insta-march

insta-march

{3.1.18}     Marble track racing: one part building, one part racing, two parts keeping the marbles away from the baby. (This cheap little track was a winner from Austin's birthday party. He loves it!)

{3.1.18}    Little Box of Sunshine delivered on my porch. People are so nice. #sunshineonacloudyday

{3.2.18}     My mom just left after staying with us for a couple of days and I already miss her! @simplyonpurpose always talks about how important it is for adults to be a safe space for kids and what that looks like. My mom is such a good example of this. She read Austin "Press Here" about 37 times and "Chalk" almost as many. Lydia asked her to help with her homework and they learned and wrote facts about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. She snuggled Caleb and made sure he didn't fall down the stairs. She is such a wonderful Grandma and she is still MY safe space. I might be a mom, but she's MY mom, and I'm grateful for her continual love and guidance.

{3.1.18}    Meet Sally, from the Cat & the Hat. i.e. dressing up for Dr. Seuss's birthday party at kindergarten today. She picked who she wanted to be before I even realized dressing up was an option. The costume turned out darling, if I say so my-last-minute-self.

{3.3.18}    1. We officially can't pass as college students anymore. 2. I officially love date nights with this guy. #theinterpretationthereof @byumoa#babysittingswapforthewin

{3.6.18}     My heart. 😍 This baby of ours is turning one this weekend so we had pictures taken yesterday. I'm trying not to post a million photos, but I'm feeling so grateful we decided to grab a few group ones, too. I'm dying over them!

{3.10.18}    My baby! 😭😍😭😍 He's the sweetest, chillest, best baby ever, and now he's ONE.

{3.16.18}    Just windy enough to fly our kite. #childhood Not pictured: the giant mess in the front room from pulling every single thing out of our very messy hall closet in order to find the kite buried at the bottom. 💁

{3.20.18}     We're in the heart of busy season right now, which means early mornings and late nights for this guy. But my kids are so blessed to have a dad who loves them and makes sure that he adjust his schedule so he still gets to spend time with them... even if that means waking up incredibly early so he can be home for bedtime, or staying home for breakfast then working late at night to make up for it. We're over halfway done (I hope) and doing pretty well so far (I think). #busyseason#auditnottax #bestdadaward

{3.28.18}       Seven months of dropping my girl off at the bus every morning but I still cried this morning as she ran off to set her backpack down in the line to get in the bus. I'm productive with my time while she's gone, but man, I just miss her. #ishouldbehomeschooling Also, the other day she came home and told me about her favorite song she hears on the bus... Something about "sunshine in a pocket". We looked it up and I flashed back to my Middle School days when I realized who it was by. I love that 20 years later I'm jamming to Justin Timberlake with my girl.#nsyncforever #byebyebye

Austin 3.5

3.5 years with this ball of happiness. He's simultaneously the best little brother and the best big brother. Both of his siblings adore him and he loves them, too.



Unofficial stats: still fits into the occasional size 2T item, especially pants, but most shirts are size 3T. We started cutting his hair really short on the sides and longer on top (super trendy right now) and it makes him look so big!

Some things we want to remember about him at this age:

-Slides down the stairs on his tummy.
-Shakes his head when he's trying to explain something important.
-When he really wants me to stay with him and I need to get up he says "But I looooove you." He also says "I love you so much" and gets upset if I tell him that I love him more because he clearly loves me the most.
-Likes listening to circle round in his bed before bedtime
-Climbs over the bars on the top bunk then dangles by his arms before dropping down to the floor. When I say "I don't think that's very safe", he says "I'm being safe!"

-I say "I love you" and he says "I love you SO much" and so I say "I love you SOOO much" then he gets mad at me and grumpily wraps his arms around my neck and says "NO, I love you."
 -He loves building with our magna tiles, and most mornings he's content to play with them on my bedroom floor (we don't even put them away anymore) until we are ready to go downstairs for breakfast.
-His other favorite toys over the last 6 months: his marble track has been a huge winner. He loves it. And he's just really started loving to fly our kite. Anytime it's windy at all he asks if we can go outside to fly it.
-He loves baths and if I need an hour or so to read my scriptures/get ready/work on a project, I can just ask him if he wants to get in the tub and he'll jump right up and run to the bathroom. I usually just sit on the floor with Caleb while Austin enjoys an hour or so of "bath time" which basically equates to swimming in his book.
-He loves his tool bench and is still a great "fixer-helper".
-He likes fire engines but he LOVES street sweepers. We got this random street sweeper book from the library (I said he could pick any book that he wanted, and he ended up with that one from the nonfiction section.) He loooved it. We read it about a million times and he ended up getting a street sweeper for Christmas. Spotting a street sweeper in the wild is worth gold to this boy.
-He loves his Caleb, and frequently calls him "My Maleb. Or My Baleb." I'm not sure why he switches the first letter around, because he can say "Caleb" but he does it on purpose as a term of endearment and it's darling.
-The saddest day of his life was when Caleb stopped being willing to let Austin lay in his lap. When Caleb wasn't mobile, Austin would come lay down on top of Caleb's legs while he was sitting there and they would sit and play with each other laughing and chattering back and forth (often with Austin sticking his fingers in Caleb's mouth - I don't know why). But as soon as Caleb started crawling, he yells when Austin tries to lay by him/on his legs because then Caleb can't move. So there is a lot of Austin trying to block him so he can lay in his lap while Caleb yells about it. We've had a lot of conversations about how Caleb is trying to tell him that he doesn't like that anymore - but it's been a hard lesson for Austin who just wants to snuggle with his brother! Luckily, we're finally getting to the place where Caleb likes crawling on top of Austin and so A will lay down and let Caleb crawl over him and then they are both happy. 

-Austin loves his daddy. His favorite things to do with dad are: Chase "You be the monster, I run", Tacos (rolling up in a blanket then unrolling quickly). For a special daddy date, he requested to go to the "Animal Fair" (one of his favorite songs), so David took him to Boondocks (stretching it a bit? maybe) and it was basically the best day of his life.
-Has been a pretty good sleeper but went through a stage where he was waking up multiple times a night crying for mom. If dad went in, the crying escalated to screaming. It was getting so bad that I was just going back and forth from Austin to Caleb and back again all night long. But thankfully we figured it out and he's sleeping better again, but man oh man!
-At church, during sacrament meeting when he was sitting on my lap,  I quietly asked him what he knew about Jesus. He said "He made the world... all the things... in... the whole earth. He made bugs. And fish. Fish eat the bugs. Did he make this church?" I said that He made the trees, and that people cut down the trees for the wood to make the church so we could worship Him." and he said "He made that wood (pointing to the leg of the pew) because it supports that. It's holding it up." I asked "Who does Jesus love?" He said "Jesus loves everyone. All the people." I asked "Does Jesus love Lydia? Does Jesus love Caleb? Does Jesus love Mommy?" He responded in the affirmative to all of those. I asked "Does Jesus love you???" He said "Yes!!! And... I love YOU" while wrapping his arms around my neck.

Oh Austin. I love you so much.

Pictures from the last six months. (I tried to cut some. But couldn't - so....)

And some of my favorites pictures ever:

We love you Austin Scott! We couldn't be luckier than to have you in our family and we hope you always know that you are loved SOOO much. 

Happy 3.5!