Tessa Turns Two

Two already. Tessa celebrated with Owen and Sammy and Kiley. Since Tess is infatuated with Elmo... it made it easy to choose the theme for the birthday party.

Tessa's Couch Acrobats

Tessa's new thing....

click this link for better view

Christmas 2009

Another wonderful Christmas. The Kellers and Hayes joined us for an amazing Filet Mignon roast dinner on Christmas Eve. Santa most have been around late (until 4am) putting together Tessa's kitchen playset... but it was worth it, as it was a big hit. While we couldn't have family here, Nana and Pappa Joe joined via Skype to watch O and T open up the gifts.

Some pics over at flickr
Link to bigger video screen
Or click below

Christmas Play (long version)

Here is some video, about 4 minutes of Owen's performance at his Christmas play.

Click this link to see it on YouTube (a little bit bigger screen) or just click below.

Owen's Christmas Play

Look for more shorts from Owen's Nutcracker play from Building Kidz preschool but here are a few moments that gave us a chuckle.

Letter to Santa

Letter to Santa
Originally uploaded by rick loughery

Cutting the Christmas Tree Tradition

This year we broke "tradition" and instead of going over to the Sea Bowl to pick out at a tree we went down to Half Moon Bay to the Christmas Tree Farm to hunt and cut our own Christmas tree. O got a ride on the train with Rudy, Tess wanted nothing to do with it so - dad and Tess hung back while Mom and O took a ride on the crazy Christmas train.

Turkey day art

Turkey day art
Originally uploaded by rick loughery

Owen's first solo bike ride

This weekend was a big weekend not only was it Halloween but Owen officially was riding his bike on his own. After last weekend where we had some good 20 second and 30 second solo rides, this weekend Owen soared! From the moment we got to the trail he was off riding. Its pretty amazing how fast it clicked in for him especially since prior to last weekend he hadn't tried without training wheels in a few months. And on Sunday, we went down to the school and he was able to start peddling on his own (without us giving him a push).

Howl-o-Ween

Tricks or Treats

Owen is now an old pro - after several years of trick or treating, this year O was convinced not to be a dinosaur but to go as his second favorite thing... Scooby Doo.

For Tessa... she discovered trick or treating. At first she didn't even want to wear or customer or carry the Elmo bucket to collect the candy but once she saw her brother do a couple houses and there was candy to be had... she got over her fear pretty quicky. At one point Tess she had to climb up three big steps to get to the door. The elmo bucket was becoming cumbersome with its heavy load so she heaved up to the top step, climbed up, picked up the bucket and knocked on the door.

33 Seconds.

Big break through in riding the bike today. Owen was really getting the hang of it (sans training wheels). We would run along side and count. First it was 11 and then he hit the 20 second mark and by the end he was able to go 33 seconds. No major wipe outs

Birthday Scrapblog

Owen's 5th Birthday Party

The big bash was quite fun. Even though it was unseasonably cool we all were warm enough running around and jumping in the Scooby-Doo bouncy house, Scooby-Doo cake, Scooby-Doo Pinata, Scooby-Doo Balloons) (In case you couldnt guess, the theme for the party was Scooby Doo It probably would have been dinosaurs but we convinced Owen to go with his second favorite) Lots of fun and friends - Kyle, Kaiya, Kiley... as well as Justin/Jordan, Shelby, Madison/Joey, Nicholas/Michael, Rajeev, Ari - also Sammy and Sloan. Some more pics at Flickr
Or if you want to check out some pictures from Birthdays past click here.

Owen's requests

In the past two days Owen has informed mom that he wants 1. to be able to stay at home by himself 2. He wants his own TV

Rock n out at dinner

Rock n out at dinner
Originally uploaded by rick loughery

Owen's first baseball game

Owen taking a swing at the Phils/Giants game. Owen's first baseball game was a lot of fun, hotdogs, chocolate ice cream and a soft pretzel (although O didn't like the pretzel too much)

More produce from backyard

Tess apparently wants to go for a walk

Friday night bowling!

A fun night bowling for Owen's friend's birthday (Charlie). Tessa ate more french fries than the bowling alley could make.