has started throwing little tantrums when he doesn't get his way. He will kick and scream whenever I take something away from him that he really wants or whenever I get him dressed or undressed.
  

I don't have very many pictures that are unrelated to our trip, but here are a few pictures and a little video of him using his walker to walk. I actually took this a little while ago, he can walk a lot better with it now.

I was doing the laundry the other day and Owen was playing around in the room. I left to put some clothes away and I heard him scream so I ran back to see what had happened. Somehow he had worked himself in between the washer and dryer. I had to go grab the camera and when I left him he started screaming again.

He was not happy that I was taking a picture instead of getting him out.

Playing in the kitchen. He does it ALL the time!

Untitled from Melissa Clark on Vimeo.

Trip to Utah-Part 1

I have a TON of pictures from our trip to Utah and I was there for almost 3 weeks, so I am going to blog about the trip in parts. Hopefully, it won't bore you too much.

I flew to Utah a day before Brent left for his conference in Montreal. The flight was a nightmare. Owen was horrible and wouldn't settle down. He refused to eat his baby food before we got on the plane so I think he was hungry and tired and just wanted to get down and crawl around. He actually didn't cry very much on the flight he was just squealing and was being really loud. He was also swinging toys and hitting the lady next to us. I was pretty much about to break down when he hit the formula dispenser out of my hand and a large amount of formula spilt all over the floor. Needless to say when we reached our layover in Phoenix and I found out the plane was delayed by an hour, I gave in and let Owen crawl around on the airport carpet. I am sure there were many people thinking I was crazy letting him crawl around on the carpet, but after what I went through on the plane, I didn't really care. In fact, he chased my water bottle around for about an hour and everyone thought he was just adorable. To his credit, Owen was VERY good on the flight from Phoenix to Utah and slept most of the way. However, by the time we got to Utah I was already worn out.

Owen took a little while to warm up to Grandpa and Grandma and my sisters. It didn't take him long to realize he was getting a lot of attention and to start showing off. He didn't, however, let me out of his sight without crying most of the trip.

The first couple of days we hung out with my two sisters and my parents. We went to the zoo, although I don't have any pictures of it. Owen didn't really care much for the animals, but he LOVED the carousel. Every time his animal went up, he squealed in delight. It really surprised me, I didn't think he would like it that much.

Matt and Kelie came into town a couple of days later and while they were in Oakley, we rode horses and roasted hot dogs on the fire pit. It was fun, but it was actually cold. I had to borrow a jacket from my mom and put pants and a jacket on Owen. SOOO different from the weather they had in Missouri while we were in Utah. It was in the 100's while we were gone...didn't miss that! Anyway, here are a few pictures from the horseback riding/weenie roast.

Owen and Grandpa Morgan

Owen and Aunt Kelie

Owen and Cousin Daylen


Us and the sheep

Matt and Marcie

I have to admit that I was a little nervous about taking Owen on the horse, so Uncle Cody took him for a ride. He didn't seem to be excited or nervous about it.

Owen by the fire pit. He loves fire.

Marcie roasting her hot dog!

Camping

I am way behind in my blogging, but for journaling sake, I wanted to post a few pictures of our camping adventure about a month ago. Brent loves to camp and I don't mind it if it is only for a short time, so we decided to head down to Lake of the Ozarks for a night. I know...we are crazy. It was like 107 heat index, but we had a good time and Owen was actually very good. He played in his pack n' play for a while while Brent and I set up our tent and after a little bite to eat we went on a little hike by the lake. We just brought stuff for sandwiches for dinner since we weren't too excited about cooking in that kind of heat, but it was still fun to eat outside and enjoy the scenery. It was fun...even though it was sooo hot.

We finally got Owen to go to sleep around 10 and around 11:30 we decided it was probably cool enough to try to go to sleep. We were just about asleep when we heard raccoons coming into our camp. Brent scared them off a couple of times, but they were determined to get something from our camp, although we aren't sure what they were after. They were climbing on our picnic table trying to get the trash bag hanging on the tree and they were climbing on the back of our truck. I must say that I think Brent was most concerned about his truck getting all scratched up so around 1:15 in the morning, we decided they weren't going to leave us alone so we packed up and headed home. We got home around 2:45. So much for camping, we should have just planned a picnic and gone home at a decent hour. The funniest part of the whole thing is that we survived the blazing heat, but ended up coming home because of racoons! What an adventure.

9 months

As usual I am behind on updated Owen's monthly progress. I figured I had better do it before I went to Utah otherwise I would be way behind. Here are a few things about Owen at 3/4's of a year!

• He pulls up on everything and anything he can find. It is his new "fun."
• He has started eating some very basic table food. He has had some of our noodles, lunch meat, avocado, hamburger, chicken, mixed vegetables and lots of bread. He loves bread! Actually, he loves anything that has flavor and is not the cereal we try to get him to eat at every meal.
• He loves to pull all the books off our book shelves and open all the drawers, cabinets, and doors he can find.
• He is a crawling maniac. He is very fast, especially when he puts something in his mouth that he shouldn't be and I go to get it out. He takes off and fights hard not to let me get it out.
• He moans when he is about to fall asleep. He has been doing this for several months now, but I don't think I have ever mentioned this so I thought I would throw it in.
• He has started doing this thing where he scrunching his nose up and breathes in and out of his nose really fast. I will have to try to get that one on video to explain it better than that.
• He claps his hands and love when we play patty cake with him.
• He also has started waving.
• He loves playing in our blinds and had already broken a few slats that we will have to replace before we leave. Just the beginning of the destruction to come!

Pulling down the books. Note that his mouth is actually closed in this picture, which is a very rare.
Big bump and scrap after playing around on his car seat and going head first into the carpet. The second bad one, but there have been many since then.


Sporting some funny hair. His hair is actually getting long enough on top that when he wakes up from a nap it is often poking up.

Showing off his new hat. He actually stood by himself for a few seconds.

Daddy playing around with Owen and some winter hats.

Here is a little video of Owen crawling. I thought I was uploading a different one, but I guess this one will have to do.

Independence Day!

So, I realize that this was a while ago, but I thought I would just do a quick post anyway. On the 3rd we went to the Parley P. Pratt run/walk here in Columbia. Now, I am sure that most of you had no idea that Parley Pratt was once imprisoned here in Columbia...but he was. He and a few others who were being held on trumped up charges decided that they were going to break out of jail and so they did. They actually broke out on the 4th of July. Funny, huh?

What Brent thought was absolutely crazy was the event was that we were celebrating the fact that he broke out of jail and ran away! Now if you are a member of the church, you have an understanding of the fact that members of the church were imprisoned numerous times for no other reason except that they were members of the church. However, if you aren't a member you may think it was slightly weird that the Mormons are organize a run each year to celebrate the fact that members of their church broke out of jail. But I guess most of the non-Mormons probably already think we are a little weird, so it probably didn't matter.

Brent ran the 4 miler and I ran the one miler pushing Owen in the stroller. It was fun, although it was pretty early in the morning and Owen woke up at 5:45 that morning! Sorry no pictures of this exciting event.

On Sunday we went to church and did the normal Sunday thing, but we did end up going to watch the fireworks with Matt and Kelie and the girls and Kelie's parents.

Waiting for the fireworks to begin. Owen was going crazy before we got to where we ended up watching the show, but after a 5 minute cap nap he even let Matt hold him the entire time. He was semi-interested in the fireworks at first but then he thought it was much more entertaining to watch the cousins dance around.

Jenna and her Grandpa Bailey

Owen's first 4th of July!

Monday we went to one of our friend's house for a BBQ, games, and fireworks. Brent HAD to buy some fireworks and was amazed at how cheap they are here in Missouri. It was a pretty good show, although we had a few moments where most of the kids (and Kelie) were freaking out. Jenna ended up getting a little blister from the sparklers and after that she was yelling and screaming everytime a firework went off. However, by the end of the "show" she was sitting back and saying stuff like, "Alright Uncle Brent, whatcha got next for us." Funny girl.

All in all, I think we had a pretty good celebration. Owen was so tired by the end of the two nights that he fell asleep while they were doing some of the last fireworks and didn't wake up until the morning. He was sooo tired.

Jenna playing with the Sparklers before she got burned.

Brookie being very careful.

Getting ready to light some fireworks!