Merry Christmas!

Wow, as I think back over this past year I can't believe how much my life has changed. This time last year I was pregnant with our handsome little guy and I remember I was just starting to feel little twinges of movement. It was soooo exciting!! I was just starting to get a little belly....although looking back, it just looks as though I ate too much! But I know that there was this amazing transformation taking place and a beautiful little being forming in my belly. Wow, time sure has flown! It's so weird to think that last Christmas he was the size of an orange and now here he is, absolutely adorable and already six months old! It almost makes me sad to think how fast time is flying. Slow down!! I don't want him to grow up so fast!! Oh well, I guess I just have to savor each moment and count each second as an incredible blessing. I love being Austin's mom. I don't think that I've thought of it that way before.....thank you God for choosing me to be Austin's mom. It is such an honor and a privilege to raise and nurture and guide this little boy through life. The responsibility of it all can sometimes be overwhelming. I guess I just have to take each day as it comes. As I write this, my little man is sound asleep in his crib, with his arms sprawled up above his head (he will not keep them under a blanket, no matter how hard I try!) and his little face is so peaceful and sweet, it just has to make you smile. He had a great time opening his stocking from Santa this morning. It was pretty fun as he is now starting to sit quite well on his own and we could get some pictures of him sitting all by himself with his first stocking full of presents from Santa. We helped him unwrap his little blocks, new book and teething ring. Although it seemed as if he was a little scared of the tissue paper and all we can think is that it brings back some horrid memories from the doctor's office and his six month shots just a few weeks ago. Poor little guy!! Anyways, I feel so blessed to have my husband and my son and it so much fun being a family. As I think ahead to next year I can't imagine how our Christmas will be. Austin will be one and a half and I sure he will be into EVERYTHING!! Ugghhh, just thinking of it now, stresses me out. So on that scary note, I'm going to stop my rambling and say goodnight. Tomorrow night is Christmas dinner at my grandma's and more presents and family.....hope all goes well! Merry Christmas everyone!!

New Photo's!

Here are some new pictures....

Austin and his first Santa picture!

Hey, at least he is looking at the camera and not crying!

5 months

Gonna lick that bowl clean!

Austin at his first Thanksgiving eating squash/rice cereal

Yummy!

Austin laughing at his great-grandpa

Still 5 months

Austin laughing at his daddy

Taylie bouncing away....she loves that frog!

Taylie eating Austin's hand

Austin eating Taylie's hand

Austin & Taylie photo session on one of our Monday's

5 months old

Halloween Pictures FINALLY!

So here are a few Halloween pictures, FINALLY of the babies. Ugghh, I keep promising to be more prompt with my posts, but they just end up being further and further stretched out, alas life with a five month old! Can we say busy!! Anyways, the babies were very cute on Halloween. They were very good sports and didn't even seem to mind that we dressed them up and made such a fuss over them. But it was an early night for us because Austin still wants to go to bed around 7pm, which is nice, but it does make all of our evenings short and sweet. And as far as sleeping, just when I think I'm exhausted from him waking up so much, he'll sleep all night until about 4am or 5am, then eat and back down until around 7am or 8am. And then when I get used to have a long, lovely nights sleep, he starts waking up again. So basically my baby has taught me that just when I think I have him all figured out, he changes!! So now I just expect the unexpected at night and deal with it. And another unexpected he has thrown our way has to do with the bottle. I've been back to work for a couple of months now, and he would take the bottle fine from Joey and Sarah on the two days a week that I work, and then one day, nope. He didn't want anything to do with it. I have no idea why, we didn't change bottles, we didn't try to give him formula, its still the same ol breastmilk he has always had, so what gives??! The past couple of weeks poor Joey has been dealing with a very fussy baby who refuses to take his bottle and cries until momma gets home where upon he is starving and so happy to see me. Joey has always brought him by my work around lunch because I always have set aside time to feed him, but in the afternoon I don't have time to feed him and this is when he cries and cries for momma. So I went out and bought every bottle that k-mart had and thought maybe he just wants a different kind, nope! He still doesn't want anything to do with them. As soon as the rubber of the nipple touches his mouth, he turns up his little face and arches his back and starts to throw a fit. He won't even try to get milk out of it and when we squeeze the milk into his mouth he just seems to get really mad. So I don't know what to do....he has to eat!! And its not really fair to Joey and Sarah to be left with a screaming baby who just wants his momma....but at the same time, I can't leave work every couple of hours just to feed him. AGGHHH, what do I do??! Luckily he still LOVES rice cereal, so they been trying to hold him over with that, but its not very nutritious. But I guess this too shall pass and we will have a new challenge eventually. If any of you have any ideas, please comment me and let me know! Oh, and he can roll over from his back to stomach and stomach to back now. He is just so talented! But he definitely is bored and I think he will be so much happier when he can at least sit on his own and (god forbid) crawl! He is just all boy, and wants to be into everything, and see everything and momma is getting tired trying to entertain him all the time! Thank goodness for his new jumpy activity center, he loves it!! I'll post some pics of him in it the next time. Anyways I think my brain is done for tonight, so I'll talk to you all later.

Two cousins all dressed up for Halloween!

Taylie was a cute little butterfly

My little turtle!

Snoozin 4 months

Carving pumpkins...

Cleaning out pumpkins...

He loves it!

Austin eating rice cereal for the first time! Yummy

4 month shots!

On thursday Austin got his 4 month shots. Poor baby!! So here are all the stats: He weighs, are you ready for this?! 17 lbs, 8 oz. Yep thats right 17 1/2 pounds!! EEEKKKK!! So he is in the 90th percentile for weight and momma has arms of steel from lugging him around all day....and he is 24 1/2 inches long, 27th percentile for length. So basically still short and fat, or as Joey's grandpa phillips puts it he is short for his weight, just like him, hehehe! Anyways his doctor checked him over and he is doing just marvelous. He was all smiles to her and loved all the little gymnastics she was putting him thru. But later that night and all yesterday he had a horrible runny nose and just wasn't his chipper little self. You could tell that he definetley didn't feel good and I'm not sure if it is from the shots, a cold, teeth or all three. But today he is doing much better. Back to his busy little self. Ooohhh and I almost forgot, she said we could start giving him rice cereal at night before bed!! Yea! So we gave him some on Thursday night and it was hilarious. He has found a new love of his life and its called THE SPOON! It magically has yummy cereal on it everytime he opens his mouth and is refilled by the time he swallows and opens his mouth again. He loved it. It only took about 3 bites for him to figure out how to swallow the cereal and not push it out with his tongue and after that he was lounging towards the spoon and trying to use his hands to put it in his mouth all by himself (my independent little baby). Then when we got to the end we just tipped the bowl and held it up to his mouth and he just slurped the last little bit down. It was so funny! We were all laughing! She said in about a month we could start feeding him twice a day and start adding in vegetables. But she still wants him mainly on breastmilk until at least 6 months, which is fine with me, because breastmilk is free and momma has lots of it! So hopefully eating this rice cereal at night will help him sleep more. Poor momma is tired because Austin has been waking up at least two times at night to eat and then getting up for the day at 6 or 7. Some nights he wakes up more then he ever has even more then his first night home from the hospital, so I am TIRED! I got used to him sleeping through the night and not waking up until 6 or 7 and then eating and sleeping until 8 or 9 and now he just not doing that anymore. So we will see if this holds him over a little longer at night and lets me get more sleep.
I have been watching Taylie on Mondays which has actually been pretty easy. She is a good little girl as long as you feed her right when she is hungry, and not a second later or else she gets very mad! Austin and her kinda ignore each other except when they are laying next to each other and then Austin will try to eat Taylie. He tries to grap her hands or her feet or anything he can get and shove it right in his mouth so I have to watch him. They do really good in the stroller though, but it won't be much longer before they won't be able to fit in there together anymore and then I don't know what I am going to do because it is a nice distraction for both of them during the middle of the day to go on a nice big walk. It is really fun to see how different they are and how they play so different with things and just amazing that they have two totally different personality's. They are already there own little people at 4 months old. I'm really enjoying being a mommy and a auntie and every day with both of them just brings new discoverys and new laughs and it is just so much fun! Austin has been doing this new thing where he talks himself to sleep. It is really hilarious. Its pretty nice though, if he is really tired I just lay him down and he lays there and talks and talks and talks and before I know it, I look in on him and he is asleep. He still doesn't sleep for long though and usually only takes about 15-20 min naps. But hey, he still goes to bed at 7:00 so I can't comlain. If it was up to him I think he would go to bed at about 6:00 but I make him stay up till at least 7:00. Anyways, his first Halloween is next week so I'll try and have up pictures and tell you how it goes......until then bye everyone!

Here are a few new pics!

Awww, he loves his great grandpa!

Austin & his great-grandpa phillips, 4 months

Austin and Taylie, sooooo cute!

At Descanso gardens 4 months

Caution! Nudity picture!! Austin in his bath chair 4 months

Austin in his warm jammas, 4 months

Austin & Taylie going for a walk, 4 months

Taylie 4 months

More pics...4 months old

Austin is already 4 months old. My precious little baby is becoming an independent, busy little monster!! He gets bored sooooo fast, and he always wants to be busy busy busy. He is definetley ALL boy! He smiles all the time and talks and talks and talks. Its very cute! But he really wants you to entertain him and he gets frustrated when he can sees things but he can't get to them or when he picks up things but can't put the ENTIRE thing in his mouth. He's not happy just chewing on the sides of his toys, he wants to eat the whole thing. He started rolling over as well. When he is on his stomach he can arch his back and fling his legs over and the rest of his body follows. But he still can't roll over when he is on his back, he is like a beached well and can just scoot himself around with his feet. So its always nice when its the end of the day and bedtime and mommy can have a break for a few hours until it starts all over again tomorrow. He is truly the light of our lives and we don't know what we would do without him. He is our little one man show and has us constantly laughing. I love my new little family and life right now for us couldn't get any better.

Huh? What's going on?

Hey there!! Austin yelling at mom

Austin and Taylie, they had fun at their

photo shoot with Aunt Tammy

Austin in his midget, 4 months old

He is doing really well on his tummy,

he can even roll over on his back

He has to be strapped in his bouncer now

He is too wild and bounces his way out!

Austin's First Hike

So we took Austin on his first hike about two weeks ago. He had so much fun. Of course, like any baby, he loves to be outside, so outside all day long was fine with him. We went to Rock Creek which is at Tom's Place and hiked in to the fourth lake. It was just gorgeous, nice and warm, no bugs! And the trees were changing so that made for a great show! We took lunch and hiked around the lake (Box Lake) to some rocks and ate our lunch. Why is it that when your out camping or hiking that a boring ol' ham sandwich is soooooooooo good, and those cool ranch doritos are the best thing you've ever tasted! We had a great time just relaxing and looking out into the water. Austin layed on some blankets and played in the sun. Aaahhhhhh it was so wonderful to have no noise, no cell phones, no other people, just us and nature. It was definitely very refreshing and I'm sure we will do it many more times in the future.

The Aspen trees were changing, GORGEOUS!

We hiked over to those rocks and had lunch

In his pack ready to go!

15 weeks, Rock Creek

Here's a few pics

Helping mommy play the piano,

he LOVES the piano!

Around 14 weeks, he loves to sit with

his bobby pillow cause he can sit all by himself...

Exhausted, he stayed asleep the whole time

I changed his diaper.

Awww, cute little guy

Around 13 weeks, he always sticks his tongue out

when he smiles, silly baby!

Hello everyone! Well I've been back to work now for two weeks. And it is great!! I love it! It is so much fun to see all of my clients again and to actually get out of the house and talk to ADULTS! Don't get me wrong, I love love love being a mom, but I think it is good for Austin to have some time with his daddy and his auntie and good for me to get out of the house and have a reason to get up and ready for the day! It's only two days a week which is perfect! So I still have five days at home with him. He is really becoming a lot of fun. He loves to talk to us and makes all kinds of funny sounds and he is a very happy baby and smiles all the time to anyone who will pay attention. The other day I was changing his poopy diper, I had his butt in the air wiping it off and I heard him start to fuss. When I looked up at him he was peeing all over his own face! Poor little baby!! He had pee in his eyes, all over his face, in his mouth, and all over his head. He was pretty mad and look at me like it was my fault!! I felt bad for him but at the same time I was laughing because it was pretty funny. Needless to say he got a bath that night! Anyways we are just doing great. Joey is almost done with his midget and hopes to enter it in the car show in October. We still go for walks almost every night, which Austin loves! He really enjoys looking around and being outside. And he is still a great sleeper. He usually goes to bed between 8 and 8:30 and doesn't wake up until between 6 and 7. It is so wonderful!! But he doesn't like to take naps during the day, so I guess I can't have it all. Well that's about it for now. Talk to ya'll later!

13 weeks old sleeping on the couch

Austin's little midget! Now it just needs a seat!

All finished and put together

Then taping it off to paint it red

Joey painted Austin's midget white

Silly little smile

12 weeks and he LOVES to sit up and look around

Just exhausted!

Sucking his thumb, silly baby!

12 week old