Owen!

Owen is walking now, but he's still very much into crawling since it's
the fastest and most stable method for him now. If he walks and someone
looks at him, he laughs and falls down! He says like 25 words and signs
a bunch, too. I'm 15wks pg now, doing just great! We had all of last
week off from school due to snow and ice--how wonderful to wake up to
Owen calling us each morning, waiting for us to come get him so we could
all snuggle in bed and read books! I got a little cabin fever-ish, so I
got out Shannon's trekking poles and put on my coveralls and ice-hiked
for about 75 min. each day. Owen definitely missed his buddies at the
baby-sitter's--when we pulled up Monday morning, he went bananas and
laughed and babbled like crazy!

HOLA!!!!

So sorry, all, about not posting for over a month. Our home computer is a MESS and not functioning fast enough to do anything useful. At school, blogspot.com is now blocked. So, I'm at my parents' house now, quickly posting before we head home.

In the news: Owen is amazing! He says so many words, and babbles to us all the time, 'telling' us what's new. He is almost 15 mo old, and we adore him to pieces!

Also: he is going to be a big brother! YES! I am pregnant! I'll be 11 weeks tomorrow. We are still in shock, but happy as can be. :)

If anyone needs to email me, it's now hensonre@fredericktown.k12.mo.us.

Owen loves anything with wheels...

...including his grandpa's TRAIN! You can see from the expression on his face here that this is true!

I have to share :)

Owen did NOT want to go to sleep last night, even though he was obviously tired. Very tired! I spent 20 minutes lying next to him in our bed, laying him back down every 30 seconds or so after he'd roll up to sitting. He was of course quite angry w/me, and I was getting a little irked myself!

Then suddenly he decided he WAS tired, and he settled into the rump-in-the-air sleep position (see earlier post) with his face toward mine. He was also suddenly cheerful and smiley at his mommy...he grinned, and if you have ever seen Owen really grin, you know his whole face squinches up. His eyes squint, his nose wrinkles, his whole face smiles. He did this, and made his little giggly noise (I have no idea how to spell that noise--'he-eh' or maybe 'hingh'), and reached over to pat my cheek. He rolled around some, putting his cheek on mine, then snuggling into my chest, just moving till he found a good place then giggling a little and snuggling in for a new good place.

Then he fell asleep, and his mommy cried with joy. I just was totally overwhelmed. As I've written before: this kind of love is the most amazing, God-given gift I have ever experienced. To go from 'good grief, will this kid ever go to sleep,' to 'I can barely stand it, I love him so much' in about 90 seconds--talk about mood swings!

Sleeping solution

Well, we may have a solution. We put Owen's pack-and-play in our room. So, I hold him till he falls asleep, either in the living room or in our bed. After he's asleep, I put him in the pack-and-play. So he's close enough to see us when we awakens, and yet not RIGHT in our faces if he wakes up and whines. We can tell him 'shhhh' from our beds, and he knows we're right there and goes back to sleep. He usually sits up about 4:30 or so, and that's when we go get him and bring him in w/us.

I like it. He's nearby, we can see each other, and we all sleep MUCH better. Last night he slept w/us till 1:00, since he and I fell asleep at 7:30 in our bed and Shannon was already asleep in the other room!

Some pictures, finally

The one with the writing on the bathtub wall says it all--the drawing of Owen and his little mouth shows he color he ate!

The others are this weekend, Sunday, after we got home from my parents'. Owen's cheeks were absolutely raw, even though he hadn't been out in the cold longer than it takes to walk to a car or into a house.

He's standing by his radio here, too--he is quite a dancer! :)

Things Owen thinks are funny.

--Daddy sneaking up on Mommy and him after Owen is out of the tub--for some reason DAddy stalking Owen In A Towel is hilarious.

--Things falling off people's heads. Pa started this one.

--When he shakes his own head to the music.

--When Mommy rolls two balls from Guatemala down the back of the chair so they hit the back cushion and makes a silly noise while doing so. Why is this funny? ????

--The Owen Parade.

--Kitty. Always, kitty!