I Love Singing

Owen has been doing a lot of singing lately. He is also doing quite a bit of experimenting with volume, both in singing (like in this video) and in talking.

Here is some very enthusiastic singing. I'm a little partial to the 2nd song.

First Christmas in Portland

We decided to stay put this year and celebrate the holidays in Portland instead of traveling to Knoxville or South Bend. Luckily, Nana & Papa and Aunt Tanya came to visit! We had an awesome visit with them. Owen loved having everyone around and he had gotten pretty into the idea of Christmas this year.

Pics from the month of December, including Christmas:

Bowling Party

Owen got to try out bowling a few weeks ago at a friends' birthday party. 

I didn't realize they made bowling shoes that small, but they do. He thought the whole thing was pretty fun and he enjoyed seeing any pins fall down.

A little added excitement was added to the party in the form of a power outage. Without backup lighting, the place was totally dark. People took out their cell phones and used various flashlight apps to shed some light on our group.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

My First Race

Owen ran his first race last week in Knoxville: The Little Gobbler, the kids run held in conjunction with the Autumnfest 8k. He ran the whole way (maybe 150 yards) by himself and seemed to have fun. Best part was he got a donut after the finish.

Thanksgiving trip to Knoxville

We had a wonderful week in Knoxville last week for Thanksgiving. Owen had a great time with James, Aunt Laura & Uncle Rick, Aunt Ju-Ju, and Mimi & Poppy. He took to calling the original Poppy "Poppy 2" and enjoyed several meals with him. And there were a lot of train-related activities, including the big thrill Owen had talked about for weeks - riding on an actual coal-powered steam train.

Owen also ran in his first race, the Little Gobbler 200 yard dash, part of the Knoxville Track Club's Autumnfest event. He got a blue ribbon and a donut after the finish and seemed to enjoy it and talked about it for a couple days.

(the vast majority of pics shown here are courtesy of Duffy a.k.a. Poppy)

Painted Face

Owen had his face pained one day last week at daycare. Just thought it was very cute.

October Flew By!

October was a great month. Great weather meant lots of time outside, a fun visit to the pumpkin patch that had a little train, and a few other outings.

Owen participated in his first pumpkin carving. And come Halloween, he was far more into trick-or-treating than last year. He had no fear going up to peoples' doors, and once he realized he was getting candy just by saying "trick or treat" that was it...it was "one more house, Dada" about 10 more times.

Here are some pics from the month.