18 months

Time goes by WAY too fast!!! Austen has already been in our lives for a year and a half. That is so hard to believe, but at the same time it seems like he's been around forever.

Austen is full of personality and that is an understatement!
He loves to be outside doing anything, as long as it's outside. He has hours of fun playing in the hose and he loves to dig and play in the sandbox. I usually lay in the sun reading while he plays, so he's developed what he thinks is a fun game that consists of spraying me with the hose and then running away. He laughs and laughs about that.

Austen's favorite thing to do is to make other people laugh.
He will do anything for a laugh even if it involves hurting himself!

He's talking a lot now too. I was going to make a list on the blog of all the words he's been saying, but when I sat down to type them out I realized he's saying too many words to list. Some of my favorites are animal, lawn mower, and one more. They just sound so cute in his little voice. The words I hear the most are doggoo (doggy), bopba (grandpa), and apple apple apple (he NEVER says it just once and it means he wants apple juice.) He has even started putting two separate thoughts together. For example he'll say more and then he'll say what he wants more of. Totally normal toddler behavior, but of course I think he's a genius for doing it.

Austen is also ALL boy!!! He is full of energy and loves to run. He chases Sophie around the house while holding his plastic golf club and thinks it's hilarious. He's still into everything, but he is starting to get that some things are off limits and not allowed. I'm very glad for this because I was starting to think I had some out of control child who was impervious to discipline. He can open doors now, so I have to work on that and we're still working on not climbing on the kitchen table. It's been quite a battle because he has absolutely no idea that he is in fact just a toddler and not a grown up. He sees no reason why he can't eat up to the table like everyone else. He has developed some disdain for his high chair.

Austen's still a picky eater, so not much has changed there. I have a hard time with the eating thing, he's impossible to trick. If he doesn't want it, he's NOT eating it.

I love him so much it hurts!!! He is the best thing in the whole world and I can not imagine my life without him.

This pic is not as recent (notice the cast is still on), but I LOVE it!

P.S. I think we've started the "terrible twos" early, but more on that in another post.

A Trip To Little Person Heaven

I have such good memories of the Children's Museum from when I was little, so I've been waiting for Austen to get big enough to go. We took him a couple weeks ago and he was in heaven. He just got to run around and play with EVERYTHING!! It's changed a lot from what I remember, but they have some really fun stuff there. They have this giant thing they call a beehive where you stick these little plastic balls down all these chutes and tubes and stuff. He loved it and would have been happy had that been all there was!!

They also have this mini town with a house, post office, bird nest thing, supermarket (his fav), a car, gas station, and a farm area with a life size horse that's saddled and ready to "ride". Needless to say he had a blast!!!

Driving the car with daddy.I had to include this pic. The look he's giving that girl makes me laugh.....he wasn't sure why she was playing with "his" stuff. I guess that's the downside to an only child?!?

In the "beehive"

This was a huge plinko kind of thing and he was mesmerized!!!

Riding the horse.....it was super tall. He of course had no fear!

He found this stroller in the mini house and pushed it around everywhere!!! He seriously loved it.....Brian not so much!

Here he is in the little store. When he realized he could grab anything he wanted he got so excited. He was running around picking out all the stuff he wanted and then he'd run it over to the basket I was holding. The cash register was also a big hit! (He found a piece of plastic blogona and thought he'd try it. I could have died, but so far he hasn't come down with any strange illness so I guess it was ok.)

Don't Report Us!

Maybe it's because Austen's a boy that I feel the need to document the following: His first scraped knee and his first fat/bloody lip. Is this weird??? I'm not sure.

Both of these injuries happened before the broken arm, by the way.

The scraped knee happend at the zoo.....all those hills with a not so experienced runner.

(he has mastered running now though and he rarely just walks)



His poor fat lip!! He thought it would be fun to empty the dog's water dish and I'm sure it was fun, until he slipped on the water and faceplanted. His mouth bled and bled and he was really upset about it. So much so that for about 3 months afterward he would cry frantically if he felt water under his feet while standing on a hard surface. He also now has a thing about promptly cleaning up ANY spills on the tile. He'll get a cloth and clean it up all by himself.......not sure if he's just a clean freak like his daddy or if it's because he doesn't want to fall again.

The pics don't do it justice. It was super swollen and the cut inside kept opening up and bleeding even days after the fall. Poor guy!!!