Milestones: 9 Months Old

Eating Mom's fortune cookie from the food court at the mall

Oh Austin, you are so loved. Is it because of your chubby cheeks, squeezable legs, or the little dimples in your bum? Or how about your loud voice, happy screams, and your ability to mimic things people do around you?

You turned 9 months old a few days ago and as I look back over the past month, I don't know where to begin! How do I describe how cute you are when you take your much loved bath time? Or how cranky and clingy you have been since your two top teeth have been coming in? You have such a unique personality and I have no idea how to describe it in words. You are so determined. You don't give up and it's almost always something you shouldn't be doing in the first place. That worries me, I'm not going to lie. But I also know that with strong will and determination comes an inner strength that many lack nowadays and I am so proud to see that you have that in you.

You are so handsome. Many say you and I are twins and I have been able to find pictures of myself at your age throughout your development that prove you are definitely my child.

Whenever you are ready to play, you say Da-Da over and over and look around for your Dad. He is definitely the fun one in your life and you get so excited when he walks in the door because you know it is time to play! You have established a game of him crawling/chasing you around the house and you crawling/running away from him and you absolutely love it! I have so much fun watching you scream and crawl away as fast as your fat little legs can take you as he chases you around the island in the kitchen. He hides around the corner and you carefully peak around, trying to figure out where he went and then he jumps out at you and you scream and off you go again as fast as you can! Seeing your special bond makes me tear up as I contemplate how grateful I am that I chose him as my eternal companion and your father.

Although Dad is the fun one, whenever you are tired or don't feel well and are ready for some cuddles and loves, Ma-Ma is the word you say. You get really mad and frustrated if I don't respond right away and you follow me around whining and saying Ma-ma over and over again until I finally pick you up. My favorite is when you say "Ma-ma Bubba!" (Bubba is your nickname). That's how we know you are really needing some loves.

As of today, your top two teeth have officially popped through! I hope that means we are past the whiny/painful stage for a little while. It was rough having two teeth come in at once. You also added dancing to your repertoire just a few days ago! I die, it is so cute! Any time you hear music on the TV you start bouncing your little baby bum (whether you are sitting or standing). Your favorite is the music from the Gilmore Girls TV series I am always watching. Whenever you hear the song at the beginning of the show, you stop what you are doing and your eyes remain glued to the TV no matter what is going on around you until it is over. You also started clapping a few days ago. I think you must have picked that one up when we were staying with Grandma and Grandpa Porter for the Fair. So now whenever you do something cute, we clap together and you get really excited :).

You LOVE attention as long as it is from people you know. In fact, you seem to thrive on it. If there is a second throughout the day when you aren't being paid attention to, you let us know about it! You are so interactive and you mimic everything we do so you make it easy to play, but hard to get things done. However, if a stranger is giving you attention, you stare at them with a blank stare and you don't show any sign of emotion. And trust me, they try! Everywhere we go there are women, Grandmas, and little kids cooing and aweing over you and you keep your poker face on the entire time. I try telling them that you are normally a very outspoken, full of energy baby but I'm sure they don't believe me. That doesn't stop them though. Papa LaFeber used this to his advantage and tried using you to pick up a date! The crazy part is it worked like a charm!

You have decided that you love yogurt and Cheerios and nothing else. I have been worried over the past month that you aren't getting proper nutrition but the books say to just go along with it. You are still nursing as long as it is before/after you go to sleep and in a quiet room where there is nothing to distract you. I figure you are probably getting enough nutrition from that to not worry much about the lack of food variety. I'm sure it's just a phase. You seem to have a lot of those.

Pictures over the last month:

Bath time is your favorite time of day!

You love sucking the water out of the wash cloth

Your new bouncer Grandma Porter bought you. You love to jump so it's perfect!

The moment you realized we have stairs....

We love it when you have crazy bed head :)

Escaping out the front door!

Helping Mom with the laundry

Trying out your new walker, the bouncer is your favorite though.

Hiding in the closet

You love to play with Great Grandma Helm

Cheese!

Taking a little break after you woke up ridiculously early and destroyed the whole house.

so curious

You love to go on walks with Mom

Watching March Madness with Dad

Trying on Auntie Sadie's hat

You are pulling yourself up on everything and will probably be walking any week now.

 

 

First Pool Day of the Year

We can safely say that winter is over in Nevada and summer is quickly on its way. We have been having weather in the high 80's which means it's time to start hitting the pool! Sadly this also means that our daily walks are getting shorter because Mom is sweating after one or two laps around the block so we are very grateful we have something else that is fun to take its place :).

Austin LOVED LOVED LOVED our first day at the pool. We have a kiddie pool that is just his size and is perfect for him to crawl around and splash to his little hearts content. Josh and I had fun just soaking up the sun and watching him. His poor little feet were all scraped up afterwards from crawling on the cement but it didn't seem to bother him. It was also the perfect way to tire him out. Usually he takes his afternoon nap at around 2:00pm but he was so tired and grumpy after swimming that we were forced to break the nap cycle and put him down at 12:30! Let me just say that never happens!!

Here's some pictures from our fun in the sun. I'm sure I will be posting at least a hundred more by the end of the summer.



 

Clark County Fair 2014

The pictures say it all folks. You can't have more fun than the Clark County Fair! I refuse to believe it! This was Austin's first time and I am convinced that he loved it possibly even more than we did.

My favorite fair moment was watching Austin ride a mini-pony for the first time. I know this sounds crazy because he wasn't even nine months old yet but he was such a natural! He acted like he didn't even need his Dad there beside him. While all the other older children were crying and begging to get off, he sat there holding onto the reigns and patting the horse's mane while he talked to her in his baby jibber. It was so adorable seeing his little fat legs doing the splits as he was straddled across the saddle, swaying along with the horse's gait. Such a good memory! We were so caught up in the moment that we even bought three copies of the cheap picture they took of him to share the memory with some Grandmas! Yes, I know..... we are suckers. Grandpa Porter bought Austin a little black cowboy hat now that he is an official cowboy but he wouldn't have anything to do with it. He's not a big fan of things going on his head. Maybe next year?

Of course we ate food and more food. The weather was on the warm side so I was a fan of the frozen banana stand and as always Josh got his BBQ. Austin isn't old enough for the carnival so we skipped that part. I wasn't crying about it though because I swear the older I get, the weaker my stomach gets!

Grandma Porter was in heaven the whole week we stayed with them. I was also in heaven because I had more hands to help with the baby which meant more free time for me!! On Saturday all of my extended family came out and we all had dinner together fair style. Our family is big, noisy, and I swear everyone but me suffers from ADD because it is impossible  to get the whole clan to go in the same direction at once. Nevertheless, family is family and I sure love 'em :). Austin gets super grumpy once bedtime hits and he wouldn't just fall asleep in his stroller because there was way too much to look at with all the lights and noise going on so we left the group early. After a nice warm bath and a little rocking, he was out like a light! That's how you know it was a good party!

Austin experienced grass for the first time (crazy, I know) and he was a big fan! He kept pulling it out and shoving it all in his mouth. We fought it at first and then we got tired and gave up. If he wants to be a cow when he grows up, who are we to stop him?

visiting the baby bunnies. I'm convinced there is nothing cuter than baby bunnies!

little cowboy

 

figuring out the reigns

talking to his pony

Wandering around the concession stands. Austin scored a puppy during our venture. Later that night we realized that the puppy's eyes light up a creepy green color and it literally looks possessed.... we weren't expecting that fun little surprise haha. 

visiting the craft tent and the pretty garden outside of it

Dad wanted to win his son a giant blow-up baseball bat. Austin popped it with his teeth ten minutes later....

Right where this trouble maker belongs!

Like mother, like son?

Little crazy goose enjoying the ride

He loves his Grandma!

Goats! This kid isn't scared of anything.

The perfect day :)

Wrandi and Tyson came to visit!

Let me tell you a little bit about Wrandi. We met at church our freshman year of college and bonded instantly because we were the only 2 out of 3 people in that ward who were 18 and not divorced or getting our Masters/Doctorate degrees yet. It also turned out that we were both Pre-Nursing majors and had a very similar past and family life. We continued to be friends and later, roomies, all throughout college. Not only is our friendship famous for being awesome, it is also famous for having some pretty epic fights. We started calling her "Pantsy" in college because she likes to wear the pants in every relationship which doesn't always go over so well. But in the end, we always got over it and went back to being awesome :).

 

A little walk down memory lane:

Roomies

pumpkin carving at the Singles Ward FHE. Our pumpkin was ridiculously ugly.

Football craziness at the Blackout

Getting into Nursing School

Graduation day!

Keeping up with tradition

Wrandi's wedding day

My wedding day

Anyways, now we are both nurses and are all old and married, but still great friends! So of course we had a great time when she and her husband Tyson came to visit for the weekend :). I can't wait for them to start having babies so they can play together and be as good of friends as we are! ;)



Our options for fun were limited since we have the little guy now, but we still had a great time. We played games, ate tons of homemade food, watched movies, talked, and went for a nice walk in the gorgeous weather. Love you guys! Hope you come back soon :).

Lake Las Vegas

Papa Art came to visit and since the weather was absolutely perfect, we went to Lake Las Vegas! It was so fun. We walked around the grounds, watched a guy "walk on water," and showed Austin the fish and ducks. After that, we came home and had a BBQ. Steak and potatoes, you can't beat that! Weekend with Grandpa was a success. Mom and Dad were also able to squeeze in a little date to our favorite buffet :).



Guy walking on water

Heading out to dinner :)

Irony

Why is life so ironic? Why can't we have what we want, when we want it?

Why is it that when you need a job, you can't find one. Then once you decide to quit your job, everyone wants you!!

It hasn't even been a month since I quit and I have already had two different Nurse Managers call me, wanting me to run their clinics.

I can't say it wasn't tempting and that's the ironic part! I wanted so badly to quit my job and stay at home with my baby, and then once I got it, I suddenly felt tempted to go back to work again! You could say I am having a little identity crisis at the moment. It doesn't help that the Managers who called sat on the phone for 45 minutes raving about how I was the best  nurse this company has ever had and how they will do anything to get me to come back and work for them again. You could say my peacock feathers got pretty ruffled and I was loving all the gratification that for some reason never came around when I was actually working there! Grrrrr...... irony.

So yes, I thought about it. I thought about the money, the excitement, the titles, the power. All of which I have been missing lately. Josh even "upped the ante" by telling me there is a condo in Lake Las Vegas he wants to buy for us to vacation to whenever we want and even gave me a very generous spending allowance for any shopping I might feel like doing at any time. Can you guess which side of the fence he's on?

Tempting.... oh so tempting! 

But then I spent the day with my son and kept remembering all the reasons why I quit. He is growing so fast and won't be a baby for long. I have to keep in mind that my days as a nurse aren't over, they're just put on hold. I worked so hard to get to this point in my life and I can't be taking it for granted. 

It's not easy staying at home. Let's be honest, it can get pretty boring when the only person you have to talk to all day long is an eight month old who repeats himself over and over with the same two syllable words. I am trying to learn how to slow down and not crave the fast pace of my former life. 

Ironically that's what I hated most about my former life when I was in it! Confused much? Yeah, me too. I called the Managers this morning and turned down the jobs. No condo in paradise for us just yet. Right now it is time to slow down and focus on family.