Sunday, January 11, 2009
To Owen... (33-36 Months Old)
I can't believe you are three years old. You are turning into such a great little guy. I haven't written you a letter in awhile, but I have been keeping a list of some things I want to include.
Let's start with December. We moved into the new house in the beginning of December. When the movers came, you did amazingly well dealing with it. You talked to some of them and showed them your trains and you didn't seem to mind the hectic atmosphere. You did try to escape every once in awhile since the front door was open for most of the time, but the movers helped turn you around and pointed you back to the house. I spent much of my time darting after you. When we were cleaning out the old house, you found your daddy's old Frogger handheld video game. It was like your security blanket during the move. If you set it down or misplaced it, it wasn't long before you'd say, "Oh no, frogger!" and you would calm right down after we found it.
We started decorating for Christmas as we were moving into the house. We moved the Christmas decorations and Christmas tree before the movers even came. You really liked all of the decorations. We decided to get a train to go around the tree. We knew how much you loved trains, so we figured you would love it. I guess it was too loud for you, because every time we turned it on, you started running away saying, "turn train off." You loved the riding the Pink Pig at Lennox. Even in February you were still saying, "go ride the pink train, go ride the pink pig train."
We spent most of December getting the house ready for Christmas and unpacking. We had most of my dad's family and daddy's parents over on Christmas day. On Christmas morning, you were very excited to see all of the toys Santa brought you. You were especially interested in the geotrax train and airplane set. Santa also left a small, indoor trampoline in the playroom. You didn't find that until Wyatt and Ethan showed up. You had so much fun jumping on it, playing in your football ball pit and just being around Ethan and Wyatt and the rest of the family. It was really a fun day.
We also got to see Mike and Scott right after Christmas. You had so much fun with them! You really enjoyed showing them your whoopie cushion and playing trains and frisbee with them. We (your daddy and I) have been listening to the Ricky Gervais show lately and every time you pick up his iPod, the picture of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington comes up on the screen. You always say, "Mike and Scott!"
You spent the night for the first time away from me at Granny and Papa's on New Year's Eve! I was sure that they would be calling me in the middle of the night, but you slept really well. I was so proud of you. You even spent the night another time a few weeks later. I got to sleep late for the first time since you were just a little baby! You actually have been sleeping a lot better at the new house than you ever really did at the old house. You get up earlier than you used to, but sleeping through the night is AWESOME! Your bedspread has cars on it, so you call it the "cars bed." Your bed is your crib, converted into a full bed. You really seem to like it.
You saw me taking down the Christmas decorations soon after New Year's, but you didn't start missing the tree until about February. Every once in awhile, you say, "where'd the Christmas tree and train go?" And you still ask me to sing frosty the snowman sometimes.
It took Holly a little bit of time to get used to the new house. I was cleaning dog poop off the floor one night and started gagging. I walked out of the room for a minute and when I came back in, your daddy was saying, "what's mama say?" and you were answering by making a gagging noise (I guess if I had to spell it, I would say, "whick"). According to you, most people say, "whick" - mama, daddy, granny, papa, nanny, grandaddy. But, Ethan and Wyatt have their own things. You say that Wyatt says, "Marks, get set, goooooooo!!!" and Ethan says, "AHHHHHHHH!!!" and makes a goofy face.
You have been very concerned about us for the last few months. Whenever I make a loud noise or say ouch or do anything out of the ordinary, you say, "mama, you ok?" You do the same thing with daddy and other people.
Some of your latest funny phrases are: "please," "pretty please with a cherry on top," "I'm nuts about you," "oh brother" (you say, "oh brubber"), "sorry 'bout that," "mama [or daddy, nanny, granny, etc.], what are you doin' with that stuff?"
You are very polite when you want to be. You say thank you very naturally to people. I have also noticed you saying excuse me and bless you. Of course you say please a lot too. And you say sorry way too naturally (I'm sorry about that).
Every night after your bath, you go running out to your daddy saying, "daddy, I got the towels. I got the towels daddy." Then you climb up in his lap wrapped up in your towels and snuggle with him, while I get your pajamas and toothbrush and water ready for you for bed. It is very sweet.
Something you do that is not so polite is saying "no, I don't like..." You use this phrase a lot when you are in a bad mood. You even say it about things you really like if you are fussy. I've heard you say it about food, people, toys, brushing your teeth, baths, etc. I've even heard you say, "no, I don't like outside." Another thing that is not polite is when you take a bite of food that is too big and decide you need to spit it out. It is pretty gross. You make this noise like, "ahhhhhh" and I know that you are about to spit your food out. I call it your "eject noise." Hopefully, you will grow out of that.
You like to talk on the phone now, especially to your cousins, but you really enjoy pushing buttons on the phone and hearing the person you are talking to, scream on the line. It can be kind of annoying.
You love play-doh and drawing. You can play with play-doh for a remarkably long amount of time and I have seen you go through almost an entire pad of paper in one drawing session. You have certain things you like to draw. For awhile, you only drew one shape - it was sort of a leaf shape. But, recently, your daddy taught you to draw spirals ("spy-rohs"). You also like to draw dragons. Most of your dragons are sort of a crescent shape with one dot for an eye. The way you control your hand when you are drawing is pretty impressive. Sometimes your creativity knows no bounds, and you end up drawing all over yourself. You also sometimes stray off the paper and onto the table/wall/couch or whatever else is around. This usually ends your drawing sessions and lands you in time out. And this is why you are only allowed to use washable markers!
You are obssessed with candy. It drives me crazy sometimes. Of course you love to go to the doctor and to get haircuts because they have suckers there. And that's about the only time you are allowed to have suckers. One morning you woke up and said, "go to doctor's house. Get blue sucker."
I can see some fears developing. You don't like loud noises. You don't even like being in crowds when people are clapping or laughing too loud all at once. You like your remote control dinosaur but you stay pretty far away when you are controlling it. You also have this walking lightning mcqueen that you love. You push the button to make it go and then run as fast as you can and jump up on the window seat or into a chair or something. The other night, you told me to hide pluto because he was "too scary." I had to take him out of the room to make you happy. You also have been getting scared when people try to tickle you or grab you to pick you up too suddenly. You and daddy were playing the other day and he ran around the corner and then jumped out at you. You completely freaked out. You let out this super sonic high pitched scream and started crying. He had no idea it would scare you so much.
We have had the occasional really nice day lately and you love the playset in the backyard. You call it your playground or your park. You have nearly fallen asleep on the swing quite a few times.
You and Holly drive me crazy sometimes. Sometimes the two of you get along well. You'll throw her toys, she'll run after them, and you both play hard and tire each other out. But, sometimes, you get too rough with her. You go to time out a lot for that. The other day she was sleeping and you pretty much attacked her face and jumped on her. Before I could even do anything, she started snapping and barking at you, but she didn't even do enough to draw blood. I'm sorry, but you totally deserved that one. You also try to feed her table food all the time. You are also always accusing her of trying to eat things. When she licks you, you say, "Holly eat Owen," or sometimes, "Holly eat face." You also say things like, "Holly eat lightning mcqueen" or "Holly eat trains."
You still call our house "new house." The other day you were really tired and you said, "go to new house, go to cars bed, go to sleep."
You love music. Your favorite songs are "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Wild Thing." I have a video of you singing wild thing wearing nothing but your underwear - that will surely be used for blackmail one day ;-). You also tell daddy to "play heavy music" on his computer. You really do seem to like some of it.
Another one of your obsessions is video games. You love Pac Man - of course, you call it "blue ghost." We went and got barbecue one day and they had an arcade version of Pac Man. I let you play it a little bit. For the next two or three days, you said, "go to blue ghost's house. Put the quarter in. Play blue ghost." You also really like to "play" Mario Party 8 on the Wii (you call it "ma-wee-o party 8" and you always want to be green Luigi, "red Luigi," or "green dinosaur."
You have also really liked Star Wars lately. You especially like R2-D2 (Bopper tee-too). When the movie starts you say, "here it comes. Here comes the Star Wars. Here comes," over and over again. You also constantly say, "what's that?" talking about robots, people, things, etc. You call Luke Skywalker, "Skywalker" - "what's skywalker doing?" or "there's skywalker." You also call Darth Vader, "Darth Mater."
Our trip to visit relatives in North Carolina ended up being a lot more eventful than we would have liked, but I think you really enjoyed it. Of course you were on the verge of getting sick and there was a lot of craziness going on, so you weren't quite yourself for much of the time, but you liked the keyboard and the piano at Randy and Patrice's house, the dogs at all of the houses, the gumball machine, the red and blue pullback cars, the stoplight and the pink and blue teddy bears at Ted and Jon's house, the organ and the viewmaster at Viola's house. You also really got along with a lot of our relatives in North Carolina.
On the way home in the car, you started doing this thing where you had a car in both of your hands above your head. You started pulling it from one hand to the other saying, "mine! mine!" as you switched hands. It was really odd that you were fighting yourself for a toy.
Leading up to your birthday, I looked at cakes with you on the internet. You decided that you wanted a Thomas cake and a Thomas party. I took you to the party store to buy decorations and order your balloons. Then we went to Publix to order the cake. When we left the bakery, you started asking, "where's Thomas cake?" You asked about the cake for weeks before the birthday party.
You had a great birthday party. It was at our house and it was an unseasonably beautiful 70 degree day. Although it started with you bumping your head on the counter and crying and screaming, you ended up having a great time. You liked playing with everyone (only a few incidents where I had to remind you to share), you liked the ice cream and cake and you liked the presents. It was just a really nice time. I had to rush you to get everything opened because each time you opened a new present you wanted to stop and play with it. You loved the Yoshi figure that Wyatt chose for you. You also loved the chalk, the Caterpillar tractor toys, the infrared remote controlled Lightning McQueen, the Spiderman stickers, Thomas legos, Little Einsteins Globe and game, all of the other art supplies and the cars. You are still going through all of the toys each day and playing with new ones that you hadn't noticed before.
Before the party, Amanda and Corinne came to help decorate. Amanda spent the night and got to see you in an awful mood for many hours. You were on antibiotics, but you did have an ear infection, so I understand why you acted up so much. Right before the party, you had a blast playing with Amanda and Corinne. You and Corinne invented this game in our room where you were each on opposite sides of the bed. You would be looking at each other and both say, "bye" and start sliding down so you couldn't see each other any more. Then you would run around to her and laugh and run back saying, "say bye again!" It was really cute. And you and Amanda played with cars back and forth and balloons for a long time that morning.
I am just so amazed at how fun you are right now. You make me laugh so much every day. You are just such a miracle to me and I adore you!
Love, Mama
I can't believe you are three years old. You are turning into such a great little guy. I haven't written you a letter in awhile, but I have been keeping a list of some things I want to include.
Let's start with December. We moved into the new house in the beginning of December. When the movers came, you did amazingly well dealing with it. You talked to some of them and showed them your trains and you didn't seem to mind the hectic atmosphere. You did try to escape every once in awhile since the front door was open for most of the time, but the movers helped turn you around and pointed you back to the house. I spent much of my time darting after you. When we were cleaning out the old house, you found your daddy's old Frogger handheld video game. It was like your security blanket during the move. If you set it down or misplaced it, it wasn't long before you'd say, "Oh no, frogger!" and you would calm right down after we found it.
We started decorating for Christmas as we were moving into the house. We moved the Christmas decorations and Christmas tree before the movers even came. You really liked all of the decorations. We decided to get a train to go around the tree. We knew how much you loved trains, so we figured you would love it. I guess it was too loud for you, because every time we turned it on, you started running away saying, "turn train off." You loved the riding the Pink Pig at Lennox. Even in February you were still saying, "go ride the pink train, go ride the pink pig train."
We spent most of December getting the house ready for Christmas and unpacking. We had most of my dad's family and daddy's parents over on Christmas day. On Christmas morning, you were very excited to see all of the toys Santa brought you. You were especially interested in the geotrax train and airplane set. Santa also left a small, indoor trampoline in the playroom. You didn't find that until Wyatt and Ethan showed up. You had so much fun jumping on it, playing in your football ball pit and just being around Ethan and Wyatt and the rest of the family. It was really a fun day.
We also got to see Mike and Scott right after Christmas. You had so much fun with them! You really enjoyed showing them your whoopie cushion and playing trains and frisbee with them. We (your daddy and I) have been listening to the Ricky Gervais show lately and every time you pick up his iPod, the picture of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington comes up on the screen. You always say, "Mike and Scott!"
You spent the night for the first time away from me at Granny and Papa's on New Year's Eve! I was sure that they would be calling me in the middle of the night, but you slept really well. I was so proud of you. You even spent the night another time a few weeks later. I got to sleep late for the first time since you were just a little baby! You actually have been sleeping a lot better at the new house than you ever really did at the old house. You get up earlier than you used to, but sleeping through the night is AWESOME! Your bedspread has cars on it, so you call it the "cars bed." Your bed is your crib, converted into a full bed. You really seem to like it.
You saw me taking down the Christmas decorations soon after New Year's, but you didn't start missing the tree until about February. Every once in awhile, you say, "where'd the Christmas tree and train go?" And you still ask me to sing frosty the snowman sometimes.
It took Holly a little bit of time to get used to the new house. I was cleaning dog poop off the floor one night and started gagging. I walked out of the room for a minute and when I came back in, your daddy was saying, "what's mama say?" and you were answering by making a gagging noise (I guess if I had to spell it, I would say, "whick"). According to you, most people say, "whick" - mama, daddy, granny, papa, nanny, grandaddy. But, Ethan and Wyatt have their own things. You say that Wyatt says, "Marks, get set, goooooooo!!!" and Ethan says, "AHHHHHHHH!!!" and makes a goofy face.
You have been very concerned about us for the last few months. Whenever I make a loud noise or say ouch or do anything out of the ordinary, you say, "mama, you ok?" You do the same thing with daddy and other people.
Some of your latest funny phrases are: "please," "pretty please with a cherry on top," "I'm nuts about you," "oh brother" (you say, "oh brubber"), "sorry 'bout that," "mama [or daddy, nanny, granny, etc.], what are you doin' with that stuff?"
You are very polite when you want to be. You say thank you very naturally to people. I have also noticed you saying excuse me and bless you. Of course you say please a lot too. And you say sorry way too naturally (I'm sorry about that).
Every night after your bath, you go running out to your daddy saying, "daddy, I got the towels. I got the towels daddy." Then you climb up in his lap wrapped up in your towels and snuggle with him, while I get your pajamas and toothbrush and water ready for you for bed. It is very sweet.
Something you do that is not so polite is saying "no, I don't like..." You use this phrase a lot when you are in a bad mood. You even say it about things you really like if you are fussy. I've heard you say it about food, people, toys, brushing your teeth, baths, etc. I've even heard you say, "no, I don't like outside." Another thing that is not polite is when you take a bite of food that is too big and decide you need to spit it out. It is pretty gross. You make this noise like, "ahhhhhh" and I know that you are about to spit your food out. I call it your "eject noise." Hopefully, you will grow out of that.
You like to talk on the phone now, especially to your cousins, but you really enjoy pushing buttons on the phone and hearing the person you are talking to, scream on the line. It can be kind of annoying.
You love play-doh and drawing. You can play with play-doh for a remarkably long amount of time and I have seen you go through almost an entire pad of paper in one drawing session. You have certain things you like to draw. For awhile, you only drew one shape - it was sort of a leaf shape. But, recently, your daddy taught you to draw spirals ("spy-rohs"). You also like to draw dragons. Most of your dragons are sort of a crescent shape with one dot for an eye. The way you control your hand when you are drawing is pretty impressive. Sometimes your creativity knows no bounds, and you end up drawing all over yourself. You also sometimes stray off the paper and onto the table/wall/couch or whatever else is around. This usually ends your drawing sessions and lands you in time out. And this is why you are only allowed to use washable markers!
You are obssessed with candy. It drives me crazy sometimes. Of course you love to go to the doctor and to get haircuts because they have suckers there. And that's about the only time you are allowed to have suckers. One morning you woke up and said, "go to doctor's house. Get blue sucker."
I can see some fears developing. You don't like loud noises. You don't even like being in crowds when people are clapping or laughing too loud all at once. You like your remote control dinosaur but you stay pretty far away when you are controlling it. You also have this walking lightning mcqueen that you love. You push the button to make it go and then run as fast as you can and jump up on the window seat or into a chair or something. The other night, you told me to hide pluto because he was "too scary." I had to take him out of the room to make you happy. You also have been getting scared when people try to tickle you or grab you to pick you up too suddenly. You and daddy were playing the other day and he ran around the corner and then jumped out at you. You completely freaked out. You let out this super sonic high pitched scream and started crying. He had no idea it would scare you so much.
We have had the occasional really nice day lately and you love the playset in the backyard. You call it your playground or your park. You have nearly fallen asleep on the swing quite a few times.
You and Holly drive me crazy sometimes. Sometimes the two of you get along well. You'll throw her toys, she'll run after them, and you both play hard and tire each other out. But, sometimes, you get too rough with her. You go to time out a lot for that. The other day she was sleeping and you pretty much attacked her face and jumped on her. Before I could even do anything, she started snapping and barking at you, but she didn't even do enough to draw blood. I'm sorry, but you totally deserved that one. You also try to feed her table food all the time. You are also always accusing her of trying to eat things. When she licks you, you say, "Holly eat Owen," or sometimes, "Holly eat face." You also say things like, "Holly eat lightning mcqueen" or "Holly eat trains."
You still call our house "new house." The other day you were really tired and you said, "go to new house, go to cars bed, go to sleep."
You love music. Your favorite songs are "Another One Bites the Dust" and "Wild Thing." I have a video of you singing wild thing wearing nothing but your underwear - that will surely be used for blackmail one day ;-). You also tell daddy to "play heavy music" on his computer. You really do seem to like some of it.
Another one of your obsessions is video games. You love Pac Man - of course, you call it "blue ghost." We went and got barbecue one day and they had an arcade version of Pac Man. I let you play it a little bit. For the next two or three days, you said, "go to blue ghost's house. Put the quarter in. Play blue ghost." You also really like to "play" Mario Party 8 on the Wii (you call it "ma-wee-o party 8" and you always want to be green Luigi, "red Luigi," or "green dinosaur."
You have also really liked Star Wars lately. You especially like R2-D2 (Bopper tee-too). When the movie starts you say, "here it comes. Here comes the Star Wars. Here comes," over and over again. You also constantly say, "what's that?" talking about robots, people, things, etc. You call Luke Skywalker, "Skywalker" - "what's skywalker doing?" or "there's skywalker." You also call Darth Vader, "Darth Mater."
Our trip to visit relatives in North Carolina ended up being a lot more eventful than we would have liked, but I think you really enjoyed it. Of course you were on the verge of getting sick and there was a lot of craziness going on, so you weren't quite yourself for much of the time, but you liked the keyboard and the piano at Randy and Patrice's house, the dogs at all of the houses, the gumball machine, the red and blue pullback cars, the stoplight and the pink and blue teddy bears at Ted and Jon's house, the organ and the viewmaster at Viola's house. You also really got along with a lot of our relatives in North Carolina.
On the way home in the car, you started doing this thing where you had a car in both of your hands above your head. You started pulling it from one hand to the other saying, "mine! mine!" as you switched hands. It was really odd that you were fighting yourself for a toy.
Leading up to your birthday, I looked at cakes with you on the internet. You decided that you wanted a Thomas cake and a Thomas party. I took you to the party store to buy decorations and order your balloons. Then we went to Publix to order the cake. When we left the bakery, you started asking, "where's Thomas cake?" You asked about the cake for weeks before the birthday party.
You had a great birthday party. It was at our house and it was an unseasonably beautiful 70 degree day. Although it started with you bumping your head on the counter and crying and screaming, you ended up having a great time. You liked playing with everyone (only a few incidents where I had to remind you to share), you liked the ice cream and cake and you liked the presents. It was just a really nice time. I had to rush you to get everything opened because each time you opened a new present you wanted to stop and play with it. You loved the Yoshi figure that Wyatt chose for you. You also loved the chalk, the Caterpillar tractor toys, the infrared remote controlled Lightning McQueen, the Spiderman stickers, Thomas legos, Little Einsteins Globe and game, all of the other art supplies and the cars. You are still going through all of the toys each day and playing with new ones that you hadn't noticed before.
Before the party, Amanda and Corinne came to help decorate. Amanda spent the night and got to see you in an awful mood for many hours. You were on antibiotics, but you did have an ear infection, so I understand why you acted up so much. Right before the party, you had a blast playing with Amanda and Corinne. You and Corinne invented this game in our room where you were each on opposite sides of the bed. You would be looking at each other and both say, "bye" and start sliding down so you couldn't see each other any more. Then you would run around to her and laugh and run back saying, "say bye again!" It was really cute. And you and Amanda played with cars back and forth and balloons for a long time that morning.
I am just so amazed at how fun you are right now. You make me laugh so much every day. You are just such a miracle to me and I adore you!
Love, Mama
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Time to catch up on photos! 4 - Misc (keep scrolling for more photos, including Christmas pictures)
First, are pictures of a house here in Loganville that decorates in kind of an interesting way for Christmas. You really have to park and get out to appreciate all of the elements of this display. Their decorations have evolved a lot since we first saw them back in 2005: http://www.lizcjones.com/2005_12_01_friedokra_archive.html.
And the last two pictures are of Holly after her haircut. She lost the bow about 2 minutes after I took these.
And the last two pictures are of Holly after her haircut. She lost the bow about 2 minutes after I took these.
