Proud

Some call it encouragement... some call it brainwashing. Either way, I'm so proud!

Austin is 3!

Happy Birthday to our favorite 3 year old! Austin had a wonderful Birthday this year! We were lucky enough to spend birthday week with Grandma Marcia! Needless to say Austin was spoiled rotten. His big gift this year was a kitchen. Yes, little boys love kitchens too. (Much to Andrew's dismay.) We threw him a glow in the dark party complete with black lights, glow in the dark play dough, glow sticks, glowing pipe cleaners and more. I wasn't able to get many pictures in the dark, but I have a video I'll try and post later. We love you, Austin!

Thanksgiving in Kiawah

 We went with the Barons to Kiawah this past year for Thanksgiving.  We love going, but just about every other year we miss the chance to go because we're having babies.  (Hopefully that will not be the case this year!) 

Austin and Dad checking out a jelly fish. 
We named him squishy. 
Austin thinks they say BZZZZ ( like an electric shock)
if you touch one.

It was wonderful to relax on the beach after a VERY long drive.  I think we're an official road tripping family.  The boys did amazing (thanks to the DVD players.)  We made a point to only stop at gas stations, and fast food joints with playgrounds.  Thank heavens for chick-fil-a and McDonalds. 

  We had a great time spying alligators, riding bikes, and checking out the local wildlife.  All in all, we had a wonderful time except for the amount of sleep we got.  Tyler was incredibly fussy for most of the trip.  I chalked it up to teething, but Andrew insisted something was wrong.  Honestly, I thought he was just being defensive about our fussy kids, but I humored him and took Tyler to urgent care.  Much to my surprise embarrassment Tyler had a slight ear infection and tonsillitis.  Antibiotics and a few days later he started to act more like himself.   

 Unfortunately, I didn't snap many pictures of us biking, eating, playing games, etc.  We did manage to get a picture of our award winning "Polar Express."  I really can't take much credit for this masterpiece, but I had fun working on a little house.  It's on the "other side of the tracks" so it didn't make the picture.  We won a bag of Kiawah Island goodies and we were the lucky recipients of a stuffed turtle named Terry.

Happy Birthday, Tyler!

Tyler the 1 year old- devouring his cupcake! 

We had a darling little birthday party for all of the 1 year olds in our ward.
 I think t
here are 10 of them that just turned 1!  Something in the water...

All of the kids had matching onesies.  

 Cute owl cupcakes.

 Carmel corn bags.

Owl Rice bags. 

We had a great time and are thankful for such wonderful friends to share times like this with! 

Crazy little thing called "Life"

What is this a picture of? 

 If you said "Austin standing in his underwear... at the pumpkin patch"  you would be right! 

Now, I'm sure you're wanting to know WHY on earth this happened.  It all started one fine Monday morning.  We were all very excited to go to the pumpkin patch with our friends.  Upon arriving to the pumpkin patch, Austin immediately started running around.  A few minutes later he came back, climbed into the stroller and proceeded to vomit all over himself.  Luckily, we were standing over a pile of hay.  Don't worry, the mess is probably still there infecting other poor souls!  (When I asked the worker if I could take care of the mess he told me to just leave it there.) 

So there we were at the pumpkin patch with puke all over us-in a field- no change of clothes-- and a 30 minute drive home.  Awesome!  Luckily a very sweet man let us tidy up in his bathroom AND I happened to have a onesie in my diaper bag.

Did you know that a 9 month sized onesie can also fit an (almost) 3 year old?  Here is the proof!

That is the end of our story.  Don't worry, I still managed  sure to get my pictures. 

Puke covered, or not. 

And thank you to my wonderful friend who sat in the back seat with Austin and held the bucket (... or blanket) for him the whole way home!

Tyler's Lifelaps

Here is Tyler's first year in 3 minutes.  Please take the time to watch it.  Lisa, a college roommate, created this for us.  She is very talented! 

Tyler's Lifelaps from Lisa Brown on Vimeo.

Grandma Visit

Tyler enjoying some "Grandma Time" after dinner. 

Here is Austin at the pumpkin patch.  This little longhorn had massive amounts of saliva.  Thankfully, we always have wipes and sanitizer on hand. 

This little guy also has massive amounts of saliva.  :) 

While Grandma was here we went to a pumpkin patch, had lots of delicious meals, tried a few new resteraunts, made Halloween crafts and played really hard. 

Thanks, Rinda for all the fun.  Austin is still talking about "squished witches."

Halloween 2011 at the ward "trunk or treat."  Austin kept running from our trunk to the trunk of his nursery leader to get candy.  Finally, we got him to branch out and go to a few other cars too. 

Here are the cutest little lion and airplane I ever saw. 

Tyler has been walking since the beginning of October so it was really cute to see him toddle around.  Occationally he would let out a ferocious growl. 

Austin really wanted me to make a robot costume for him, but seeing how we ALL got the stomach flu the week  before Halloween... he got to be a wonderful store bought airplane. 
Maybe next year, son.