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!

15 Months (On time!!)

"How am I on time this month?" you may ask. Cuz I planned ahead! Instead of making the list of Austin's new accomplishments by memory, I did it as the month went along. See! I have my smart moments! It also helped that his month-day fell on a weekend, cuz it's getting even harder to get a pic of this kid sitting still!




New this month!

Austin knows the sounds of several animals. Before it was just the cat, which made a very staccato "mao" sound. Sometimes it was even a silent cat and just his mouth moved. But now he knows dog, turkey, and lion/tiger/bear. Occasionally he'll do "cow" and we're working on a few others. One day we were going over animal sounds and I asked "What does a Moose say?" without really thinking and I didn't really have a good answer. So I put my hands on my head like antlers and said "I'm a Moose!" Well, Austin thought that was hilarious, so now that's what moose says in our house. He'll sometimes put his hands on the side of his head if you ask what a moose says.

My boy loves bubbles! We try to get out in the front yard or down to the park on dry days and chase bubbles. He really likes them inside the house too. Our carpet is like 12 years old and is just pitiful, so I really have no qualms about whatever damage the bubbles are doing to it! Plus there's the added bonus that the bubbles don't pop right away on the carpet. They sit there long enough for him to get them. And apparently it's almost as much fun to carry around the bubble container.

He is thoroughly enjoying his Christmas presents. Doesn't quite understand putting the legos together, but boy are they fun to dump out of the box! He's getting pretty good at his puzzles and loves to sit in his new big boy chairs that Nani & Papa got him. We are working on learning to color and the chairs help focus that activity much better than standing. Grandma Judy got him a ride-along dumptruck and he loves to be pushed around on that a bunch. It's so fun to see him discovering new toys. His new talking Elmo was a hit too.

He's become a picky eater! He used to eat everything you put in front of him, but now he will randomly decide that something doesn't even smell good and won't try it. Any suggestions here would be appreciated! I don't want mealtime to be a battle but I do want him to learn to try things. Thankfully there are enough things that he does like that he gets a small variety of foods, but I feel like the list is small and the same from day to day.

He just started loving to dance. The Elmo Live helped a bunch with this. He knows how to make it turn on and will dance to the music. It's so cute! But unfortunately he really only has me as an example of how to dance and sadly, I'm pretty bad. I'm afraid I'm teaching him bad skills! His daddy isn't much better, so hopefully someone will come along someday and teach our son how to dance well. What he does now is so cute, but I don't think it will get him far in high school!

Oh I love my son's laugh! One of my favorite games is "Kissy Torture" where I pin him down with his hands above his head and kiss him all over his face and belly. (It's similar to Tickle Torture but having been the victim of that game too many times, I vowed to not do that to my kids too much!! Sometimes tickling hurts! So that's why we do kisses.) The giggles and laughs that come out of him are just awesome! He laughs like that when playing with Brian too. I love watching them rough house!

He has a new game where he comes and pushes us down and tackles us. He makes this "Ahhhhh" sound as he does it, which we think is an imitation of us saying "Oh!! You got me!" Sometimes he'll just come and push on your legs and make that sound and he expects you to fall to the ground.

Like I said above, we're working on learning to color. He is much more interested in taking the crayons in and out of the box than actually coloring with them. He's a good little organizer, just like his daddy! Occasionally he will commit some art to paper though. We're making progress.

He loves to make other people smile. Everywhere we go now, he waves hello to everyone we see. And he will do so repeatedly until they see him and reciprocate. If they don't notice him, I can tell his feelings are hurt. Restaurants are fun - he makes friends with everyone around us. It's so fun to see him bringing smiles to other people's faces. What a wonderful gift! I hope he always brings people joy!!

He's learning parts of the body. He's known what hair is for a while, but anytime you'd ask him where something else was (nose, mouth, eyes, etc) he'd still point to his hair. I think he was focusing on the "Where" part of the question more than the whole question. But now he can point to his nose, ears, mouth, eyes, belly button, toes and stick out his tongue. He can occasionally distinguish between "Your nose" & "My/Momma's nose".

Austin is still very obsessed with Veggie Tales videos. If you're sitting at the computer he will come over and point and sign "please, please" and try to climb on your lap. We try not to overdo it - He gets to watch about once or twice a day and just a few 3 minute videos each time - but he definitely would watch all day if you let him! He gets very into the videos too. He bounces along with the beat and will clap at the end of the song and then ask for another. He got an actual DVD from Nani for Christmas and sits mesmerized at it!

He is just starting to enjoy being read to. He doesn't quite have the attention span for it, but he's getting better. He will bring you a book and turn around to be picked up. But he doesn't always let you read the book. He will sometimes close it after just a few pages, ask to get down and then proceed to hand you the same book and ask to be picked up again. Not sure what that's all about. Maybe I'm reading it wrong??

He's a sweet little kisser. Gone are the big messy kisses. (Well, most of the time!) If you ask for a kiss, he will usually promptly come over and give you a sweet peck on the lips. (I figure I better get my fill now while he's too young to be embarrassed by giving Mom kisses!) My favorite is when you ask him to blow kisses though. He blows a kiss into his hand and then puts his hand up for you to kiss too! And if there are several people around at the time, everyone is asked to kiss his hand! Sometimes he makes several rounds!

He's becoming quite the kleptomaniac! He will snag whatever his little hands can reach on the counter or the dining table. He's pretty tall and can reach farther than you think he should be able to. And if he's lucky there will be something on the floor for him to climb on to get just that extra inch or two of reach! It's funny to watch him flail his little hand back and forth until it hits something. He hardly cares what he snags - everything is a treasure! I have to be careful to put my purse far enough onto the table or otherwise he'll pull it down and start pulling everything out. Including my wallet and all my money!