Hand shoes.

We are happily enjoying lots of cousin time over the holidays. Here are Walter & Isabelle playing in Owen's top bunk, with a little ABC duet, followed by some hand shoe fun.

I just dropped the boys off at Joanne's for a fun sleep over. Jer and I are heading to a friend's to ring in the new year. We had a lovely 2009 and are excited to see what 2010 brings. Owen was asking me what year it would be when he was 11, 16, 8 etc. tonight as we were driving to Joanne's. It was strange to say 2015, etc. Those years seemed so futuristic to me as a kid and now, we are heading in to that decade.

Happy New Year!

Now I know mine ABCD's...

This will forever put a smile on my face. Enjoy!

I want Peace Around the World.

Such an appropriate title for a Christmas post, right?! Tonight Walter was having a hard time staying in his new big boy bed and falling asleep. After about 10 attempts to stay up later, sleep with us and have us sleep with him I finally convinced him of one last serenade. As I started singing our normal bedtime song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Walter quickly interupted me and said "No, I want Peace Around the World." So we sang Peace Around the World together.

Owen woke us up this morning at 6:30, after going to bed at 10:30 last night. He was so excited to tell us that Santa had come and was kindly begging for us to get out of bed so they could open their presents. Once we gave him the o.k. to go through his stocking, he ran downstairs to get Walter up and they run up and down the our stairs, showing us all the different goodies from their stockings. Santa was good to the boys, Owen was pumped to open his new hockey skates and Walter played and played with his new planet hero space ship.

We've had some busy days prepping and enjoying the holidays. We spent Christmas Eve at Joanne's house, after a delayed start thanks to a sewage backup! Santa even stopped by to give the kids a few gifts in person. As soon as Santa left, Owen quickly told me that was Grandpa Monster, not the real Santa...he recognized his shoes!

Kindi came over this morning for brunch and after we went to Jer's Grandma's for more celebrating. Its been fun having the Hipps family together. Owen and Walter are enjoying having their cousin Isabelle around and are anxious to have her sleep over this coming week.

The snow storm has been completely welcomed by our family (especially since Jer is home to shovel!). Its so beautiful and Owen can't get enough time outside building and sledding. Today he and Jer built a snowman and we think he'll be around for quite some time this winter.

Crunchity crunch!

We have a special guest in our home for the holidays, Cassie, the tortoise from Owen's classroom. It is quite exciting having her here. We get to bathe her, give her exploring time out of her cage in our house and feed her daily. Walter says this every time he sees (& hears) her eating her lettuce. She's a peaceful little tortoise and we are hoping Santa brings her a strawberry on Christmas morning.

My parents were in town this week before heading to Hawaii on Thursday. Owen was out with my dad expanding the roof top snow slide daily. On their way to the airport, we stopped for a couple quick sled rides on the big Nokomis hill.

Friday night I had Christmas with my GNO ladies. We stayed a night in a hotel and had such fun catching up, remembering old times and swimming in the pool-sized hot tub! We were up until 2 a.m., which I thought was quite late... Well, last night, you could say Jer had his Christmas celebration with his Augsburg buddies. He spent the night at a friends, where they all stayed up until 6:30 a.m. playing poker and laughing and laughing, I am sure.

Mom, I'm on the roof!

I really should have taken a picture to describe this quote, but there will be plenty of opportunities to take the photo this winter. Owen and Jer started building a snow slide in our backyard yesterday. They set up a slide we had in our garage and put it against our garage in the back yard. They then piled and piled up snow under it so Owen could (eventually) walk up the pile and get on the top of the roof and then slide down the slide. Yesterday the pile of snow wasn't quite big enough for Owen to climb up to the roof so Owen was ecstatic when he realized it snowed last night. Today we were out sledding, shoveling and working on his pile and when I wasn't looking, Owen yelled this to me. He had piled enough snow to shimmy himself up to the top of the roof!

Good dinner, mom.

Walter told me this tonight at dinner. He says such adult things sometimes. He's doing pretty well with potty training, assuming we help remind him. Still no luck in the poop department, so I'm certainly doing my share of laundry lately. We are now trying to bribe him with the dilly bar and a new toy. We joke we will be tossing out a trip to Disney World soon. May that remain a joke...

We celebrated Joanne's birthday on Friday over Chinese and cream puffs. I'd tried to get Owen to make a card before we went, but the snow was just too tempting and he played in it until we had to leave...so they both enjoyed drawing people, hearts, birds and flowers for Grandma once we were there.

Yesterday the boys enjoyed a long bath together. I used five clean towels to soak up all the water that was splashed around during the fun. There were lots of laughs happening in the tub and they came out extra silly, making funny faces and trying to get goofy hair. Owen requested sharing this picture through the blog with you all.

I want to go again!

I started potty training Walter on Thursday and was so impressed with his abilities on day one. He was super excited about having a sticker chart and getting a new sticker after each time he used the toilet...so excited that he had twelve stickers on his chart by the time he took his afternoon nap. He would go to the bathroom, get a sticker and then tell me "I want to go again!"

Yesterday we had a rude awakening when our babysitter called us to tell us our car windows had been smashed in. We went outside to find broken glass on both our vehicles and three other cars in our neighborhood. The punks didn't even go through my van, they stole Jer's satellite radio, went through one neighbor's truck, and didn't go through the other two cars. Whatever...enough on that!

I am the Project Man!

After I left my parents house and went to Augsburg, whenever I'd come home, my mom would have me go through her house and load me up with groceries, toiletries and anything else she could think of. This tradition has never stopped and whenever I'm home, she encourages me to "take whatever I want." Well, we were at my parents house this weekend for Thanksgiving and last night as we were packing up I found my mom having Owen "taking whatever he wanted" from her craft cabinet. I had intervened, telling Owen that was good for now and to save some supplies for at Grandma's house, when my mom than said, 'are you sure you got enough, Owen?' He told her he needed a little more since "I am the Project Man."

We had a really fun, relaxing weekend with my family. Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. We had a bowling party where Owen started it off with a strike and Jer had his career high game of 235 or something. Jer & I went on a movie date. We had bonfires, saunas, played lots of board games and, of course, I caught up on my sleep. The boys were in heaven and stayed up way too late nightly and seemed to get up earlier and earlier everyday. They also got to make and paint some boats with Grandpa in his shop. We also celebrated Christmas as my parents will be in Kauai with my grandparents this year. It was a special weekend, for sure!

Griffin Roland Hipps

Last night the boys made boats out of pine cones and a whole lot of tape. Once construction was complete, they wanted to sail their boats and eventually ended up in the tub with their creations. Towards the end of their impromptu bath, they started to pay less attention to their boats and more attention to being silly together. At one point Griffin came in to check things out and Walter said "Griffin Roland Hipps" and both boys started giggling hysterically. There were two true belly laughs going on in the tub and it was awesome. 

Saturday was another full day of celebrating. We started the day with Cinderella at the Children's Theater. It was a great show, I'd highly recommend it to all! In the afternoon we had Owen's birthday party with his friends. He invited five friends over for a mini-golf party. It was fun and much calmer than last year's when we had 15 3 & 4 year olds here! 

Sunday we relaxed and played with O's new toys and games. The boys shot a few golf balls over in the triangle park and it was a beautiful day to be at home. 

Happy Birthday Owen.

We had Owen's birthday celebration at Sunny Hollow today. It starts with Owen bringing a photo from each year of his life in to school. He lays them out in chronological order and shows his classmates and answers their questions about them. Then, at 11:00, Jeremy, Walter and I were invited to the celebration where we shared stories from each year of his life while he walked in a circle carrying a globe in his hands. When it is all over, he dismisses each child by name and they come and shake his hand or give him a hug before leaving the classroom to go play outside. They also all said "Happy Birthday Owen" some with zest and some quite shyly. It was so cute. 

After all the children left, we had an additional half hour in the classroom to ourselves. Owen proudly showed us around and showed us how to do some of the work he has been doing lately, including the map of Africa and his number book.

After school, we went out for lunch and then made our way to the pediatrician's office for Owen's 5 year appointment. We are lucky to have two healthy boys. Owen was right in the middle percentage-wise for both weight and height.

Tonight my mom watched the boys while Jer and I went out on a date...shopping for tomorrow's birthday party followed by yummy appetizers and drinks at a new restaurant. 

I love this!

One highlight of this very special day for me was hearing Jer recount his time with Owen riding all sorts of crazy rides at the MOA today. Had I been there, we would have stuck to the kids rides, but Jer is much more adventurous and Owen talked him into taking him on nearly every single ride there. After a successful water log ride, they decided to go on a real roller coaster and it just spun off from there. Jer said they would get off a ride and Owen would say, 'let's do it again!' In the middle of the highest drop of one roller coaster ride Owen yelled 'I love this!' to Jer. 

After school today, Owen requested lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and my mom was generous to take us all there. The boys got special cups that light up and Owen was serenaded by the waitstaff. After, we went into the park and both boys enjoyed a few rides. Jer and Owen stayed all afternoon while my mom, Walter and I headed home to prep for Owen's family birthday party. 

Tonight we had a fun evening celebrating some more. Owen decided the menu - bow tie pasta, steamed carrots and french bread paired with 'funfetti' cupcakes. He had a hard time eating, however, with the stack of presents tempting him. He received all sorts of neat games, books and constructing toys. 

I'm pretty confident today was a really special day for Owen...mission accomplished.

5 years ago

Jer and I were in the hospital, awaiting Owen's arrival five years ago. Here we are a few hours before he came. Lindsay had swung by to help us pass some time, I think this was around 9 or 10 pm. 

A few key hours later we finally got to kiss and cuddle Owen William.

This was probably taken around 3 a.m. on 11.19. Isn't he precious.

Dug

My sweet Owen is starting to read. Yes, read! Last week he read the word 'dug' and when it came up at his conferences on Friday, his teacher was so excited to hear the news! She said he was so close and I actually got to hear the first word! Last night Jer was spelling words with him and he was able to read 'dog', 'bat', 'bug', 'car', 'cat', 'go', 'dad', 'up', 'fish' and even 'brush'! Talk about making your parents proud.

Today he came home with a slip of paper in his pocket that said "4,863." He told me that it was 4 thousands, eight hundreds, 6 tens and 3 units. He has been doing the 'stamp game' at school and is starting addition now, too. This year he is completely blossoming at Sunny Hollow. 

Appropriately enough, we got his school pictures today. I'm pulling the illegal move again and sharing a scan of him and his classmates. (Summer - please don't tell Josh...who works for the photo company!) 

My sweet boy is turning 5 this week and he is showing it. He is growing up to be one smart cookie.

I'm like a nocturnal animal.

Owen thinks its pretty cool now that it gets dark so early. He thinks he's staying up super late and when I put him to bed he likes to peer out his window with his flashlight looking for nocturnal creatures. He also like to use the bathroom in the dark as he is 'like a nocturnal animal' and can see well in the dark now.

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon at Willow River State Park today. After such a crummy October we have been living up the beautiful November we've had so far. It was a great wake-up call to get out as much as possible while we can and we are! We met Mandy & Miles and took a very long hike up and down some pretty steep hills. We walked up 178 stairs to get to a scenic overlook and then came back down again. Walter made it up all by himself and I carried him down, not too bad! I made many attempts to get a great photo of the boys but they just wanted to be silly when they saw me take out my camera...so the photos are great silly photos.

On our way home we stopped by a little Mexican restaurant in Hudson for dinner. We should all sleep well tonight.

p.s. Did I tell you I over doubled the profit from the Gala for Sunny Hollow? Very exciting!