Owen's Birthday

Owen had about a week long celebration for his birthday this year. I'm pretty sure he got to a point where he thought opening presents every day seemed quite normal. His first celebration came on December 17th with his cousins here in MN. We spend so much time around them it was hard to imagine not celebrating with them since we'd be traveling over his birthday. Unfortunately the Stansel clan got sick that day and couldn't make it to the party. We still had a great time with the Christensen. We sang some of Owen's favorite songs, played play dough, had dinner, opened gifts, and enjoyed some cupcakes. Owen was surprised with a Lighting McQueen and Mater car from the Christensens that night. Before that I don't think he even knew who they were but ever since he's been pretty obsessed with Cars. He opened a train table from Ryan and I. It's been just as I hoped--he loves it and plays with it every day.

Wyatt, Clayton, Lydia, Owen

Celebration #2 was on December 19th with Owen's good buddy, Corbin. The Wright's couldn't make it to our first party but somehow it didn't seem right to not celebrate with them. They joined us for a kid friendly dinner, cupcakes, and playing on the train table.

Celebration #3 came on his birthday, December 24th. By then we had made it to Portland for the holidays and were lucky to celebrate this time with Grandma and Grandpa Christensen, his Nash cousins (Keri and Matthew with Jessica, Jared, Kayleigh), and his Evans cousins (Liz and Travis with Calvin and Miles). We woke up to a donut birthday breakfast. After Owen's nap we started the official birthday party with cupcakes, sang some of his favorite songs, raced cars down our homemade track, and opened gifts. He got a Mater pillow pet from the Nashes (a perfect addition to his new liking to Cars), a Zu Zu (?) Pet from the Evans, and a backpack, play dough toys, and car carrier from Grandma and Grandpa. We were so happy to get to celebrate with so much family!

Owen has grown up so much in the last year! It was really fun celebrating his birthday with him. I really wanted it to be for him (as opposed to doing things that would be fun for me) and I think my mission was accomplished--he had a lot of fun at each party. When someone asks him how old he is he says, "I two!", sometimes with his fingers spread out in a "5", trying to figure out how to show 2 (as seen in the bottom picture). Owen seems like such a little boy these days. He's talking up a storm, putting up to 4 word sentences together. It's fun watching him learn and grow, put thoughts together, and do some simple problem solving--for example, the other day we walked from the store to our car. I said, "ooh, our car is dirty!" To which Owen said, "wash car". Maybe it's simple, but it's exciting to me to see him put those simple things together on his own.

I took him to his 2 year doctor's appointment last week, here are his stats:

28 lbs.--50th percentile

35 1/2 in.--90th percentile