Toys Toys Everywhere

Austen got so many toys for Christmas!!! He's in heaven and will go from one thing to the other all day. So far he hasn't picked a favorite, he likes them all equally.

Playing with his cash register from Grandma and Grandpa.
He loves it when I pretend to buy things from him and he loves to put the play money in his wallet.

He loves this mop and broom set we got him.

Bowling in the hall with Daddy.

His beloved tool bench from Grammy Linda.

His play kitchen from Aunt Taunya. Here he is boiling his passas.

And putting pizza in the microwave.

Christmas......Finally!

I was sooo excited for Christmas this year because Austen is old enough to really get it. He was super into the whole Santa thing even though I didn't really push it. On Christmas Eve we had an amazing and fun dinner at my sister's house. My Dad read the bible story and then we let the kids open a present.

Austen opening his customary pajamas and slippers.

He got about halfway through opening his gift and then he requested the vacuum to clean up his mess. He's so not normal!


Christmas morning was so amazing. I woke Austen up by telling him I thought Santa had come and he needed to come look . He was so excited. He jumped out of bed not quite fully awake and when he got out into the family room he was bewildered! Santa had set up all the toys so they were ready to play with and the dinosaurs he left were front and center. Austen just stood there for a while taking it all in. It was seriously a moment I will never forget. You could just see the wheels turning and it was so adorable.

Austen trying to process the scene.

He got the customary orange.

Pulling the goods out of the stocking.

We let him open a few presents before we had to take off for extended family stuff. Here he is having his new buzz lightyear toy help him open another present.

One of my favorite pictures ever!!! He's telling Grandpa thank-you for his present.

Austen and daddy in their Santa hats.

Austen got so many toys that he left 3 unopened presents under the tree. I kept telling him he could open them, but he said "no, all done". I think that means we did good, he just wanted to play with the stuff he already opened. I'm saving the rest for his birthday!!!

SANTA

I have been morally opposed to Santa since before I can even remember. I was the kid that told other kids the truth about Santa and I was seriously appalled that parents would "lie" to their children about it. I never thought I would be one of those parents one day. I really didn't want my kids believing and I certainly never planned on perpetuating that belief.

Well here we are. I now have a child and when it came to the Santa debate Brian won out. He was holding firm and not believing was NOT an option.

Austen has been wanting to go see Santa for weeks now. We did a walk by at the mall, but that wasn't good enough. I kept telling him that he would have to sit on Santa's lap and that he would be touching him (he hates strangers touching him or even being in his space) but that did not deter him. Then I started telling him that Santa was busy making toys for Christmas Eve, but that didn't work either. So finally I just decided to let the poor kid visit Santa and get it over with. I was sure he would cry and scream and hate it.

I was wrong...

He loved every second!
Isn't that a good Santa too?

The picture says it all. He wasn't scared one bit!!! When he first sat down he was so in awe that he wasn't sure what to do so he froze. One of the elves kept trying to get him to look over for a picture, so he would just move his eyes and not his head. He finally realized it was ok to move and was smiling and staring at Santa. He told Santa he wanted new dinosaurs (he saw some at Target yesterday) and then we were off.

He has been on cloud nine ever since. He will seriously not quit talking about Santa. He even keeps telling me that his hands are cold just so he can have "glubbs" (gloves) like Santa.

Have An Opinion, Will Ya???

My pictures won't upload today, so you're only getting a written update this post.

Austen is looking really old lately.....I think I said that in my last post, but it's freaking me out and I obviously can't get past it.
He's also picking up some new interests and silly little personality things.

He loves fruit a lot.....that's pretty much all he eats lately. That and turkey sausage.
He loves to play rough with his Daddy!
He loves to play with his cousins too!
His new favorite pastime is to take a shower with Dad.
He has a weird new obsession.....he picks sock lint from between his toes.
He says "bye see ya later mom" a LOT!
He loves to sing the song Jingle Bells.
And
He wants to be naked all the time!!!

I've been letting him run around naked a lot. What do I care if he doesn't want any clothes on??? Well yesterday he was playing naked while I cleaned up the kitchen. All of the sudden he started frantically crying, so I ran in the office and discovered he had pooped. EVERYWHERE. I'll spare you the details because it's too gross for me to even want to re-tell it. Lets just say that's the end of the naked phase at our house!

Down For The Count

We just visited the Dr. for Austen's last well-child visit and got some surprising news......Austen's head is not as big (in comparison to other children) as previously thought. It's actually only in the 63rd percentile, not the 95 I was expecting. Also surprising.....he's not a shorty. 50th percentile there and with his Nelson genes (if he even got any) that's not bad.

We had to do the dreaded shots this time, which I was a little worried about because now he can talk and you never want your child asking you why you're hurting them. Luckily we didn't get any of that, but what we did get was worse, much worse.

He had a bad reaction to his DTaP. He had a pretty high fever, no appetite, and some disgusting diapers.....I'll spare you the details. His leg swelled up to the point that it was about 50% bigger than the other leg and it was all red and splotchy. The poor thing could barely walk. He just shuffled along. It was a rough day and a couple of bad nights, but he seems to be feeling better now. He just has a swollen bump on his leg and a huge bruise. He's never had a reaction to shots and he's never even really been sick, so this was pretty hard on us. I hated seeing him like that!

He's back to his old self again now though....in fact the first night he was feeling better he was bouncing off the walls and very happy to be running again.

He just stayed there wrapped up in his blankie.

This is him this morning....back to his old tricks.

Live Nativity

WOW!!!
I really had no idea anyone besides my Dad read this blog, but after that last post I now know that I have at least 5 loyal readers.
I should monetize this thing with all that traffic!!

Thanks for everyone's input, it wasn't helpful at all because everyone picked a different picture, but thanks!
I finally just picked a card that had 3 pictures so I only had to narrow it down to 3 instead of 1.
It was still hard, but I think they turned out just fine.
(Although we got them today and Brian said "that's the one you picked? You made such a big deal about it and then you pick THAT one?")
You should be getting one shortly.
Hopefully you like it more than Brian does.
(It doesn't really matter anyway......people open them and then throw them away.)

A couple weeks ago we visited a live nativity with my whole family. It's something we do every year and love. Austen was really into it this year, so that made it fun.
They have real animals that you can pet, so that pretty much did it for him.
He was petting goats, sheep, a baby cow, and even a giant camel.
It was cold and dark and none of the pictures I took turned out except one.
So here's Austen petting a giant camel:

Decisions, Decisions.....

My amazing sister (who I've dubbed the family photographer) took some really cute family pictures for us yesterday. They are so cute, that I'm having trouble deciding which one to use for our Christmas card. So I've decided to send it to a vote. Here they are, so pick your fav and tell me in the comments section.

Go On And Smile

This is the look I get now when I pull out my camera

If that doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will.
Happy Friday!!!

Deck The Halls

I LOVE Christmas!!!
And can I just say that it is 10x more fun when you have a kid.
I am so excited to see Austen on Christmas morning.
He is already in awe over the Christmas tree and the Christmas lights.
He loves to plug in the tree every night and turn on the timer for the outside lights.
I think we'll take him on a driving tour of lights after the next snow, but in the meantime here's a pic of our house all decked out after a big storm.

Two of our lit bushes are completely buried and if you look very close you can see Austen out there with his pretend snow blower.

Joy Ride?

I know I say this all the time, but Austen has absolutely no clue that he is in fact not a grown up. He does whatever we do and he sees nothing wrong with that. He saw Grandpa and Daddy working on the dishwasher, so he works on the dishwasher. Notice he even has his tools.....

Daddy shovels the snow, so he shovels the snow. Of course he has to use the same beanie daddy uses.

Most the time these things are perfectly fine......cute even, but yesterday he did something that only grownups are supposed to do.
We went outside to add a string of lights to a bush that was looking a little sparse. When we were finished I took the extra string of lights to the basement and I came back upstairs to find Austen missing. I checked the backyard....not there. That's when I noticed the door to the garage was open.
I step out into the garage to find this:

He was in the car pretending to drive. He had even found the key (which I never keep in the ignition) and turned the car on. Not running on, just on enough that the radio was playing.
He was steering and singing and having the best time ever!
In fact when I opened the door, he got very upset and kept telling me to close it.
Luckily he didn't get it into gear!!!
I am so screwed!

For those of you wondering how my 22 month old can open a car door, he can't. I left the back door open when I took him out earlier because he had fallen asleep.

Needless to say, I will be hiding the key from now on along with locking the door to the garage and NEVER leaving the car door open.

Random Cuteness

Austen is looking old lately and I'm not the only who has noticed either. It's like he's growing up so fast it literally happens before my eyes!!! It makes me so sad on one hand, but on the other it's so fun to see the amazing person he's becoming. He amazes me every single day. Just today I discovered he can count......and not just to three like I thought......to six!!! I have a witness for those that don't believe it. He also knows colors pretty well too. He gets red and orange confused, but other than that he can tell you what color most things are.
HE'S NOT EVEN TWO!!!

I have to remind myself of that daily.

He is still obsessed with Toy Story especially Woody. I even snuck him an early Christmas present (a small stuffed Woody doll) that he hasn't put down since. He will still do anything for a laugh and he loves saying hi and bye to anyone we encounter.
He LOVES sugar a lot!!!
So much so, that when I give him a bowl of lucky charms this is what he does:

And for someone not very dexterous that takes a lot of work.

He still loves to clean

And he still thinks his dad is the most
amazing/funny/wonderful
person on the planet.......and so do I!

'Tis The Season

Thanksgiving was awesome this year!!!
Austen had so much fun playing with all his cousins and drinking his fill of soda.


After we stuffed ourselves my sister and I bundled up to stand in line for Black Friday sales.
It was 8 degrees mind you, but I managed to stand out there for over two hours thanks to Brian's military issued arctic bib. Those were some warm pants (that's more than I can say about my boots!!!)
Minus a lady having a seizure two feet away from us, it wasn't too bad.......it's still too soon to say it was fun though.
We had a good game plan, so we got everything we wanted and were out of the store in 20 min which has got to be some sort of black friday record.

I got a head start this year and decorated before it got snowy and cold.
Here's some pics of us putting up our lights.

Trying to plug them in.

Have I mentioned Austen's a climber and NOT afraid of heights???

He's using Brian's homemade light hanger......very cute!

He had so much fun helping his daddy put up the lights and he loves to look at them every night when they're on!!!

Remember When It Was Still Warm???

Since we are supposed to be having a major blizzard later today, I thought I would post some pics of our last trip to the park. It was even warm enough that I had Austen in shorts, so maybe this will help conjure up nice warm thoughts while we're stuck inside freezing.

Austen loves his uncle Brett!!!
I think I hear "uncle Brett" about 5,000 times a day.

Here they are playing at the park.

Peeking over.....notice the tip toes???

This boy likes to climb!!!
Do I look worried or what?

SNOW!!!!!

We had a major snow storm last night and got dumped on! Austen immediately noticed the snow when he woke up and all he wanted to do was go outside. He didn't even want to eat his breakfast. I spent forever getting him all bundled up and then let him go. He wasn't quite sure what to do at first, but once he saw Sophie running through it, he was all about it.

Can you spot the dog?? She's got good snow camo.

At first he just stood there taking it all in.

Then he discovered he could eat it!

It was waist deep for him, so he had a hard time walking and kept telling me he was stuck.

I buried his legs.

We got him his own shovel so he can help daddy.

Austen didn't want the stupid little kid shovel, he wanted the one daddy had!

This picture is for Grammy Linda.......thought you'd think it was cute!

He was sooo happy!!! I think he had more fun shoveling the driveway than he did playing in the snow.