The most wonderful time of the year...

I LOVE Christmastime! I love all of the decorating, shopping, and baking! We've been busy around here getting the house ready for Christmas. Andrew worked very hard on the outdoor lights, I stilll need to take a picture of it! I've been really into Pinterest lately and have found some neat projects to take on. Here is a wreath I made that I was so excited about!

Now I'm thinking about going back and redoing my tree using the deco mesh I did on the wreath and I have a few other projects in mind as well! But here's our tree for now...

While Andrew was outside doing the lights I decided to bring in this slide from outside. It was my 22 year old cousins when she was 2! It cleaned up well and Austin loves it. He has played on it a ton. He likes to take his toys down it with him. Earlier he was sending Teddy Grahams down it and then eating them. LOL

Austin has been done with his pacifier for about 3 months (except at Mimi's house GRRR!), but the other night i went into his bedroom to check on him before I went to bed and I was shocked to see a pacifier in his mouth! I still don't know where he got it from!

Kason is a Hobbs Eagle Little Dribbler! He loves it and we are sooo proud of him!

Here's a closeup of my little cute...

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My two boys cuddling on the couch. Andrew was watching the UT game and Austin was watching Cars. How sweet is that?

Tonight Austin pigged out! This kid must have had a hollow leg or something. We went to Cattle Baron and he had croutons, chicken fried steak, baked potato, and pudding. He grunted at us if we didn't feed him fast enough. He's still picky sometimes, but we've come a LONG way!

 

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Two in one day!

Part of the reason I haven't been blogging is because I got frustrated trying to get my photos into the blog. My app just did an update and made things soooo much easier I have just discovered it! So excited about this! So hang with me while I figure this out!

A little late, it now cute is this Mickey Mouse? He was so fun for Halloween. Let me tell ya, he pulled in the candy!

About a month ago we got to go to The Fiddlestix Farm in midland. Austin was really good and had a great time!

 

I absolutely love this photo of Austin. I only wish I would have turned the camera for it to be landscape. How cute is this little guy leading us through the corn maze?

The truth is this is all he really wanted to do while we were there. He would run through the maze and then stop and play in the dirt awhile and then take off again. Good times!

 

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Back!

Well I haven't blogged in awhile. But I'm back with updates! Austin is going through a phase where he loves to carry stuff around with him all of the time. When I tell him it's time to go take a bath, he grabs toys. Last night he tried to carry a hanger, 2 toys, a book, and his drink. The book didn't make it, he gave it a good shot.

He has been the pickiest eater ever! We've had a huge breakthrough recently and he has started eating real food. He's primarily had baby food up until a week ago. He's had chicken nuggets and fish sticks finally!

Today begins our Thanksgiving Break. It's year I'm more thankful than ever, thankful for time to spend with my family. Andrew will be off for a week starting tomorrow and we have lots of plans. Thursday we will have Thanksgiving with my family. That evening (after the longhorn game) we are driving over to Odessa and I'm going to I Black Friday shopping at midnight! I'm excited. I've never gone before. Then Friday we will be having our Thanksgiving with Andrew's family. Saturday or Sunday I'm thinking a trip to the races would be fun. So yes, I'm thankful for my family and time together.

Updates!

Austin is finally a walker! I was starting to wonder, but he figured it out. He began walking at 15 months. He still can crawl faster than he walks, so he still likes to crawl a lot too!

Austin has been seeing a pediatric ophthalmologist for awhile. He has alternating lazy eyes. Last week he had surgery on his eyes. The surgery wasn't much fun, but it's over! He did great and he is great now! His eyes are still a little red, but have been improving every day!

This is my favorite age with him. He is sooo fun! He has a great sense of humor and looooves to laugh. He has the greatest laugh!

Yesterday we celebrated the 4th of July and kamdens birthday. It was a lot of fun. Austin didn't even mind the loud fireworks! Jeff would go put and light the fireworks and jog back. Austin thought it was hilarious when Jeff would jog!

Right now Austin's favorite thing is his train table. Kamden loves Thomas the train when he was little. Kristi saved his train table and trains and Austin is getting lots of use out of them now.

Austin is pretty talkative. He will just randomly bust out with a new word when I'm not expecting it. He can say mama, dada, Mimi, papa, thank you, yes, no, hey, hi, bye bye, ball, bite, bath, Kason, and that's all I can think of right now. I've been really working in please and he could care less!

Food seems to be an issue right now he only wants to eat baby food, graham crackers, or goldfish. Sometimes he will eat pudding or cake when I feed it to him off my fork. He doesn't really want to try anything new and definitely doesn't want any meat! We will keep working on it though. He does love suckers and chocolate milk though!

Austin likes his cartoons. He likes to sleep in. I can't figure out here he gets that from;). He gets up somewhere between 9 and 10. We eat breakfast and then sit on the couch and watch cartoons and drink chocolate milk. He loves his chuggington, Mickey mouse clubhouse, Dora, and Diego.

It's been a great summer so far with my baby boy. Now we are looking forward to our vacation!

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Summertime!

Well, it's finally that time again! Woohoo! We've been pretty busy since we got out of school last Friday. Andrew and I went to Lubbock on Saturday We bought a 3 1/2 ft pool and worked all day Monday getting it setup. We got it done and had the family over for a barbecue that night. Tuesday we took a quick trip to Odessa, but got back in time for the boys' birthday party at Del Norte Pool. That was fun! Andrew had to go back to work Wednesday night, but I've managed to stay pretty bust with lunch and play dates. Our Friday playmates have returned and Austin and I I'll be meeting up with our group from last summer at 1! I think it will be more eventful this year.

TV Time

Last week we bought a new TV! With this new TV we want to mount it on top of our fireplace. Soooo...we have spent the weekend trying to take down the old mantle, get a new mantle, put up the new mantle, and mount the new TV. It's been quite the ordeal. We are really close now. We have the new mantle up, and almost have the mount up. We'll hopefully be done by tomorrow night. Here's the old mantle... This past week was sooooo exciting. My coteacher, Marcia, won the Veteto award. She will receive $5000. It was a VERY eventful week!

Austin really likes taking a shower with Daddy. He giggles and giggles!

Saturday night we went to dinner at the Maynard's house. Brenden is walking all over the place. We're hoping Austin was taking notes!

Today was kind of exciting for Austin. He took ONE step TWO times. He REALLY didn't want to though. One time he was trying to get a ball from me. He took the step and immediately went down to the ground. He didn't fall to the ground, he set down. Sooo...I decided to move this show OUTSIDE. He doesn't like the cement. I put him down on the front walk and held my hands out to him. Again, he took one step and sat down. At least it's progress. After that when I tried to get him to walk he immediately sat down and looked at me and cried like I was beating him. We'll get there...eventually.

Austin's 1 Year Updates

When I did Austin 12 month pictures I didn't have time to update all of his information. So here goes! Where do I start? Austin is just soooo much fun right now. The biggest thing we have encountered (this is right after he turned one) is that we have taken him off the bottle except one at night before bed. This has been HUGE! He eats all day long and I mean ALL day long, but he sleeps for 11-12 hours at night! Can I get a hallelujah? The kid was waking up to eat because he really was hungry. I thought he was just being difficult! LOL He now eats 2 things of baby food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! He also eats tons of Cheerios all day long. I give him an afternoon snack of applesauce or something like that and another snack after dinner. I also share with him whatever I'm eating. This kid can put the food away.

As I said he has been sleeping 11-12 hours at night. He also takes a short nap in the morning. Then, he'll usually take a pretty long nap in the afternoon. He has got to where when I put him to sleep in the afternoon I just go lay him in the bed and he'll roll over and go to sleep! He definitely sleeps best in his bed. He won't go to sleep in our bed! I've tried to lay down with him in my bed to take a nap and it's not happening!

He has NO interest in walking whatsoever. He has balance and will stand by himself when I'm not trying to get him to, but when I try to get him to he just sits down and cries. He REALLY does not want to walk. If I try and hold him out from me and get him to walk to me he just sits down and crawls to me. He is completely happy with crawling everywhere he goes. At this point, it's looking like he'll be crawling right on in to kindergarten in a few more years!

He hasn't been saying as many new words as he was for awhile. Right now he can say mama, dada, bye bye, bite, bath, ball, papa, hi, and hey. ONE day he was handing me a toy and I told him thank you and he said it back to me. He did it again one more time that day, but hasn't since then. He also picked up my keys ONE day and said key without anyone trying to get him to say it. We THINK he was saying key and not just making noises. My mom heard it too!

He's also really into Dora the Explora and Go Diego Go. He didn't used to pay attention to the TV much, but now he'll watch these shows. I like to sit and cuddle with him in the mornings on my days off and we watch cartoons. He'll sit on my lap and watch them for a whole episode. We've also started going for awhile in the evenings now that we have light later and it's warmer. He is REALLY good on the walks. I take a pacifier, drink, and Cheerios and we are good to go! We usually go about 45 minutes and he just sits back and relaxes and enjoys the outdoors. Just don't stop the stroller!

Austin's a dancing boy! He loves to dance to music. He was even dancing to the washing machine the other day! He can clap his hands when I say to or if I do it he will too. When I say...Tada!..he puts his hands in the air. It's pretty cute!

I think all of his accomplishments are so fun to watch. It amazes me how far he has come in a year and also how many more accomplishments he will have in the next year. He is definitely our sweet little boy!

Scroll down for another post. Back to back ones tonight!

Looking goooood!

Austin doesn't have just a whole lot of hair. Surprise surprise! Ha ha! However, he did have this little area in back that was significantly longer than the rest. He also just needed his hair evened up overall. Soooo, we headed to Odessa to a place called Devada Jos. Here he is before... This place is really cute! It had tons of toys for Austin to play with.

We got to choose where he would sit and we picked the airplane. Of course, he sat there like the perfect little boy he is....

Ha ha! Not exactly perfect, but he was pretty good. Not crying or screaming, so that means success in my book! He started pushing her hand away when she was cutting the back of his hair, but she was very patient with him. And here is his after....

Yes, what a dramatic makeover:)! This place is pretty cute. We even got to have a cute little certificate for his first haircut.

Afterward we went for a visit with the Easter bunny. He didn't like the Easter bunny much, but he did endure it without crying and screaming again. Another successful moment:)!!

12 Months Old

Yes, I'm behind! I'm still having some technical difficulties getting pictures from my phone. I got the new iPhone and thought it was going to make things so much easier to use pictures from my iPhone, iPad, and laptop. It's a bit more complicated than I thought, so I'm still working things out. Anyway, here's Andrew working on the stroller. The stroller was pulling a little bit while we were at the mall yesterday, so Andrew was trying to fix it. Austin definitely felt like he needed to help! And our 12 month old pictures (3 weeks late)...Austin wasn't having any of that laying in his bed next to Blue stuff! I held up Blue next to him to show how much he's grown. Blue used to be bigger than Austin!

While I was trying to get a good picture of him laying next to Blue, Austin got up and started bouncing on Blue. Yes, he's very cooperative!=

He actually did sit pretty still long enough for me to get this one! Pretty cute boy!

Yesterday we went to Odessa to see the Easter bunny and get Austin's 1st haircut. I have pictures and video of that to come, but I'm not sure when! Hopefully I'll figure this iPhone stuff out soon!

Austin's 1st Birthday

Sunday was Austin's 1st birthday! What a wonderful day we had! Here's the birthday boy when I went to get him out of bed... We had the BEST birthday party for Austin. The theme (thank you, Cindy) was, "Rookie of the Year." We requested for everyone to wear their favorite team shirt. We had all concession stand food. We had hot dogs, nachos, and frito pies. My friend, Maria, made his cake. CUTE!

And here's his smash cake. The other side says Rookie of the Year.

Kristi brought the baseball and football strawberries. How cute are these?!? Thank you Pinterest!

We had a great turnout for his party! We gathered everyone in the living room to watch a video of Austin's rookie season.

Yeah, he's a VERY loved little boy!

Mom and Dad gave Austin this cute little toy. He likes it!

This is Austin with his smash cake. The smash cake was a complete dud with him. He sat and looked at it. I put his hands in it and he looked at me like I had lost my mind. He did suck the cake off his fingers, but he never voluntarily touched the cake. He loved every bite of it...while I fed it to him from a spoon! I bet we get a better response next year!

We gave him this super cute car! It is sooo fun. Right now we can operate it with a remote control. Later on we can switch it to where he can operate it from the car.

Jason, Jennifer, and Bryson all came over from Lubbock to celebrate with us. So glad they made it!

Mom and Dad sporting their teams!

Austin with his Poppa. Austin's birthday was also Sam and Joyce's 45th wedding anniversary! We had a cake for that too!

Austin's birthday sign...we'll save it and use it each year.

After we were done eating and unwrapping presents we took Austin's car outside for a spin.

Right now it goes a little too fast for him on the sidewalk and jerks him. We put it on the grass and let him ride it in it. I didn't really think he liked it much, but then the battery died and the car quit going. Austin started crying when it stopped!

We had soooo much fun celebrating his birthday! I love my boys!

Austin sitting in his new chair from Mimi and Papa. It says Austin on the back of it.

I screwed up! I took this great idea from Cindy. I made a pennant for each kid at the party and put them on the fireplace. I forgot to take a picture of it before people started leaving and taking their pennants. Darn it!

We wanted to take Austin's picture in his new chair with the balloons. He had enough of the pictures and wasn't cooperative for this one.

Kristi and Jeff gave him the ball pit. He REALLY like its. He likes small places, so he likes crawling in there to play.

We truly had the best day with Austin for his birthday. It felt a little like when we got married with how hectic things were when we were getting ready for the party. The party couldn't have gone better. We are SO thankful to all of our family and friends for coming to celebrate Austin's special day.