Happy half birthday Mr. Squid!

Owen is a squid. A very squirmy squid. He wasn’t feeling too well today (I wonder if it is the Oat cereal), and he was a little cranky. No matter what we were playing, or what toy he had, he didn’t like it for long. He wanted to be held all day, but even that didn’t help all the time. He was just fussy. So after a big dinner, and a bath with Mom, Papa and I lotioned him up, tried to put his pajama’s on him, changed his diaper, put his pajamas on him again, and then Gabe read him a book. He liked the book reading. I had ready him 5 or 6 stories earlier in the day, but he tired of them after a while. I guess one a time is better. He likes to eat the books too. That is a given.

Learning and realization

Church was great today. Owen doesn’t sleep through it anymore, and he is old enough to be aware of what is going on. When people say ‘Amen’, or whatever, he jolts a little, and looks around. He loves the candles, and even joined in with the choir near the end. He was fussy before communion, but when he saw Father Lawrence offering him the spoon, he got all excited, gave him a big smile, and opened his mouth big. He’s getting to a great age of learning and realization!

We're back!

Owen and I went to Kelowna this past Wednesday through Friday to visit with family. My brother Dusty loves up there, so we stayed with him. My parents were also up there visiting, and my other brother Jesse lives there too, so it was nice to have a big visit with everyone at once.

We drove up Wednesday morning and stopped in Merrit for something to eat. Owen slept until Merritt, and played in his car seat the rest of the way. He was pretty sick of the car once we got there, so I just quickly picked up my Mom and Dad and we were off to the beach. Gyro Beach is only 5 minutes from Dusty's house, so we went there. It is gorgeous! Sandy beaches, warm water, and not too crowded. It was perfect!

Owen has been to the pool here, and Cultus Lake, but he hasn't even been around sand before. He loved it. This first pictures shows what he sis for a good 20 minutes before going for a swim. He just sat on my Moms leg and wiggled hius toes inthe sand.
A few days later Owen would lie on his side on the beach towel, and wiggle humself over to the edge so his legts could go in the sand as well. He didn't like wet sand though. I tried to put him at the edge of the lake and let hinm play there, but he didn't like the feel of it.

About 30 seconds after this photo was taken Owen rolled onto his tummy, and grabbed a handful of sand which would immediately go into his mouth. By the time I had gotten him tp the lake to rinse him off he had eaten, and puked back up, a good amount of sand.

Here's Owen and I at Gyro Beach on Wednesday. The weather was great the whole time we were there. Actually, Kelowna set a few new heat records the few days before we got there. I was glad it had cooled down slightly and was only in the low 40's once we were there.

This picture was taken on Thursday. The beach was considerably cooler, and the wind had really picked up. It was awesome! The waved actually lulled Owen to sleep in his inner-tube. How amazing is that!? He just picked his knees up so he was lying completely in the inside of the inner-tube, and put his head back on the headrest (an on his shoulder sometimes) and closed his eyes. I wished I could have done the same.

Thursday was a good day. That is the day Dusty got his air conditioning unit fixed. Wednesday night was rough.

Friday, Owen and I had breakfast with Grandpa Kim and Tracey. We then headed back to Gyro Beach for a few hours. Said goodbye to Dusty at the office, and headed back home. And then my car broke down. Lukily it was just a situation of overheating, but it caused an hour and a half delay. Grandma rode home with us, which was awesome as Owen was awake until we passed Merrit. It was nice to have someone else entertain him as I drove, instead of having to do both at once.

Lots to report

I have lots to report...

1. As you can tell Owen is a big BC Lions fan. My parents went to a game on the weekend, and had to get him a souvenir.

2. Owen is now eating solids! Sweet potato is his current favorite, but he'll get to try bananas and carrots (not together) this week. He is actually on a hunger strike right now refusing to drink bottles as all he wants is solids.

3. We went to the Leisure Center today with Auntie Kimberly for a swim. The water was nice and warm. Owen loved it.

4. Owen and I are off tomorrow for Kelowna where we will spend a few days at Uncle Dusty's new house. Grandma and Grandpa are there now too.

5. Owen had his 6 month shots on Monday (even though he's not quite 6 months old yet). He was very brave, and didn't cry too much. He has been quite needy and tired since. That's normal. As of this evening he is seeming back to his regular happy self.

6. Owen hasn't quite reached the 20 lbs mark. He is 19 lbs 5 oz, 27.5" long, and his head size is 17.5".

7. We upgraded Owen's car seat from an infant one to a toddler seat. He seems so small in it. It is still rear facing, so his view doesn't change, but it is very cuddly and he'll be able to use it until he is 40 lbs (another few years).

That's all for now. I'll post photos of our trip next week.

My first camping trip!

We just got back from camping up at Cultus Lake. This was Owen's first camping trip ever, and he was awesome! He slept through the night every night (12 hours the first night), he woke up happy all the time, and he had just as much fun as the rest of us did.

Here are some of my many, many photos of the trip...

Owen with Papa on day one
Mama feeding Owen dinner (day one)

Grandma feeding Owen a pickle (day two)
Mama and Owen at the Cultus Lake Waterslides (day three)

Mama and Owen at the lake (day five)

Funny faces

Owen makes us laugh so hard! He will be smiling and then all of the sudden he will open his mouth, raise his eyebrows and make a funny face! And hold it too! He holds it long enough for me to get hte camera and take a picture. He is hillarious! He's only 5 1/2 months old, and already he's an actor!

"Oh Baby"

My Mom's cousin Debbie quilted this beautiful gift for Owen. It has great pictures of bunnies on skateboards, jars of jam, and babies in cribs on it. And it says "Oh Baby" in the middle.

On the backside there is a spot in the bottom corner that says "To Owen, With Love from Cousin Doreen". It must have taken her forever to hand stich it all.

Thank you so much Cousin Debbie. We love it!

Pool time

This is Owens new pool in our new backyard. It was a $7 deal from Zellers and Owen loves it. His favoritye thing to do is lie down with the back of his head resting on the side, and kick his feet, and slpash all water over.

It's a great little pool that only takes a few pots full of warm water to fill, and it'll be a good size for him next summer too.

How can I be so cute, yet so cranky at the same time?

I don't know, but it is possible.

Owen is teething and growing, and the weather is hot, and who knows what else, but he is cranky! And I played with him today more than I usually do in the hopes it would calm him down, but that didn't work. It only threw my back out, and now he thingks whenever he wants something I'll come running.

Here is Owen beiong so fabulously cute I had to photograph him. (When do I not have to photograph him!) Do you remember this duck from previous posts? It is the same duck in his birth announcement photos. My Auntie Diane gave it to him before he was even born. His head used to be smaller than the ducks head. Soon his head will be bigger that the whole duck!

Owens favorite part of toys is their tags. He just loves to suck on the tages of blankets or stuffed animals. I don't know why.

He also likes to talk on the phone. Well, he doesn't really do too much of the talking, but he loves to hear familiar voices on the phone. He listens to Papa and Grandma a lot. The other night while I was out and Gabe was home with Owen I called and Gabe put the phone to Owen ear. Once Owen heard my voice he realized I wasn't there with him, and he began to cry. Gabe said he cried until I came home. That was not a happy 30 minutes for Gabe. Owen is quickly learning how to get whatever he wants from us. And quickly too!

What's for breakfast Mom?

This morning, as I prepared and ate my breakfast, Owen looked at me with larger than usual puppy-dog eyes. He has been watching Gabe and I eat, and reaching for our food for a month now. And today I gave in. I wasn' going to - I meant to hold off feeding him food until we went camping, as that's when he would be 6 months old (almost). But we leave for camping on Sunday, so what's the harm of giving him something a few day sooner?

I couldn't give him what I was eating - turkey sausages, grapefruit, and cooked oatmeal cereal. And I didn't want to give him rice cereal (I should wait until Gabe is home for that one). So I gave him a "Baby Mum Mum". I bought them at Save-On Foods. They are rice cereal in solid form that babies can hold, break off, and gum to death. So I thought, Owen was able to break off small pieces qite easy. He didn't choke (or even come close), but he did suck on the pieces and spit them out. I don't think he actually "ate" any of it. But he was so pleased with himself!

I usually taste what I'm giving him, but I haven't tried these yet. They smell like rice cakes. Owen made some funny faces when eating them, so they probably aren't flavored at al, but taste just how they smell.

I let him suck on one of the pieces, which gave me enough time to finish my own breakfast. After he mangled the largest piece, I tried to give him the rest, but he was done. And I guess it tuckered him out, because he went right down for a nap, and slept over 2 hours!

I hope it works this well next week at the campsite!

P.S. He rolled over again today! From back to front. He’s done it twice today already. And he was able to free his hand this last time, so he could play once he got there. He hasn’t gone from front to back, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out soon.

Look what I can do!

Owen rolled over today for the first time! He was on a few blankets on the floor in the great room while I was making dinner. He had toys all around him, and I was taking pictures. I went back to making dinner and he was whining (his teeth haven’t let up in almost 2 weeks and he’s hurting big time). And then all of the sudden it was quiet, so I poked my head around the corner, and he was on his belly!

He didn’t really know what to do once he was on his tummy. oone arm was pinned under his chest (see last photo below), and he couldn’t really move it. So he stayed there for a while, I took a bunch of pictures, and then I rolled him back over.

He didn’t do it again, but now Papa is so excited for him to move, he is trying to show Owen how to crawl.

See how he didn't just turn over, but turned sideways as well? So now that he is moving (kind of) I can't take my eyes off of him for a minute. We should get our baby gates pretty soon too. Does anyone recommend a certain brand?

So, follow the photos from top to bottom and you will see Owen roll over. The picture of the back of his head once he is on his tummy was taken right when I saw he had done this amazing trick.

5 months (a little late, but here none-the-less)

I totally forgot to post Owen's 5 month old photo. You have to see how big he is getting! Actually, he isn't that much bigger than he was at 4 months. At least it doesn't seem that big of a difference - especially in the "bear" photos.

Owen is now (at 5 months, which was a little over a week ago) 19lbs. He is still 27" long, and his head size is still 17" (has been for a month or so now). His weight and length put him in the 90th percentile (right on track), his head size is in the 60th percentile. can you imagine if it was in the 90th percentile too?!?!? That would make it .75" bigger! Actually, that's not too bad.

Seeing as he has gained over 2 pounds in a month, but his length is the same, Owen has shot up from the 15th percentile to the 75th percentile for weight:length ratio. That means he went from pretty long and lean to pretty chub-chub. Whish is ok by me! Too much measuring and charting made me paranoid earlier, so I don't do it as often.

:)

Owen and Charlie

This is Charlie. He is Owens friend. He and his Mom (Deanna) are friends that we meet at the Health Clinic every Monday morning for "Baby time drop in". Charlie is 2 weeks older than Owen, and they just came back from a holiday at Disney Land.

The shirt Owen is wearing is a new gift from Unlce Matt and Auntie Lena Friesen from Sweden.

Cultus Lake

Owen and I went for a walk at Cultus last night with friends Kimberly and Cecilia. The weather was perfect - a little overcast but sunny and dry. And furthermore, it was great because hardly anyone was there. We did encounter about a million Canadian geese though. You can see a few in the background of this photo.

I had a bit of a run-in with a gaggle of geese when I was young (5 or 6 years old maybe). I guess I got too close to their nest and they came out of the sky with a vengeance. It may be my earliest childhood memory. And it isn't a good one. They attacked me to the point of drawing blood. I was screaming, and running for the cabin (we had a log cabin up Harrison Lake - way up where there is no electricity or roads) with my hands over my head to defend myself. But as I couldn't see where I was going I just kept running in circles until one of my parents came and saved me from the killer birds.

So last night, 20 years after the attack, I was still nervous to get too close to the geese. Hopefully Owen will not have such memories.

Big baby. Sad Mama. And a whole bunch of sillyness.

Owen and I walked to the health clinic today. I wanted a walk, and hadn't weighed him there for a while, so off we went. He is now 19lbs! Wow! No wonder my back is out and my body aches when I carry him in his car sweat. It must weigh clos to 40lbs with him in there. No more of that sillyness.

I am feeling quite depressed lately. I am sick of other parents judging me, and comparing my kid to theirs. Of course Owen isn't walking yet - he's 5 months old! Sheesh! I sometimes feel like I'm missing something. Or forgetting something. I feel like I should be doing something more for Owen. I don't know what. I don't know why. I just hope I'm doing everything ok for him, and that he turns out alright. Maybe I feel this way because I have the easiest kid in the world, and any other kid would be taking up a lot of my time with crying, or walking him to sleep, or pulling my hair out. Shrug.

Owen can almost sit up by himself. Correction - Owen can sit up by himself for a very short period of time. Say 3-4 seconds. And then he falls to one side, or backward, or forwards. Usually to one side or the other. But he is almost there. Within the nxt few weeks he will be able to sit up on his own, supporting his upper body all by himself, for any period of time he so deems. I think. I hope. I'm pretty sure.

Sigh. I feel very intimitated by being a first time Mom. I need to stop second guessing myself and let my Mommy self-confidence take over.

No tears needed, my love

Owen is teething again. My poor little boy. He's really hurting. The teething tablets we have are great, and they take most of the edge off. But sometimes, out of the blue, Owen will cry. With tears.

It just breaks my heart to see tears run down his face. Usually by this point he is in so much pain it is difficult to get him to take his medicine.

He is soothed by me holding him in my lap, and hugging him tight. I hope he doesn't think he needs to cry to have me cuddle him. I love to cuddle him, and often do long after he has fallen asleep in my arms. No tears needed, my love. No tears needed.

Hope Museum

Kimberly Francis, a good friend of mine, is back in Chilliwack for a few weeks. She grew up here but hasn't lived here in years. So now that we both have our days off we have decided to be tourists in our own town and go on a bunch of day trips. Our first adventure was yesterday, and we found ourselves in Hope, BC at the museum and tourist information center.

From there we went to the Othello Tunnels (see post below).

Here Owen is showing us that he can almost sit up by himself. He tries all the time and almost has the hang of it, but not quite. He still needs us to hold his hand so he doesn't topple over backwards. The area we took these pictures in is just outside of the Hope Museum that has old machinery that was used during the gold rush days. The machines are huge! They are also very old, and haven't been kept all too well, so it's hard to tell what they actually did. But the gold rush machine pieces that are inside the museum are very neat, and have been taken care of quite well.

Hope is a charming little town that still acts like it is 1982. Perhaps that is because in 1982, Sylvester Satllone filmed "Rambo - First Blood" there. He was, apparently, quite the movie star back then, and everyone in Hope still tells stories about how they met him, or when they saw him at the Dairy Queen, etc.

I think my favorite part of the day was going through all the Rambo paraphanalia at the museum... or perhaps taking this photo of Owen. It is a wood poster with Rambo's face cutout and it's right on the main drag in town. How funny!

Othello Tunnels

This is Owen and me at the Othello Tunnels (outside of Hope, BC). The weather was just operfect yesterday for our little outing - sunny but not too hot - and the entire trail was in the shade!

The river was amazing! Owen was captivated by the sounds and movement of the water. And we say Salmon trying to swim upstream. It was tres cool!

The tunnels are really a neat day trip. If you haven't been in a long time (or ever before) I strongly suggest you go this summer. The only thing you need to pay for is parking - $1 per hour or $3 for the day. Just head East on Highway 1 until yuo get to Hope. Head West through town until you see the Information Booth/Hope Museum on your right (a few blocks into town past a car dealership). Go ther for directions (and maybe a walk through their musem - see photos in above posting). The tunnels are maybe 15 minutes from there. It's a beautiful walk, and you can go for just an hour or two, or you make make a whole day of it. We walked the entire trail until we were past the tunnels and just on the trail that ends up in Kelowna. After we got back to the car we checked the time and saw it had taken us a little over 2 hours (that is with lots of stopping for picture taking).

Thanks Kimberly for the idea! Next we tackle Bridal Falls!

Beware of baby sans diaper!

Today I was getting him ready for a bath, and Owen had a big pee in his diaper. So I took off the diaper and figured I would just carry him from his room to the bathtub (Papa was filling it with water). It’s not a far distance, so I thought I would be safe as he had just emptied his bladder. Well, guess the comfort of not having a diaper on encouraged Owen to pee again. And this time it was all over Mama. Lovely. So in the bath I went with him.

Feeling a little crabby?

With this weather we sure are blessed to have friends with pools! Auntie Cari even bought this little crab floatie for Owen to use!

Owens First Canada Day...

... And he dressed very patriotically!

Lemons!

Owen has had a taste of a lemon before (thanks to Grandma), so we decided to do it again to try and get the funny facez on film. But this time Owen didn't make any funny faces - he just loved the lemons!