Magic Show

For Derrick's work Christmas party we went to his boss' house for a steak and potluck dinner. There was probably the biggest variety of food that I've ever seen at one table. It was so good!

At the end there was a magic show put on the boss' brother. After throwing cards to the audience I had the "lucky" card and was the participant who got in the box. Derrick started video taping part way through the trick. I think the video speaks for itself. Enjoy!

This little guy turned 5 months old on Dec. 1st.


In honor of turning 5 months old Zach got to try rice cereal for the first time. We let Zach suck on one of his spoons in order to help prepare himself for this "momentous occasion" while I made up the cereal.


Having your first taste of semi-solid food on a spoon can be a bit confusing.


True to form, Zach eats as much rice cereal as we give him. I think he'd eat anything we gave him. At first Zach's tongue just pushed the food back out as he tried to eat it unless we kept the spoon in his mouth until he swallowed. Zach is needing less and less help as he's getting practice.

Other fun things with Zach: he blows spit bubbles, makes more sounds, puts everything in his mouth, shares his impressive amounts of drool with us, pivots on both his back and his front, loves to play standing up (with lots of support), has more hair again, smiles more and laughs. We love our Zach! He is such a wonderful baby and makes us so happy!

Lappy Fixin

So recently the hinge on my laptop broke. Sad but true. It really had been on its way to breaking since I bought it on ebay a year ago. For some things the time will eventually come. But a few weeks ago the one side came completely off. I tried at first just throwing some JB Weld in there, but it only lasted a couple hours. Then I got all excited and thought I would be able to buy a new laptop. I looked around a lot, and then fortunately (or unfortunately?) a guy in my class said that I could probably find a replacement hinge online. We got to lookin and had a cheap fix within 10 minutes. This afternoon the piece came, and tonight after some screwing, soldering and some more JB Weld just to be sure, I now have a working hinge again. Woohoo!

Out with the old and in with the new.

1st Time Mountain Biking

So my father-in-law loves mountain biking and goes every chance he gets regardless of weather conditions. After making various trips to the Bowen home over the past two years we decided that I needed to try mountain biking for the first time.

We drove to a trail called Rustler's loop. Derrick, Dad Bowen, and I got on our bikes while Zach and Mom Bowen walked part of the trail.


I was nervous at the beginning and then during several of the more rocky and steep parts of the trail but had a lot of fun. I received several bruises as battle wounds from getting bucked around on my bike and fell over once. I guess it could be an early birthday present to my father-in-law to say that I'd be happy to go biking with him again sometime... though I definitely would need more practice before doing anything more technical. It also wouldn't hurt to get in better shape :).

Bringing up the rear

Posing as mountain bikers

We survived! (and got back before dark)

Happy Baby

Over the last couple of weeks Zach has started laughing. I can't get enough of it! I was finally able to catch the end of a laughing episode on video when he was playing with Grandpa Bowen (Nov 28). Enjoy!

Here's another laughing video I got of Zach 2 days ago. Apparently I make weird sounds and say dumb things to try to get him to laugh.

1st Driving Lesson - Nov 28

On Black Friday we went shopping with my family at the outlet mall in Silverthorne. I asked my dad to hold Zach for a second while I got Zach's clothes out of the diaper bag and this is what I found when I looked up. I guess we're starting him out young.

Hiking or Should I Say Bushwhacking? - (Nov 26)

After spending the morning taking Zach to visit Grandma Bowen's 1st grade class and watching Twilight, Derrick wanted to take us on a hike through the canyon area behind his house to the Colorado River. We got Zach bundled up and then started off.

I think for about half of the time we were bent completely over ducking under trees or climbing over fallen ones. We also had to jump a small stream both ways. This was difficult with Zach in the backpack. I had to be careful to keep him from falling out of the pack and from getting attacked by all the tree branches. Trying to cross a stream with an 18-19 pound baby strapped to you is also no easy feat. It made for a good adventure though and it was fun to see the river and a bunch of eagles' nests near it.

Here's a dark, cell phone picture showing off the tree full of eagles' nests.

My handsome husband showing off the landscape near the river.

Cousins

I think everyday we were in GJ Zach was able to play with his cousin Ryan. Their playing is understandably limited but at least Zach stayed awake most of the time. There were a few times Ryan tried to squish Zach and grab his face but Zach survived pretty well. Here are a couple of pictures of the two cousins that Derrick's brother Tyson took and posted on the Bowen family blog:

Playing with Tyson's Wii motes. Looks like Ryan has it figured out a bit better than Zach does.

Zach loved these sea creatures. Apparently they taste great...or Zach's in the process of teething.

Thanksgiving Break

We had a really fun Thanksgiving break. It was so nice for Zach and me to have Derrick free from class and work from Monday after work until the next Monday. We love having him around! We were at Mom and Dad Bowens' house in GJ for most of that time but did make a short trip to visit my family at a cabin 3 hours away in Leadville. We're so grateful to have family within easy traveling distance!

We weren't very good about pictures during the trip so we'll need to get some of the ones from Grandma and Grandpa Bowen. We did get some pictures that I want to blog about but I'll separate those into different posts for easier reading.

Family Pictures - Nov. 1

About a month ago our friend Ken Ross from the ward took some family pictures for us. We went to the Provo temple grounds and love how they turned out. Ken did a great job!

Here are a few of my favorites:

I love that Zach is randomly pointing in this picture

I've Been Slacking

Sorry to anyone who actually reads this blog that I've been such a slacker at blogging. With the holidays there's just so many other things to do! Still, I've got lots of things to blog about so here comes what will hopefully be another bunch of posts :).

New Theme!

Jen has been buggin me for a bit to update the visual style of our blag. So we picked something a little piratey. Enjoy!

Engaged!

Sorry it's been a little while since I've posted but I wanted to make sure I posted about my twin brother Jason getting engaged last Wednesday! Here's a picture of Jason, his fiancee Cassandra, and Zach at a "not-Thanksgiving" dinner we had at our Jones grandparents' house last Sunday:

(In case you were wondering, a "not-Thanksgiving" dinner is a dinner where you have all the Thanksgiving food but not on Thanksgiving)

We really like Cassie and are excited that she's going to become our sister-in-law. She's so nice and fun to be around. They've got their work cut out for them since they're getting married on January 17th.

Jason did a good job surprising Cassie. She didn't think it was going to happen until this weekend, she'd just come down for a nice relaxing night. :) First, they went up to the Y to look out at the view and take some pictures or something. Jason "accidentally" locked his keys in the car. So, being the brave soul he is Jason went up to some total strangers (some friends of his that Cassie hadn't met yet) and asked if they would give them a ride that ended up at Kiwanis park. At the park, Melissa, Nate, Derrick and I had helped by setting up a table with Martinelli's and candle light. Their song "Back at One" was playing on repeat and they got to dance to it. He got down on his knee, and began to rap. Actually he might have rapped later but he did give a custom rap at some point. Apparently Cassie said yes.

Here are a few pictures from the proposal:

The table

Happily engaged

Quick update on sick baby

Thanks to those who have shown love and concern for Zach. He's been slowly improving but still wakes up more than usual at night, coughs, sneezes, and has a stuffy nose. He's become quite familiar with the baby nose suction thing and saline drops in his nose. He doesn't seem as miserable as before so that's a good thing!

Sick Baby

Zach has his first cold. It's been coming on gradually this last week but really hit him last night. He woke up a couple of times very upset and having trouble breathing because he was all clogged up. The choking sound he makes is scary. He calms down alright after saline drops and the little baby suction thing.

He seemed to be doing alright this morning but we ended up taking him home from church early. Poor guy, he seems so miserable. Hopefully this will pass quickly.

(He's not crying in the picture. His eyes have been watering a lot today.)

Shots Round 2

With turning 4 months old Zach had to get more immunizations last Monday. It took forever with all the people trying to get flu shots. Here he is after we got home:

A Very Belated Halloween Post

This year we had 2 costumes for Zach and the nice thing was that all we had to spend on costumes this year was on supplies for the hat. Here's Zach in his fireman costume on Halloween:


We didn't push the hat on all the way because I made it a little too small and it'd leave red marks. Since Zach was being a fireman Derrick decided he wanted to be a burn victim that Zach rescued from a fire:


Because Zach is so young we only went trick or treating at Derrick's Aunt and Uncle and Grandparents who live nearby. We also got together with Derrick's old roommate Craig and his wife Mindy to watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We figured that was our most Halloween-like movie. They have a cute little 8 month old boy who's the same size as Zach. Here's Zach ready to go:


We had a ward party on November 1st and dressed up Zach as "Mr. President" and we went as his secret service body guards. I had to borrow a suit coat from my brother. It was pretty huge on me.


Zach fell asleep pretty early into the party. You don't usually see secret service agents with a burp cloth on their shoulder :)

More on 4 Months Old

It was a little late last night to finish posting updates and pictures of Zach from the last month. (We've been a little picture happy). Here's the traditional shocked/confused look that I post of Zach every month:


This last month Zach has gotten a lot more playful. His favorite way to play is to grab at things with his hands and feet at the same time. Our little monkey is so much fun!


A week or two ago he started really fingering his toys and trying to eat them. Wow...the things parents get excited about:


Zach's been getting better at sitting up and can balance for several seconds on my lap. Here he is showing off his balance skills on our futon. I like how it looks like he's doing a gang sign (he did that on his own).


Zach prefers trying to stand to trying to sit. We're starting to think he might try to skip the sitting and crawling stages. Here his is playing with Aunt Melissa:


On another note, Zach has moved from using the pacifier we got from the hospital to some new ones we bought him. Here he is modeling it for you:


We sure love our Zachary!

4 Months Old!

Zach hit the 4 month mark today. He is so fun and more interactive all the time. I love that this picture shows what his smiles look like. When he gets really happy/excited and/or starts to laugh he opens his mouth huge like this and shows off those toothless gums :)

Happy Halloween!

Fall Leaves

For Family Home Evening this week we decided to take pictures of Zach with the fall leaves outside our apartment. It was getting dark so we had to work fast (Derrick as photographer and me as baby poser). Here are some of our favorites:

He was a bit confused at the process (not unusual).

He looks like he's about to crawl doesn't he? That's still a few months away...

Guess what Zach had for dinner.

He's actually examining the leaves here.

Is he surprised by us taking pictures, his plaid pants, or the fact that he's sitting on his own for a few seconds?

Zach loves trying to stand and can support his weight well (though he has absolutely no balance on his own).

Yay for leaves!

Fireman Costume

For Halloween this year we have two costumes for Zach (I couldn't decide between the two ideas). One of my cousins gave us a baby fireman costume at a baby shower. The only thing missing was a hat and since I couldn't figure out where to find one Zach's size I decided to make one. Using pipe cleaners, felt, and piece of gold paper, and a glue gun. The cost came to a grand total of $0.40. Here's the result:

The frame

The finished product

Zach and Derrick on our way to a trick-or-treat thing in the Tanner building. (don't mind the cell phone pic)