A very long post...recapping september

Bear with me...this post is kinda long...have lots to catch up on...it's been a busy month!

The month of September includes: my mom's b-day (the 2nd), Owen's b-day (the 5th), Tim and my sister Tawny's b-day (the 13th), my b-day (the 25th) and Calvin's b-day (the 26th)

We have a tradition in our family to decorate the kids doors on their birthdays....so here are the kids once Owen woke up and saw his door.



We bought Owen his very own pair of turnouts for his birthday.



Owen and Tim both trying their turnouts on.




Thompson wanted to be dressed up too, so she went and got her SnowWhite outfit on.

Calvin was just sick of the highchair,,,,

On the 5th we had Owen's 3rd b-day party. Fulleton Fire Department was so kind and they brought a truck to Owen's party for a few minutes. Notice the veins popping out of Owen's neck....pure excitment. You would think it was the kids first time seeing a fire truck.

Getting to sit in the driver seat. I am just soaking it all in because I know there will come a day when Owen will "get over" this phase....and will move onto another obsession like Star Wars or something...but for now....we're just going with it!

We created an obstacle course for the kids during the party. (Wearing the fire truck costume, running at the sound of the bell, saving a cat from a tree, climbing a ladder, going through a tunnel, spraying a "fire"with a hose, etc). Here is Owen on the last step of the obstacle course.

Owen is such a fun kiddo. He loves loves loves to be silly. He makes us laugh constantly. The smallest things make him giggle. So we sang Happy Birthday the normal way. Then we sang it the silly way...."happy b-day to you...you live in a zoo...you look like a monkey...and you smell like one too." I love this picture (below) because you can tell he is really enjoying himself!!

Can't get enough kisses

Again...notice the veins popping out of his neck as he unwraps a firefighting book. We probably own 10+ fire fighting books...does that matter? No! Owen is THRILLED to have one more!

Owen riding his fire engine scooter from Aunt Posey. Tawny made this normal scooter into a fire engine scooter after Owen kept telling everyone that Posey was going to buy him a fire engine scooter for his birthday. She didn't let him down! Such a good auntie!!

This is another one of our traditions. I've made each of our kids a sign like this. Every year we add one more tally mark to show how old they are and we hang it up and take their picture in front of it. Happy 3rd birthday Owen!

Last weekend the five of us headed to my parent's condo in Palm Springs. It was great getting away just the 5 of us. Friday night we took the kids to Boomers and rode the race cars. Saturday we took the two older kids to Soak City before heading over to Nana and Papa's house.

Swimming at Nana and Papa's house. Of course, the USC football was enough reason to get together for a celebration but we celebrated Tawny and Tim's birthday too!

Calvin is walking everywhere now! Here he is roaming the golf course. At 11 months (when we were in Idaho) he really started taking a ton of steps. And about 2 weeks ago, he officially decided he was done with crawling and now he walks everywhere he goes. I love those chubby little legs!!

Owen...practicing his golf swing!

We went to Lucille's on Tim's actual birthday with both of our families. My dad (Boppa) and Calvin just happened to be matching, so we had to take a picture.

Tim and his girl

Thompson is going to a little kindergarten co-op class with 4 other kids. We've hired a teacher (Miss Char) and she and the kids meet in one of the kid's homes. Thompson goes Mondays and Thursdays from 9am-1pm. So far, she likes it.

Owen...putting his turnouts to great use. He thought up all this on his own. Eventually he was killing ants to "save" me and Thompson. He took his task quite seriously.