A Little Bit Obsessive Compulsive

I realize that when both your parents are engineers you may be pre-disposed to some analytical tendencies.
Lately, Owen has been a little obsessive compulsive with his books.

- ALL the books must be in a pile before we start reading.  By all, I mean ALL, every book we own.  He collects them from upstairs & downstairs for the pile.
- After we read one it goes in a separate pile.
- Knocking over the pile can cause a meltdown
- Owen will straighten the piles if they aren't just right
- Several times a day all the books are taken either upstairs or downstairs depending on where he wants to read.

I would never discourage Owen from reading, I think it's great that he loves it so much.  But seriously we've had enough of these piles and the constant moving of books!  I'm sure both sets of grandparents are laughing and thinking the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  Like I said, when both your parents are engineers . . . it's really not your fault! 

Future Coffee Lover

Owen has enjoyed a few glasses of hot chocolate this winter.  He really likes drinking out of Mommy & Daddy's coffee cups.  He looks like a natural with a mug in his hand!

Elmo & Bob the Builder

Owen's been busy playing with his favorite characters!  We went to see Sesame Street Live last week & visited the Bob the Builder exhibit at the Ann Arbor hands-on museum the week before.
Owen absolutely loved both!  He was mesmorized by the Sesame Street characters and behaved great for his first theater experience.  The Bob the Builder exhibit is great for the 2-4 year olds.  I would definitely recommend it.  There are so many hands-on things for the kids to do & all the tractors you can climb on and take pictures.  I think it's at the museum until mid-March.

Family Portrait

Owen drew a family portrait on his chalk board.  Jon is the large potato shape on the left, notice how his face is in the middle of his body.  I'm on the right with a baby (many straight lines) in my belly.  Owen is actually the small fish/bird looking object in the upper left corner.  Of course I praised this masterpiece to no end and he was 100% really proud of it!!!

It's a Boy!

Ultrasound today confirmed that Baby #2 is a boy!  Here are a few pictures of the little guy.  Everything looked great and he was being very active for the camera.

There are two different pictures on each screen shot . . . there are NOT two babies!!

He had his hands up near his face most of the time.

The ultrasound tech got some neat pictures of his hands.  The baby was showing off a little and gave us the "thumbs up" sign. 

Getting in the Christmas Spirit!

Christmas time is here!  We've been busy getting ready for Christmas & Owen is loving every minute of it.
We went to the Holiday fest in downtown South Lyon where he saw Santa and met Thunder the reindeer.
He was a little afraid of Santa, but definitely not scared of Thunder (not surprising for our little animal lover!)

We went to a local farm and picked out our Christmas tree.  It was a pretty cold day, but we found a great one.  Owen really enjoyed putting all his ornaments on the tree, if you see our tree you'll know where Owen's are.  He put them all in a small 2-foot area, it didn't make sense to him to spread them out!

New Addition

Since our new house has an extra bedroom . . . we thought we'd fill it!

Baby Zischke #2 is due June 8th, 2010!!

We are all very excited about the new addition to our family.  I'm glad to be past the 1st trimester sickness and have been feeling pretty good for the last several weeks.

Owen understands a little, though I'm sure he has no idea how much this will change our lives!
He has started calling the baby "Tasha" after one of the characters on The Backyardians, a current favorite cartoon.