Owen's first haircut

Owen's hair has been getting a little...um...fluffy lately. So, we decided to take matters into our own hands. Okay, I did. It's so great to have a boy! Not much to mess up in the hair department. Greg has his own set of clippers, so we (I) went to town on Owen's hair, using the longest attachment to start. It turned out just right!

And Owen just sat there and took it.

Sometimes it tickled a little, though.

Fa-la-la-la-la...

We are a fake Christmas tree family, for various reasons. Greg grew up with fake trees...I grew up with real. Greg is allergic to real trees...he wins. The mess of a real tree is a little daunting too. Plus, when all is said and done, we're both really too cheap to fork over the cash to buy a new tree each year. He at least let me buy a new (non-garage sale, hand-me-down, 3-feet tall tree from our first year of marriage) fake tree of my choosing. I got this one with a coupon at JoAnn's a few years back, and I love it!! It's kind of skinny, which fits perfectly in our little house.

My little elves helped me put it up.

Both Sophie and Owen enjoyed putting the snowflake ornaments on the big tree. We have a very well-decorated lower third of a tree.

I took care of the top two-thirds.

We think the finished product looks pretty good, if we do say so ourselves.

The kids and I were working on the big tree, our "pretty" tree. When Greg and I first got married, we didn't have many ornaments (okay, one, that we bought on our honeymoon). I wanted to do a pretty, thematic tree that wouldn't cost a fortune to fill with ornaments the first year. So, I chose snowflakes. I've been collecting snowflake ornaments since then.

We do have a little "Charlie Brown" tree that we put other ornaments on. Those are the kids' ornaments they get each Christmas (we've only a few of those since the kids are so young yet), our anniversary ornaments (we were married around Christmas and buy an ornament on each anniversary wherever we are celebrating), and gift ornaments that we've been given. This year I left the breakables off because I'm not sure what Owen will do with the trees yet. Someday, we're going to have to switch the trees because we're getting quite a collection on the little tree and it may fall over someday!

Right Here in Rivercity (name that movie!)

(Pay no attention to that mess on the counter)

With a capital T

As I was fixing myself a toasted english muffin this morning, I looked out into the living room and saw this...

Owen standing on the couch. He was after the camera, phone, remotes, etc. as usual. However, no one had helped him up there, so I decided to investigate further. I put Owen back on the floor and sat on the other couch to watch what would happen next...

Oh, dear. We are in big trouble!!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house along with my sisters and their families. The kids all had a great time chasing each other around. Owen tried his best to keep up with the older girls.

Thanksgiving dinner kids' table--cousins and friends

Chilling out downstairs while the adults cleaned up

Doing snowflake crafts

We did my family's Christmas on Thanksgiving night. Owen wanted to open everyone's presents but his own.

The really little kids table

All the girls got special dolls for Christmas

Owen loved "playing" Hi-Ho Cherry-Oh with Jozie. Sophie doesn't let him play at our house.

All the kids in their new Christmas pjs

Owen's first sledding experience. It ended (abruptly) with a face plant in the snow.

More crafts...I just love crafts (Day 1)

(Day 2)
Helping Grandma make cookies

Helping Grandpa grill the hotdogs and brats

Trying out the new princess table & chairs

Watching a "scary" movie (Jurassic Park 3)

More snow fun (this time without Owen)

Uncle Paul rigged up a sledding "hill" on the deck stairs

My day...so far

My friend Laura just called suggesting we skip our cardio class tonight to go for drinks instead (Coke--duh!). She's been having one of those days...me too, sort of.

The kids and I left our house at 10 am to go downtown to buy some tickets to Disney on Ice. I know I can buy tickets online...I blog...I'm on Facebook...I'm fairly technologically savvy. Don't even get me started on why I had to drag my two small children all the way downtown to pay for parking to go in person to buy tickets to Disney on Ice. I don't want to talk about it.

Since we were already downtown, I decided to make it worth our time (and parking $$) and visit the cool library that was nearby. My kids loved it!! Me too! Too bad it cost us $6 in parking to see it...good thing I brought my camera with me so we can remember the really cool library we'll probably never see again.

They had a lovely pretend market place.

Even Owen was into it. Right about now, we had to take a break to change someone's diaper. I'm not telling who.

Then the kids found the puppets and put on a show.

Owen was the puppet-master to the puppet-master. And right about now we had to change someone's diaper again...for the second time...in 20 minutes.

Shortly after this, I noticed green junk in the corners of Owen's eyes. I wiped it away, not thinking much of it. By the time we reached the car, it was back...in both eyes...and even more than before. Uh-oh. He's been having a tough time sleeping lately, so I thought the green goo could be indicative of an ear infection. I called my clinic and talked to a nurse who thought the same thing...all while trying to find my way out of downtown. I missed my first exit opportunity. (Don't tell Greg I was driving while on the phone!) She was able to squeeze us into the first afternoon appointment at 1:20. Praise the Lord! We didn't have to interrupt naptime, and we got to be seen before Thanksgiving!

So, the kids and I had lunch at Subway since there wasn't time to go home. Sophie requested McDonald's, but we'll be doing that tomorrow. (Can't have McDonald's two days in a row. Daddy would freak!) All the while I was praying that something was actually wrong with Owen. You other cheapskates out there will be shouting "Amen!" along with me. It's so frustrating to take the time and spend the money to hear, "He's perfectly fine!"

As soon as she saw us, the doctor said Owen looked like Conjunctivitis ("pink eye," to the lay person). That had not even occurred to me. She checked out everything else, but concluded as she'd originally thought...pink eye. So, we left with a prescription for eye ointment and oral antibiotics should his eye or questionable-looking ears take a turn for the worse over the holiday. Praise the Lord, again! At least it's something we can treat, Owen's not uncomfortable (although a tad unattractive...the eye gunk, you know), and we can avoid a trip to Urgent Care on Thanksgiving.

All in all, a lot of things that could have gone much worse didn't. The kids and I had a fun morning and a special lunch. We got home in time to nap. And we'll be un-contagious in about 24 hours...just in time for Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!