Back from California...

We got back yesterday afternoon from our long vacation, and have been recovering ever since. :) No pictures yet... I've been too lazy. Yes, that's really my excuse.

BUT, some exciting news... Owen stood all by himself yesterday for the first time! It was less than 10 seconds, but he's getting it, and has been standing all over the place. It's pretty fun to watch. It seems he always learns new tricks right after we get home from a trip. He learned to sit right after we went to Colorado, he learned to crawl right after Idaho, and now he's standing all by himself right after California. He's just so eager to get around and get in to everything that nothing's stopping him. I wish he would just slow down, or that we could rewind several months, but I'm so excited for him to learn all these new things, too. :)

We haven't gotten video or pictures of Owen standing yet, but as soon as we get one, I'll put it up. Have a great Sunday tomorrow!

Videos!

First of all, a sad tale - Owen got his first bump on his head today! He was standing up, leaning on a toy, pulled it towards him, and fell backwards and hit his head on another toy. I think it upset me more than him - he only cried for about 30 seconds. He's totally fine, but every time I look at that bump, I'm re-traumatized. :)

Anyway, these two videos are of Owen dancing. He started doing this a while ago, but we haven't really caught it until now (he stops when he sees the camera). Whenever there's music playing, whether it's from a toy or from some music we have playing, he starts dancing.

This next video is of what we call "the Spike". Whenever Owen gets picked up (when he's happy), he kicks with his toes pointed. It actually really hurts if he kicks you - he's got some strong legs. It's really funny to watch, though.

Owen and I are heading out to CA tomorrow morning, and Matt will be joining us next Thursday. I'll probably not update while we're there, but I'll be sure to take lots of pictures!

New tricks...

Here are some pictures of Owen's new tricks. We have some videos to show you too, but they take forever to load, so this is all for now. :) First, Owen now sleeps on his stomach. We were worried the first night, because one of the things you hear most often from the doctors/nurses/books/etc. is "Put your baby on his back to sleep!!!" So when we found him like this, we flipped him over, and within 10 seconds, he had flipped back on to his stomach in his sleep. This is how he likes to sleep now. :)

I have no idea how this is comfortable, but apparently, it is.

He got stopped mid-roll at the side of his crib.

He traveled all the way up his crib and slept with his head in the corner. And yes, he's wearing Santa pajamas, and it's June. I know. They won't fit in December, though.

The other day, I turned on a flashlight for Owen. He would look at the flashlight, then point it at the wall, crawl over and touch the light on the wall, then crawl back and put his hand over it. It was pretty cute, and fun to see him learning.

Owen's got this thing with socks. They never stay on his feet - he pulls them off and they go directly in his mouth. They stay like that the whole time while he plays, and he gets mad if you try to take the sock out of his mouth. He even pulled off another little boy's sock last night and stuck it in his mouth. Silly boy.

Haha, we put my swim cap on Owen's head. It made his face all squishy, and Matt and I were crying we were laughing so hard.

While trying to pull himself up on the chair, Owen slid underneath, and then he started doing pull-ups.

This is what I see when I open the door to get Owen up from a nap.

He stands up on everything now!

That's it for now. I've got two videos that hopefully I'll put up later, but for right now, Owen needs a playmate! See ya!

Crawling

It's been a week and a half since Owen started crawling, and he's finally settled on his crawling style. Instead of getting up on his hands and knees and then flopping forward like he started out doing (which is pretty fast), he now crawls by pushing with his right leg and dragging his left leg underneath him. It's pretty darn funny. I think that he doesn't like being on his stomach, although he has no problem going from his stomach to sitting and back. Oh well. Here's a video of him crawling that I took yesterday. It looks even funnier when you watch it in fast forward but... I couldn't figure out how to do that. :)

Idaho pictures!

I know it took me forever to get these up, but we've had a busy week. We drove up to Idaho on Thursday the 21st. We didn't get there till midnight, and Owen decided not to go to bed until 2 AM, which was quite enjoyable. We spent a lot of time with family over the weekend, and got to do lots of fun things, including the Boise art museum, two picnics, and going to the Boise temple. It was great to be able to see everyone and to introduce Owen to them.

At granny's farm.

Picnic at the park behind the Boise Art Museum while grandma takes a nap.

Daddy trying new tricks with Owen's carseat....

Family picnic at the park for grandma's birthday.

Family on the bridge during our nature walk.

Daddy and Owen looking at fish.

Grandma directing "Happy Birthday" (I forgot to adjust my camera setting from before, so this picture is exposed incorrectly... I have a lot to learn still).

Owen's first time on a swing. He loved it!

After going through the Boise temple. I don't have any good pictures of the whole thing... it was hard to get far enough away to get a good picture.

More temple. I love the stone it's built out of.

More tricks with Owen's carseat.

Dessert night at "the compound" - where four of the Niblett cousins live in Meridian.

Owen's great great grandma, 'granny'. She is Matt's mom's dad's mom. Did you get that? :)

Owen with his great grandpa Niblett.

With grandma and grandpa Niblett.

See the border between the nice pretty sky and that huge storm? We could see it in the distance for miles. It didn't take too long to drive through, but boy was it a strong storm!

Trying to keep Owen from screaming for the last few hours by playing keep-away with the camera.

We also played a lot of Wii, ate a lot of good food, and had a great relaxing weekend. Thanks for letting us come visit, grandma and grandpa Niblett!