Roadtrip to IA (then on to MO).

For our Christmas week road trip, we split the 9 hour trek up and stayed halfway in Coralville, IA. It was the perfect choice (all Katie's geniusness). Duder was in heaven at the nearby Coral Ridge Mall's indoor playground. He even took a ride on his first merry-go-round...

Dance. Climb. Stand. Rebel.

We just got home from St. Louis a couple days ago and have been unpacking and digging out from the blizzard that apparently hit while we were away. While I x-fer photos to the computer to blog, here's a vid to check out in the meantime. Owen being his rascal-y self...

Happy Christmas.

Da Da Rock.

A lot of babbling these days at the Robertson household. Owen goes a week or so saying Ma Ma Ma. And this week it happen to be Da Da Da, on his rocking chair.

Dyson monster.

O-Robs recently discovered the vacuum. It's a love-hate thing. Watch him get startled at the front part of this video. He does this repeatedly if we leave the vacuum out. It's as if he's poking the Dyson Monster and it's roaring back at him. Funny.

Finger paints!

Owen loves getting his hands dirty. He likes squishing foods in between his fingers. And he especially enjoys wiping said foods in his hair and on his face. So it's only natural that he'd be a BIG fan of finger painting...

That holiday glow.

Christmas in the air at Casa Robertson. Our X-mas CDs are on constant rotation, the stockings are hung, and the light spheres are up. You may remember that O-Robs loved these balls of light last year, too. Every day when we get home, he points his finger at these glowing orbs of goodness as well as our fiber optic tree, motioning us to turn them on. We oblige. Simple joys.
Katie and I nixed the idea of putting up the big daddy tree this year b/c Duder is runnin' all over the place. He'd probably just tear the tree down with one tiny hand while laughing his face off. Then dart into another room with the treetop angel in his paw.

Elf's life.

Turkey Day weekend we took O-Robs to the Macy's 8th floor for a Day in the Life of an Elf exhibit. We met up with G-ma and G-pa Langer and Uncle Mike, Auntie Cat and Cousin Caden. It was awesome. And I have to say, some of the elves where downright creepy. So I had to take some snaps of the creepy elves.
Check out the last vid where Owen tries making a pig noise but ends up imitating a puppy dog.

Thanksgiving.

For Turkey Day, we kept it pretty low key this year. Uncle Kenny's house. Good company. A lot of food. A little ping pong. And one Duder climbing all over the place lookin' like a lumber jack. Aww, that Duder.

(Sorry for the slideshows all the time, but we ran out of space on Blogger after 2+ years of posts! We'll be doing the slideshow thing until we migrate this blog to another URL or delete old posts.)

Up...Down.

Go horsey go!

For O's first b-day, he got this rawkin' rockin' chair from his G-ma and G-pa Langer. For months, he's flirted with the thing, but would squirm when placed in the saddle. Katie and I were bummed b/c the horse is so great. Look at it, how could you not ride that horse? Well, Owen is all about the horse these days. Several times a day, he runs over to the horse and climbs aboard. He pets the horsey's yarn mane and rocks excitedly when we say "go horsey go!" Now if we can just train Duder to not ride the horse like it's a surfboard. I'm tellin' ya, this kid is full of mischief.

Here comes the skeleton.

Happy Thanks...uh...Halloween.

Like I said last week, we have a wee bit of catching up to do. So here goes Halloween night. That evening we headed over to Team Weber's house for a little trickin' and treatin' in their hood. They live in Edina so we were thinking the candy would be dee-luxe. It was good, but there wasn't any full candy bar action to be had nor crazy ladies handing out apples. (I'm not being sexist. In my experience, it's always a crazy lady). Oh, and our H-ween Posse multiplied with the help of Team Hopkins! Lucy was the most adorable monkey. Lucky for us, Benjamin (as Indiana Jones) and Stella (as Magic Fairy Princess) kept us safe on our journey, warding off any giant rolling boulders or mean green goblins.
P.S. check out Duder wearing the wig. He's just (sniffle, sniffle) growing up so fast. Btw, he was scared of his own Beatle-esque 'do. Good times.

Duder gets a haircut.

Not sure if I told you this yet or not, but the latest nickname we have for O-Robs/"O"/O-Max/Sir Owen is now "Duder" or "The Duder." Why? No big reason except it just fits. O just looks like a Duder. Has the swagger like one. Babbles like one. Has hair like a shaggy, surfer Duder.
Anywho. Well, we took Duder to this place at the E.P. mall named, unremarkably, "Kids Hair" to get his first hair cut. Little man was not digging it at first. Then he realized that Mama was at his side, so he put his pouty lip away. Decided to be a big boy and stop crying. Because that's just what a Duder does.

Tickle belly.

Dragon walk.

Here's a vid of our dragon on the prowl for trouble (and candy).

Hallzooween.

It's the day of Halloween. The phone rings while we're out running errands. It's Jee and Chris: "Want to go trick or treating at the zoo today?" Yep, of course. We love the random, wing-it kind of afternoons. It was fun to see Connor boy dressed up like a panda. And to see Owen doing a dry run of his dragon costume before the big Halloween night. Good times. Owen even ran into a fellow dragon along the way.

Lil' Vike.

In honor of Sunday's victory/manhandling of the Seahawks, I had to post these photos of our little guy in uniform.

On the way home.

Right before we left the orchard, we let Owen pick an apple off the tree. It was a cute shot and whatever, but he insisted that he keep his apple. Whining ensued. Ok fine, keep your apple for the ride home. At this age, O isn't supposed to be eating any fruits with tough skin on them, but we didn't think he'd be able to really do anything but slobber on the apple. We were, umm, wrong. By the time we got home it was a mangled core.

The Orchard, part two.

The Orchard, part one.

So we're a tad behind in our blog posts which means, at this rate, we'll be posting Halloween pics in December. But here's a look back at our trip to the Minnetonka Apple Orchard. It was quite the event. They had pumpkins, apple pickin', a wooden train to climb in, corn maze, hay pyramid, and a bunch of crazy animals. They even had toy pony rides (bizarro) and goats that climb on the roof (bizarro, too). Oh and they had people dancing around with sticks and yelping like wounded cats (bizarro, three). It was strangely entertaining. And Owen of course, had a blast running all over the place.



Check out these videos of all the bizarro festivities...

Boxsledding.

It's a new sport sweeping the nation! Popular with puppies, kittens and kiddos like Owen and Lucy!

And we're back!

I know, I know. We've been lousy bloggers in the past month. Life got in the way, I suppose. The good news is we have lots of fun tidbits to share with all of our faithful followers-- all 4 of 'em. The pics below are from a trip we did in mid-Oct to the Weber's cabin. It was that crazy weekend we got a premature dusting of snow (on Oct 10th, WAY before it's supposed to flurry). Team Hopkins, Team Weber and TKO had a cozy weekend of lounging around, pushing the kids in a box (cheap thrills), hot tubbin', too much eatin' and probably too much drinkin' (can't remember). Plus, one brave sailing expedition by Nick and Brandon across the icy waters of Lake Dum'ass. :)

Cruisin' Old Navy

We went to Old Navy to look for a costume for O-Max. He tried on a couple different options in the store much to the dismay of a couple shoppers who sniffed as they watched us playing. Shrug. We had fun. And I think Owen discovered one of the mannequin's plastic ears. Love at first lobe.

Owen hearts a light.

While at the drive-in, Owen fell in love with a dome light inside someone else's car. I can't explain much more than that. He's 14 months old.

Drive-in again.

About a month ago, we organized a night at the drive-in for all of our friends/co-workers. About 20 people showed- kids and dogs included. We had already seen the movie (Star Trek) but we didn't mind much. The weather was perfect, Owen was rockin' his jammies, and good times were had by all. Looking forward to this tradition again for next year already.

Remembering Summer.

Yesterday it snowed here in the land of skyways and #4 Vikings jerseys. So I thought to myself: "Self, I should post some photos of when it was sunny outside, and Owen went to the playground with Connor."
Ya know, to give the blog a summer-y feel.

Gabba bookfest.

A few weeks ago we journeyed out to good ol' Bloomington for the Target Book Festival. Owen's favorite friends from Yo Gabba Gabba (including Brobee) were going to be on stage so we had to go! As you can see, it was clearly O's naptime as we were leaving. Zonked. out.

Swim lessons.

Week 1 -- Owen's swim lessons: 5 minutes of joy + 25 minutes of sobbing.
Week 2 -- O's swim lessons: 30 uninterrupted minutes of headache-inducing crying.
Week 3 -- O's swim lessons: 3 minutes of whining + 27 minutes of splash-happy fun time.
Week 4 -- O's swim lessons: 30 minutes of splash-happy fun time. (Whew. Hopefully, we're in the clear.)

Fall is in the air.

Here are some more pics from our day of playing in the leaves. Owen likes to jump in the pile or have you sprinkle leaves on his head.

Giggle ear.

Yesterday, we played a lot in the front yard. Owen discovered Daddy's ear.

I'm a little cuckoo clock.

Here's a little song we like to sing with O once in a while. He digs it.

Mart cabin, Labor Day.

This Summer, we felt very fortunate to be invited up twice to the Mart cabin. Labor Day was an absolute blast! Owen was starting to walk a bit in his Frankenstein-kinda-way. And we shared a lot of laughs with K's uncle, cousins, brother, nephew, etc. etc. We ate too much and played a TON of yard games like beanbag toss. The perfect ending to a really fun Summer. Thanks Team Mart!

Clap your hands say yeah.

Here's some vid of Owen enthusiastically clapping away. He really gets after it on this one.

Owen walkabout.

A look back.

Click the photo to play a movie.

12 months.

Ever since Owen was 1 month young, every month we've been putting him in this rocking chair and snapping a photo alongside his little plush monster. It's been fun watching him grow taller and taller, getting more and more animated, his face changing into that of a little boy. While it's been fun doing this on a monthly basis, we always said we'd stop the chair photos once he turned 1 year old. Plus, the squirrelly little guy won't sit still for us anymore anyway. :)

Galaxy Drive-In.

Every day on our way to work we pass by Galaxy Drive-In (formerly Wagner's Drive-In). The old Wagner's was great, so we were excited to see just how new and improved this badboy is. If you're thinking of paying it a visit, see commentary below...

The new sign beckons the good ol' atomic age.
It's cheesy in all the right ways. Good. "Let's walk in..."

Food arrives and our order is mostly accurate.
Burgers are decent. Fries are not so good.
Bill arrives. Old Wagner's prices are gone.
"We paid that much for this?"

This was pretty cool. An old ice cream truck. Photo op, done.

Neverland Ranch called. They want their creepy kid statues back.