A Walk Down Memory Lane

With Austen turning 1 this past week I have spent a lot of time thinking about our life this past year. I love to remember Austen's fabulous entrance into this world and all that has transpired since. It has certainly been an adventure!! So in honor of Austen I thought we'd take a look back. Here's some cute pics of him from his first day home from the hospital to his 6 month photo shoot.

First full day home (5 days old)
Exactly one month (and already not fitting in the infant tub..haha)


Two months (first smile caught on camera)

Three months (Finally enjoying the concept of stretching out)

Four months (he was a thumb sucker, but he has since decided the passa is way better)

Five months (I swear he was the happiest baby ever!)

Six months (Ahhh the rolls....I miss those)

WOW!!! A Year Already?

Austen,
I can't believe that you've been in my life for a whole year already. The time goes by so fast and yet I can't imagine my life without you. You have taught me more about life and love in twevle short months than I had managed to learn in my previous 26 years. You are my everything! I am so blessed to be your mom and all I can really say is thank you for picking me.

You are constantly amazing me and making me laugh.....usually at the same time. There is so much to love about you, but at your current stage I'm really loving that:
-You HATE blankets when you're sleeping....no matter how many times a night I cover you up, you always kick them off.
-You get so excited that you start to dance when you see a banana or tapioca pudding.
-You make singing sounds when you're trying to fall asleep.
-You not only love to stick everything in your own mouth, but you also love to put stuff in my mouth, your dads mouth, and even the dogs mouth.
-I find things shoved into any little nook and cranny (I just pulled a starbucks cup sleeve out of the printer and I'm pretty sure I haven't even found everything you've put down the heater vents, not to mention the T.V. remote has been missing for six days now despite our best attempts to find it).
-And what I'm loving most about you at this stage is how when we snuggle you fit perfectly in my nook.
I love every single day with you and I can't wait for what's yet to come.


On Austen's big day we went to the Aquarium and then had cake. It was a very fun day, so I took lots of pics.....enjoy.

We gave him some new pacifiers that he wasn't quite sure about.

He kept taking it out to inspect it.

He loved all the bright fish at the Aquarium.

In the canoe at the Aquarium. He didn't want to get out!

Looking at a huge snake.

Worn out when it was time to go.

Opening his gift from his Great Grandma J.

My attempt at making a rocket ship cake.....the M&Ms started bleeding.

He wasn't quite sure what to do with the cake.

He figured it out though.

After he had eaten his fill of cake we immediately had to stick him in the tub. It was everywhere...he even got some on the dog.

We Have A Tooth!!!

And it only took a year!! His first tooth finally broke through and judging from his behavior today I think another one is already on it's way. They were just taking their time coming in and now they're all going to come in at once I think. Oh well, it's better to get it over with.....poor little guy. He gets VERY clingy and whiney which makes me think he's got to be pretty uncomfortable.

Austen has found a new lookout spot. He loves to sit on the fireplace hearth and check out the whole family room. It's pretty cute to watch him get situated up there because he hasn't figured out how to sit down from standing yet so he sort of crawls with one leg on and one leg off until he can sit. (That probably doesn't make any sense to you unless you've seen him in action.) I got a few good pics of him up on his perch, but I loved this one...he's all business. Mr. Serious!!!

Here's one of him walking. It's very cute and robotic.

This one's blurry, but it gives you a view of what I see all day.


I was trying to get a good pic of him smiling and laughing, but everytime I held up the camera he got his serious face.....kinda looks a little mug shot-ish. Oh well, it's still cute!

Childproof???

What does that even mean??? Austen is still into everything, but he's actually learned what "no" means and he's pretty obedient. He has however learned to undo the child safety latches on the cupboards (he figured that out about a month ago and it's been interesting...) and he loves to get into the fridge. He can't open the fridge yet, thankfully, but as soon as I open it he puts his head down and crawls as fast as he can towards the fridge. (He puts his head down when he wants to crawl fast....maybe it's more aerodynamic???) It's kind of funny though because now when I need something out of the fridge I have to get it out really fast so I can have the door shut by the time he makes it over to me. It's a race, but sometimes he wins....as you'll see below.

Austen has gotten so good at walking that he rarely crawls anymore. It's sad and fun at the same time. I love to see him walking around, but it's sad too....he's growing up so fast!

His other new thing is shutting doors. At first I thought it was funny, but now it seriously tests my patience!! He'll go in the laundry room or pantry or his bedroom and close himself in. When he realizes he's alone he'll start to cry, but when I try to open the door he gets mad and immediately slams the door. It's a bad cycle.

Here he is getting into the fridge. What you can't see is that he has climbed up onto the ledge so he's actually in the fridge.
He figured out how to open the drawer under the dryer where we keep all our clean rags and he loves to empty it out.


I had to include this pic of his latest battle wound even though he's making a weird face. I caught him while he was eating, but you can really see the bloody scratch right between his eyes. Learning to walk is a dangerous job. (He actually just scratched himself, but he keeps picking the scab and making it worse....at this point I'm beginning to wonder if it's ever going to heal.)

He's also been making these hilarious faces lately that involve sucking in his lips. It's really hard to get a good picture of it, so for now this one will have to do. It's not his most extreme lip sucking, but it's something.

Bye Bye Baby

I think it's time for me to acknowledge that I no longer have my baby. He is turning into a little person. He has started taking steps without holding on to anything. It started a few days ago with just one step and now in a matter of two or three days it has turned into four steps at a time. I think it's safe to say he'll be walking before his first birthday. It's sad and exciting all at once. Also, he has signs of a tooth. I was begining to wonder if he even had teeth in there!!! He finally got a little bump and now it's getting all red and he's grumpy and won't sleep, so I think it will be popping up pretty soon. I'm a little scared for that considering I'm still breastfeeding, but we'll work it out I guess.

He's also starting to eat new things and learn to drink from a cup. We're skipping the sippy cup stage because it seems like an extra step to me, so we're going to try and just go straight to a regular cup. When I am complaining about all the spills I'll have to remind myself that I wanted to avoid the sippy cup. :)

Here he is drinking from a cup all by himself. (he loves those awful big plastic ones) Here he's eating a pretzel thing. He loves these!!

I spent all day making some baby food from scratch for him because I don't really like the idea of him eating canned meat and he HATES it!!! It took hours and made a huge mess and he won't eat any of it. Here's a pic of him after he took a bite of the homemade stuff.

These are just really cute pics of him in the dry bathtub. I put him in there with toys while I take a shower. This won't be lasting much longer because he has been trying to climb out lately.

Our First Christmas

Well, it's really Austen's first Christmas. We had so much fun watching Austen open all his presents.....he had a lot. He was really into tearing off the paper and he loved all his new toys.
This post has the most pictures ever, but it was really hard narrowing it down from 300.

I gave him a candy cane on Christmas Eve....he loved it of course!Here's his dad helping him open his pajamas the night before Christmas.

This is Christmas morning before he saw his stocking.

Discovering the stocking....he wasn't sure if he was supposed to be touching that.

Showing me what was inside.

This pic makes me laugh.....he looks sooo serious!

Soooo many toys!!! It was toy overload!! I think he was a little over stimulated because he did not sleep at all on Christmas night!

Where Do I Begin???

I guess I'll start by saying if you haven't read my post from yesterday, you should scroll down and read that one first.....

It's kind of ironic that I chose yesterday to label my blog post "he's into everything" because at the time I wrote that I had no idea just how bad it was about to get. First, I have a picture of him emptying out his dresser. (This isn't bad.....it's actually kind of cute!!!) Later that day I noticed Austen picking at these tiny wooden peg things that cover up the screw holes in our office desk. I didn't really think anything of it because I never could have imagined that he would be able to get them out.......well I couldn't have been more wrong. Here's a pic of the empty holes.

And here's a pic of the wooden pegs.

I turned around and noticed he had something in his mouth.....it was three of the above wooden things and there was one on the floor. I was shocked that he could have gotten those out of the furniture, but I was absolutely frantic when I realized that there were four more empty holes on the other side of the desk. I looked everywhere for the other four pegs and when I couldn't find them I assumed he must have swallowed them. I immediately called the doctor and they said if he had swallowed them he should be able to pass them just fine, so I shoudn't be too worried. They said to look for them in his poop over the next couple of days.......how fun!!! I still don't know if he could have swallowed four of those things, but they are missing so the mystery remains......

And because that wasn't enough for one day there's more!!! An hour later Brian noticed that the dog had thrown up in the family room. He thought he had cleaned it all up, but there was more behind the recliner. Unfortunately, Austen found it before we did. All I'm going to say is I found some on his hand AND face, so you can draw your own conclusion. I certainly did.....YUCK!!!

To top it all off the poor little guy is now sick just in time for his very first Christmas. We made it one month shy of a year with no sickness at all......great timing to get his first cold huh??