Mr. Independent

This is old news to most of you but those we haven't gotten to talk to recently... Owen is now walking!  He took his first step a day or two before his birthday, but didn't really begin walking until the weekend of May 20th.  Grandpa Tickles had a good trick of letting him crawl on the driveway in shorts which he quickly realized didn't feel good so he began to bravely take more and more steps.  We miss his loud, hand-slapping crawl but love his frankenstein wobble-walk!  Within the first week of really walking he had some big falls on his face.  Here is a picture of my little brave man walking as well as the scrapes on his face from that first week.

The picture doesn't show a big red scrape on his chin.  With both falls he was so strong and barely cried!  

Now that he is walking he wants to do everything by himself.  He loves using a fork and spoon to eat his food now.  He is far from good at it but I let him keep trying because he has to learn somehow!  This is a picture of the first time using a spoon by himself and his attempt to eat dinner at Drake Epicenter this past week.

We attempted to draw twice this week.  Here is a picture from our first attempt:

Owen is a water-loving boy (except at the lake... more information to come)!  We have gone to a few different splash parks and each time he gets braver.  The first time he held onto me for the first five minutes or so but by the end he was investigating the fountains.  Here he is at the splash park in Ankeny:

Along with splash parks, summertime fun has included a few trips to the zoo and many trips to the park. Owen loves petting the goats at the zoo and especially enjoys the slides at the park. 

Finally, Tank is learning how to be a little athlete by playing catch with daddy and mommy, kicking the soccer ball and even learning how to swing the bat.  Daddy's friends at Grand View are so confident in his athletic skills they have even named their team after him.  No pressure, Owen!

Some other "grown up" pictures: