2009 Family Portraits

Since our family is going to be expanding soon, I wanted to document it as it is now. So we arranged to have family pictures taken by my friend Rebecca, who has been taking fantastic pictures of Austin since he was where McKenna is! I swear she gets better and better every time she picks up her camera!

I'm so in love with these pictures! I really can't decide which ones to print out either. I could plaster my whole house in them!

(Rebecca took more than 300 pics in a matter of 40 minutes. We miraculously were able to narrow them down to 40 or so of our favorites. But because I already overloaded you with Christmas pics this week, I'm going to do my best to pare those down to a reasonable number. Though, I make no guarantees that my version of "reasonable" matches yours!)

Who Belongs In The Zoo? We do!

Between Brian having jury duty for 2 1/2 weeks and then being on vacation and Christmas break for an additional 2 weeks, Austin and I really got used to having him home! It was especially nice on Brian's vacation days because we were able to go on some playdates that Daddy doesn't usually get to go along to! So we did days at the park and various outings, including a day at the zoo.

My friend Rebecca, her mother & I recently purchased a zoo pass together. Any one of us can go and take another two guests and the kids get in free. So Brian, Austin & I basically had our day paid for. We didn't spend a long time there, just a few hours really, but it was a great time. Austin is more and more interested in the animals every time we go and since he's getting better at his animal sounds, he had more fun this time than he has in the past. Most of all, it was just great to get to spend extra time with Daddy!

They had reindeer in honor of Christmas


We saw a beautiful jaguar really upclose. Austin practiced his word for "cat" and his "roar" the whole time.


Austin & Daddy checking out the tapirs. Obviously this animal prompted some "Where is your nose?" lessons!



These monkeys were funny. They were play fighting over prime location on the vines. Austin was mesmerized by all the hooting and hollering and wrestling.


Austin working on his monkey impression


There was a new baby giraffe. Isn't he adorable? I heart giraffes!

Eight Four Crazy Nights!

In our family, we like Christmas so much, we make it last almost all month! We have a total of 4 full days of Christmas. And included in those 4 days are a total of 6 different events! We're doing our part to make Christmas as much like Hannukah as possible! And that's actually fewer get-togethers than we used to have. But for as crazy and busy as this makes Christmas and really the whole month of December, I love it! The majority of our family is within a 2 hour radius and so we get to see almost everyone. I'd much rather craziness than nothing have to pick and choose who we can see each year. I know we can't keep up this pace as our own family gets bigger and starts its own traditions, but for now it works and we'll savor the blessing that it is!

So all that being said, be prepared for probably my longest post yet. I'm not sure if blogspot has a limit on post length and number of links to pictures, but, heck, we might as well see if we can break it!

Decorations!
To start, I have to show off my decorations. When we first got married I insisted on getting up on a very treacherous ladder and hung lights on our house. Growing up, I was always disappointed that my dad didn't decorate the outside of the house so I wanted to with my own house. Yeah, it only took one year of that. That's a pain! As our little house got more full of stuff and then people, our Christmas decorations in the house got fewer and fewer too. But with Austin possibly at the age to start to appreciate the season of Christmas, I wanted to at least decorate some! (Still didn't bother with the outdoor lights, so don't worry - there wasn't a 6 month pregnant woman up on a ladder on the porch!) Austin being at the curious (read - destructive!) age he's at, we had to get creative with our tree though. So we bought a little table topper sized tree again and set it up on top of our TV. He was allowed to see it and we worked on touching the pretty things with just one finger. By the time the tree came down, he had that technique pretty down! I was pretty impressed.

Our cute little tree


Our mantel


Our cute "Little People" Nativity Set. Austin loved it and played with it everyday! By Christmas he could point out which one was Baby Jesus, or the Mommy or the Daddy.


Austin checking out the tree. Everyday he would ask me to pick him up so he could touch with just one finger. His asking consisted of pointing at the tree and then holding up one finger!



Wiley Christmas
Our first family get-together of the month was my immediate family. (My parents, brothers and their wives, and my niece and nephew) We hold it at least a week or so ahead of Christmas just to make everyone's schedules easier. This year it was more than two weeks early which felt odd, but made it so I had all my Christmas shopping done early!

We had a wonderful day of decorating sugar cookies, watching the kids play together, and opening great presents, but mostly just enjoying each others' company!


Nani and all her grandkids making cookies


My sweet niece & her sugar cookies


Me and my hula girl creation


My cutie patootey nephew and his creations




I love this pic of Austin! I'm pretty sure he has a mouth full of cookie!


Austin watching the train with his cousins. He did so good just watching and not touching it. If it was off, he'd sit down and sign "please" over and over until someone would come turn it on. It was so cute!


Helping Austin open his presents. He got a cute puzzle from Nani & Papa.


Showing off his puzzle skills! Everytime he'd even get a piece close he would insist that everyone cheer for him!


Austin's great new shirt from Uncle Ryan, who often travels to Austin, Texas. Such a fitting shirt for my weird little kid!


Austin with his Papa



Steinmeyer Christmas
Christmas Eve is a busy busy night for our family. Brian always leads worship for our church service (and does a beautiful job!) and then as soon as the service is over, we hustle home, drop off music gear and rush off to the Steinmeyer Christmas Eve get-together. This year it was in San Juan Capistrano...just a mere hour away! Add to the drive that the festivities started when our church service did, and we obviously showed up very late. Thankfully food was saved for us! And thankfully we were able to stay long enough to visit with just about everyone before Austin started to get too tired.

All the (bigger) little kids listening to a story about the meaning of Christmas


All the great grandchildren. Aren't they cute!?!


My Grandpa opening a picture of the whole clan, taken last Christmas



Christmas Morning!
Christmas day was also a busy day! But it was so much fun. It was awesome having our little family Christmas in our own home and getting to watch Austin open his presents. Grandma Judy joined us in the morning. After a yummy breakfast of orange cinnamon rolls & breakfast burritos, we got to opening presents. Austin did good at first, but there were so many presents that we started dipping into naptime. By the end, he was a little overwhelmed and went off by himself behind the couch to get away from it all! Apparently he needed to go to his "quiet place"! Poor kid. But once we busted out his big presents (A ride along dumptruck from Grandma & a Elmo Live from Momma and Daddy) he was back into it!

Playing with his new fishy bath toys from Grandma. (Have I mentioned how much this kid loves fishies?)


Do I have something on my head??


Grandma enjoying her new Austin & McKenna calendar


Austin loved his new dumptruck!


He was mesmerized by Elmo!


Daddy opening his stocking from "Santa", who knows what he needs! New underpants and new hankies! That Santa is a clever one!


My beautiful new earrings from Austin! Man, that kid has great taste!



Getting tired yet? Only 2 more Christmas events left to go!

Crowley Christmas
After a quick nap for Austin, we headed Great Grandma Crowley's for the Crowley clan get together. It was a small crew but we had a really fun day. We had a great lunch over at Aunt Kathleen's and then headed back to Grandma's for presents and dessert.


Austin modeling McKenna's new hat from Aunt Cissy


Beloved cousins, Lisa & Eric


Brian & Great Grandma Crowley


Austin in his cell PackNPlay. (He was soooo tired due to lack of a nap, and was getting into everything! So he was able to enjoy the festivities from the PnP!)



Almost done! Just one more event to go. Still here?? Still awake?? Good!

Extended Wiley Christmas
We are so thankful that my Dad's side of the family has chosen for the last several years to celebrate Christmas at least one day after Christmas Day. When Brian and I first got married, we had to squeeze in 3 full family get-togethers on Christmas Day, in addition to our own Christmas. Which meant that we got to see everyone but only for like five minutes!

But now that our celebrations are spread out, it is so much better! We can actually enjoy ourselves fully and spend real time with people! We had a wonderful day!

Great Grandma with my cousin's little girl, Maddie. She's about 1 month younger than Austin. Just cute as a button!


Great Grandpa enjoying his new Nebraska Snugglie! Every Nebraska fan needs a Nebraska Snugglie, right??


Papa captured a great pic of my little man!


Austin hanging out with Nani.

(Wondering why my Mom looks like she's been in a UFC fight? The day before Christmas Eve, my mom decided that taking each step of the stairs was not as efficient as taking them all at once! She fell down a full flight of stairs while carrying some presents, landing on her face. She and my dad spent the good portion of the day in the ER, making sure all of her neck was where it was supposed to be! What a miracle that nothing was broken! She ended up just being incredibly sore and stiff for several weeks. She's just now getting all the movement back in her arms and hands!)

Great Grandpa & Maddie regarding each other. Either that or they're having a staring contest!


I was saddled entrusted with "The Muffin Man" for the year. My family has an odd tradition where this Muffin Man gets passed to a different family member each year. It's an extensive tradition - there's a legend, a quilt, a boxed muffin man, etc. I don't even know when it started. I'm not sure anyone actually likes it, but it continues year after year!



Phew, I made it! And Blogspot didn't crash! Did you make it to the end?? Congratulations! =D

Now to get caught up on about 6 more posts!!

16 Months

Wow, I didn't post anything in a full month! Just pitiful! I'm working on getting caught up, but my Christmas post is just holding me up. But to keep from getting further behind, I'm going to at least keep up with the Pooh posts!

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Oh how I love this little boy! He cracks me up every single day! He has fully discovered how much fun it is to "ruin" my Winnie the Pooh pics! He sits patiently in front of Pooh just until I get the camera in focus. Then he flings himself back against Pooh, and wiggles off the couch, laughing hysterically the whole time. He's done this past months, but never with the enthusiasm I saw this month. So this month's pic is not uniform with the other pics. It drives this type A personality just short of cuckoo, but gotta take what I can get, right?

Seriously, how cute is this kid??


His official 16 Month Pooh pic




~New this month~

My boy is a secret teether! All month I've been watching his 5th tooth coming in. He was a little fussy at the beginning of the month and I attributed it to the tooth, knowing that based on how the 1st 4 came in, it wouldn't pop through for several weeks. It literally cut through the day he turned 16 months. But that same day I was holding him and he was laughing with his head back and I noticed he had something on the side of his upper left jaw. Color me shocked to discover it was a tooth! A molar to be exact! He skipped right over teeth 6-12!! So he's not only a slow teether, he's an out of order teether. He's also working on a molar on the bottom left. Nothing on the right though. So weird. No idea when it came in either. He doesn't really let you look in his mouth much, so who knows how long it's been there!

He's talking so much more. He's trying to repeat words when you ask him to. He's still not very clear and doesn't repeat the whole word, but I'm excited he's trying. For example if you ask him to say "Bob", he says "Baaaah". Actually most of what he says sounds alike but you can tell he's making an effort. He babbles more and more though. He's very adamant about what he's trying to tell you. Too bad we have no idea what's he's saying!

He's signing more and more too. He picks them up much quicker now too. He really only needs to see them 3 or 4 times and he's got it. You can tell he's proud of it, cuz he'll make sure you notice what he's doing. In particular, he really likes to sign "butterfly" and "dog" now.

To supplement his words and signs, he's developed a complex "grunting" system. It's really hard to explain, but basically he says "hmmmmm" but with about 15 different inflections. There's an inquisitive "hmmmmm", an affirmative "hmmmmm", an assertive "hmmmmm", a no "hmmmmm", an anxious "hmmmmm", etc. While I'd love him to use his words & signs more, I can usually understand most of what he wants. I'm probably the only one that can understand him though. The only time it's not acceptable is when he starts to get cranky and then there's a whiney one. We're working on asking nicely in those situations.

Still loves his video. His "sign" for video used to be one finger up in the air, because he got used to us saying "Okay, just one more." He also got into a bad habit of coming over and pulling your hand off the mouse and insisting on one video anytime you are at the computer. So to avoid this rude behavior, I insist he nicely asks to be picked up. (Reaches up with both arms and then says please) We're still working on being okay with Mom & Dad saying no at times. He seems to think that if he asks nicely enough, he should get anything he wants!

Austin loves to dance now. When I was pregnant with him, I would joke that he was going to be a "River Dancer". Funny enough, this is kind of how he dances! He stomps his feet over and over while and claps and bounces. He loves it when you join along. A video of this will hopefully be coming soon.

His problem solving skills are expanding in leaps and bounds! He loves his puzzles, nesting boxes and shape sorters. And it's amazing to see his improvement from day to day! His hand-eye coordination is getting better too. He has this toy where he has to hit balls through holes with a mallet. Man, does he whack the crap out of them! He can hit with either hand pretty darn accurately now. And of course, we need to cheer every time he does so! The boy does love affirmation! I'm hoping to get some video of his new toys skills but every time I pull out the camera, he gets distracted and just wants to play with it. I need to secretly record him!

Austin learned how to get off our bed and is horribly proud of himself when he does so. He lands on his feet about 1/2 the time. The other 1/2 he just sort of falls off towards his feet. Either way, he expects you to clap for him! He's usually giggling the whole time he's getting off too.

I think he's in the process of dropping to one nap, but I'm not really sure. He'll go several days without being able to settle down for his morning nap, but then just when I think it's completely gone, he'll take a 3 hour morning nap! These kids really need manuals!

His uncle Jemery will be really happy to learn that Austin is learning how to do "fist bumps"!

He loves it when Daddy comes home. He sometimes recognizes the sound of his car but when he hears a key in the door, he drops whatever he's doing and runs yelling toward the front door. What a wonderful way to be greeted after a hard day's work!