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.

Taking Back The Basement

I've been M.I.A. for a little bit, not because I don't have anything to blog about, but because I have decided to take on the basement. I had a bunch of stuff stored elsewhere that I recently had to bring home and for some reason that was the straw that broke the camels back. Just adding those extras boxes made the basement feel totally full and unorganized and awful, so I decided to tackle it. It has been going better than expected and I've made really good progress down there. (Today is day 5 of us not leaving the house.) I've had to be fully committed to this or it would be too overwhelming. Maybe I'll even post some after pictures......I didn't take the befores, I don't want any evidence of how awful it was.

The accumulation and acquisition addiction will be hard to break, but I am seriously not bringing one more unnecessary thing into this house!!! (How many scented candles does one person really need??? And don't even get me started on the T-shirt king.....)

Wish us luck and have a happy Thursday!!!

The Baby With Magical Healing Powers

We get a lot of toys from my very generous sisters.
Sometimes we'll find some strange misfits in the bags and we'll usually send those to be donated.
(Don't have a heart attack Mrs. Jones!)
One of these said misfits happened to catch Austen's eye and it's been love ever since!!!
He calls it his baby and he has to have it all the time.
He sets it on his highchair tray so the "baby" can have lunch with him and he even pretends to feed it.
He wants it when he takes a nap.
Most importantly the baby can fix any bonk, scrape, or owie he gets.
He can be really hurt and as soon as you give him the baby, he's fine and he'll quit crying instantly.

It's actually quite funny considering what this stupid thing looks like.

I even put it next to my cell phone, so you could see how tiny it is.
Very easy to lose which is not good!!!
I don't know why he got so attached to this thing, but it's pretty dang hilarious if you ask me!

100th Post

Not sure that's really significant.....just more of a factoid I guess.

Anyway, Austen is doing so many fun things right now. His personality is really starting to take shape (I kinda think it was always "shaped", but now that he can talk I finally get to see it more fully.)

Things I want to remember about Austen at this stage:

If he wants to be held he says "hold you" (usually 3 times)
His baby can fix anything
He wants to clean everything (I think he might make messes just to clean them up)
He has absolutely no idea he's not a grown up
He says thank you and you're welcome in the right context, totally unprompted
He loves Toy Story (especially Woody)
He is serious about helping, he loves it and wants to help anyone do just about anything

He's just my little buddy that I have around all the time.
He's so much fun and he's hilarious.

I love you more than life Austen!!!

Mr. Independence

Right from the start Austen absolutely hated to be restrained in any way. He hated being swaddled in the nursery and would immediately free his arms after the nurses re-wrapped him. He really hated the car seat for the first year of his life and I think it was because his arms were strapped down. In fact, now that I think about it, those last few months in utero must have been hell!!! (For you and me both buddy.) The signs all pointed to this happening, so I shouldn't be surprised one bit, but I have to say the first time he pushed me back and told me "no" so I wouldn't follow him, I was a little stunned. Now that it's started happening on a daily basis I kinda have to laugh about it. It really is quite funny. He always wants to do everything himself. If Sophie needs to go out he'll run as fast as he can to the door. He will always turn around to make sure I'm not doing the same and if I am, he'll run back tell me "no" while pushing me backwards and run on to the door checking back periodically to make sure I'm still in the same place. He also does this whenever he hears the garage door open. He runs to the door saying daddy, but he wants to go alone.

The other day he put on my slippers and said he was ready to go. I think he meant in the car, but he didn't want me following him. Luckily the door to the garage was locked otherwise you probably would have heard about a 1 year old driving the family car on the news. ( I am already preparing myself for some version of that to happen. He knows exactly what to do to make the car go.......)

Now that he can open the freezer (the child lock thing for it broke) he thinks he can just help himself to whatever he wants. The other day I found him eating a frozen chicken nugget!
This one was too cute to stop, so I took pictures instead.

He even got the spoon and took off the lid.

More Peas Please

I just discovered that Austen loves peas!
A Lot!

Here he is drinking them.

His happy face with a mouthful of peas.

How cute is that little half smile???

Last week my dad let Austen help him do some work with a power tool.
As soon as we got home, he started looking for something that would work as a drill.
He found a water gun and ever since he's been looking for things he can fix.
Here he is working on his tool bench.

The Stick Collector

Here are some more pics from our Wheeler Farm visit.
He was in heaven with all the sticks and rocks!!!
He was making it hard for me to get cute pics of him because we all know he won't hold still!

Inspecting a piece of hay.

He kept calling the big stick his walking stick.
Don't know where he learned that, but super cute!

One For You......Two For ME

That is Austen's method of feeding the ducks.

I took the little man out to Wheeler Farm for probably the last time this year.
I let him stay as long as he wanted and get as dirty as he liked too.
We usually stop at the bread outlet on the way there and buy a huge bag of duck bread for a dollar. When you buy the duck bread, they have you sign a waiver saying you won't eat it.
Well, Austen doesn't quite understand that the bread is only for the ducks and last time we got it he kept eating it.
Now we just take regular bread since he likes to give himself as many bites as he gives the ducks!!!

He has his own little system and he doesn't like me interfering at all!!!
I can't even hand him the bread....he has to get it himself!

Taking a closer look....He had created quite the feeding frenzy and he thinks it's hilarious when they fight over the bread. Is he a boy or what?!?!

Love this pic!!! It's even better bigger!

Don't Mess With Nap Time

The other day Austen's Grandma came down for a visit.
It just happened to coincide with nap time and it was the day after a very rough night.
(Those incisors are no joke!)
I kept him up to play with his Grandma and boy did he have fun!!! She really wore him out!

About 10 mins after she left, we had a nuclear meltdown.
Austen started crying and screaming and throwing a fit that could be heard for miles.
I put him in the car because he'll usually fall asleep if I take him on a drive, but not this time.
He had worked himself up too much to fall asleep.
I tried another diversion that always works.....Walmart.
Not this time....he wouldn't even let me put him in the cart!
After a huge struggle, I finally got him strapped back in his car seat and drove him home.
(still screaming by the way.)

I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but finally he stopped crying for some mac and cheese and his favorite show.
He stopped the fit long enough to eat and then this happened.....

That was the very first time he's ever fallen asleep in his high chair. I felt so bad for him, but I had to take some pics because it was hilarious!!!

Lesson Learned Austen......Mommy won't mess with naptime ever again!!!

Austen.......Meet The Naughty Chair

I'm sure it will be a very long friendship.
(I use that term, but they'll be more like frenemies!)

That's right, I've decided to try the time out thing on Austen and see if that helps.
He is sooo stinkin hard to discipline.
He is doing stuff that is really quite naughty (and quite creative too), so I'm trying to put a stop to it as best I can. He thinks everything is funny and when I'm trying to tell him no, he just laughs at me. That kind of renders all punishment useless.
I tried the chair this morning after he climbed up on the desk in the office and tried to throw the monitor overboard.
He cried, but he stayed in the chair for the whole minute and he hasn't climbed on the desk since, so maybe he knows I mean business. We'll see.

I'm pretty sure the discipline is the worst part of parenting. I used to think it was the messes, but I've changed my mind.

He turned the side table upside down so he could use it for a ladder.
See what I mean by creative???

He's mesmerized when I put on mascara, so I should have known it was just a matter of time.

He actually got some on his eyelashes which is very impressive.