Happy 9th Birthday, Austin darling. I've felt like you were nine for almost a whole year now so I am glad that we are finally on the same page. You're such a kind brother and such a hard worker and I am proud of you and all that you are. I love how big your heart is and I am grateful for how loved you make me feel.
Birthay Questions:
1. What’s one of your talents? I am good at building Legos.
2. What’s your favorite animal? Sharks
3. What do you like to eat? Sloppy Joes and Lasagna. I really like candy.
4. What do you love to do? I love to build with Gears Go, Legos, or Magnet Blocks.
5. What do you want to do? (When you grow up?) I want to be an inventor.
6. What’s your favorite toy? (thing) Gears Go or the listening to an audio book on the ipad.
7. What’s your favorite song? Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
8. What’s your favorite movie? The new Paw Patrol Movie or Home Alone
9. What’s your favorite book? Dragon Masters Series
10. What’s your favorite TV show? Random Acts
Some things I want to remember about Austin at this time:
-He's so polite. "Excuse me" and "May I be excused" and other manners. He's just so sweet.
-He loves candy and his siblings love when he gets candy because he shares it so willingly with them. Often if one of them get hurt or feel particularly sad he will immediately run to his candy stash to grab something to help them feel better.
-He loves building and creating things.
-He is the hardest worker. He's consistently the first one to jump up and help me clean the family room, or do the chores on his bucket, or fold the laundry unless he doesn't want to. Then he is the grumpiest little 9 year old in the land. He folds his am and grumbles under his breath while moving around jerkily and angrily, grabbing things and expressing his feelings about being forced to do this terrible thing.
-This summer we started playing Mario on a regular basis and Austin really enjoyed that. It was fun to play that together with him. The Wii is in our basement storage room because our new TV isn't compatible with our super old system, but it ended up being a really great setup for us.
-Some of his favorite audio books that he has listened to lately: The Chronicles of Narnia series, (We read the first three together and he listened to the rest), James and the Giant Peach, Robin Hood
-He loves fire and lighting candles. His science fair project last February was about blowing candles out and his birthday party this year was candle themed. His cake was a candle, we did candle/fire experiments, and everyone got to make a candle. Every day he asks me if he can light the candles at breakfast (or lunch or dinner) and we usually have a whole handful of candles on our counter just waiting to be used.
-He loves April Fools Day with his whole heart and looks forward to it the whole year.
Here are some things that Austin has been up to the past 6 months:
Mario in the Basement, Austin loved being Mario and being the one to walk around and choose the next levels. The kids beat the entire game over the course of the summer!
We loved swimming this summer. We went to our own pool a lot, plus swimming lessons, lehi outdoor pool, provo rec center, and kayaking. Austin loves swimming with goggles and his flippers.
(We didn't kayak as much this summer because of a lot of reasons, but the day that we went to Manilla pond was Austin's favorite, he and Oliver dug a massive hole that kept them busy for hours.)
Austin is really loving Harry Potter right now. We just finished the second book and he is anxiously waiting for us to be done reading the sixth book to Lydia so that we can start reading the 3rd book with him. He was excited about our annual Harry Potter party.
Two things that he loves to eat right now: tuna fish sandwiches and whipped cream on anything that whipped cream can go on (usually pancakes). I love that he's old enough that he can make his own tuna sandwiches. I'll be making sandwiches for the kids (they all have their "favorite sandwich") and he will ask if he can have tuna, then proceed to run to the basement, grab a can, come up and make the whole thing himself.
He played on a baseball team this spring/summer and really enjoyed it!
I mentioned above how much he loves fire/candles but he also loves fireworks. I think the 4th of July might be his very favorite holiday. This year he convinced his siblings to use our Family Money to buy $70 worth of fireworks to shoot off in front of our house and he was in heaven.
Just a few photos from our regular life: haircuts, breakfast, kid date to the movies, and playing card games with dad. I love this bi-yearly posts because as I look at these pictures I can't help but think that this is a pretty great childhood for a kid.
We went on a trip to St. George with some friends and Austin's favorite part was climbing on the red rocks at Pioneer Park. He and Lydia explored all over the place together and had a great time.
Classic Fun with Austin and Caleb (while our car was being repaired).
Usually I have a thousand more pictures with the Haderlies - but I wanted to mention that these Haderlie cousins are such great friends to Austin. He loves when they get to see each other and play together, and in between physical visits - they spend a lot of time talking on the phone with each other. It makes me happy to know that Austin is developing good relationships with both sides of his family. We see Grandma and Grandpa Peaden every Thursday and Austin loves to watch TV with Grandma. He sits on the chair under the window and watches animal veterinary shows with Sue.
He is also developing a really special relationship with my dad. He loves spending time with him and they have a few things that are "their thing". Austin loves to shoot guns with my dad and my dad even just bought a new gun just for Austin. This year when we were there for his birthday, my dad took him out into the shop and helped him make a bookshelf for all of his new Dragon Masters Books. I love that he will grow up knowing that his family loved him. Pictures below from the Summer Range - our favorite camping weekend of the year.
This year I took the kids camping at Maple Canyon all by myself. Other than a terrible bloody nose for Austin at bedtime, we had a wonderful time!
Austin & Uncle Kevin - Matching shirts!
Lydia, Austin, and Audrey Ward on their way to a Primary Activity Day Camp. Audrey and her sister Ellie are probably Austin's (and Lydia's) best friends right now. They live right across the street and they are such good friends to my kids. I am grateful for the friendships they have.
Picture of Austin and Ellie building a snowman together. Also - a good indication of the crazy spring we had.We had snow well into April but then it would warm back up again right away. Austin loved it.
A few pictures from our homeschool. I feel like we have a good balance between book work, hands on activities, computer time (including zoom based speech classes), and community/coop events. Austin is learning and growing so much and it's a privledge to be on this journey with him.
(He loves playing chess and had a chess class that he really enjouyed).
End of year Lagoon-ing. This is one of Austin's favorite parts of the year, and certainly his favorite thing about the end of the school year.
Austin loves this place so much that he used all the money he had saved to buy treats/souveniers to buy a bounce back pass. I got to come with him the second time, just he and I. It was magical. He's still young enough that he was happy to walk with me hand in hand through the park. We did every single thing that he wanted to do, including riding cannibal a gagillion times in a row (until I got so sick that I couldn't ride it again and started sending him through on the single rider line).
Austin's primary activity group had a mom/son chocolate making night. It was so fun and I loved spending this one on one time with him.
We all love this Austin so much. He's such a good sibling. Lydia says "He's really good at sharing and he's a lot of fun to play with." Each one of his siblings love him and David and I love spending time with him. He's at a really fun stage where he is starting to be interested in the same things that we are, and we have enjoyed playing games (carcassone), watching tv (sports + Dwight in Shining Armor), and doing other things that we like to do on our own and he is now enjoying those same things, too.
Planting a garden and hosting a lemonade stand.
Crazy Hair Day at SPARK coop. Whenever I do his hair (on a normal day), I do it a little spiky and tell him about how that was cool when I was young and he always laughs and says "I like my hair flat". So we comb it flat and we both laugh.
One of my favorite things is that when he does something cool, or has something he thinks is neat, he says "mom, take a picture" then he tilts his head with a tight lipped smile (and does not look at the camera until I re-prompt him)
He really likes building things, and one of his favorite repeat creations is to build a tower as tall as he possibly can.
We had some good holidays: Easter, Fourth of July (his favorite), Rainbow Day.
And we had some good field trips! A good combination of learning/museum type field trips and also exploring the outdoors field trips.
This summer we hiked a portion of the Timpanogos Cave trail together, but Austin really wanted to go all the way to the top. So he and I took off and we hiked it together - all the way. I kept telling him that we could turn around if he changed his mind, but he was determined and it was such a fun thing to do together. We met up with the others back down at the bottom, but the two of us got a great hike in.
Austin loves when David plays "Chase the Monster" also known as "Poison Ball" with him. David explained it like this: "One of the kids favorite games to play with me is "Chase the Monstor," this game has evolved over the years as the kids have gotten bigger and now we almost always play "Poison Ball" chase the monster. This involves me trying to get all of the kids frozen at the same by hitting them with the ball when they are out of their safety. The kids try to defeat me, by capturing my ball in their safety (where it won't freeze them), and then hitting me with my freeze ball without me catching it. They also have a ball that unfreezes them and I try to capture that ball so they can't use it to unfreeze themselves. Also any unfrozen kid can touch a frozen kid to unfreeze them as well. The kids love it and it really is fun. One day Shantel came down and after watching 5 or 6 rounds with each side winning about half, she commented that she had no idea what the rules could possibly be. However, the kids and I know the rules well and we love playing together.
This September we took a family vacation to San Diego and had a lovely time. It was made even better because we convinced the Haderlies to come with us. My mom also ended up coming to help and we had a great time at the zoo, the beach, a hike, Sea World, Point Loma, and hanging at the pool at our house. Austin is old enough that he will be able to remember, at least pieces of it, and I hope he remembers how much he loved the whole thing, especially boogie boarding in the ocean.
I thought this was fun: Our Last Day of School picture in May and our First Day of School picture in August.
School has started again, which means a start of Friday Field trips! The kids decided to use their money for Cornbelly's passes and we've been going as much as we can fit it into our schedule (which isn't as much as you might think- but still enough to be really fun!)
We have been actively watching the construction of the Saratoga Springs Temple, even preparing for and hosting a Temple Celebration for our Stake.
David, Lydia, and I were able to help with the Open House but we've been so excited for Austin to be able to attend the temple dedication with us. We planned to attend at our ward building, but just a few days before the dedication we were asked if we would like to attend the temple dedication in the general seating at the temple and we excitedly said yes. We were so happy for the opportunity to be in the temple as it was dedicated. Both Lydia and Austin were able to come with us and it was so cool! We were seated in one of the confirmation rooms just next to the baptistry. The dedication was beautiful. Afterwards we sat outside the temple for a few minutes and the kids took some notes about how they felt during the dedication. It was such a neat experience.
Austin's Grandpa-Great Walker passed away in August. Austin loved Grandpa Great and was loved in return. We love the ranch: the tire swing, the haystacks, the fourwheelers, and we will miss having Grandpa Great there to ask "Whose kid are you?" and letting us tag along with him on chores. We love him and I am grateful Austin was able to know him and spend so much time with him.
And Austin's Birthday! He wanted a candle cake SO bad, but not just any candle cake - he had a specific idea in his mind and I think that he was happy, even though it didn't turn out the very very best.
Happy Birthday Austin Darling. More than anything I hope that you know how much we love you!
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