Does this Helmet make my head look big??

Ah....Boones. Does this picture need further commentary?

Kisses from Owen

Owen is learning about kisses. So far, he is getting the right "sound effects" down, but it is still a work in progress...

This week

Greetings from the Boones!

We are enjoying a week of very moderate weather. I have been out planting more flowers in our front and side yard; communing with the 17 year cicadas...which are noticeably on the decline in the last few days. A week and a half ago, they were deafening and swarming every tree in our neighborhood.

Chris is off from work this week, so we are taking advantage of that. We made one final pilgrimage to the butterfly show before it closed this past weekend. Here are some cute pictures from that. This butterfly might have been on its last leg, but it wanted to spend its final moments on Owen.

A boy and his butterfly. They hung out together this way for 5 minutes or so.

This girl was thinking, "How can I take that butterfly off this kid's back?" Another older girl did exactly that a few moments later...


We have been keeping up on the news about Cedar Rapids, and getting email updates from my parents. What a huge mess! Thanks to all of my friends who have inquired about the Hamills and how they are doing with the flooding. The good news is, Dad and Lee are not in the flood plain. They are of course still effected by the water shortage, and travel restrictions (while several bridges were/are under water.) I am sad to think that Cedar Rapids will never be the same again after this disaster. The water is receding, but the only sewage treatment plant is offline, leaving all of the city's sewage to be dumped directly into the Cedar River. Cedar Rapids is known as the "city of 5 Seasons"...and also nicknamed, the "city of 5 smells" since Quaker Oats, General Mills, and a corn sweetener plant are all within a few miles of one another. Lee says it is being called the "city of Many smells" now, as the flood water is settling and leaving nasty residues everywhere. There are some amazing pictures on this link they sent me...
http://www.andrealynnphoto.com/CRflood2008/

imagine if this was your office on Monday morning...



Owen is doing well this week. He continues to have uncomfortable days and nights from teething pain, but when he is feeling good; he is just one cheerful little dude! What is it with him sitting in his toybox??


Owen continues to get more confident with being in the swimming pool. This week I got to be the one in the water with him while Chris watched and took a few pictures. Owen even floated, with his head down in the water...something he has always been very resistant to before now!


Pictures from last week with Dada...





and one more swimming picture, this one is at Grampa Tim's pool.

Owen Climbing

Thanks to Owen's "Aqua Babies" swim class, he has learned how to climb out of the side of a pool, and how to apply the same mechanics to climbing up the furniture at home. Watch and wonder...

"O-Wah"

Here is this morning's video of Owen saying his name. He just started repeating it yesterday. Fun!

Hot and Rainy Days...Summer is here!

It is hot here in the Tri-State this week! We have had major thunderstorms and tornado watches for the last two days...Oh the fireworks! We are all happy that it is sunny today, and we are heading to the pool with Heidi, Maggie and Genny Flanders this afternoon. High of 90 Degrees! I'll be wading in the baby pool too...

Here are Owen and Chris, chillin' on the couch



Like the angelic halo of sun that comes in over Owen's toybox in the mornings? Owen does!


Happy Boy, loves Lunchtime!

Good Morning!

A lot has been going on since our last post, nearly a month ago already! We are all doing well. Owen is walking with full gusto, since about a week and a half ago. We have been chasing after him ever since!


Tim and Jan went on a transatlantic cruise, and we moved into their house while they were away, to keep Molly and Howard company while they were gone. We learned some very important things from this experience.

Lesson number 1: Owen loves to pull anything and everything out of ground-level cabinets that he can reach. We zipped around baby-proofing what we could, and then played guard the rest of the time. It is pretty humbling when you sternly say, "NO!" to your child, only to see him burst out laughing at you as the response. My favorite part was when I glanced over from the kitchen sink to see Owen standing over Molly's dish (Molly standing to the side with an incredulous look on her canine face) and Owen shoveling kibble into his mouth! Usually when we say, "Ah", Owen will open his mouth for us...comes in handy when he has put contraband in, and we need to see what it is and remove it...so when I did the "Ah", imagine a little mouth full of kibble mimicking my "Ah" back. Something like a mouthful of marbles, if that helps. And my finger swiftly scooping out 4 or 5 pieces before he knew what was going on.

Lesson number 2: Molly is an outstandingly good dog! and I even made friends with Howard, while our own squirrelies were staying over and encroaching on his territory.

Lesson number 3: it is confusing maintaining two households at the same time. Is there babyfood and milk wherever we are going to be? Where is that shirt? Darn, it is at our house...etc.

Lesson number 4: It is good to be home. After many grosse loads of laundry, we are unpacked, groceries are restocked, and if we can't find it here...it probably only exists in our imagination.

Lesson number 5: Owen has no threshold for laughing and having fun. Watch the following video as case in point.


Over the last weekend, my parents, Bob and Lee Hamill, drove from Cedar Rapids Iowa for a visit with us. Fortunately, we had an extra house to offer them accommodations, and that probably only slightly deferred the expense of their gas to get here and back! We enjoyed our sunny days by shopping for flowers and herbs to plant in the front of our house.

This is my first time in my life having a place to garden...what fun! Dad and Lee enjoy spending their weekends working on their yard, so it was a great activity to share together. We also went to the Krohn Conservatory Butterfly Show, and got some wonderful pictures. Owen was a walking fool the whole time we were there!









He was moderately interested in the Butterflies, and really interested in the flowers and other children everywhere. A little girl made friends with Owen while we were there.


Chris continues to work for PDG, with a few weeks on, and a few weeks off. He has been meeting many theater people in the Cincinnati area, and trying to line-up design work for himself. He has a couple promising leads for shows in the 2009 season. I have also been getting back to doing some piano tech work, and the quest for piano students continues...