Owen is Two!

Can you believe baby Owen is already two years old? We are constantly amazed at his growth and development. At his second year wellness check-up, we discovered that he is still growing like a weed. At 36 inches, he is tall like, well, not us! :) And he finally surpassed 25 pounds, which he has weighed in at for months (80th percentile for height and 40th for weight). His vocabulary continues to expand, and he has started forming sentences more consistently. His new favorite things to say, or ask rather, are "What's that Mama, what's that Daddy?" (even if only one of us are in the room), "What are you doing?" and "Where are you going?" He is one curious kid!

Owen still enjoys learning and currently knows all of his colors, most of his shapes, and counts by himself from 1 to 13 (and then skips ahead to 18, 19, 20! :) He loves counting out loud, and is so happy with himself when he completes a sequence/task, clapping his hands and saying, "Yaaaaaaayyyyy" and "I did it!" He also loves to sing-especially an Elmo jingle and some theme songs from his shows A Big World and WonderPets. He sings the alphabet, getting about 80% of the letters...and the real treat is how he calls W "bubble-U." He still can't pronounce a hard C sound, replacing it with a T or P. So he says "Puptakes," for cupcakes and "tookies" for cookies, etc., which i find so endearing (notice the word examples involve sugary treats, can you tell he just had a birthday party? pics coming soon.) Sometimes it seems like we need an "Owen to English" dictionary, but we are figuring it out. I still think the sweetest things we can possibly hear are Owen's laughter and speech!

Currently Owen's interests are trains, building with every kind of block/large leggo imaginable, scribbling with crayons and pens, reading, singing, hiding in his closet (strangely he likes the dark, and he also enjoys jumping out and shouting "Peekboo!"), playing with his little buddies, playgrounds, dancing (the boy has rhythm!), washing dishes and helping clean in general, & all manner of animated penguin movies :). He is doing well in his big boy bed and has been sleeping through the night, thankfully. O is a pretty healthy kid, so we couldn't figure out why he had had what we thought was a virus for a week at a time, every other week. Turns out he has allergies, which recently caused a slight ear infection-so he is now on his way to relief from weather-related allergies.

Owen modeling the hat I knit for my godson Otis

These past two years have been so amazing for Roby and me, as we clumsily started out as new parents and watched our little guy grow in so many ways. He certainly is the apple of our eyes and thee biggest joy we could have ever imagined in our lives. We are so blessed and honored that God chose us to be his parents! Now he might need a sibling to play/grow up with sometime in the near future ;)

Quinn is here!

Julie and I have been friends practically from birth (since we were 4!), so it is so amazing to now watch as both of us have children. Her firstborn, Kaia, is my goddaughter and turns 5 this year. (She was just 6 months old at the time of my wedding!) We were pregnant at the same time and her son Micah and Owen are just a month apart in age. And on October 18th, she and Kevin welcomed baby #3, Quinn Makenzie, into their family! I can't wait to meet the little cutie-pie! I wish we lived closer, since Owie and Micah are best buds by default. :) It would be wonderful to watch them grow up together. Looks like Roby and I have some catching up to do with all our friends having babies left and right these days!

Welcome Selah!

On October 16th, our friends Mo and Alisa in Virginia welcomed baby girl Selah Elise into the world! Their son Isaac recently turned 3 years old and is excited to have a little sister. Congratulations guys! We are so excited for you!

Here is a picture of the path Papa and Roby created as promised!

And baby makes six!

Our friends Jesseca and Buck in Iowa recently welcomed their fourth child, Graysen Titus, into the world on October 8th. Siblings Caelan, Gabriella, and Brennen have been so loving toward their little brother, and comical with their interactions with him. When Gabby heard Mommy had a baby boy, she turned to her 2-year-old brother Brennen, put her arm around him and cutely quipped, "I'm sorry you didn't get a sister. Sisters just give better hugs." Adorable!

Summer fun

Roby's parents visited us for two months during the summer, and Owen loved having his grandparents around! He started calling them "Umma" and "Uppa," which they were tickled with because usually when referring to them he only makes a silly sound that reminds him of Malayalam. By the end of their stay, he was calling them Ammachy and Appachan like a pro! He still points to airplanes and says "Plane, Appachan, poi," meaning "Grandpa went away on the plane." So cute, but sad...he certainly does miss them! They spoiled him with love, attention, winnie the pooh critters, Indian food & baby blankets. (Mummy and I were knitting fiends during her stay...she showed me the basics of crochet, and i taught her a few new knitting patterns for baby blankets. So she made him three!) We made many fond memories.

Some of Owen's antics during their stay: We quickly discovered Owen's affinity for Mummy's biryani (sort of an Indian version of fried rice with chicken, peas, and spices.) To this day he asks for "spicy rice," but mine just isn't as good as hers of course!
I had been tracking each new word he started saying every month, but while they were here he started speaking so much, I had to give up writing them all down!
He also learned to pray with us at the dinner table, folding his hands and closing his eyes (every once in awhile he would open them to see if we were almost done...Roby and Pappa tend to say long prayers :) When we said Amen he would loudly repeat, "Amen!" Several times when we began eating without praying he would remind us, "Pray!" and fold his hands. Cuters.
Once while Mummy and I were driving somewhere in the rain, I turned on the back window wipers, which make an annoyingly loud, grating noise against the glass. We laughed so hard and couldn't stop when Owen started saying "bless you" each time the wiper made the noise behind him. Hard to explain, but I assure you very funny at the time. Owen always is saying or doing something to make us smile and chuckle. He also would stand on top of my recipe box and loudly babble to an invisible audience...perhaps he's preaching? :)
Mummy pointed out several of Owen's habits that Roby had when he was little, like choosing to call cats "meows," even though he can say cat, and running around on his tiptoes. There were several more, but I can't recall them right now, but I thought it was cute that Owen's traits were reminding Mummy of Roby as a baby.

During their stay we celebrated a bunch of occasions: Pappa's birthday, our four-year wedding anniversary, father's day and Roby's 30th birthday! We also visited the aquarium, took O to Coolidge park downtown, went to the drive-in movies, enjoyed a visit from our friends the Newtons, traveled to Atlanta to see some friends from Philly who were visiting relatives, helped Owen garden & did some landscaping and hardscaping. Actually, Pappa did most of the work, but with some of Roby's help at night and on weekends, they were able to complete a brick and gravel path leading from our back porch slab to the patio that my brother Jason helped Roby lay last year. (pics to come in a post shortly). We started planting our shade garden (but it will take awhile for the ferns to get big and spread) and watched Owen's little wildflower garden grow out front (complete with miniature sunflowers that were his height). Owen *loves* to help water flowers with his little fishy watering can and always squats down to give them a good sniff!

Here are pictures from Mummy and Pappa's stay and our summer in (hot, hot, hot!) Chattanooga.

We celebrated Pappa's birthday at a local Mexican restaurant, where he was quite surprised when they presented him with a sombrero and sang to him!

May 31st marked our fourth year of marriage (and seventh year together!)
Mummy and Pappa watched O while we went to the movies & The Bonefish Grill (try the bang bang shrimp and yummo steaks with gorgonzola butter sauce). We can't believe four years have passed since we said "I Do" in California. We *love* marriage and continue to grow as we face together all the adventures unfolding before us!

Three generations of Isaacs on father's day!

Owen evidently loved the 30 candles adorning Roby's birthday cake. After the party, when all but one piece of cake was left, we caught Owen taking all of the candles and placing them in the last piece. Once he accomplished his mission, he proudly blew on all of them and proclaimed, "Happy, Happy, Dada!"

Owen loves exploring at the aquarium!

When Mummy announced she had finished Owen's blanket, he promptly climbed up on the coffee table and laid down on it!

We had a wonderful visit with our friends Buck and Jesseca Newton and their kids Brennen, Gabby and Caelan! I worked with Jess in CA, and they have since moved to Iowa. They were on a roadtrip home from New York, and we were happy they stopped during their travels to spend the day with us. Owen and Brennen are the same age, so it was cute to see them interact. We wish we lived closer together so they could play together more often.
Buck and Jess are expecting a little one TODAY!

Could the girls BE any cuter!?!

Future (and already talented) photographer Caelan snapped this picture of us!

This is Owen proudly looking at the 17-block tower he built all by himself.

Quite a feat!

Owen being a little monkey at the park

(I am beginning to think he has some of my gymnastic genes in him!)