Happy Birthday My Little Man!

I was hoping to post his Winnie the Pooh pic today, but he was being oh so uncooperative about that today! But to his credit, it is way more fun to tackle Winnie the Pooh, or throw a birthday hat on the floor or try to get Momma's camera than it is to sit still and smile!

We were at a wedding tonight, so I don't have any pics uploaded from his birthday lunch, but I'll do that tomorrow. I wanted to at least post something today though, since I've been so pitiful about posting recently!

Love you, Little Man! You are an absolute delight and the joy of my life!

All The Single Babies

I know I'm way behind on posting pics or video of my own cute kid, but this was too funny to pass up posting. It had me giggling for a long time when I saw it on Facebook. This kid could show Austin a dance step or two!

11 Months!

Oh, my little peanut is 11 months old! I know, I'm a week late. So really he's 11 months and 7 days old! But wow! I'm praying the next three weeks go by at a snail's pace, because I am soooo not ready to have a one year old! I really didn't think I was going to be one of those crazy mommas that hates to see her kids grow up, but alas, I am!




New this month:

Austin is in cruisin' mode. He is fast. Particularly when food is involved. It's really funny to see him scoot around the table as fast as his little arms and legs will move. He really barely needs to hold on. He has great balance and a surprisingly keen awareness of his head. He very very rarely bonks it on the table on the way up or down. The only time this happens is when he's tired. Then he cruises like he's hit up the minibar a few too many times.

He has become a little beggar! It doesn't matter how much dinner he just ate, he will beg for, nay..demand some of our food! He zips around the table just as quick as can be and then will not give up fussing until he gets some. 90% of the time, he has no idea what you're eating, but he still wants it!

Last month, I apparently boasted about how good a sleeper he was a little prematurely! This was an awful, just plain awful month of sleeping. He's working on teeth #3 & 4. And while they have yet to pop through, they sure made their presence known for more than 3 weeks! We went right from recovering from traveling to teething and it was not fun! He seems to be on the mend now. These last couple weeks were good nap weeks.

He talks soooo much. Can't understand a darn word that is coming out of his mouth, but he apparently doesn't know that. He just keeps chattering up a storm at you. Someday someone will invent something that allows us to understand babyspeak! Hopefully someday soon!

He learned to wave. Sometimes it takes a bit to convince him to do so, but sometimes he does it unprompted. It's a full arm wave usually but occasionally he does a little hand wave back and forth.

He got his first haircut. And by his reaction, it may be his last, if he has any say in it!

Loves to put things in boxes. He has a few toys that have lids and he could put things in them, close them and then open them again for hours at a time.

He found out how to make the blue light on the computer turn off and on. He even knows to hold the button for several seconds to turn off the computer! That poor computer has booted up so many times in the last couple weeks, it's not even funny. And when you tell him "no, don't touch", my sweet little angel just gives you the biggest grin and very purposefully pushes that button right in! :| Little booger!

Along with the blue button, his favorite place to be is under the computer desk. I think he's trying to rewire the whole rig. I probably pull him out from under there no less than 15 times a day.

He loves to point at things and poke them with just one finger. It's really funny to see how precise he is with just that finger. Belly buttons top his list of favorite things to poke.

Bathtime is not fun right now. It's involves lots of crying and screaming...on both of our parts. He will NOT sit down and cries hysterically when I make him. I will take any and all suggestions here!!!

He's becoming a slightly finicky eater. Not picky as much as finicky. One day he'll gobble something down like it's manna from heaven and the next day he'll spit it out and proceed to rub it all over his face in protest. (Don't worry, I do have pictures of this!)

His sense of humor is growing by the day. He is a silly silly kid!

He loves to give big slobbery kisses, especially when he's tired. But the sweetest one I've gotten was the other day. He had just finished nursing, so he was laying on the pillow in front of me. And he grabs my chin and pulls my face down towards him and gives me a kiss! Just melted me!

My favorite thing this month though is how much he loves Brian. I am chopped liver when he is around. Which is fine. I get 90% of Austin's day to myself. I'm willing to share the other few hours. Austin wakes up early when Brian does. I think he only does it so he can see Brian in the morning. Cuz recently he hasn't been waking up early on the weekends, just the weekdays. He gives Brian the best snuggles and kisses too. It's really fun to watch them interact!

My Little Zoolander!!

Before I had kids, I always thought it would be fun to submit them for modeling gigs, you know, if they didn't come out looking like ET. (Although I'm sure there is some market for that too!) I figured we could exploit them while they were young, before the industry pressure for sex and drugs would affect them. So like up to 5 years old or so. In 15 years, I really don't want to see my children on the "Child Stars...Screwed Up Lives" show.

So when Austin came out looking all ridiculously cute, (I'm his momma...I'm allowed to be slightly biased) I thought he'd have a chance at getting some modeling gigs. And sure enough, I was right!

A few months ago Austin landed his first gig...a print shoot for Disney Clothing! He did so good! He's such a laid back kid and he's so darn smiley! The ad was for Disney's winter line, so I've been waiting on pins and needles (read...stalking the Disney store website like a crazy person) for the pictures to come out. They photographed several kids in the same outfits so there was a chance he wouldn't be in it. But I just received an email from his agent and they used him!

Seriously, how cute is my kid???



(ETA: Ooh he's on the main page of www.disneystore.com too! Coverpage Baby!)

A few weeks ago he did two shoots - One for Carter's Clothing and another for Infantino Baby Carriers. When those pictures come out, I'll post them here too.

Now to go work on his "Blue Steel" look. It needs some tweaking.

When God Closes a Door, He opens One Doozie of a Window!

So many of you might remember that I was planning on going into nursing school. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision to get started. Brian and I were in this (what seemed like) never ending holding pattern. Trying to have a baby with no success; me at a job I don't love-love and not wanting to be at forever. So after a little contemplation, I started taking the prereqs and loved them! It was really nice to enjoy school again.

Right at the end of my first class, we found out I was pregnant with Austin. So I quickly squeezed in the other prereqs so that I could apply for the program before Austin was born and then use the waiting list time to stay home with him and figure out the details of how to still make the program work for us.

The program (which would have started this week) I was going to take would be a part-time one. Just one night a week and one all day session either Friday or Saturday. Not ideal with a little one, but not too bad too. Not like we don't have plenty of people biting at the bit to babysit.

Pretty quickly, I got a phone call from the administration letting me know I was accepted....and that the part-time program I had signed up for had lost its funding. What?? My only option there was a full-time program (8am to 3pm, Monday through Thursday) which I was not willing to do. The whole point of this Stay-at-Home-Mom thing is, kinda, you know, to stay at home with your kid! There was another part-time program in Santa Ana, but by the time I factored in driving, that wasn't too much better of an option.

I was really disappointed, but at the same time I was okay. Like I said, this was a spur of the moment thing at the beginning and it's still a goal I'd like to pursue, but I was fine with the timing just not being quite right. Brian and I both decided that there was probably a good reason it wasn't working out right now and we'd just keep it on the back burner until a better time arose.

So onto that window being opened...

Turns out we didn't have to wait too long to figure out why it wasn't the right time to be taking on a new career path.

Brian and I are happy to announce that we are expecting another baby! He or she will be making his or her grand entrance sometime at the end of March/beginning of April. We are very excited and still slightly shocked. After having to endure what seemed like a lifetime of waiting for Austin, God decided to switch us to that unfamiliar "fertile" category. First time's a charm, apparently! Who knew?!

Austin will be just about 18 months older than his little sibling, which was my minimum comfort zone. (Really glad we didn't start trying earlier, by the way!) It will be all sorts of chaotic, but should be fun having kids close in age too. I'm hoping, girl or boy, that they will be the best of buds!

Austin, of course, has no clue about how his life is about to change, but he's still horribly excited about it. See??



So keep checking in for updates. I'm currently just under 10 weeks along, as you can see from the ticker at the top of the blog. I'll be posting pics of my ever expanding waistline, (turns out it starts expanding much earlier the second time around!), pics of ultrasounds, and little, tiny, minuscule details like gender. (My Momma's intuition apparently is broken, because I have no inklings or feelings one way or the other. Didn't with Austin either. I just joyfully take whatever God plops in my arms!)