August Photos (in no particular order)

Tank chillin' in the back yard
Phoebe stopping to pose for a photo

Sticky peach juice face

(Don't you wish you had those lashes?)

Bone Crusher on the prowl

Owen picked this peach off the ground and chowed down before anyone could stop him. I'm so glad that we have a peach tree. Owen obviously loves 'em.

Mmm...sticky peach juice

Owen practicing using a spoon to eat yogurt

(He still needs some practice.)

This little criminal got into the cereal cupboard and ran away with the Cookie Crisp.

He hid on the stairs to eat it. Good thing I got photographic evidence for the

Cookie Crisp Cops.

Another juicy peach picture

Owen and Mommy playing outside

Mommy husking corn at camp

(She does all the work.)

Owen being silly

Cool Dude in the swimming pool

Owen in the diningroom

Owen and his tractor

Owen washing his tractor

Owen playing with the hose

Owen helping his daddy wash the rims

Hmmm...so back in April, I had the very best intentions. I really was going to make weekly stops at the library to update my blog. I mean it. Enough with the apologies...how about an update?

We have had an exciting summer and have added to our family. In addition to the smartest little 15 month old alive and Tank, our playful lab mix, we have two kittens - Phoebe and Bone Crusher. Their purpose is to control the chipmuck and squirrel population on our property. So far, they've spent a lot of time stalking morning doves, climbing the apple trees, and trying to get into the house. I haven't seen any dead chipmunks. I did, however, see a dead bat. In the diningroom. With a bullet in its brain. Very long story short...a bat lived in our house for about 16 hours before Joel hunted it and shot it. Now there is a bullet hole in the diningroom ceiling, and I spent one evening cleaning bat blood off of the hardwood floor. My hero.

We're still working on the house. Except for some paint, the upstairs is done. The kitchen is being worked on as I type this, and the new countertop should arrive from Lowe's at the end of September. There is still the downstairs bathroom to deal with. I stay out of there as much as possible. The other big job is painting the outside of the house. We have all of these great new windows, but we need to paint around the outside of them. Anyone have a 40-foot ladder that Joel can borrow?

And my darling son...I don't even know where to start. It's been so long since I've been able to update about him. Right now, his obsessions are tractors and lights. He adores riding the tractor around the yard with his "Daaa" and climbing on the tractor when his "Daaa" lets him. Owen can even put the key in the ignition all by himself. And lights. Oh, lights. He flips the diningroom light switch 'til the cows come home. I'm pretty impressed that he can say "light." He can't get the "T" sound at the end, but even strangers can tell that he's saying "light." Owen can imitate a whole ark full of animals: cow, horse, sheep, duck, goose, frog, bear, monkey, lion, bee, dog, cat, fish (yes, fish), bird, and turkey. He knows most of his body parts: hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, hands, fingers, shoulders, belly, knees, toes, and feet. We're working on elbow and bottom now. Most of the time he can say "yellow" and "purple" without too much coaching. Last weekend "Daaa" taught Owen to blow a whistle. That lasted about 10 minutes before the whistle "disappeared."

And pictures are coming. I'm uploading them now. It's just taking awhile. I think it will be quicker to put them in another post. :)

You're never going to believe this...

There's a location that EVERYONE can go to, and this organization lets you use the Internet for FREE. They even let you check out books and rent movies for FREE.

I *heart* libraries.

I will be back...with my USB drive so that I can upload photos of Mr. Handsome.

9 Months

I STILL can't upload photos! Grr.

I CAN tell you about Owen's 9 month Well Baby Check up. He weighs 22 lbs, 11 oz and is 29 inches tall. He's in the 75th percentile for weight, height, and head size. That means that he's well proportioned and is growing just right.

And this post is going to be short because Owen just spit up on the floor. I guess that means that it's bath time.

Owen's Faves

Owen's Favorite Things to do for FUN:

1. Drink bath water
2. Climb the stairs
3. Use Lennie, our poor blind cat, as a drum
4. Chew on the coffee table
5. Make airplane noises (He doesn't know what a cat or dog says, but he knows what an airplane says)
6. Find rogue Cheerios and freak his mother out by eating them
7. Suck on the knob on his mother's dresser (probably the weirdest thing on this list)
8. Chase the vacuum cleaner
9. Make Indian noises using the back of his hand (I know, "Native American" noises)
10. Wave "bye bye" to every old lady in the grocery store
11. Wear the salad spinner as a hat
12. Unfold ALL of the freshly folded laundry before his mother catches him
13. Throw coasters across the coffee table
14. Clap and cheer (especially when he pulls himself up the standing)
15. Feed himself (we have quite a lil Mr. Independent at meal times)

Uninvited Guest

It's about 1AM on Wednesday morning, and I awake to a strange noise. It's not coming from the baby monitor (which Joel insists that we don't need anymore, but I respectfully disagree), so I go back to sleep. I hear the same noise again and assume that it's the suction cup thingies in the shower. Okay, so this goes on four or five more times. Joel FINALLY wakes up. I tell him it's just the stupid suction cup thingies falling down in the shower and that he should just go back to sleep.

Joel gets up to investigate. I roll over. (Apparently Joel has never seen a scary movie. If you want to live, you NEVER investigate strange noises in the middle of the night. I'm a survivor, so I stay under the covers.)

Joels comes in the bedroom and gets a gun out of the closet.

Now I'm awake.

Joel has been shooting crows out of the bathroom window and he was NOT going to do it at 1AM. I was going to put a stop to that. I get up and make my way to the hallway where Joel is standing at the top of the stairs. He shushes me, so I go check on Owen who is sound asleep ON HIS STOMACH! I forget about the strange noises that evidently are not the bathroom suction cup thingies and have a freak out and remember all of those warnings I've been told about SIDS. While Joel stands at the top of the stairs and cocks the gun to scare the monster who has invaded our home, I roll Owen back over to his back where he belongs.

Joel asks me to turn on the light in the livingroom. (We have remote controlled lights, so I was able to do that from our bedroom.) After the light comes on, we still hear noises downstairs. I go back to Owen's room to make sure he's still sleeping on his back. When I look out into the hallway, Joel is gone.

I hear a yell and a little crash. Then I hear, "Sweetheart, it's a baby squirrel."

We were able to corner it in the diningroom, which has the fewest places to hide. Joel chased it into a box, but it jumped out. (Duh, it's a squirrel.) I tried to throw a towel over it. My plan was to catch it in a towel and let it go outside. Joel's plan was to bludgeon it with whatever object he could find. Finally, it ran under the pack-n-play. I went into the kitchen to pick up all of the things it had knocked over. Joel turned his back for a moment. When we moved the pack-n-play, little Houdini was gone!

We searched and searched and searched and searched. We even brought Lennie (our blind cat) up out of the basement, assuring ourselves that Lennie is a good hunter. After extreme exhaustion set in, we comforted ourselves by agreeing that Houdini must have let himself out the same way he came in.

So we went to bed.

The next morning...no sign of Houdini. I took Owen to daycare and went about my day as usual. Joel stayed home to look for Houdini, patch up his entrance, and shoot any of Houdini's squirrel friends that may be hanging out in the backyard. Joel eventually found Houdini hiding in a corner in the livingroom. Joel "took care of him" and I haven't seen Houdini since. I did, however, see four of his friends in the backyard this morning.

Stupid Signal

Well, my dears, I don't know about Verizon's new intelligence. I mean, it does allow me to check my email, blog, and pay bills online. The bad news is that we have such a poor signal out here in the middle o' nowhere, that I can't upload photos. What's the point in having a super cute baby if I can't show him off on my blog?

Mr. Handsome is eating macaroni wheels for the first time...and loving them. I'm glad we've found something he likes almost as much as he likes Cheerios. I can't even count all of the places we've found Cheerios. Last night Owen found a crusty, dirty one under the recliner. I grabbed it out of his hand just before it went into his mouth. My favorite is finding Cheerios in his diaper. I have no idea how they get there, but it sure does make me laugh.

Owen is cruising around the house now. He's a master crawler and has been for about 3 weeks now. One of his favorite activities is crawling to the coffee table, pulling himself to standing, and chewing on the side of the table. Awesome. Owen also enjoys chewing on his crib, his saucer, the end table, and his dresser. He has three teeth on the bottom and one eye tooth on the top. He looks a little odd, but don't tell him that. When he's not eating Cheerios, he chows down on french toast, jelly sandwiches, hash browns, carrots, apple chunks, macaroni & cheese (my favorite thing to dig out of the carpet), ham, chicken, and meatloaf (he can't get enough of it).

Boy, I really wish I could upload a photo or two for you.

Check back soon...I'll be blogging about Wednesday morning's uninvited guest to the Marquart Homestead.

Signing ON!

Thanks to Verizon's new intelligent mobile hotspot, we have Internet access! It's not the quickest or the cheapest, but I am no longer going through Internet Withdrawal. I'm getting my fix. :) I'll post updates and photos soon.