Owen's grandparents threw him a wonderful birthday party last week. Thank you Grandma Patrice!! Owen is now 1 year and 1 week old! Here are some highlights:
The happy birthday song:
Our friend Brandi and her son Eitan came:
Carrot cake on the right, and chocolate chip cookie / chocolate cake on the left (it's chocolate chip cookie dough pressed into the bottom of the pan, with a chocolate cake on top, then baked - yum!):
Eating cake (he was suspicious at first but then devoured it):
Owen has discovered salsa dancing apparently. David and I never dance around Owen (didn't realize we should or could, basically just hadn't gotten to that one yet) and yet he started on his own. So it must be innate? It really does look like salsa dancing and totally cracks us up. Sorry it's a little dark and that he pauses in the middle when his toy talks to him:
And here he is giggling over something that was apparently very funny in the high chair!!
We went to the Palo Alto Junior Museum last weekend, which has some toys and gadgets, as well as some animals. A lot of it was too advanced for Owen's age but he seemed to enjoy it anyway:
We had a great Christmas day. Since we had traveled so much for Thanksgiving and the week before, we stayed at home and Skyped during opening presents. Thank you SO much to Grandmas Carol and Bert for sending us all these wonderful presents!!!!
More presents opening:
"Nerdy Baby" flashcards that Owen got:
Owen eating Robyn's traditional Swedish coffee bread for the first time:
Owen and Robyn posing with the perfect gift: a kid-safe phone:
David reading Owen a new book:
Owen all ready for an afternoon walk:
Owen mid-haircut on Christmas Day:
Owen posing with (almost) all of his presents (post haircut):
Owen has a number of new tricks we wanted to share! Mostly, Owen is now upright a lot of the time. He started pulling himself up right after we got back from Thanksgiving:
And he started to "cruise" (i.e. walk around holding on to furniture) but you can see he was pretty wobbly:
He's much steadier now, and has added skills like transferring from one surface to another (sometimes with help), turning corners holding onto the ottoman, and sitting down to get down so he can go from place to place. He also is faster as you can see here!
He also, on Monday the 21st, starting doing the "give and take away" thing that babies do, where he gives you something and sometimes gives it to you, sometimes not, and then once you have it, he wants it back. Here it is caught on tape. This was about the 5th time in a row he had played this game with David. It's very funny....
We're enjoying these new skills! The big one will be when he talks... can't wait :)
Lastly, here are a few great pictures of Owen taken when Grandpa and Aunt Lindsay visited recently....
I realize I have some videos from past posts that I forgot to include! (Loading videos takes a looong time, was probably part of the inadvertent deterrent.) Anyhow, here is Owen eating lasagna at Auntie Annette's house the week before Thanksgiving:
Here he is at a park in Manhattan Beach swinging:
Here he is cuddling with Great Grandma Irene:
Playing with and smiling at grandpa:
With Auntie Annette:
And now, to some videos in Phoenix...
Here is Owen and Ethan figuring out how to play together :)
