A little O.C.

So, along with Owen's obsession with basketball hoops and balls, he is now officially obsessed with the letters of the alphabet, particularly the letter O. He goes around the house pointing out all the things he can see that have the letter O on them. At first I just thought he was saying O for everything, since we call him "O" sometimes as a nickname. While we were in Austin I realized that he actually recognizes the letter and was saying "O" only when he saw the letter O. For a few days he was also very interested in the letter C, so I was joking with Brent about how he is a little O.C. about carrying around the O and C magnetic letters we have and not wanting anything to do with most of the other ones. He has since changed his ways and is now very interested in pretty much any letter. It is actually pretty fun to teach him his letters. I wish I could take all the credit for teaching him, but I am pretty sure he learned it from the PBS show Word World, which is now his favorite show. Imagine that, television CAN be educational, who knew?

Here is a clip, I recorded with him pointing out some of the letters he knows. It was about a week or so ago and he is already know about 5 more since then. I will have to do another video in a couple of weeks. I can't believe my baby is growing up so fast!

Untitled from Melissa Clark on Vimeo.

Haircut and Basketball Hoops

This happened about a month ago, but I thought I would document it anyways. We finally decided that it was time to cut Owen's hair. I put it off as long as possible, but it was starting to get out of control especially on the top of his head. We put him in his chair, put a movie on and BOTH Brent and I went at it. At first Owen kept batting our hands away, but after I gave him a sucker, he was good as gold.

Watching the show before the haircut

The Before
The After

He was pretty sticky after everything was said and done

Here are a couple of random pictures that were taken over the last month.

Sometimes he watches his shows this way

Playing at the park with Dad. Owen is OBSESSED with basketball hoops. He goes crazy when he sees one on our walks around our neighborhood and will constantly be saying, "Dall." I have been trying to get him to say "Ball" but to no avail.

When we go to the playground by our house, all he wants to do is run around by the basketball hoops and if we brought our ball, he just wants to try to throw it at the hoop. It is actually pretty funny. He also loves to run down to the basketball hoop two houses down from us and just stand under hoop in their driveway. It actually drives me a little crazy, since it isn't our house and I am sure the neighbors think we are nuts!

Enjoying the first popcicle of the year!

You can't really see it in this picture, but Owen has food on his head. He thinks he is hilarious when he puts stuff on his head.

Random picture, but this is what I got the other day when I was trying to get him to smile at the camera.

Wearing the 3D glasses we got from going to Tangled in Austin. More on our trip to come!

Life in the fast (slow) lane...

Life is interesting in the way that sometimes I feel like it is going really slow, but at the same I feel like time is moving so quickly. I feel that this is multiplied when I think of my days with Owen. Some days seem like they are never going to end, they seem to drag on and on, but then when I think of how fast he is growing up. I almost can't believe how fast the time is going. I am as usual way behind on blogging what has been going on with us, but I really feel like I don't know where to begin when talking about all the things Owen has learned to do and say since I last wrote about him. Kids really do grow up fast. I think Owen is in one of my favorite stages right now. He is learning so much and I am loving the fact that he understands me and I am beginning to understand him. Here are a few of his recent discoveries, abilities, and words.

• Owen loves to climb on anything he can. For instance he loves to open the dishwasher climb on top of it and then proceed to take anything he wants out of the dishwasher and grab anything else he can find on the counter right above the dishwasher. Not a good thing...especially if by chance his mother leaves a knife on the counter and he decides he wants to play with it. (He seriously has a guardian angel or maybe two watching out for him.) Nothing happened as a result of him carrying it around.


• Speaking of carrying around knives, he can also now reach things on the end of any counter...also not a good thing...considering his mother left a knife on a different counter top than was previously mentioned thinking that he could not reach it...too bad he could! Once again he was not harmed. Hopefully...no one reading this post has picked up the phone to report me to DFS. I promise that I really didn't think he could reach it.


• Owen loves to watch the PBS show Super Why. This isn't my favorite show, but he watches it so well that I must admit that he may or may not watch two episodes of it a day. One of the funny things he does when he watches it is that he "answers" the characters when they ask a question. For example, Super Why will say, "which one of these words starts with the letter T." And Owen will say, "Daaa." It is really funny to watch. I really need to record it before he stops doing it.
• His favorite thing to do in this world is run around the room and have us chase him. He LOVES it. He pretty much wants to do it all day long. Usually, I will play it with him for a little bit, but then I get tired of it and he will usually throw a fit when I say I am done. When we chase him we will also hide behind stuff and then jump out and scare him. He tries to mimic us peeking around the corner by leaning to one side, as if he were peeking around a corner. He is however standing in the middle of the room and not peeking around anything, but I guess in his mind he is doing the same thing we are doing.
• Whenever I put on my jacket or shoes on, Owen will automatically say, "Let's Go!" Although you can tell what he is saying, it isn't crystal clear. He loves when we go somewhere, which is probably because we don't go very many places!


• Some of the others words he currently says are: hello, nenna(Jenna), ook (Brooke), hot (mostly when we have a fire going or when he touches the dryer and it is still warm), ookie (cookie), cheerio (although most people wouldn't know what he was saying, I know that he is trying to say it), cracker (same as cheerio in that most people won't know what he was saying), diedie (diaper), whoa, no-no, uh-oh, eye, car, wow and dank dou (thank you). He tries to say a lot of other things, but only if we ask him to say it. He signs please and more, but really doesn't do anything else.


• He knows the animal sounds for tiger, lion, dog, kitty, snake, cow, monkey and pig. He also will occasionally do a fish face when I ask him to do it. I usually ask him every morning during breakfast what different animals say, mostly to distract him enough that he eats his oatmeal before he even realize what I am feeding him.


• He just started giving us kisses. It is actually pretty cute and not as slobbery yet as I am sure he will do in the future. Basically, he just opens his mouth and pushes it lightly on your face. Favorite thing he does right now!


• We have been trying to get him to be more reverent when we pray and so now he clasp his hands whenever we tell him we are going to pray. It usually only lasts a few seconds, but he does it and understands what we are asking him to do.


• He understands a lot of what I say to him. For example, I will ask him if he is ready for breakfast and he will run over to his seat. I tell him that it is time to brush his teeth (all 5 of them) and he will run to the bathroom door. I tell him it's time to take a nap and half the time he comes to have me pick him up to take him in his room and the other half he throws a fit and runs away. After I brush his teeth every night I tell him to go get Daddy for prayers and scriptures. He will go find Brent and then just kind of stand there by him until Brent realizes that Owen was sent to get him. Then Owen will run back to his room, looking back several times to make sure Brent is following him.
• This kid likes spaghetti, pizza, lasagna, green beans, grilled cheese sandwiches, enchiladas, crackers, cereal bars, and yogurt. But the only thing I can consistently get him to eat is fruit. He pretty much eats a whole piece of fruit by himself at every meal. Bananas, pears, mangos, oranges, pineapple, and peaches, you name it. At least I can count on him eating at least one thing, right?

Owen and Brent right after our huge snowstorm a few weeks ago. It was so crazy!

The view out our front door before Brent shoveled through it.

Owen loves to put things down his shirt or our shirt and then pull them out the other end. So, to aid in his obsession I put this vest on to he can put as many as he possibly can fit and still walk around without too many of them falling out.

Talking on Mommy's phone

See? What did I tell you about his obsession with fruit.

Trying to eat a ginormous apple

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit us in January.

Reading with Grandma

Showing off all his fun toys

Valentine's Day

We had a good Valentine's day this year. We didn't do anything really special, but it was still fun. We had heart shaped french toast with strawberries for dinner. I made this really cute (well... at least I think it was cute) thing for Brent that I saw on a blog. I bought a 6 pack of crush soda and decorated the caddy. Then I filled the bottles with valentine candy. I think it turned out pretty cute. Then the note I attached to it said, "I have a Crush on you!" Brent said he really liked it. I also made some cute headbands for Jenna and Brooke, but they didn't think they were that great. Oh well, I thought they turned out really cute and it was fun to do a little girl project, since I don't have any girls to do them for in my house. I didn't get a picture of the headbands...too bad. Here are a few pictures of the dinner and of Brent's present.

Our New Addition!

Brent sold his truck in order to get a brand new car. It is a 2010 Nissan Versa. He was really sad to see the truck go, but we wanted something more economical and something more reliable for long trips. The funny thing about him buying it, is that I didn't even go with him and I still haven't driven it yet. So, it pretty much is Brent's new car!

Dressed to the nines!

I had to post this cute picture of Owen. Doesn't he look so grown up? An update on our lives to follow in a few.

Christmas Festivities

Here are a few pictures of things we did during the holidays.

Went to see the Magic Tree. It is a tree in Columbia that has lights on every branch. It was actually pretty cool.

We went out and played in the snow for the first time!

Owen really wasn't interested in building a snowman, although I made him pretend like he was. All he was interested in doing was putting his face in the snow and eating it. Needless to say we didn't stay out very long!

This is our snowman after a couple of days. We call it our praying snowman.

Owen helped me bake a bunch of cookies. He loved to throw everything into the sink.

He looks a little tired, huh? All that holiday cooking wears you out!

Owen helping me make his puppy blanket