Missing My Boys

So the past week I had to go to New York for work. It was so fun to see all my friends at the office that I miss so much, spend time with my sister Ashley and new brother-in-law Marlon, and visit Chris's brother Gordon. But this was the first time I have ever had to leave Austin for more than 1 night. I now he is in good hands with his Grandma and Chris but I missed him so bad!!!! The real killer is when I called and talked to him and he would say, "ma ma. ma ma." I wanted to reach through the phone and squeeze him. So now I am sitting in the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport with a 3hr layover and I can hardly stand it knowing I am going to see my boys in just 5hrs! I think this is going to be the longest layover ever!

Austin's Birthday Party!!!!

Austin just turned 1 on October 8th. We had his birthday party the Sunday before so all of his aunts, uncles and cousins from Montana could be there. Austin had a wonderful time!!! At first he didn't quite get the present thing but each time a new toy came out he would get a huge grin on his face. Then he would start playing with the toy and would be mad at mommy when she made him come over to open another one. After the first two he started to realize that there were a bunch of toys in those bags and was a little more interested in unwrapping them. When his cousins sang happy birthday to them he waved. It was quite cute.
On his actual birthday, I took him to the toy store to pick out a present from Chris and I . It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. He started walking as fast as he could go up and down the isles. Then when he found something he liked he would stop, point, look up and me and say, "oooh". Chasing Austin around the toy store was the best exercise mommy got the whole week! His biggest "oohs" happened to be for a big plastic 4x4 truck that had a trailer attached to it that was carrying a 4 wheeler. And the best part about that was that it was on clearence for $8!!!! So we took the truck home. When Chris came home from work Austin was so excited to show it to him. He has been playing with it ever since. He loves to load the back of the truck with his blocks and push it around the living room. I can't belive my boy is 1! He is growing up so fast!

Austin's Birthday Cake

Singing Happy Birthday

Austin's Couch

So while we were in Arizona visiting Chris's family. Austin's Uncle Vernon bought him a little kid spiderman couch. It folded out into a bed and it even had a little sleeping bag built into it. Austin LOVED it! He would sit on it and watch his movie, He would climb on it and pull it out into a bed, and he would take naps in it. We left it in Arizona so he would have it there next time he came to visit. When we were telling his other Grandpa about it he wanted to see Austin in it and we didn't have any pictures. So one day Grandpa Todd went to Walmart and what did he come home with? I'll give you one guess...yep thats right a little kid couch. It was Cars instead on Spiderman but it was still the same type of couch. So once again Austin LOVED it! He has been playing in it ever since. He loves to lay in it before he takes his nap and drink his bottle. So here is a picture of Austin sitting in his couch. Thank you Uncle Vernon and Grandpa Todd!

Long Procrastinated Update

Hi everyone! It has been so long since I have posted. I am not very good at keeping up at this. But I am hoping that since the summer is over and our lives are slowing down a little bit I will have more time to keep everyone up to date. So many things have happened since the last post i will just list a few:

1 - Austin is walking!! He took his first steps about a week before he turned 10 months and about a couple weeks after that he was going everywhere! Mommy is having a hard time keeping him out of everything.

2 - Austin has decided its very fun to reload bullets with grandpa todd. He likes to sit on grandpas lap and pull down the lever for grandpa and help measure the gun powder. it is quite funny to watch and it melts his grandpa's heart.

3 - We had an awesome vacation to Arizona to visit Chris's family over Labor Day weekend. Everyone was home except Chris's brother Gordon who lives in New York. It was so fun to see everyone and just spend time together where we don't get to see them that often. Austin was a trooper for the 12 hr drive. On the way down Chris and I took turns driving through the night so Austin slept most of the way. We got to Page about 6:00 am and Austin had the whole family ready to spoil him. He had a blast playing with his grandparents, uncles, and aunt. Austin got very attached to his Grandpa Will and didn't like it when grandpa would leave to go outside. One day he cried when grandpa went to leave so grandpa took him on a walk outside. We took a trip down to Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation so we could get Austin a certificate of indian blood and on the way there were some stop offs where you could see dinosaur tracks. That is what the picture below is of. As for any other pictures we lost the camera after the trip to Tuba City and did not find it until we were packing to go home so unfortunately there are no more pictures of the trip except for the ones Chris's sister Roni took so when I can get them from her I will post them.

Austins Trip to the Mountains

This last Saturday Austin went to the Birch Creek Lakes with Daddy, Grandpa Todd, and Great Grandpa Stoddard. They took Grandpas old jeep and took off. Mommy got to spend a relaxing day reading and taking a nap while Austin and Daddy ate lots of junk food and enjoyed the mountain scenery. On the way home Austin got a little car sick! Poor little boy! If Grandpa and Daddy were planning to hide all the fudge stripe cookies and tootsie rolls Austin ate from his mom there was no chance! :) He got a bath as soon as he got home and soon recovered. At any rate he was very excited to be going with all the boys! He doesn't like it much when daddy goes to work and he has to stay home with mommy. Above are pictures of the boys before they left.