Austin 5 Years Old!

Austin-Austin Bo-Baustin Banana-Fanna-Fo-Faustin, Me-My-Mo-Maustin -- Austin! 

That's one of your favorite chants that we do at our house and sharing it here is a good way to showcase your funny sense of humor, your kind nature, and how special you are to our family. All the sudden you went and got big on me and I'm not sure how to feel about it. I'm so proud of you and the person you are and I'm so grateful that I get to be your mama and go with you on this journey of life.

 

Stats: 

Weight: 34.4 lbs (8%)

Height: 40.5 in (9%)

Size 4T mostly. Some 4T is getting a bit small, but most 5T is still a little big. The cutest little gap between his bottom two teeth. Hazel eyes that change colors with what he's wearing. The best laugh in the world. Size who knows what in shoes. (9 maybe??)

Some things (and pictures) to remember about Austin over the past 6 months: 

-He is just super, super kind. Good at sharing, especially with... well really with all of his siblings.

-He has really had a thing for paper airplanes. David taught him how to make them and now he can mostly make them by himself (sometimes he brings them to me to help fold them, but he shows me how to fold them). He loves flying them and at any given time there might be 10-12 laying around the house. 

-When he's really excited he yells out: Yeah-hoo!

-He's a good problem solver. He solves problems and makes connections about different things. He also is good at finding a solution when he really wants something and I'm saying no. I think its a valuable skill.
-He's also really good at explaining things. Part of that is because of his speech and how he often needs to be descriptive to help me know what he is saying, but he's become good at explaining all sorts of things. 

-He's got a great sense of humor.

-He is the first one to wake up every morning. We finally got a "OK to wake clock" that turns green at 7 am and that has helped us all, but as soon asits green he comes popping into our room ready to go! Sometimes I can convince him to lay with me for a minute. Sometimes I can convince him to play with the magnatiles in the homeschool room for a little bit.

-We have some wonderful Grandmas in our life and the way that Austin distinguishes them from each other is: Grandma with Fruitsnacks vs Grandma with gum.

-Talking Time was good for Austin through the end of the school year last year, but this summer I really started noticing a difference in his speech. Now we are doing one-on-one meetings with the speech therapist at Fox Hollow and he's really enjoying that. I love to see him be more confident as he is learning and working. He's becoming very careful and aware of his words. 

-One of his favorite things to earn from our prize box is a date with mommy or daddy - and he almost always picks Ice Cream at Thanksgiving Point, with a walk to see the waterfall. We call it Austin's Waterfall because he enjoys it so much and it's a sweet thing about him. 

-He's a big helper, especially when we find a task that is fairly repetitive and that he enjoys. He shredded over 1,000 papers for me from a big stack of Primary binders along with some papers from our house. Seriously hundreds and hundreds of papers. As I'm typing this, he's currently in our basement (that we are working to finish) vacuuming sawdust up with a shop-vac simply because he wants to. 

-He LOVES helping me cook in the kitchen. He's easily my best helper in the kitchen and he really enjoys it. I wouldn't be surprised if he grows up to be a great chef someday. He's first in line to help me mix and make the pancakes or scoop the flour for homemade rolls. Making treats for Poetry Treat Time is his all-time fav. 

-He loves reading (listening to) simple chapter books with David and I. Dragon Masters was his favorite for a long time and now he's loving the Magic Tree House books. He has started listening to the audio books on my phone and he LOVES it.

-He is such a great brother. He's the sweetest brother to Lucy. I can't even describe the care that he takes of her. I have a video of him with her in the hospital and he's just saying over and over "I love you baby Lucy." That love hasn't faded over the last three months. He takes care of her, snuggles by her, brings her things he thinks she needs, makes Caleb be soft by her. The list goes on and on. 

(Pictured below: him making smoothie packets with me - one of his favorite things to make for breakfast. He can get the packet from the freezer, put the ice in, put the sugar in, and if the milk is low enough in the jug he can put the milk in, too. He can basically do it all by himself, except the lid to the blender is a little tricky and I usually help him with that.

Also, and Caleb have several matching pajamas. Whenever they are matching, they stick their tummies and out do their own version of a "chest bump" saying "MATCHERS!" )

-He loves his dad. The other day, in the middle of the day and out of the blue he said "I wish Dada was here. I love when he's home with us. I wish he could stay home with us all the time." (He calls David, Dada and I love it.) David is an exceptionally wonderful Dad, and Austin loves him. 

-Austin is moving all the time (unless he's concentrating on building something). He literally bounces from couch to couch to couch, flipping, landing, balancing. When I'm sitting reading him books, he is frequently doing sommersaults next to me, or flipping up and balancing on his head. He can even do a headstand and hold it for several seconds. 

(Pictured above, he was going down the driveway while riding on a skateboard over and over again and by the end he had worn his socks completely through. There were more holes than there was sock. (Why he wasn't wearing shoes? I don't know. I saw this, took a picture, and made him go inside to put shoes on.)

-He loves hiking in the mountains. Once we were at a Homeschool Camporee and he and Lydia were climbing around on a hill and he stepped in a big ant hill. The ants started climbing all over him and a few bit him. I ran up the mountainside, grabbed him, brought him back to the area where we were, pulled off his shirt and started pulling ants off from him. It was a little traumatic, but the next day he was still asking if we could go on a hike in the mountain. There is something about it that he really enjoys (which I'm glad for because I love it, too).

-He loves building things. He says that he wants to be a "machine maker" when he grows up. He's smart and clever and a great problem solver. It's so fun to watch him build with whatever materials he can find.

He loved riding his bike all summer long. By mid-summer he was riding with no training wheels and after that he wanted to be outside every single day! We love summer over here. 

-More summer fun: kayaking, paddle boarding, and tubing behind the boat. 

 

-His first talk in Primary! It was about how prophets lead us to Jesus and that we can be brave like the prophets and follow Jesus Christ. 

One of his favorite things to do with David is to go on a "date" to the carwash with him. They drive down to the Wiggy Wash and go through together. (We found a wiggy wash stand at the Orem Summerfest and Austin got to go through in a little toy car. He wasn't quite as impressed as the real thing. 

-I talked about him being a good brother to Lucy, but he's such a great brother to Lydia, too. They play really well together, but every once in a while I see that Lydia has convinced him to do that hard job while she gets the better part (i.e. him pushing her on the swing) and I have to step in and make sure that she takes her turn so he can have fun, too. (But sometimes, he really just is having fun doing the thing with her.) 

-Picking raspberries at Grandpa Peaden's house. 

-He learned how to go down the fireman pole and it was a huge success in his little life. At the time I felt like he hadn't had any big successes lately, and to see his confidence boost was really neat. Sometimes he'll ask if we can stop at the little park in our neighborhood on the way home and he will hop out, run up to the top of the playground, go down the fireman pole, then come jump back into the car. 

More pictures of summer fun, including the week that the Haderlie kids came to stay with us, which we all loved. 

End of summer - start of school!
Austin loved swimming at the pool this year and I loved watching how brave and confident he was.
We decided to have him to go a little neighborhood preschool in addition to his speech lesson each week. He also goes to a one-day a week spanish class with Lydia. It's a big schedule for him, but he seems to be enjoying it so far.  His favorite part of homeschool: Poetry Treat Time & the Art table. 

-We've been finishing our basement and Austin's been such a big helper! He helped us carry all of our wood for framing into the back yard, he's helped with little jobs along the way - like pushing up walls and pulling electrical wire, and he's done a great job of vacuuming and keeping the area clean. 

His favorite thing about us finishing our basement is all the little pieces of scrap wood that he's been able to collect, glue together, and build into "machines". One of the pictures above is a catapult that he built with Grandpa Walker at his house, but the other picture above is a creation that he glued together, and the one below is a dust-catcher that he specifically made to help catch the dust in the basement during construction. 

He doesn't like large groups of people. He is reserved and quiet when he gets into groups, and frequently has some anxiety leading up to the event if he knows that lots of people will be there. Church is a battle just to get him there, basically every Sunday, but once he gets there he's completely fine. He does better in smaller groups. Having Lydia home with us and being able to spend so much time together is such a blessing to both of them.

-We went to a "Love Letters" museum and his favorite thing was the typewriter. He spent the majority of his time there just typing away.

-It was my birthday this month, and Austin used his own money that he had been saving to buy me a wallet lanyard that I had been wanting for my birthday. He was so excited about it and insisted that he buy the whole thing on his own. 

-He went to California for the first time! We took a short little road trip out to visit my brother, his wife, and their new baby Juniper. He loved the ocean, the LaBrea tar pits, and watching shows in the van. 

-His favorite is blue "because it's not bright and I don't like bright stuff, I like dark stuff, and blue is dark". 

Oh Austin. We love you. We love your laugh and your smile and the goodness that you bring to our family.