We are signing...

Owen's finally caught on to signing a few words which is great since he still doesn't say a whole lot. Wouldn't you know that the 2 signs hehas mastered are: (1) eat and (2) more! We also finally got rid of the bottle a few weeks back. He didn't really mind too much, I think he was more excited about drinking milk out of a big person's cup (sippy cup minus the sippy).

Clean Plate Club

Earlier this week, Owen was working on his status at the Clean Plate Club - his goal is to gain Rocky's VIP status :)

FYI...we added a few videos on YouTube under Tom's user name (trike11) if you haven't seen them yet. I've got a few more to add in this weekend.

It's a date!

Yesterday, I had off for President's day and so we had decided that Tom would take off as well and we would still take Owen to Barb's house for most of the day so we could go on a lunch and movie date. It was great to have adult conversation through lunch without having to turn half of your attention to the little man who can create the largest messes in the shortest time.

We saw Fools Gold in the theatre. Pretty good movie and of course there was McConauHottie in the movie.

Then we ended the night playing with a visit from Vicky and her Wii. Owen loved watching us play and desperately wanted his chance as mastering Guitar Hero. By the end of the night, we decided we needed a rematch on tennis - Vicky kicked our butts!

Coaching from the couch

I must say that Tom only screamed at the TV a handful of times while watching the game last night. His objections were not heard by the ref and Syracuse, in the end, still lost to UConn.

Melts in your mouth AND in your hands

Owen tested out M&M's tagline and found it to be inaccurate. I was able to capture it on film and extract the peanut m&m from his hand but not before he created a little art project on our black leather chair!

oh...just to finish out the e series story - I did get my car the next day after work but before i get rid of the flintstone mobile, the stupid battery died on me and I had to get a jump before returning the loaner!

When does the lifetime of a car really end?

My BMW needed a little work and we decided to take it the place that specializes in working with BMWs - Just BMW. The guys were really nice and even hooked me up with a Loaner - at least that's what I thought until I saw it. It is a 528e and looked to have been around the block many times. When I got in, I felt like I was in a museum, sitting in a historical piece of work. I checked the odometer - 215,643...Wow, I thought to myself, please don't fall apart on me today.

The Loaner got me to work ok, then I realized I had to go out and do some emergency shopping. Of course, I needed to visit a store about 25 miles away. Into the loaner I went and headed onto the freeway - that was when I realized how much I took heat for granted. As I started picking up speed - 30 mph, you could start to keep the car cool off, as though though someone shut off the heat. Then, I climbed to 50 mph - and I thought someone had rolled down my window and it was only 25 degrees out today. By the time I got to my destination, I could not feel my fingers or my toes - this wasn't helping the fact that the Flinstone BMW didn't have power steering. I promised myself once I was done shopping, I would swing home to grab a scarf, socks, and boots before driving the 25 miles back to work. It was helpful but I could still not feel my fingers and toes when I returned.

I was sad to find out at the end of my day that they had not finished the work on my car so I had to drive the Flintstone BMW back up to Mason. I wasn't used to a toogle switch to turn on my headlights - I kept thinking how I missed pushing buttons? digital display? temperature control? cup holder? and then I was actually welcoming rush hour traffic so that my fingers and toes could get small blasts of warm air every so often to revive it. As I neared home, I was curious to see how many miles I had put on this poor car and all I could do was laugh. The odometer still read 215,643....I can't wait to get my car back!

Off to a rough start

January 2 - the newness of the year is already starting to wear off. Last night, we both were dreading having to go back to work. Things didn't help when Owen threw a temper tantrum around 12:45am. I have no clue what set him off but nothing we could do to calm him down so we let him throw his tantrum in his crib which lasted only 15 min. I guess he realized that vacation was coming to an end and he wasn't ready for it either. He did let us know a couple more times through the night with a few more screams. That ofcourse made me not want to get up this morning only to look out the window and see all the snow we got in Cincinnati (a few inches with drifts) - you know what that means, sucky roads and lots of school closings or delays. Lastly, the Beemer wouldn't start up today so Big Red because Bus Riker...all before 7:30am!