December Happenings

We love the Christmas season! Decorations, lights, festivities, opportunity to be with family and friends, all in anticipation of celebrating the birth of our Lord!

Our month kicked-off with a trip to Seattle. Linnea had a Christmas Party for her work, which was a perfect excuse to make a weekend trip and see family/friends in the area! We were having so much fun that unfortunately we forgot to take out the camera during the weekend. Darn!

We've enjoyed many opportunities to spend time with friends in the area through the month, and celebrated at a 1st birthday for a sweet friend Emmaline!

For Christmas shopping - we took Owen with us to Toys R Us, and let him play and explore. The perfect way to find out what he was drawn to, and such an easy age - we could buy the presents in front of him, and he will still be surprised on Christmas! Owen LOVES anything having to do with trains/cars/fire trucks/school buses, and basically anything related to "transportation". He also enjoyed "roaring" at the dinosaurs!

Unfortunately this month also came with a stretch of sickness for Owen. What started as a fever turned into a head-to-toe rash (according to our pediatrician, this virus is something very common for toddlers?) and basically resulted in a 5 day stretch of a very miserable and uncomfortable baby. Poor thing! Hard on parents, too. We want more than anything to make it better for him, and found ourselves exhausted just trying to keep him calm, comfortable, and entertained all while being held-up at home for days on end. So glad that's long behind us (until the next bug, I guess!) and we can enjoy the Christmas festivities adding gratitude for our health to our list of blessings this season!

Wishing you and your family a blessed Christmas!

Toys R Us, and loving the trains

Happy 1st Birthday, Emmaline!

Our sick boy...

And how did we keep him entertained?...

We let him sweep the kitchen!

And after 15 minutes of this (eternity in the attention span of a toddler) we quickly decided to get a broom his own size for Christmas! Gotta encourage this helpful behavior, of course!

Watching the garbage truck make it's way down our street



This is my "pick my battles" photo!

On morning #4, after many hard and sad days, and little/no appetite, all Owen really wanted for breakfast was a piece of brownie. After insisting that he should have oatmeal, I realized...this is a moment to pick my battles, and yes - Owen ate brownie for breakfast (and 1/2 a pear, thankfully!). Oh well - it was worth the smiles on his sweet face during such a hard week!

Thanksgiving Blessings

We had a wonderful and special Thanksgiving - full of celebration and gratitude for family and all of God's many blessings in our lives.

For the past nine years, both of our families have joined together for Thanksgiving. What a blessing to share the holiday together as a united family! With some of our siblings married and starting new families of their own, it is not uncommon that some siblings might be celebrating the holiday with other family. However this year for Thanksgiving, all of our siblings were here in Portland together - what a unique, special, and celebrated gift!

And in celebration of family, we enjoyed the opportunity to share some special family news of our own...Owen is going to be a big brother! We are due with baby #2 on May 17th! We announced the news by literally having Owen in a "big brother" shirt - and enjoyed the chance to celebrate in person with family during the weekend.

Other weekend highlights included special quality time with each family, celebrating Jamey's birthday, cheering on the UW Husky football team as they took on CAL, and our annual tradition of kicking off the Christmas season by attending the Singing Christmas Tree!

We hope you and your family had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend celebration also!

Brian's brother Greg, sister Jenny, and brother-in-law Jamey

Owen in his "big brother" shirt!

Linnea, mom Julie & grandma Marion

Angie & Landon

Two mama's and our boys

Linnea's brother Brent and grandma Marion


Family photo after the Thanksgiving feast!

Sister-in-law Amy & nephew Landon

Brian & Owen with the "Williams Boys"
minus baby Landon who was sleeping!

Building a tower with Brian & Amy...followed by saying "uh oh" with a smile in anticipation of knocking the tower over!

Linnea's parents and their grandsons!

Halloween Fun

It was a fun Halloween with Owen, even if he didn't really understand what the excitement was all about! He enjoyed being dressed in his Dalmatian costume (which made the costume a winner for me!) and seeing the other kids, but he doesn't understand the whole "candy" part of Halloween yet (no rush on that!). In part, perhaps, because he's really never had candy. He has "treats" occasionally - but that is usually a bite of dessert or cookie (and he knows his cookies - as you'll see in the photo below!).

Our Halloween weekend started with a party at Brian's work, where the kids could trick-or-treat around the offices, and then end up in the conference room for some treats & goodies. Owen is in the toddler stage of enjoying to put things back (love it!), and during the trick-or-treating, someone would hold out a basket of candy. Curious, he'd take one. Maybe shake it. And then nicely put it back. Such a sweetie, and so fun to watch! We know these days are numbered, though. I'm sure year he'll be ripping into the candy!

On Halloween itself we headed over to a local outdoor shopping mall where they had a festival for the kids. It was fun to see all the kids (and adults!) in costumes. For the evening, instead of trick-or-treating this year Owen enjoyed helping hand out candy to the neighborhood kids as they came by. It was a great weekend, and a fun kick-off to the holiday season!

Not sure what he's looking at - but I love the look of surprise (or shock? or excitement?) on his face!

Couldn't resist including this photo. Makes a mommy's heart melt!

Such a sweet little kiss - I just wish you could see his precious face!

And for fun...a couple of pictures from last year, Owen's first Halloween!

October Fun

Owen is now 18 months....officially a year & a half! Owen's language skills are developing rapidly. He's adding new words to his vocabulary daily, and trying diligently to copy what we say. We give him lots of praise for his efforts, even if he only gets the first sound or syllable. Owen's favorite toys are his cars/trucks. He has an ambulance which makes a high pitch siren noise (awesome) that he loves in particular. Owen loves to take things out and put them back...or put them in a creative new place. We find his cars in all sorts of hidden locations around the house! And it's fun to watch him work at this. We can watch his little mind turning as he thinks...where should I put this one? He loves to stack - and has moved beyond just his blocks to incorporate all of his toys. Books at the base, then blocks, then cars. Or maybe his fire truck at the base, then cars, and hey - why don't the blocks want to stack on the cars? Great learning and problem solving opportunities - it's amazing to watch him learn through his experiences right before our eyes!

October was full of many fun play & family moments. And thanks to some beautiful fall weather, we've been able to spend a good deal of time outside enjoying this autumn season!

picking out the perfect pumpkin

We celebrated Brian's birthday (and he shares the day with his Uncle Rick) with a big family dinner at our place!

3 Generations

Silliness with Grandma Julie


Running & playing with cousin Remy

(we also were able to celebrate Remy's 2nd birthday this month at her fun puppy-themed party!)



Getting ready to take my first ride on "Max" - the public transportation metro train

Waiting so patiently

Eagerly watching all the sites go by. Such a big boy!

Our community hosts an annual fall festival called the Pumpkin Regatta. The 3 of us strolled down (so nice to be within waking distance!) to see all the activity!

The highlight event has people competing while paddling around the little lake in actual pumpkins!

And a yummy fall cookie for the walk home!

So proud of my stacking accomplishment!

This lovely October brought lots of opportunities to admire and play in all the beautiful changing leaves!

Outside our house. Makes me think of a future "first day of school" photo!

Happy Halloween

We are long overdue for a blog posting, and have many fun October photos and highlights to share. I promise to try and get those up on the blog this week! In the meantime, I couldn't resist sharing one quick Halloween photo...from our little Dalmatian! We were at a festival at a local outdoor shopping center, and Owen is awe-struck by all the kids (and adults!) in costumes. Such fun! Hoping you all had a wonderful and safe Halloween!

17 Months

Owen is 17 months...and busier than ever! He loves climbing, especially on the furniture in our house. And he's so proud of himself each time he gets on top of a chair or couch without assistance (we're proud of him too!). Owen loves to play outside, and thankfully the fall has given us some beautiful weather to enjoy. We started swim lessons this month, which has been a fun (& important) new activity. Owen loves to play with cars, play under a pretend fort, look at books, and stack his blocks (he can stack them 6+ high, which seems pretty good!). Owen gets excited whenever he sees balloons, as well as airplanes and trains. He has many new words & sounds, and he continues to mimic our behaviors more & more - including putting an oven mitt on his hand and standing in front of the oven! Owen (like most toddlers?) likes to throw things - which is a bit of a challenge as we attempt to teach when it's okay to throw (ie: a ball outside) and when it's not ok to throw (ie: his wooden cars in the living room, and his food from his high chair tray). We've enjoyed many play-dates with local friends (photos for a future blog post!) and several special family birthday celebrations. It's been a great month!

Owen & cousin Remy celebrating birthday's for Grandpa Jim & Uncle Greg

A hot fall day brings one last backyard swim

Being silly with great-grandma Marion

"Go Huskys" - saying goodbye to dad & Grandpa Clark as they head to Seattle for the UW football game

Climbed on the recliner myself - so proud!

Mimicking the faces in the book