Austin's Adventures: Summer 2012

Oh man. It's been awhile since my last update. Sorry :) we've been busy! Be prepared for a long update!

Where has this summer gone?!? Seriously. I want to know.

Austin is at a really fun stage right now. He is in to everything! He is talking up a storm and just a good little guy. Is it possible to keep loving each stage more and more? Well, that's how we feel!

Austin is a little FISH lately. He loves swimming. I think we have a little surfer on our hands! When we tell Austin he is going swimming, he runs and gets his bathing suit. He loves to jump into the pool and kick kick kick! We really need to get him into swimming lessons.

Austin is saying too many words to count. Just tonight I was reading Goodnight Moon and he pointed to the clock and said, "clock".... what? How did he know that?!

When he does something on his own, Austin says, "I did it!" and when he is looking for Ryan he says, "daddy go? I dunno"

He loves the ABCs and tries to sing along. When ever I get to C, G, P, V and Z he goes. "eeeeeeee!". It's super cute.

Also, Austin loves his colors. He recognizes and says: yellow, blue, purple (that one's kind of shocking!), pink and black. For some reason I cannot get him to say green or red. But he says purple and yellow. strange.

Austin started calling me "mom" a few weeks ago (although last week he resorted back to 'mommy' and then this week, it's 'mom' again. ). I HATE IT. It kind of breaks my heart each time he says it, so I quickly correct him and say "mommy". I'm not sure if he's screwing me up more by calling me this so early on or if I'm screwing him up more by correcting him every time. He'll probably need to uncover this whole thing with a therapist down the road. Luckily, (or unluckily?) he still calls me 'mommy' when he's sad or hurt and that makes me feel better (is that sick? maybe?)... but not, because he's hurt and then I'm sad. So I'm happy.... and then I'm sad? It's a really screwed up battle that we are going through right now. Probably the first of many! ha ha!

Potty training is coming along great. He only needs a couple of diaper changes a day. He is dong really great and gets M&Ms here at home when he pee pees in the potty and star stickers on his achievement chart at Belinda's.

Oh yea, something not so great... we have a RUNNER. I have now chased him down in the grocery store, Barnes in Noble and Best Buy. He looks at me, smiles a WICKED smile and takes off yelling, "RUNNING!!!! RUNNING!!! RUNNING!!!!!" I am not at all happy about this and need to curb it ASAP. In fact, I'm terrified he is going to run into the street next. I've tried disciplining him when he does this, but he laughs and thinks it's fun. So, Austin may be getting his first spanking sometime soon :( Hate to do it, but it may be necessary.

What else... something fun. Austin loves his uncle Charlie and calls him "addie". We watched Shane a few weeks ago for the first time while Charlie and Erin went out for their anniversary and Austin started to really be interested in the little guy. I can't wait for him to get a bit older and the two of them are going to be trouble together!!!

Austin also really loved hanging with Ryan's other brother, Peter, when he was down from Portland for a visit and by the end of his stay was saying, "Uncle Pee". A small part of me hopes he always calls him "Uncle Pee" because that would be funny!

We are looking forward to the Fall, although it really doesn't feel like fall here until November. I guess we're just looking forward to football season! We are strongly encouraging Austin to be a Broncos fan and a USC Trojans fan. Actually, he doesn't have a choice in the matter!

I also can't believe our little man will be two in two months. WOW. I am speechless. This has gone by way too fast! I am so excited because my parents and grandparents will be coming out for an entire week for the event.

We are also taking family pictures for the first time since Austin's birth at the end of September. I'm excited for that too! I found a great lady who was a recommendation of my friend Autumn and I think that we are going to take them down in Laguna Beach.

What else? We've had a busy couple of weeks- I was in charge of my office for two weeks when my boss got married (even had to fire my first person- ugh. Ironically, he wrote my boss a letter that I did a great job while he was away and was "grace under fire"- ha!), we went to a Phish show, my friends Hayley and Erica came to visit from NYC and we went to see the Pageant of the Masters (they have not seen Austin since he was 6 weeks old!) and we went to a friend's BBQ/backyard concert featuring Eric and Andrew (see previous post). We've also got a busy couple of weeks ahead.... I'm going down to San Diego this weekend for my friend Randi's bachelorette party and we are going to go out to Palm Springs mid-September with a group of Ryan's high school friends. Can't wait!

Things are great at "Bunna's" too (that's what the kiddos call Belinda). She says that Austin is just a really good little guy lately and really behaving well. I think that it was us starting to really enforce time outs a few months back. She has mostly boys in her care right now and says that Austin knows all the boys names, but could care less about the girls! He hasn't even bothered to learn Bunna's name yet! crazy! He just really loves boys right now. She is, of course, wonderful with them as always and has taken them to do a lot of fun activities this summer. She has a pool across the street from her townhouse and she and another daycare lady take the kids swimming (they all wear life jackets and floaties). She has also whipped out her slip n' slide and her bounce house for the kids this summer- how fun! Just last week she took the kids to Pretend City. I NEED to take him here!!!! I've heard wonderful things about it and he looks like he had fun by the pics below! Maybe I'll save that for when my parents are out here :) Check it out: http://pretendcity.org/our-city/ . I mean, really? how cute.

Okaaaaay! I think that may be it! I'm probably missing something. Time is flying. We are busy... but we are great. :)

Austin and his daycare buddy DJ at Burger King

Austin and all his daycare buddies (boys only club)

The crew at Pretend City! (not all watched by Bunna, some are her friend's). I love how she puts them all in orange shirts (she wears one too)

Austin, Brandon and DJ at Pretend City

Austin pretending to be a fisherman at Pretend City

And these are so cute. Here is our friend Scott's BBQ (band playing in the background) and Austin playing with this little girl Nadia. She just turned 2. Yes, Austin is TALL. Everyone who meets him says so too. There were no boys there, only Nadia and our friend Eric and Nikkell's little Maddie (next pic). He had a TON of fun with these little girls... of course doing what he does best RUNNING and RUNNING and RUNNING around. Here, though, they are just suckin' on some ice cubes. Kept them busy for a good 45 minutes.

Maddie here on the right. She is darling. We love her. Strange to think that we went to Hawaii with this little girl when she was just 3 months on and we were not even thinking about Austin yet! Also, do you like her purple tutu? Ryan's mom gave that to her! She'll be in Palm Springs with us in a few weeks and so the two of them will get to spend a lot of time together :)