One Year!

Austin is now a one-year-old and he has "graduated" in many areas. He now sits in a front-facing car seat, which he loves! Right now he's in between his sisters since his is the only seat that will fit between theirs. When school is out, I will put him up in the middle row, though he sure does like sitting in between his sisters and hearing them sing their hearts out to the High School Musical sound track!Mostly to save on space, but also so he'll feel more like a big boy, Austin now sits in a booster seat at the table. He likes being able to reach for his sippy cup from the table.

Speaking of sippy cups, Austin enjoys drinking from his sippy cup all the time now, except that he wants nothing to do with whole milk, which makes the weaning process more complicated. Never fear, though, I have had experience with a reluctant weaner before, except Karissa would not even use a sippy cup, or anything else, until she was about 14 months. Kefir was the ticket for her. I bought some Kefir for Austin and put it in his sippy with a dab of whole milk. The first few days he refused to drink it from the sippy, only from the 1 quart container it comes in, which was hilarious to watch him drink from that huge container (unfortunately no one was around to take a picture and I couldn't as I was holding Austin in one arm and the Kefir in the other). Since then (three days ago) he's been taking about one sip more of his Kefir mix each day. And after a two day food strike, he has been eating better again, but not as many table foods, mostly baby food. I'm still nursing him morning and night and I guess I'll be doing that for a little while still until he starts drinking his milk better.

At his well-baby check-up he weighed 20.8 lbs. and was 30 and 1/4 in. long. That puts him in the 10-25th percentile for weight and the 50th for height. I'm not surprised he went down in percentiles, since that's what most nursed babies do and odds are against him for being the biggest kid on the block. The doctor actually had him weighed again, though, since she thought he looked bigger than that, but the second weight was the same.

Besides getting into things (see previous blog), he loves to walk with his walker all over, crawl around pushing his trucks or a ball, the swings at the park, climbing up and down stairs, and watching trucks or anything else that makes noise. He can say "hi" and it sounded like he said "Daddy" one time.

We celebrated his birthday on Memorial Day with some friends and had a bar-b-que. He ate some beans and tortilla chips, tons of watermelon, and his slice of lemon poppy seed cake.

We love our big boy!

Boys Will Be Boys!

Though Victoria and Karissa can be handfuls now, they were pretty easy around ages one and two since they didn't get "into" a lot things. I think part of that is the fact they aren't boys. I have heard boys usually get into things more at that age. Well, it is holding true in our family! Austin has already uprooted a couple of our precious tomato seedlings that were waiting innocently to be planted outside (luckily we planted extra, just in case). He climbs over the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs with a wicked grin on his face (I mean really, what good does that baby gate do anyhow?!) Check out what he did to the toilet paper in a matter of seconds:

You can see how much toilet paper he actually took off by how much I rolled back on!

But how can I get mad at such a cute face?!!

Holland

Last Friday Jason had to report to an Air National Guard Base in Battle Creek for a muster for the military, just to evaluate his readiness if he were to be called up for service again (he's not, though, so don't worry!). Since that was on the way to Holland, we all went and enjoyed a little weekend getaway.

While he was doing his muster, the kids and I went to the zoo. The cheetah came right up to the window to check out the kids a few times. We got close and personal with the giraffes, enjoyed the tram ride to Africa, and rode the carousel. Victoria claimed it was the best day of her life. Austin must have thought so too as he was laughing and kicking his legs the whole time.

After picking up Jason, we drove to Holland, which is just east of Lake Michigan (we got to see Africa and Holland in the same day!) The first evening we saw the Windmill Gardens, which has the only authentically Dutch windmill in the US. Aside from the rain, the fact that it was close to closing time, and the fact that Victoria and Karissa got into some plant that gave them an itchy rash (which they got over after some Benedryl), it was very fun.

The next day we went to the tulip gardens, which was supposed to be the highlight of the trip, but it turned out that we missed the peak bloom time by two weeks, so we only got to see a row of tulips that were already wilting, but we will go again another time. We also saw how they make wooden shoes and got to try them on, which the kids loved.

These are usually full of tulips during peak time.

The rest of the day we played at a beach on Lake Michigan where there was a playground, some sand dunes, and a tunnel. We also saw a red lighthouse. It was good to get away for a weekend, even though the kids were all grumpy when we returned!

Our models with a foggy Lake Michigan in the background.

Speaking of Good Artists....

Victoria is not the only good artist in the family. Check out Karissa's artwork. Not bad for a 3-year-old!

Jason's Birthday

Jason is another year older, and a little wiser too, with all the studying he's been doing! This is the last year he'll have a birthday while in school-- hooray! We did typical birthday activities: nice breakfast, pizza and cake for dinner (way yummy new recipe for a carrot cake I got off my friend Rachelle's blog that is from her sister-in-law's blog), opening presents, and of course dancing to the Beatles's birthday song. Other than that, Jason studied, did some weed whacking, and studied some more.

Check out this card Victoria made for him. This is of the two of them golfing. I still can't get over her artistic abilities!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers! We had a great day here. Victoria was excited to bring me breakfast in bed. She wanted to bring me toast or bread or a sandwich, but Jason suggested maybe a breakfast sandwich. So he made a delicious poached-egg-with-cheese grilled sandwich and strawberries on the side. It was perfect-- he's such a good cook! When I came downstairs they had my mother's day presents out for me: a Nantucket wind chime with a little birdhouse on the top (which was what Victoria and Karissa picked out on their own accord) and my violin with brand new strings on it! It was perfect-- again! (Since we got our piano in the fall I started playing around with my violin again, until the strings broke. They're pretty expensive, so I hadn't gotten any yet.)

My Mother's Day gift to myself was completing P90X yesterday! Now I get to start training for the marathon I'm going to run in the fall. After some test runs last week I found that whatever pain I had when I ran before, after I had Austin, is finally gone now. Hopefully I won't have another baby that big again!

Jason made a lovely dinner on the grill: drumsticks, rice pilaf, and green beans with strawberry shortcake for dessert. My family spoiled me today!

Here's the hanging basket of flowers Victoria and Jason brought home last night. We'll hang it right next to my wind chimes tomorrow when this cold front passes!

11 Months

It's hard to believe, but Austin is 11 months now. He has hit many milestones this last month.

A month ago, he was barely crawling, now he's crawling all over the place, including trying the stairs, climbing into the firewood holder, climbing on the play stove, and his favorite place is to just climb on the brick mantle of the fireplace. He also enjoys pushing his walker or walking with Mom, only holding one hand. He is drinking water from a sippy cup, which is good since he doesn't nurse as much anymore and eats about 2 or 3 baby food jars a day, including crackers and any table food he ingests (which isn't much; most of that ends up on the floor). Typical of our kids, he likes to "talk" and make lots of noise. Currently, his favorite toy is a pair of maracas that Gramms bought for Karissa for her 2nd birthday. One of them just shakes, but the other one counts and says the colors of the rainbow with lights flashing and music playing. He prefers the Spanish over the English version. He slept with that toy last night, and now today it doesn't make noise anymore, just lights up, so its talking days may be over. It probably has nothing to do with being slept with and more from being dropped many times.

Austin has no interest, whatsoever, in any soft cuddly stuffed animal, like his sisters. He likes toys that make noise, balls, and anything with wheels. The best are the real things with wheels! He weighs about 20.5 pounds, so as soon as school is out and we are done with the carpool, he's going front facing in the car!

We love our boy!

Favorite spot with favorite toy.

His sisters have had no interest in this b-ball hoop, but it involves a ball, so Austin likes it!

Another favorite spot (which has been removed) with the favorite toy.