Last day of school

Today is Owen's last of pre-school for the year and they had an end of the year party. He LOVED school this year and his teachers Miss Joanna and Miss Ginger were awesome. I got his end of the year report and he did great meeting all of the milestones with the one area that needs work is writing. I'm so proud that he's gotten past some of the shyness and is now such a social guy. He made some great friends this year and I'm learning the differences between friendships between boys and girls. He and Brett were inseparable for most of the year but recently Brett hasn't been as into Owen. I thought he would be crushed but he says he just hangs out with the other kids, especially Jake B. When I was little there would have been many tears shed if my friend said she didn't want to be friends anymore :) Jake's such a nice kid and we've gotten to spend time hanging out with he and his mom and little brother.

Owen's favorite part of the party was lunch which was pizza, Cheetos, popcorn and fruit.

And then ice cream for dessert.


This weekend I'm going to the beach for a girls weekend so Bryan and Owen are on their own. Can't wait to come home and find out what they did spending their time together. I have a feeling that he'll spend some of the time helping his Mom get her house ready to put on the market and Owen will hang out with Lita :)

Owen's favorites

This is something they sent home from school:




Color- Purple
Shape- Square
Friend- Jake B.
Food- Fish sticks (would have guessed mac and cheese)
School activity- circle time and science time
Song- Red, White and Blue
Animal- Monkey
Book- "The Little Old Lady"
Number- 24

They send home a bunch of these types of lists and it's always interesting to see what he says. Usually I think it has more to do with what the kid who goes before him says than what his real answers might be. And I promise he's not eating a giant bowl of mac and cheese and watching TV in this picture because than that would just make me a lazy parent :)

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a really nice weekend hanging out with Leigh and Adam and going to every furniture store in the greater Houston area looking for a new couch for the room downstairs. Leigh and Adam spent the night and the highlight of the visit was taking Beans to the dog park. When we got there, we figured out that people usually take their larger dogs to the park. And since Beans weighs in at around 13 lbs, she was quite the attraction.
Here's Owen checking out the dog splash park.

And Owen and Beans on the bench.

And the reason spent the whole time on the bench. This dog was OBNOXIOUS!!!!

We finally found the smaller dog area and Beans got to run around and play fetch.

Owen loves having the Rodrigues spend the night. He seems especially into Adam lately. For some reason, he keeps calling him "Uncle Corndog". I'm not sure where that comes from but maybe it's some kind of secret between the two of them :)

Grandpa Henry

Sadly, Grandpa passed away on Friday. Luckily, Bryan was able to spend many evenings with him this past week and actually got to talk to him a bit one of those nights. Owen's middle name is Henry in honor of his great-grandfather and he will missed by us all. Henry had great influence over Bryan's life and was very much a father figure to him so his legacy is passed on in Bryan's relationship to Owen.

And since this blog is meant to be for Owen, here are some pics of he and Grandpa:

My name is Owen and I am an addict....

This picture shows Owen's two favorite things in the world right now, the Wii and Webkinz. He and Bryan went to Blockbuster last week to RENT a MOVIE and somehow came home with Mario Kart Racing and two steering wheels. Owen loves it and Bryan and I have been known to play a bit when Owen goes to bed and since I'm not competitive at all, it doesn't bother me a bit when Bryan wins. Owen's other favorite game is Star Wars Legos on the Wii though it's been played so much that we solved it twice. It was my saving grace when I had bad morning sickness because I could lay on the couch semi-conscious and play.

The Webkinz are odd because he never has liked stuffed animals but loves these. You can go on the computer and adopt them and then play with them every day. For reasons not explained to me, Owen has his dog on his head and Bryan has the turtle on his head. And if you'll notice the very classy seat that Owen is sitting in, Bryan has owned that thing since college. It's usually hidden in my bedroom because someone would be very sad if I got rid of it but it always gets dragged out to play Wii. If you would like one of your own, you can probably find it at your local Walmart or just go rip a chair out of an old school van.

This is dedicated to Aunt Leigh

When we were kids, Leigh and I used to dress up our cat Benny (who by the way was incredibly evil) in our doll clothes. So Owen had a great idea to dress up his webkinz in some onesies that we bought for the baby. But they didn't fit so then he had the brilliant idea to dress the cat. Fat cat was the lucky one but because he is so fat, we had to put him in a 12 month tshirt that Owen picked out for the baby a while ago. The cat wouldn't even move with the shirt on. She sat with her face up against the wall in shame :)

Crafting it up Hulshof style

Owen and I seem to get on these crafting kicks and it's something he wants to do ALL the time. Lately its been these beads that you make a design with and then iron.
We've made 20+ of them lately and they all end up taped on his bunk bed where he can see them while he's in the bottom bunk. Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that baby girl Hulshof will be more interested in playing football then hanging out crafting it up with her Mom and older brother?????

And because Owen is SO funny, he likes to call it "making craps" rather than crafts. I have no idea where he gets his sassy mouth. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the new rule at our house that I have to pay him a quarter every time I say a word on the naughty list. And you don't even want to know what's on that list because some of them are REALLY naughty. He likes to try to trick me into saying them so that I'll pay him. Here's a conversation from the car today:

Owen: "What's that naughty word that starts with an 's'?"
Me: "Sh#$?"
Owen: "QUARTER!!"
Me: "Crap!"
Owen: "Another quarter!!!"

Random Owen thoughts

Cats
Owen still can't understand why the cats run from him. From the picture above (the cat is actually sitting there and tolerating it), I can't imagine why they don't hang out with him more either.
Owen loves school
Owen went to an inhome daycare up until we moved to the Woodlands last summer. He has ALWAYS complained about not getting to hang out at home but he has finally gotten to the point that he loves going to school. He'll stay at his school through the summer but will be going to a new pre-school in the fall.
Ariel
Ariel is his babysitter that comes over when I have to work when he's not in school. He LOVES her. She is perfect because she's 16 but homeschools so she's always available. When I got home the other day he asked me if I could go to work a bit longer so they could hang out. So much different than when he was smaller and we had to RUN from the house once we said goodbye.
I want that for Christmas
Owen went through a period where he would ask for everything he saw on TV or in a store. So I told him that if he asked he wouldn't get it because it was becoming really hard to take him shopping. So being the smart kid that he is, he now says that he wants it for Christmas or for the baby. When he wanted a radio controlled tarantula for the baby, I asked him if he thought she would really like it and he said he would just play with it until she got older :)

Not much going on here lately. Owen and I have ended up at the pool most afternoons because it's gotten so hot again. Bryan's in town all week which is a nice change from his recent travel schedule. Unfortunately, his grandfather has been in the nursing home the last few days and sleeping most of the time.

On a totally unrelated note, below is a picture of what I found in Bryan's shoes. He wears them to work in the yard and left them out on the back porch. I think it's either an indication that he needs to pick up his stuff better or work on the yard a little more often!

Mother's Day Weekend

Let me preface this by saying that I LOVE holidays. It doesn't matter which one it is but I somehow manage to make it into a multi-day event. So rather than a post about Mother's Day, I have to of course post about the whole weekend.

On Saturday, Owen and I went to the farmers market to get strawberries to make a strawberry pie but they didn't have any so we ended up driving to an orchard to pick our own.

Here's Owen headed out with his wagon on the way to the field.



Picking strawberries.



Our loot! The flowers were for Lita for Mother's Day and I have no idea what's going on with Owen's face in this one.



Saturday afternoon we went to the pool and it was awesome. VERY crowded because it was the first day open but Owen loved it. He was such a fish this year! I'm so excited to get his swimming this summer. It's great living here in the Woodlands because we have many, many pools to choose from. A big difference from the Pear where our subdivision didn't have a pool and we just had to mooch off the Flemings.



Bryan and Owen going down the slide.



Sunday morning I slept in and awoke to breakfast in bed and something I'm sure not many other mothers received, a puppet show.



It was SO funny. I wish I had been more awake but I remember Mr. Tickle and Mr. Rude from Mr. Men and I think there was something about a Mom in it. Owen did his "character" voice that he uses for every inanimate object. From a stormtrooper to a snake, they all sound exactly the same. Unless of course it's a robot, and then you get a totally different voice.

And Bryan and Owen turned the strawberries into strawberry pie.




We spent the rest of the day with Bryan's family and got to spend more time with Grandpa and Aunt Liz who had flown in from St. Louis. Grandpa is still hanging in there but gettting weaker.

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!

Success at last!!!

They FINALLY caught a fish! Granted, I drug Owen to Walmart the day before and bought 24 live worms for the fishing expedition. So with all of those worms, below is the great success. Caught by Bryan of course so we're still waiting for Owen to catch his first fish. For me it's more about having some down time than them actually catching anything so I'm more than happy for them to continue their quest!!

Grandpa

On Saturday, we spent the day with Bryan's family. His grandfather, Henry, has been living with Bryan's mom for the last few years and has been on dialysis ever since. About a week ago, he made the decision to stop dialysis which means that he likely pass in the next few weeks. It has been incredibly hard on their family, especially his mom Sylvia, and it was nice to get to spend time with him. He was actually in great spirits despite being tired. It's also been hard on Bryan because Henry is more of a father than a grandfather to him. I know he hates that he's traveling so much for work right now and has so much on his plate. So if you are one to pray, please say a prayer for the whole Hulshof family.