In Owen's bedroom, we have a set of bird counting cards framed on the wall and there is a bird mobile hanging above his crib. Up until the past few weeks, I don't think he ever really noticed the birds (he probably quit looking at the mobile after about the second one I made...they rotate quite frequently). Anyhow, the birds have recently become the highlight of any sleeping/rocking to sleep event. Every time he goes down for a nap or at night, we have to sit in the rocking chair for at least 10 minutes just pointing to all of the birds and saying over and over "one robin, two cardinals, three mourning doves, four phoebes, etc." He likes to point at each of them as we go through them, so if I stop using my hand to point too, he will push my hand towards the birds to keep me going. Point is, he loves his birds. In fact, the other day he was looking out the window and saw some birds pecking at seeds in the grass outside...he then looked towards his birds on the wall, then looked back out the window, and then back at the wall...he apparently had figured out that what he was seeing outside was the same as the drawings on his wall! It's so fun to see him figure life out. Oh yeah, and today we were outside for a long time planting more bushes and Owen decided that he wanted to CRAWL, not scoot, through the grass. This is a breakthrough for him, although he still scoots all over while inside. We'll see....but he's decided crawling isn't so bad after all (at least not in the grass). The pics above are him peeking out of his crib, and the ones below are of the birds....obviously.
Uncle Brian, C.J.'s younger brother, is officially back! And we are happy to have him. After a few years in the NFL and a 6 month mission trip, Brian has moved back to the valley. He came over for dinner tonight, and we decided he needed to make his debut on the blog. 
For some reason, Owen has really taken to putting any little toy that has a head in his mouth to just hang out. He used to favor this little chicken that came with a farm set he has, but lately he has LOVED Lego Man. He never puts him in feet first...always head first. And then he just plays like that; scooting around the house in search of things to do with Lego Man's feet sticking out of his mouth. Hmmm...
A couple days ago the girls, MY girls, came over for dinner with their family. Boy oh boy do I miss them! Now that they are all in school, our opportunities to see each other are pretty hard to come by: they have school, and swim team, and Girls Scouts, etc. and I have a baby who goes to bed at 6:00. So the times that I do actually get to see them I completely cherish. It's hard to go from seeing people you love every day all day (ok, besides weekends) to seeing them only a few times a month. But the girls are growing so quickly and definitely turning in to wonderful little people. So here's a little update on them: Allison is in second grade now and is quite the little reader/writer. I read one of the stories she had written last time I was at their house and I'm pretty sure I couldn't even write a story that well at age 26. Evie and Rosie are in a bilingual kindergarten class and already know more Spanish than I learned in my three years of it in high school. Evie just participated in her first swim meet last weekend and won her heat in her first race ever! She also lost a tooth while she was here, which I think makes 4 now. Rosie is quite the little artist these days. She is only 6 but she can sew pretty stinking well. She has also lost 4 teeth and told me that SHE still believes in the tooth fairy (Evie tried very hard to convince us all that the tooth fairy is actually Mommy.) Anyhow, I just needed to say that it was so refreshing to get to see the girls the other day and I can't believe how quickly they grow up. It honestly (and I'm not just saying this) seems like just the other day they were all sitting in their high chairs covered in "boppies" and baby food! There will always be a VERY special place for these 3 precious little girls in my heart!
