My Little Zoolander, Take 2!

Austin's been keeping busy with modeling auditions and jobs. In August he did a photoshoot for Carter's Clothing and we just got notice that the catalog is out and he made it! Unfortunately it's not a pic of his face, but I know it's him. It does show off his beautiful eyelashes though!

Carter's Catalog
He's on page 7, top right corner. Blue & Grey Striped Hoodie.



We also recently got emails that the last two photo shoots he did for Infantino were good enough for them to use his pics! They aren't up on the website or on any products yet, but I think it will be a while before they are actually in use. Infantino is funny in that they pay extra if they actually use the pictures, whereas the other companies he's done shoots for pay a straight fee just to take the pics. And they seem to really love Austin, cuz tomorrow he's doing another shoot for them! Cha-ching for Austin! Maybe they'll end up paying for Grad School!

Here's Austin modeling a new Infantino Baby Carrier. I personally think it's good enough for the box! But we'll see. I think at a minimum it will be on their website as they seem to have a bunch of pics of their products there.



And this one isn't modeling anything specific, but it goes with the other product pics they were taking that day. They said he was the "lifestyle" shot, whatever that means!


They also recently added another picture from his Disney Clothing shoot. It looks a little funny because he was holding onto my fingers to stand up and they just edited me out.



Here's the pic of him on the mainpage too. It wasn't up for very long.

How Do You Chew?

A few weeks ago I introduced Austin to PB&Js! (Yay for no peanut allergies!) He has a habit of stuffing food in his mouth and just swallowing so I wanted to make sure he chewed his sandwich pieces really good so they didn't get stuck in his throat. I told him to chew his food really good and I made a funny chewing demonstration. Well he thought it was hilarious and picked it up right away! Now he does it a lot because he knows it's funny. He will tell me he's hungry by making this face. The other day Auntie Suz was watching him and they were eating dinner together and he just started doing it after watching her chew his food.






It started out as just something a little funny, but the nice side benefit is I have a 1 year old that knows how to chew with his mouth closed! Score one for good manners!

It's A Party!!

A few weeks ago we held Austin's Birthday party. What an event! It's a good thing my parents have a ginormous house and backyard, because we invited a ton of people! A lot of wedding guest lists are smaller than his was! But that's what happens when you add two very large families to a bunch of really good friends.

The theme was "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" which is one of Austin's favorite books. I do have to admit that the cake idea came first from a pic I found online and then it was just a fortunate coincidence that he likes that book.

The Invite


Food, Decorations
(Click on a thumbnail to see a larger pictures)




Some of the guests












The Caterpillar Cake


The Birthday Boy trying to figure out why all these people are singing at him!


Austin's Smash Cake


You're probably wondering what a blue bear has to do with "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"...yeah, nothing. When Brian and I got married, our parents put together a bunch of poster boards of pictures of us growing up. It was then that was saw we had the exact same bear cake for our 1st birthdays. So I wanted Austin to have that same cake too. So it has nothing to do with caterpillars but it was important to me, so that's why he has a blue bear cake!

Auntie Becca and I made the cakes the day beforehand and it didn't occur to either of us that the frosting would harden overnight. So Austin's smashcake wasn't exactly a smashable cake. He very daintily picked off the frosting bit by bit.







Sharing cake with Daddy. He likes to share.


Mommy spread some frosting on his nose for a pseudo-smashcake pic!


It was Daddy's 30th birthday that week, so he got his very own birthday cake. Not quite as fancy as Austin's though.


Ooh Presents!
(Thank you, everyone, for the great presents! Austin is having a blast with all of them!)



"Yes! A truck!"


I think he likes the water table. What do you think??


Saying "Thank You" for his gifts!


Thanks to everyone who came and helped to make his birthday party such a fun day!!

Posts! Posts! Posts!

Yes, I'm so behind! But that will happen when you've got an incredibly sick kid on your hands! Austin had a high fever (102-104ish) all last week, with a peak at 106.5! (Having to put a screaming sick kid in a lukewarm bath is not good for a momma's heart, lemme tell you!) No flu symptoms either. Just the high fever. We did bloodwork and a urine culture (holding your kid down while they're catheterized is also not fun!) to rule out some scary stuff, but in the end nothing came up positive, so it's just been chalked up to a random virus. He's 100% better now though.

So now that's he's all better I can get to some posts. Expect a bunch, so don't just read the top one.

Pray for Stellan

Please be praying for Stellan today. He is stuck in an ugly bout of SVT and is in the hospital. He turns 1 tomorrow! What an awful way to be spending his birthday!

1 Year Old!!

I can't believe my little man is a year old. This last year has been more fun than I ever could have imagined! I know I'm a biased momma, but Brian and I have the best kid! He cracks us up everyday and somehow brings us more joy each day than the day before!

But how is it that just a year ago, my sweet baby boy looked like this??






New this month

He's not walking but he did officially take a step. I wouldn't call it a horribly intentional nor an extremely graceful one, (in fact it was more of a falling step) but his feet moved while his hands were not attached to anything, so it counts! He did it twice, but I missed the 1st time, so that doesn't count. Only the one witnessed by the momma counts!

I really thought he'd be walking by now, but he just likes to take his time. He's actually very cautious about some things. He's acting similar to when he was learning to sit down. He wouldn't let go of what he was holding onto until one hand was fully on the ground. Then he'd gradually start being a little more aggressive. With walking, he's slowly getting more brave with his cruising. He used to only transfer from one object to another as long as both hands could be touching something at the same time, but now he's lunging for the table or the couch. He's getting more confident in his standing too. He can stand and clap and wave without holding on. So I think it's just a short matter of time before he's running laps around me.

He's getting very good at waving hello & goodbye. Sometimes he'll only wave if we're waving too, but occasionally and more frequently he'll wave just when we say "Say hello."

He's starting to point at things that he wants. It's really handy at meal times when trying to figure out what he'd like more of. He won't sign at all, even though I've been doing sign language with him from virtually day one, but hopefully the pointing will lead to that.

He loves his cars and trains and balls. He will push and roll them around the floor for hours. He can push and crawl at the same time, but he'll also roll it away and then chase after it. And if you get down with your own car with him, he just gets ecstatic!

Austin loves bath time. Part of his favorite game is to see how far he can get into the bathroom before you can catch him. But mostly he just goes to the bathtub and bounces up and down, hoping that it's bathtime. And if you turn the water on, he goes nuts and splashes the water as it's coming out of the faucet. Bathtime used to be such a struggle because Austin wouldn't sit down for anything and would throw a fit if I tried to make him. So we did away with the blowup tub and he doesn't try to stand up nearly as much in the regular tub. He just crawls around like a madman. It's very cute to watch.

He's learned to throw things. It's more like a forceful drop, but it's very cute. Just tonight he was "helping" me sort socks, which amounted to taking them all off the table very forcefully and frantically chucking them on the floor. I think he could have done it for hours but I got tired of putting the socks back up on the table!

This was a rough sleep month. Austin added at least one nighttime feeding for several weeks. I think being pregnant affected how much milk I have, so we started Austin on whole milk for during meals and his last bottle of the day and it has made such a huge improvement. Naps are getting better too, but being sick, teething and being on the very of so many new milestones were making it difficult for him to settle down. Plus he likes to chuck his blanket and pacifier out of the crib and then complains that he can't sleep without them. :| He's getting close to losing them both. Oh but he thinks it freakin' hilarious to watch me crawl around on my hands and knees trying to find his binkie under his crib. It's really hard to be mad that he's not sleeping when he's laughing hysterically!

Austin loves to pretend to talk on the phone. Apparently he thinks just about everything is a phone though, which makes sense since our cell phones look vastly different from each other and from the house phone. So anytime there's a phone or a remote control or even a thumb drive around, he puts it up to his ear and starts talking into it. Then he holds it out as if the call if for us! Cutest thing ever!! Funny though that he doesn't actually like to talk on the phone when someone is trying to talk to him. He cringes away and usually doesn't say anything.

I must have the slowest teether ever! I could have sworn the reason he was so fussy a few months ago was because his top teeth were coming in. They have been moving steadily down but they're not through yet. So he still only has 2 teeth.

Peekaboo and chase are still his favorite games. I love that when you're chasing him he laughs so hard that has to put his head down while he crawls. And he loves it when we peek over the back of the couch.

We just started working on "So big" for his birthday and he's got it down most of the time. He's back to doing high fives and we're working on a fist-bump for Uncle Jemery.

He loves to find my belly button. If he's on our bed and I'm standing near him and ask "where's momma's belly button?" he'll lift my shirt and poke it! We're trying to teach him that the correct response to that is to go "hee hee" like the Pilsbury Dough Boy.

I can tell this month for the first time that he's really understanding a lot of what we say. He'll still do what he's not supposed to half the time, but you can tell he's thinking hard about it! Plus he's starting to recognize the names of a bunch of his toys - like the difference between the ball and the box. I love seeing the little wheels turning in his head as he figures this stuff out!

Birthday Cakes - Pan & Cup!

For Valentine's Day, my mom has the tradition of making us french toast with heart shaped cut outs in the middle. Now that I have my own family I thought it would be fun to start my own special day traditions. So I've deemed Birthdays to be heart-shaped pancake day. Austin seemed to enjoy the tradition's inaugural event!

Waiting somewhat patiently for his pancakes


Little hearts for a little guy


Despite the look on his face, he really was enjoying them!



After his pancakes, Austin got a birthday cupcake. Rebecca and I did a birthday cake test run in prep for his birthday party, so he got a mini cupcake to enjoy! I was hoping he'd get the taste for frosting and cake so that he has an impressive cake smashing experience at his birthday party. He didn't quite seem to know what to do with it at first, even though he's had frosting before. I think he was all filled up on the pancake to really get into it. But after some help from Daddy, he figured it out.

Taking a dainty taste test


Daddy encouraging a sweet tooth


"Ooh, this is yummy!"


Getting the hang of it


"Do I have something on my nose??"