A Little Update

Now that school has started, life is just plain crazy at our house! We've been busy as a family on weekends and evenings, and love love love spending time together. We've been to the park, apple orchard, mall, for walks around our neighborhood, and lots of other places.

Here's what our kiddos are up to lately:

OWEN

-is loving preschool and comes home singing songs on a regular basis

-likes to make up stories and giggles at all the funny parts

-uses words like "investigate", "actually", "gloomy", and "cumulonimbus"

-likes to play hide and seek

-loves to jump

-can identify the shape of Minnesota and a few other states

-is looking forward to Halloween

-likes hanging out with his friends Rebekah and Nathen (and Elijah when he's in town)

-only stops talking to eat and sleep

-has a great ear for music and the Beatles, Elbow, and Gungor are his favorite bands

(the other day he was trying to sing "Angels from the Realms of Glory" and it somehow morphed into "Yellow Submarine"- Ha!)

-likes to read the book "Owen" by Kevin Henkes( He says it's the story of when he was a mouse)

ZOE

-is the smiliest baby in the world

-looks even more like her daddy

-is almost 6 months old and is wearing 12 month sized clothes and size 4 diapers

-is one pound away from exceeding the weight limit for her carseat

-sings (Ahhhh Ahhh Ahhh)

-squeaks

-has learned the sign language for "more", "milk", and "all done"

-plays peekaboo- pulls the blanket over her face, then down again

-laughs at silly faces

-loves the mobile over her crib, and pointedly looks at it as we're putting her to sleep to remind us to wind it up

-LOVES her big brother and watches him all the time

-sits up in a bumbo seat and exersaucer

-eats rice cereal, oatmeal, peas, beans, peaches, prunes, bananas, carrots, formula, and milk(not at the same time)

-has hair that sticks straight up in the back

-usually sleeps through the night

When Mommy Has Too Much Time on Her Hands...

YARRRRR!

Birthday PARRRRty

Owen turned 3 on July 12th, and we celebrated a few days before with a pirate themed birthday party, complete with friends, cake, ice cream, balloons, and treasure hunt! Here are a few pictures of the special day.

First the treasure hunt- did you know that there is a pirate in Arden Hills? He wrote us a message with sidewalk chalk!

Now cake and ice cream!

And friends! We had so much fun celebrating together!

Happy Birthday, Owen!

Serious Cuteness

Zoe has become very social and smiley lately. She gives big grins to Mommy, Daddy, and big brother Owen. Sometimes she'll even sing with us when we sing to her!

Special Pancakes

Today Mommy tried out a special pancake batter squirter. She made some letter-shaped pancakes and put them on plates to see if Owen recognized them. Here's what he said:

Owen Sings for Zoe

Owen says "Check this out!".

Birth Announcement

I made a little announcement for Baby Zoe at babycenter.com. You can check it out here.

Zoe

Here she is! Zoe Elizabeth Rimbo was born last night (April 14th) at 8:24 pm. She almost missed seeing Will Ferrell on the Office.

At 8 lbs, 4 oz, She wasn't as big as her brother (9 lbs, 10 oz), but she was still plenty big. Nevertheless, once she was ready to go, it only took ONE push to get her out.

Her big brother loves her very much, and we'll have more pictures up soon, once we get back home where our sync cable and TV is.

Still waiting.

(See title.)

Waiting.

Waiting some more. What's that? You've never had a baby before?

There's a lot of waiting.

From the Front Lines

For fans of the birth of Owen Rimbo, we're bringing you live coverage of the birth of Baby Rimbo #2, from United Hospital in downtown St. Paul.

The long and short of it is this: Angie's OB said, "This baby's getting big. If you don't want a C-section, we might want to induce."

So we are. We checked into the hospital about an hour ago, and we're just about to get Angie onto pitocin to speed up the process.

I'll keep blogging and tweeting and whatevering. Pictures to come soon, once this kid is out breathing oxygen.

Revelations in Cake

Most of you know that we planned a fun little way to reveal the gender of Baby #2 to family. We had an ultrasound on Monday, but asked the ultrasound tech to not tell us the gender, but write it down and put it in a sealed envelope. We then gave the envelope to Justin's family, who mixed up a white cake, colored the cake either pink or blue (according to the gender of the baby), and baked and frosted the cake. Today Justin and I got to cut into it to find out our precious little secret! Guess what we found out??

It was PINK!! We will be welcoming a little girl to our family in April! :)

A Secret Message from Owen

Hello friends,

I wanted to tell you something pretty important, but I didn't want to just tell you straight out- I wanted you to have a little fun doing some detective work! All you need is a mirror-just hold it up to your computer screen, and you'll be ready to decode my message. Ready? Here's the secret message:

Did you get it?

How about now?

Couldn't find your mirror? That's okay, I'll just tell you...

I'm going to be a BIG BROTHER!! Mommy is going to have a new baby at the end of April. I don't know if it's a little brother or a little sister, but Daddy says we'll find that out around Thanksgiving. Mommy is pretty tired lately, but she says that will get better in a few weeks. I am so excited, mostly because I'm going to be an awesome big brother!

Singin' with Guitars

Here's Owen and Justin's version of Old MacDonald. Warning: This video is PG because Owen needs to be ready to use the potty at a moment's notice. Don't worry, the guitar is well placed. Enjoy!

"Two in Uhlie"

Whenever anyone asks Owen how old he is, he always says, "Two in Uhlie". We weren't quite sure what he meant by that, until our niece Jordyn figured it out. He was saying, "Two in July". He actually turned two on July 12, but we had friends and family over to celebrate on Sunday, July 18th.

Owen's favorite gift was a sand and water table, which after about two minutes was a mud and mud table. :) Owen, Natalie, and Nathen spent about an hour on the deck playing. In two year old time, that's forever!

Here are some more pics of that fun day!

Lakeside Vacation!

After driving for a few more hours, we came to Lakeside, Ohio. We were so excited for a whole week of relaxing and visiting with Babu, Bibi, and Aunt Debbie. We stayed in a cute little cottage on Sycamore Street, and were within walking distance of a coffee shop, a bike shop, a beach, and a playground. What more could you want?

Owen's first order of business was the beach.

Babu, Bibi, and Aunt Debbie came with lots of early birthday presents for Owen, and we were less than patient for the actual date. :) Here's Owen playing with some new blocks.

Speaking of birthdays, Babu's birthday was July 6th. We had a small family party, and enjoyed our time together. Owen was was excited about Babu's birthday, but was too enamored by the balloons to be vocal about it.

We even had a chance to visit with our friends the Bredbergs, who live nearby in Ohio. Lucas was almost three, and Isaiah was almost one. It had been too long since we'd seen them last, so it was great to visit.

Lucas was doing his pirate face. This picture doesn't quite do it justice. :)

It was a great week, because we had plenty of opportunities to stay busy, but nothing we were obligated to do. It was the perfect blend of busy and relaxed. Here are a few snapshots of us out and about.

Visit to Illinois!

In July, all three Rimbos piled in the car for a trip out east. Our final destination was Ohio, but we had a wonderful stop in Lemont, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. We stayed with Justin's cousin Christine, her husband Joe, and their three kids Nicholas, Caitlyn, and Christiana. They have a beautiful pool in their backyard, and Owen hadn't been swimming yet this summer. Last summer he wasn't a big fan of swimming, because the water was too cold for his taste, but this summer was a totally different story! He LOVED the water!

When we were in Illinois, we also had a chance to visit with lots of other Rimbos! Owen was especially enamored with his great Uncle Ricky, because he knew a lot about one of his favorite things- fire trucks! He even made a special phone call to the fire chief in Lemont to arrange a special visit to the fire station- just for Owen!

This is our whole family plus Christiana just lounging on one of the fire trucks. Owen got to sit in the driver's seat of every truck in the station!

The station had a kid-sized pressurized water canister to simulate how fire hoses work. Owen LOVED trying that out!

What is that on my head?

Looks like I've got a little growing to do..

What an unforgettable visit for Owen! Before we left, we had a great lunch with more family. Thanks, Rimbos!