Zum-jacked

Our Primary is working on learning the Articles of Faith, and each week a kid from the Primary gets up and says that month's verse. This last Sunday was Owen's turn, and he worked SO hard the whole week on learning his words. The Articles of Faith are supposed to be memorized when said in Primary if possible, but Owen is the littlest kid in Primary. I wanted him to feel confident the first time he got up to speak in front of people, so we worked really hard on helping him memorize it, and he finally did it! He got up to the microphone in Primary and did the whole thing by himself. It was great!

Originally when he learned his verse (he was assigned number 12), instead of "subject" he would say "zum-jacked". It took us nearly the whole week to break him of that - we practiced the word "ssssssss-ubject" over and over and over. He finally got it. :)

Anyway, for all the out-of-town people (since he practiced it many times in front of everyone in town), here's Owen saying the 12th Article of Faith completely from memory. We're so proud of him!

Bowling boogie

Sometimes Owen just can't help dancing. This explains why he had such a hard time bowling on Matt's birthday. :)

Matt's Birthday

Matt's birthday was this past Tuesday, and we had a great day - totally chill and relaxing.

Matt came home early from work and took us bowling. It was Owen's first time and it was hilarious - he wanted to do it by himself, which meant that his ball literally took 20-25 seconds to get to the end of the lane. At one point, his ball stopped about 10 feet out and slowly rolled backwards to us, and of course we had one time where his ball had to be rescued by the staff. We had SO much fun, and found a great deal near us, so we're planning on going back again sometime to do it again!

We had a make-your-own pizza night for dinner, and then played some board games and opened presents. Matt requested a baked Alaska for his birthday cake, so we attempted that. It turned out pretty good - although we probably should have taken it out of the oven a minute or two earlier than we did. It was a bit slidey and didn't look very pretty, but it tasted great! Overall, it was a great relaxing day with our little family. :)

Can you tell which shoes are mine???

Waiting... and waiting... and waiting for Owen's ball to reach the end.

Owen thought the ball return was magic (come to think of it... so do I!).

Trying to give his ball a little extra push without him noticing.

It looks kinda like I swallowed a bowling ball, doesn't it?

We don't have any streamers, so this balloon rainbow was about as good as the birthday decorations got.

Board gaming it up!

The awesome sign that Owen colored.

More board games, and Matt's birthday cheeseballs (ew).

Little naked boy helping us cook... we think he looks like Dobby.

Personal pizzas for dinner!

Birthday presents from grandma Auman and Karen!

Some little boy wrestling...

Quick! Eat the cake! It's melting!!

A closeup of the baked Alaska... we even forgot to pull out candles and sing because this thing was melting so fast. It was yummy, though!

Little boy prayers

Recently heard in Owen's prayers:

"And please help me to get everything that I want and to play all the time..."

"And please help mom and dad not to put tape on my nose..." (Matt had taped his nose up to look like a pig - we tried it on Owen and it freaked him out. He didn't like how it felt).

We love this funny little kid. :)

A giant hole in our ceiling...

Last weekend (when it finally started raining in California!) we discovered that we had a leak in our roof.... what appeared to be a giant leak. We had water coming in through the fan/vent in our bathroom and water coming through the drywall of Owen's ceiling in several different places.

We called our manager on Friday night  right after we found the leaks and let her know. She tried to get the maintenance guy on the phone, but he wasn't able to come until the next Monday... so we spent the whole weekend with buckets and bowls and emptied drawers and tarps sitting all over our upstairs trying to catch all the water that was coming in. The maintenance guys finally came on Monday morning and did this to the ceiling in Owen's room: 

Then we had to wait several days for the whole thing to air out. Meanwhile, a bunch of roofers were called out to fix the leak in our roof. Not only did they not fix it, but they also were scraping the roof where they shouldn't have been and opened up a new leak - through the wall and window frame in Owen's room. So we spent the next several days with buckets lined up against the window trying to catch all of that water:

Of course we couldn't leave Owen to sleep in his room while all this was going on, so his mattress got dragged into our room, and all his toys and books hastily tossed out of the way to avoid the water pouring in:

Owen's bed is pushed up against our dresser which makes it extremely difficult to open the drawers... especially at night when he's sleeping right there. Needless to say, our house is a disaster - Owen's room is totally torn apart and our room has clothes laying all over it because we can't get into our dresser. The maintenance guys are supposed to be back tomorrow morning to texture the new drywall they put up. We have to wait for that to dry, and then they'll finally paint. Once the paint is dry (and all the fumes are out), we can finally put Owen back in his room and get everything back in order. 

This has been such a frustrating week with people traipsing in and out all day long every day and having to wait so long to get everything fixed. I am glad, however, that we are renting, and don't have to rip out the ceiling ourselves nor deal with the roofing company. And I'm SO glad this didn't happen a month down the road when we'd be throwing a new baby into the mix. As it is, I can't wait until the whole thing is fixed and done so we can get back to our regular lives, get better sleep (Owen talks in his sleep, and hops up in our bed whenever he wakes up in the middle of the night)... and get ready for the new baby to come!

Evil Dr. Who?

Owen loves Toy Story, and I love how he pronounces some of the names. Evil Dr. Porkchop is my absolute favorite.

What we do for fun

Owen LOVES to dance. He can't help but get up and move almost every time he hears music, and especially likes dancing to the music from his favorite movies. He's especially proud of his booty shake. :) We have a lot of impromtu dance parties in our house.

Owen loves to play games, and balloon tennis is a new favorite around here. Anything that involves running and smacking is bound to be a hit. :) I just taped paper plates to some wooden spoons, blew up a balloon, and we went to town!

Though Owen can be rough-and-tumble at times, he's generally a pretty quiet kid. He LOVES to color and draw, and is very particular and detail-oriented. We've just recently let him start using kid scissors and glue sticks. I caught this video of him cutting happily away. My favorite part of this is his intense concentration - you can see his jaw and mouth working, which is a funny habit he has whenever he's focusing on something. It makes his little dimples come out. :)

Owen also loves to pretend. He's always making his toys talk to each other. He can carry on conversations with them for hours. In this video he's making his stuffed dog talk to his hand (ie - his dinosaur... he makes his hands walk and calls them dinosaurs). He had no idea I was recording him, or that I was even listening. I love catching him doing this - it cracks me up to listen.