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.

Homemade presents

With our car blowing up shortly before Christmas and a new baby coming in two months, we didn't really have a huge Christmas budget. We decided to make a lot of the gifts we gave for Christmas. I got really lucky in marrying Matt that not only does he tolerate the crazy amount of crafting/sewing/picture taking/cooking that I do (and the mess that goes along with it), but he himself loves to create things and do projects. Here are some of the things we made for Christmas. 

Owen is a really creative kid and is always coming up with imaginative games to play. I wanted to give him some
dress-up clothes so he could be some of the characters that he pretends.

All accessories for all his costumes came from a local party store, Boswells, for less than $16 for everything (including his fireman hat and the cowboy accessories below). I LOVE Boswells.

He's not quite as into superheros, but he still thinks this outfit is pretty cool.

Ever since Owen was Buzz for Halloween, he's been asking if he could be Woody for next Halloween. Literally, if not every day then every other day he asks me when we're going to get him a Woody costume, so I decided just to make one for him for Christmas. He loves this costume!

Matt needed a better place to store his wood carving tools besides in a plastic bag, so I made him this tool-roll. It didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted it, but it works.

Matt carved me this Harry Potter wand for Christmas. Isn't it awesome? He stained it when he was done. Owen and I have been playing what he calls "Shoop" with it. We point the wand at each other and say "Shoop! You're a (fill-in-the-blank)." I've been a couch, a lamp, a desk, and many other things. :) Owen turned Matt into a Mythbuster the other day, and then promptly informed him to "start cooking!". Apparently one wand in the house isn't enough... Matt's planning on making one for Owen soon. :)

And this post would not be complete without some booty-shaking by Owen. :)

He's the best booty shaker around!

Christmas.... times 4

We had Christmas four times this year - our house, Matt's house, grandma Bromley's house, and grandma Auman's house. Just in case you're wondering, that means we had three Christmas Eve celebrations, four present-opening sessions, three Christmas dinners, and many many hours of driving back and forth and visiting everyone in the area. I'll be totally honest - it was exhausting. We love having so much family close, but holidays get really really hectic. It's also totally crazy having many of our siblings married - each sibling is trying to split up time between both of their families which means that my family got about 6 hours total with everyone present, and we got about the same with Matt's family when all the siblings and inlaws were there.

This was also the first year we've been able to have our own personal Christmas morning, and I LOVED it. It was so fun to set everything up just the way we wanted it and to watch Owen come down to Christmas presents in his own home.

Anyway, as you can probably imagine, I took tons of pictures. Without further ado, here are the highlights of our Christmas 2011:

Gingerbread house... designed by Owen (can you tell? :)

Sausalito Children's Discovery Museum - we had free passes and my whole family went. We didn't love the exhibits indoors, but the several acres of things to play on outside were fantastic!

Auman sibling gift exchange outside the museum in Sausalito.

Lexie (and baby - wooo!), Ryan, Hilary, and Michael.... customary Auman trip to Ghirardelli. LOVE that place.

Cute Kev, Mad, and Bec.

Owen trying not to be in our picture. :)

Mom and Dad.

Michelle at the Farrell Christmas movie party. Yes, she's awesome. If you don't know her, you SHOULD!

Matt's dad always dresses up as a character from whatever movie we're watching. This year he dressed up as Scrooge... and scared the heck out of Owen. :)

Scrooge with the three Farrell girls and the four current grandkids. Check out Owen's face - he's not happy to be that close to Scrooge!

The Wood Ranch house... this house goes all out with Christmas lights. We drive to see it every year. Kind of ridiculous, huh?

Almost ready for the Farrell Christmas Eve white elephant.

Nativity!

LOVE Owen's face in this one.

Owen loves his cousin Ellie - he's always sitting close to her and making sure she's got a toy or her pacifier or whatever she needs. He's going to be a great big brother.

Practicing a cousin song at grandma Bromley's.

Most of the Bromleys together for Christmas Eve - getting ready for the cousin gift exchange.

Getting costumes on for the nativity.

Matt and Josh hanging out waiting for the nativity.

All the nativity kids!

Cute little angel.

Putting out milk and cookies for Santa!

This is what Santa left for Owen for the next morning. He was SO excited when he saw it.

First view of the Christmas tree. LOVE his face.

So excited about the Toy Story umbrella he asked Santa for.

Checking out all his loot!

At the top of the de Young Museum observation tower in San Francisco - we took a trip there while all my siblings were home.

Our fourth Christmas - opening gifts with grandma and grandpa Auman and aunt Karen.

Three silly cousins - boating at Lake Chabot.

Matt and Michelle.

Yes, I know I take too many pictures of this kid, but seriously, how cute is he?!

Playing "Chopped" with the Farrells - Matt's parents and his brother Jon were the judges and Michelle was the host. Matt and I were a team, Jason and Lindsay were a team, and Sarah and Jenny were a team. Exhausting, but hilariously fun.

The cooks listening to the judges' remarks. No, I don't know what Matt's doing to his face.