35 Month Update

1 month shy of a 3 year milestone and I think Owen experienced his first crush! Darren and I took him skating the other day and my friend Elaine was there skating with a friend. When she came up to meet Owen and say hi, he instantly got shy and turned his baby blues away from her. When she skated away he looked at me, smiled and said, "Mom I have to go say hi to her". As the hour went on he skated on the ice like he was his Uncle Steve during one of his practices, skating fast and furious and working up a sweat just to get a little closer to Elaine. He stopped behind her when her back was turned and when she noticed a little someone was behind her, he skated away really fast. It was absolutely adorable and I must say Owen has good taste, Elaine is a cute 23 year old blond. So far so good, it looks like he knows how to pick em', blonds do have more fun by the way! :)

I think Darren and I have FINALLY won the bedtime battle with our strong willed, stubborn and independent almost three year old cutie pie. Our bedtime routine now consists of reading 5 "new" books we got from the library, one of them always having to be an I Spy book (which he is REALLY good at by the way), and explaining every picture on the page because you can't turn the page without a question of "Why" or "What's this for" or "Who's that mommy?". After book time I lay with him for 5 minutes and then as I kiss him good night and am about to leave for the evening I am informed that I need to basically turn on every light in the city of Trail before the room is no longer "Booky" (Spooky), "Gary" (Scary) and light enough to even keep "Biderman" (Spiderman) away. Though we inform him every single night that Spiderman is a good guy and has a mommy and daddy just like him, Spider Mom and Spider Dad, he still isn't quite buying our lines! So I turn on all the lights in the house, and do not care if our electric bill is a million dollars as long as my guy goes to sleep on his own without me having to lay in his bed until he falls asleep. AND HE DOES, and has been doing this for the past two weeks. Fingers crossed this isn't a fad!

We have been touching upon all the winter activities that are at our disposal living in a mountain town in British Columbia. Darren, Owen and I went show snowshoeing the other weekend up the water tower hill behind our house. The three of us hiked for over and hour and Owen go the royal treatment being pulled on the GT snowracer the entire time. I was exhausted from carrying my own body weight around, I could not imagine pulling an almost 3 year old behind me, good job Daddy! We had a great time and Owen loved the sledding opportunities throughout our hike, one time crashing straight into a tree. Usually the kid has pretty good maneuverability, so that is why I am thinking he meant to hit that tree! You could tell by his laugh in the video below!

Our winter activities do not stop at skating, sledding and snowshoeing, we have now added skiing to our list. We took Owen skiing for his first time up at Red Mountain and he was a natural. He didn't fuss putting on his ski boots and listened to his dad on how to snap his boots into his bindings. Red Mountain has a Magic Carpet Ride, shown in the video below, that is like a moving walkway and brings the kids to the top of a very small bunny hill. Owen was able to get on it by himself and after the third time, no longer wanted me to help him. We had to remind the speed demon to form his ski's like a slice of pizza and snow plow in order to keep his speed to a minimum. That was the tough part because all he wanted to do was "Go really fast on his gee's (ski's). But similar to skating Owen is easily bribed with a sucker or hot chocolate at the end of his sporting event, though he really wanted to keep his "Gee's" and didn't want to give them back to the girl.

Next time we talk will be when our little guy is a three year old, hard to believe! Love and miss you all!