my little baby owen is quickly outgrowing his babyhood. he spent 10 minutes tonight just planting kisses on my cheek. i love him so much! i cannot say enough how sweet he is. when you hold him he likes to pat your back or shoulder like he's giving you a hug.

he has finally picked his tummy off the ground and is officially crawling. he sometimes gets lazy and reverts to the army creep, but not that often. he loves to stand up whenever he can and mastered climbing the stairs in just a couple days. one day i find him stuck on the second step, the next day eric's calling me saying that he found owen at the top of the stairs. it's baby gate time once again!

owen does things that his older brothers never really did.

• he falls asleep without needing eric or me next to him. eric and i still lay down with him out of habit, i think, but owen doesn't *really* need it.
• he doesn't really cry. even when he's hungry, he'll cry for a few seconds and then he stops. isaiah and ethan would wake up crying for their bottles. not so much with owen...although he will shake from head to toe once he sees the bottle is ready for his consumption.
• he looooves the red blanket on our bed as well as the blue bear from nani. isaiah and ethan don't really have blankies or stuffed animals that comfort them.
• he doesn't dive head first off the couch to get off of it. in fact, he dropped the remote control off the couch earlier tonight, and instead of diving head first, he righted himself to leave the couch on his feet. smart and safe baby!

one of my favorite things is when owen is cracking up because he thinks his brothers are funny. it will be a whole new world for him when he gets to face forward in his car seat just like his kuyas.

owen is in the other room pat patting with daddy and interjecting with "ba ba ba" and "da da da" and "ahhh!" when he is excited he extends his arms at a 45 degree angle and waves them inward in fast circles. he is feeding himself little puffs that you put on his tray. i would say 1 out of 5 actually make it to his mouth. some get close and just get stuck on his cheek. oh, owen!

he can't crawl yet....still creeping around and dragging himself by his arms. he will be 9 months old in 6 days. still so tiny yet so big!

he has just creeped his way from the family room couch to the office door. i peek out the door to see his droopy eyes. sleeeeepppyyy. he gives me the kind of smile that wrinkles his nose and shows his dimples and all is right in the world.

a couple weeks ago owen looks at me and says "clap clap" and then starts clapping! he hasn't done it for me again since, but i still count those as his first words.

owen has mastered the army crawl and now uses it as his primary mode of transportation...chasing down ethan to get whatever toy ethan happens to be holding. he'll chase ethan to the ends of the earth to get what's in big brother's hands. ethan was already walking along the furniture by the time he was 8 months old...i'm not all that concerned about when owen starts walking (or crawling for that matter) because i just want to be able to hold him tight without him wiggling away.

8 months have gone by so fast. where did my tiny baby go?

clap clap clap. clap clap clap. good job, owen! you're clapping!

he is just so pleased with himself when he claps. he is so pleased with himself when he's just sitting up like a big boy. he's 7 months old now and he's still not even close to crawling. he can get to where he wants by creeping or rolling...but i don't think any of us are in a hurry for him to be mobile.

i cannot get over how incredibly sweet owen is! he grabs your face and pulls you so you're cheek to cheek. he just needs a little bit of attention and still hardly ever cries. when he does cry, it completely breaks my heart because he looks so sad and cute. i love him!

i wonder how he'll be with his brothers. right now isaiah and ethan both love him. isaiah stumbles into our room every morning looking for his baby brother. he lays down next to owen and tries to cuddle. we have to stop him so that he doesn't wake owen up. ethan puts toys in front of owen and shows him how to play with them. owen is pretty happy just sitting in the middle of a room where his brothers are playing.

time's going by so fast. in no time, it will be christmas then new years then owen's first birthday!

oh owen! just when i think you're getting so big, we visit the doctor and you're in the 17th percentile in weight and 24th percentile in height. you're still a tiny baby boy!

...but you can roll over a lot. a lot a lot. you can get anywhere you want to go as long as you can roll your way there. you grab our faces and give big laway-ey kisses and you always have a smile to give. mmm! i love you so much!

meeting baby isabella!

new jersey

chillin' with baby jd

chillin' in the double stroller

have i mentioned that owen is such a good baby?

he's a smiler. he gives smiles out like it's his job. he wakes up in the morning, takes a second to register your face...and smiles. a big goofy grin telling you that he's happy to see you and happy to be in the room with you. he loves to smile! and he doesn't really cry. only for a minute if he gets super hungry or super uncomfortable in his diaper. but if we can't get to him right away he just starts sucking on his finger, rolls to the side and falls asleep.

he also sleeps through the night. this isn't anything new, just something that i appreciate immensely. before i went back to work with all three of the boys (at about 8 weeks old), they were sleeping through the night. what a blessing that is. i hear lots of stories of babies not sleeping through the night for years.

owen's eczema on his face is finally clearing up. can we give it up for aveeno 1% hydrocortisone cream? aww yeah.

he's 25 inches long and 13 pounds. he'll be 5 months in 4 days. that puts him in the 64th percentile in length and 15th percentile in weight. i have another skinny baby. right when i think my baby's chubby, i meet jd. jd is two weeks older than owen and SUCH a cutie patootie. he's also 18 pounds. whoa!

i'll have to post new pictures of him. he doesn't look like the same baby!

i'm big enough to sit in the bumbo!

i got my hair cut, too!

my baby boy is three months old.

owen will be two months old in a little over an hour.

he. is. HUGE.

he has already outgrown his newborn clothes and *fits* into 3 month old clothes. his hair is out of control. i love it and hate it. so soft and so fun to style, but there's so much! for sure, it's going to get cut soon. it's long enough to tuck behind his ear!

hair aside, he has learned to suck on his fist, coo, give us beautiful smiles, and attempts to mimic the faces you make at him. i love love love that isaiah and ethan randomly run up to owen and give him hugs and kisses. they both sing "oh oh owen!"

oh, owen, it will be hard to leave you for an entire day when i go back to work! i love you!

owen kind of has a mullet. it's especially evident after he has a bath, his hair sticks straight up so you can see that it is shorter on the top and longer on the bottom. i remember wanting to give him a haircut when he was two days old.

he'll be three weeks old in a couple hours. how has three weeks gone by so fast??? he has grown so much! the outfit that we brought him home in is almost too small on him already.

he likes to sleep on his right side. i've decided that he likes to sleep that way because he's so used to hanging out in the crook of someone's left arm. my favorite is when he falls asleep on my shoulder.

i love him!!!

isaiah or owen?

oh oh oh, owen! i fell in love with him immediately.

january 28, 2008
2:27 a.m.
7 lb 6oz (might be 0.6 oz)
20 in

he is just so sweet!

i forgot how gentle their cries are when they're newborns. the biggest challenge now is giving owen's brothers enough attention so that they don't feel like we love them less. equally challenging is finding time for me and eric to just have a conversation that's not about feeding or diapers or who's picking up or dropping off...

in the meantime, i will savor my time at home until i go back to work on march 31st.