Blast off!

After donning his rocket pajamas, and going to bed, I heard a lot of jumping and bumping. I opened the door and had the following conversation with Alex.




Alex: "Me no how fly sky Mom."


Me: "Really? Did you try to fly?"


Alex (with a look of deep concern): "Ah! Me go *spsch!* me no fly!"


Me: "Maybe you need to actually get in a rocket if you want to really fly."


Alex: "Oh, me jump bed, me no fly! Me fly rocket mom?"


Me: "Maybe someday you can fly in a rocket, now go to sleep!"

Ignore the date on this photo it was taken 2/8/2011 in Hawaii!

(I know, I know I will do a post soon about our trip!)

Paul has cRaZy eye!

Working full time, night school, 2 kids, buying a house, assistant boy scout leader, 2nd counselor in the Young Mens Presidency at church...

who wouldn't look like this after a while.

(notice I didn't mention the awesome wife :)

Ben gets the photo credit for this one.

Cousins

The almost-three-year-olds.

Dominic on the left, and Alex on the right. They are eating cupcakes.

Funny Picture of the Day

I jsut came across these pictures and I had to post them! I think they were taken December 2010, just before he turned two years old.

To this day, anytime he plays with Mr. Potato Head he insists on wearing their accessories, especially the glasses. :)

He even put the glasses on the horse himself.

What a cutie! I miss his chubby little face...he has really thinned out in the last year.

"Dinner's Ready!"

We started Austin on baby food at 4 1/2 months because he decided to start nursing every 1 1/2 hours day and NIGHT! Ack! I don't know how else to say this other than...he LOVES FOOD! From the first moment he tasted it on the ride home from Portland he couldn't get enough! In fact, he started out eating two full bowls a day...instead of working up to it.

Alex thought it was really cool that Austin was doing something new and of course jumped right in to help feed him. He was so funny because he would give Austin a bite and then couldn't resist giving himself a bite. I asked him if it was good, and he said, "Aa" (which means yah or yes). You can see it in the video below if I can get it to work.

When Alex is feeding Austin he always opens his mouth like this and says "Ahhh," to get Austin to see what he should do...it is really cute. It reminds me of the mom on the Incredibles when she is feeding baby Jack.

Austin always attacks the spoon and won't let go. So, I have to use two spoons and I just switch them back and forth because whenever he sees a new bite coming he lets go of the spoon he is holding and grabs the new one.

He is a pretty voracious eater.

If you don't feed him fast enough he yells at you.

He is so sweet!

Blessing his mushed up bananas.

I guess it is such a shocker that he loves food this much because when Alex was this age he was still a "boob man" and wasn't really interested in baby food until he was 6 or 7 months old.

Alex feeding Austin.
At the end of the video Alex says, "Baby like it!" So precious! Alex can be such a little "mom" sometimes to his brother. It is really cute.

By the way, I titled the post that way becaue no matter what meal it is, Alex always announces that, "Dinn'as ra-eey." And whenever a timer starts beeping in the kitchen he announces it as well. It is really funny, especially first thing in the morning when we are about to eat breakfast...."Dinn'as ra-eey!"

Five Months Old

My handsome little prince riding in his chariot...

Zizi (Rochelle) bought this leapfrog toy used for only $10!!

Austin loves to chew on Tad's hat.

At Austin's 4 month appointment he weighed 14 and a half pounds...landing somewhere in the 18% pecentile (whatever that means :) Anyways, his doctor even called him "petite" and "not chubby." I don't really agree, because he seems pretty chunky to me, but he definitly isn't as big as Alex was at this age.

Big smile! I love you!

I think he has gained a least 2 more pounds since his last appointment...he eats a TON!

"Where are you Echo?"

Alex is supposed to be taking a nap right now, but instead of the sweet sound of silence, what do I Hear?
"Echo! Echo! ECH-O! Echo? Where are do? I no ear do!" (translation: where are you, I don't hear you).
And then, after pausing to listen for an answer, he starts up again, "Echo? Do ear me Echo?" (translation: you hear me echo?)
Then, after pausing once more, he says, "Oh, oh-tay." And then falls silent...
hmmmm what I want to know is what did Echo say? Because, clearly he answered....:)

Alex wearing the glasses Pop-pop (Grandpa Dan) found in the warm Hawaii ocean

The other day, Alex was playing outside in the sun and talking to his shadow...

"Oh, hi sadow! Wanna pay wid me?" (pausing to listen to his shadow answer)
"Oh, Oh-tay. Come ere. Come swing wid me."
(Translation: Oh, hi shadow! Do you want to play with me? Oh, OK. Come here, come swing with me.)

Eating lunch one day a couple of months ago, he kept repeating the same thing to me over and over until I finally understood what he was saying...trust me it took me like 10 or 15 minutes to figure it out. It was really important, too. :)
"Mom, Mom, eye-light ray-cue hepin' pay-pooh." Over and over and over he said this...so, what does it mean? It was a proud mom moment when it clicked in my head and I said to him, "Buzz Lightyear to the rescue, helping people?"
And he smiles all proudly back and says, "Uh-huh! (holding up his hand at me for a high-five) Awesome!"

Oh, I sure love this boy!

January = the month of SICKNESS

For about six weeks, our house was filled with GERMS! Yuck...lots of coughing, runny noses, soar throats, lost voices, ear infections...you name it, we had it! Ugh! It just wouldn't leave. And, it attacked ALL of us non-stop. We would start to feel a little bit better and I would think, "Finally! It's going away." And then, the next day the symptoms would get worse again. Three weeks before we left for Hawaii, I said to my mom, " At least we are sick now, before we go to Hawaii. We will be better for SURE by the time we leave..." WRONG!

Austin hangs his head in shame at my optimistic thoughts....

Austin and Alex continued to get worse and worse. The week before we were to leave to Hawaii, I took Austin to the doctor three times because his cough was so deep.

Alex pretending he's a cow

They issued us a nebulizer and a prescription for Albuturol which we treated Austin with every four hours. He had to have a chest x-ray, which consisted of stripping him down and strapping him into this Medieval torture device.

example of Medieval torture device x-ray

I pulled the above picture off of the Internet so those of you have never had the pleasure of stuffing your screaming four month old in one can see what it looks like. There is only one thing wrong with this picture...this child is way to calm. Austin was so angry, and when I say angry I mean ANGRY! My normally happy, always calm child was screaming and shaking. Which of course made it worse, because the technician had to redo one of the x-rays because it came out blurry.

Alex and Austin, wearing their "monkey suits" as Alex calls them.

The weekend before we left, Alex surprised us all and stopped coughing and seemed to be cured...then on Tuesday he woke up with a high fever, which continued to rise until on Wednesday it peaked out at 103! Ack! He has never had a fever so high before. Plus, the cough returned, and he just laid on the couch all day. So, I took both kids to the doctor on Thursday, one last time before our trip. Austin still wasn't improving so he was prescribed an antibiotic, poor Alex ended up with 2 ear infections (his second set this winter!) and pneumonia! He was of course put on an antibiotic and also received his own prescription for Albuterol.Alex hooked up to the nebulizer...

I honestly didn't even know what one of these things was until this sickness attacked us. As you can see from the pictures, despite the sickness, my boys were still happy and full of giggles through it all.