Moving Right Along

Owen is pulling himself up now and stands holding onto things with one hand. I'm sure walking is right around the corner, especially after seeing what his friends are doing out there:) His new favorite thing is to look out the front door. Would've been cuter without the diaper showing but that's how the kids are wearing it these days.
He also talks A LOT and makes funny noises. We think he gets it from Brett. At least the funny noises anyhow;)


And, of course, he likes to play with anything he shouldn't.

Boys Weekend

I went to Canada this past weekend with my Mom in Mother-in-law for our second annual Stratford Festival weekend. It's a great town in Canada that puts on Shakespearean plays and musicals with some of the greatest talent around. We saw Cabaret, Music Man and Alls Well that Ends Well starring Brian Denehy. Lots of fun!

While I was gone, Brett's Dad came into town and they went to see a Cubs game and Sox game. I left the camera for them to take pictures, but in typical guy fashion the only one from the weekend was the one I took before I left. Nonetheless, it's a cute one.
On a side, note, Owen had his first non-family babysitter this weekend. It was Kate, a girl that works for me. She was wonderful and he had lots of fun with her. We'll be working to get out more now I'm sure.

Trip to Ocean City, MD

We spent the last week in Ocean City, MD. My mom rented a house for the week. Owen and I went down last Saturday and Brett joined us on Wednesday. It was so nice to be away for a little while, although I've learned that a vacation isn't really a vacation with a 9-month old!!!!

For the first few days my Aunt Liz, Uncle John (mom's brother), cousin Anthony and his wife Jen were there. It was great seeing them and for Owen to be able to play with them.
We went to dinner at a really nice restaurant their last night there and Owen was so good.Most of our time was spent at the beach once Brett got there. Before that there was WAY TOO MUCH CRAP to go with just my mom and I. Needed someone to schlep the stuff:)

Kisses from mommy

Lunch at the beach (hmm...what was Brett really looking at...)

Little model

Jumping in the sand

Don't put me down Daddy!

More jumping in the sand

Standing in the surf (after lots of coaxing and on the last day)

Fun with the bucket

Close-up

Jumping the waves

Not happy about the sand

Some surf pictures

Daddy and Owen having fun

This shovel is great!
Enjoying the ocean

While there we found this great t-shirt. Got lots of laughs at the airport.

Thanks mom for a great week!!!

Deja Vu

I'm sure most of you heard about the storms this past Monday in Chicago. We got home Monday night and thought the sky looked really eerie. But, we went about our nightly routine. After we got Owen out of the tub it was starting to thunder and lightening tons. Next thing we know there are tornado warnings for a bunch of areas around us and then the weather alert system comes on with a tornado warning for our neighborhood and downtown Chicago. After that the tornado sirens came on. So, down to the basement with Owen and the cats we went. Of course I was freaking out at this point as I am deathly afraid of tornadoes. We were down there for about 25 minutes and after taking a Xanax I was able to calm down:) It all went past and we just had a small limb down on our cable line but it didn't cause any damage and we cut it off.

We went to bed around 11:15 and about 11:30 the most amazing lightening storm started. Brett took a video of it. If you saw the news, you may have heard that we had 6 months of lightening in 4 hours. I think it was over 90,000 strikes if I remember correctly.


Well, about 10 minutes after the lightening started it started to storm real badly and the wind was crazy. Next thing we know the tree in our backyard is snapping like crazy and limbs are coming down. About 50% of the tree ended up falling. As some of you may remember, we lost our utilities this past September from limbs on the same tree...not much left to fall now. It was raining real bad so we went to check the basement which flooded the first fall we were here. Of course, it was flooding. So that was fun to deal with in the dark. Owen slept through it all. Here are some pictures. We were without power for 36 hours which totally sucked. But, we are fine and everything is back up and running now. It' s all that matters especially when you see the people that lost everything in the tornadoes.

Our Poor Table

The side of the house

The power line on the ground

View from the kitchen

The backyard

Hard to tell but we lost a ton of the tree.
Oh, and a side note, Owen's pool was in the backyard through all of this and didn't suffer at all! Of course the $5 item makes it through...

New Trick

The mobile officially came down today:( The more things I put away the sadder I get since it mens Owen is growing up. But, he is so much fun right now that I forget quickly.

Owen is now pulling up on things. I know walking is right around the corner. We better get babyproofing...
And, if you click on the picture and look closely, you can see his two bottom teeth. He's had them for a while but I think they are finally all the way through.

1 little, 2 little, 3 little...

...Indian boys. Owen has learned how to make Indian noises. He can't do it all on his own yet but he thinks it's pretty funny when you help him out:)

Shaka Maracas

Owen LOVES his maraca. It's one of the best purchases ever because it's guaranteed to make him giggle.

This first video is from this weekend.


This second video is from our trip to Philadelphia courtesy of Papa Mo and Nonna Barbara.