Oliver has been pretty entertaining lately. For the past few weeks, he's been a self-proclaimed rock star, playing a mean fake guitar (and making a grimace that is unforgettable) and also singing into a microphone. He usually makes up words to his songs, which is pretty creative. However, they're not great lyrics by any means! But he's sure funny to watch.

Here's what we get to enjoy every day (warning: the video is a little long):

Though this post is a day (technically, nine days) late and dollar short, I need to get it up for Sarah's second cousin Bill. You see, Oliver loves trains. I mean, really loves them. And so does Bill.

Bill wanted to share his love of trains with Oliver, so he convinced a bunch of relatives to go in on a sweet Lionel set for the boy for Christmas. We cannot thank everybody enough. Bill, who lives in Texas, is anxious to see Oliver's reaction. So, without further ado, here's the unveiling of the train at Christmas:

Owen turned 9 months old a few weeks ago, so I figured I should share his latest stats. During his visit with the doctor, he checked in at:

Weight: 20 pounds, 14 ounces (75th percentile)
Height: 28.75 inches (75th percentile)
Head circumference: 95th percentile!

I hate to compare kids, but at 9 months, his older brother was exactly 1 inch taller and a little over 1 pound heavier. And head circumference? Exactly the same (i.e., quite large!) size.

Owen's still such a good kid. As you saw with my last post, he has converted his babbling into a real word (dada). He sleeps great most nights, at least compared to how Oliver did at this age. And Owen constantly smiles.

Here are a couple pictures of him; one sleeping in the car seat he's about to outgrow and one having his first bite of meat (a jar of turkey on Thanksgiving - yum, right?). Enjoy:

 

While it might not sound like much, I'm 100 percent certain that Owen has said his first word. He's been babbling "da-da" for weeks, but last night I noticed something. He was really cranky, but when I sat down next to him and started into his eyes, he whispered, "Dada," and then grinned ear to ear at me. He did it a couple times. Since he associated "dada" with me, I think that makes it officially his first word!

Tonight, after work, I went over to talk to him and the same thing happened ... I made eye contact with him, he stopped his cranky noises, and he whispered, "Dada, dada, dada," and then smiled at me before carrying on with his whining. I yelled over to Sarah to listen, then asked him who I am, and he whispered, "Dada," again.

Finally, I grabbed my phone to shoot the video below. By this point, he was getting pretty cranky, but you can hear a really clear, whispered "dada" at the beginning and then an even fainter one near the end of the clip. Pretty cool stuff - at least to me. Here's the video:

When Sarah's friend Reidun was here, she came up with a song she sang to our son Owen. It was pretty simple, with just the words, "Owen. Owen. Diddly-diddly-doo," sung repeatedly. Well, apparently it was catchy enough that our other son, Oliver, caught on. Today, he sung it about Sarah several times. And tonight ... I got my version. Enjoy:

We had a long-lost visitor at our house the past four days: As an early birthday gift to my wife, I flew her best friend to town for an extended weekend. We hadn't seen Reidun since our wedding five-plus years ago. We had lost contact with each other and then reconnected through Facebook.

A lot has change since we last saw Reidun. She got to meet (and dance with and be harassed by) our crazy goldendoodle Molly; she met and charmed the heck out of our son Oliver; and she received lots of adoring looks from our youngest son, Owen.

Some things haven't changed between the two ladies. You should have seen them ... giggling like 13-year-olds, watching a movie that came out when they were 13, and visiting the hot-spots they went to when they were 13. But in all seriousness, they did do a lot of other stuff, such as taking the boys to the St. Louis Zoo and shopping/dining on Main Street in St. Charles.

All of us - husband, wife, kids and dog - miss Reidun already. Let's hope another five years doesn't pass before we see her again.

For those of you who've not seen the boys since I went on so-called "blog hiatus" a few months ago, I must say that Owen is getting quite big. He's 8 months old now, and really getting interactive and making all kinds of fun sounds. Below's a video of him playing by himself. Enjoy.

Where to begin? Yes, I've totally slacked on keeping up this blog. Yes, I've heard the complaints. And yes, I do have an excuse (several, but I won't get into much detail). The main issue is that our laptop has pretty much died, so finding time to sit in the office and upload photos and videos has been scarce. But I hope to change that.

I feel mostly bad that the past few months have not been documented here on the blog. We've done so many fun things, including two trips to the Museum of Transportation, several visits to our house by my parents, a special visit from my sister who lives in Minnesota and the surprise move of my other sister to a permanent (for now, at least!) residence here in St. Louis.

Apologies aside, I'd like to just pick up like I never left. We had such an awesome weekend, and I captured so many cute pictures of the kids that I thought I'd just dump them on here for public consumption. Many of you readers haven't seen pictures of the boys since July, so this should be a treat (at least I hope so). And with that, here's how our weekend went:

On Friday night, Sarah and Oliver baked cookies:
 

On Saturday, we went to the farm near our house to pick out pumpkins. Oliver had fun petting the animals: 

And we played in the hay maze:
 

Oliver sat on the hay maze and had a blast:


Oliver went on a pony ride:
 

On Saturday, it was all about Halloween. Owen wore his pirate shirt during the day:
 

Oliver painted his pumpkin:


Owen had fun watching:
 

Here's Oliver hugging the pumpkin that I carved:


For the big night, Owen dressed up as a dragon (the costume may look familiar, as it made an appearance two years ago on his older brother):
 

Oliver was a puppy:


Oliver then went trick-or-treating for the first time at a church in Maryland Heights. Here he is getting candy from "Fred":
 

After getting treats, we went inside and played some carnival games. It was fun. Then, at home Oliver wanted to go trick-or-treating at houses, so we walked around the two courts at both ends of our street.

While walking around, he kept begging for candy, so we finally gave in. By the time we got home, that boy had more sugar in his system than he's ever had. He was acting kooky. First, he sat in his rocking chair, handing out candy to kids, telling them, "Take two." Then, he sprinted around the yard and kicked up leaves. Eventually, we put him to bed and he fell asleep before the door closed he was so tired.

All in all, a fun Halloween. So what do you think? Is this a welcome return to blogging or what?

We've had two back-to-back days with momentous occasions in our boys' lives. Yesterday, Owen ate food for the first time. We mixed up a bowl of rice cereal and he chowed down. He did unbelievable well. I guess that was to be expected, as he is over 5 months old now, so perhaps overdue to be eating food. Oliver was already on jarred food at this age. Here's a picture of Owen enjoying his cereal:

 

And then, not to be outdone, Oliver stepped up to the plate - OK, the potty training toilet - and did his thing for the first time. Just a little No. 1, but he did it a couple of times on command. (And to prevent future embarrassment, no pictures.) It was another great first, and hopefully a building block toward weaning him off of diapers during the next several months.

What good boys we have!

Last weekend, we loaded up the car for a day trip to visit my sister Carrie and her boyfriend. They have been living all over the country, often in cool cities like Seattle and Boston. And now? Springfield, Ill. Not the most exciting place, and Sarah and I just visited there just over a year ago , but we still had fun. And we got to do two things I didn't get the chance to do last time we were there: Eat corn dogs at Cozy Drive In and eat a "shoe" at another restaurant (yes, both items involved horribly unhealthy meals).

After arriving, we walked around the downtown area to visit the city's farmer's market. It was really hot that day, and about lunch time, so we headed to our first big destination, Cozy Drive In.

 

Cozy Drive In is a novelty along Route 66. And it's the birthplace of the corn dog. Yes, the first person to go, "Let's shove a stick down the center of this hot dog, roll it in cornmeal and dunk it in the fryer," was at this location.

 

It was a kitschy place, and the corn dogs ("Cozy Dogs") were pretty good. Glad to have finally had the chance to eat there.

 

Being so hot out, we were desperate for an indoor activity. So we drove over to Chuck E Cheese and got a bunch of tokens to kill a couple hours.

 

I had fun getting my butt kicked at "pop a shot" basketball, playing against Eli. Carrie's boyfriend also was popular with Oliver, who made Eli join him as he climbed through the tunnels that lined the ceiling.

 

Next, we headed back to Carrie's place for a while. Neither of the boys would nap, so we just hung out for a little while until dinner time. We headed to a Mexican restaurant. It sounded like good food, but I was a little disappointed because I had always wanted to try a "shoe." Just about every restaurant offers a shoe, and the city is known for it. We had even previously watched an episode of "Man v. Food" in which host Adam Richman visited Springfield, Ill., to down one of these bad boys (he also went to Cozy Drive In).

Basically, it's a piece of bread with a hamburger patty on it, topped with french fries and nacho cheese. Sounds yummy, doesn't it? Well, much to my delighted, the restaurant we picked offered a "Mexican shoe." This bad boy featured two fried tortilla, each with a giant hamburger patty on top of it. Each mound was piled high with french fries, queso cheese and fresh salsa. It looked fantastic. Here's the "before" picture:

 

I couldn't quite finish the thing - it was HUGE. But I did pretty well. Here's the "after" pic:

 

With dinner over, we got back into the car to head home. We had a lot of fun, though all that fried food really made Sarah and me nauseous for the drive home and the rest of the night. The next day was filled with a lot of fresh fruit and salads to make up for it!