Happy Thanksgiving (10 months)

For Thanksgiving we went to my parent's house. We ate at 4pm which worked out nicely with Austin's nap schedule. I have always liked routine but with Austin it is a must. We stick to his schedule every day. Thanksgiving morning while Austin was napping Brian and I looked though the ads. Every year Brian and I would go out shopping on Black Friday. This year there was nothing we really wanted so we decided not to go out. Well kind of. Brian went out at midnight to Target for some pans for me but he was unsuccessful at getting them. I decided I would rather sleep (hey, one of us had to stay home with Austin anyway!). After Austin's nap we went to Old Navy since they were open on Thanksgiving. They had some good deals so we got some clothes. After shopping we came home and Austin took his afternoon nap. Once Austin got up we went to my parent's for dinner.

At dinner we let Austin try turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Austin does not like food much yet. He prefers his milk. Some mashed potatoes got stuck on his tongue and he gagged. After that we stuck to his turkey and sweet potato baby food. We even tried to give Austin a tiny piece of pumpkin pie and he was not interested. Generally he's not a fan of most foods. He is starting to like things he can chew on though. Brian gave him a piece of pizza crust that was all bread and he liked playing with that. He also will eat bananas whole that Brian will give him. He just peels it and hands it to him and Austin will gum it. He only gets little bits off. Sometimes he'll take a big bite, but he spits it out right away because he doesn't know what to do with it.


Austin got to play with Gizmo. Gizmo is a dog but he is really sized like a pony. He is 150 pounds. Austin loves playing with him. Gizmo just lets Austin do whatever he wants. It is really cute to see.

Austin is now 25 pounds. He is cruising around the furniture. He also loves to walk with his toy walker. He crawls so fast. Anywhere he wants to go, he goes. He is now able to climb up and down stairs. He learned how to go down the stairs the correct way. He now does it for our living room step too.

This weekend we went out and bought a new Christmas tree. Our previous tree was huge and has fake snow on it. Austin is going to just eat the snow so we decided to get a smaller more basic tree. Our previous tree only had glass icicle ornaments on it. Again that is not going to work with Austin. We decided we will use our new Christmas tree for a few years while Austin is young then go back to our nice tree once he is older and will appreciate it.

I am excited to put up our tree but need to wait closer until Christmas because I don't want to worry about Austin knocking it down for a month. Austin loves to get into everything! We did set up our deluxe Christmas light display outside already. Austin likes to watch it out the front window.

The weather has been great so we have been going for our walks. I know it's going to change soon. I'm going to miss walking with Austin. However the snow is going to be fun for him especially once he gets older.

The other week I went to the store while Brian stayed home and watched Austin. In my absence, he hooked up our camera to the back of Austin's car so you could watch Austin get pushed around the house from his perspective. He made a couple of entertaining videos of it. You can check them out below.




We even went to see decorated Christmas trees with Austin at the Knight Center in Akron on black Friday. He got his picture taken with Alvin and the chipmucks. It is officially time to start getting ready for Christmas. It is going to be fun (like Austin playing with a bowl full of spaghetti fun - see video clip down below).


Austin taking care of leftovers:

Happy Halloween (9 months 1 week)

It is hard to believe that Austin is already 9 months old. Where has all the time gone? He is getting bigger and into more and more every day. At his 9 month check up, he weighed 24 pounds 3 ounces and was 30 inches long. He is still in the 90th percentile in both height and weight.

Austin is able to furniture walk extremely well. It will not be too much longer and he will be walking alone. He loves to climb stairs and he is an expert now. He is able to come down too. He just learned how to turn around to come down the steps. Previously he would go head first down the 1 step between our living room and dining room. We had a blanket there for him to land on. That doesn't work so well for a flight of stairs, so we taught him to turn around.

Austin is mommy's little helper. Anything I do Austin helps me. He loves to empty the dishwasher with me. He takes the silverware and throws it on the floor. When I am putting clothes away, he loves to take the clothes out of drawers and throw them on the floor. He has discovered the toilet paper roll and knows how to unroll the toilet paper.
When I make dinner, he is in the kitchen going though the cupboards finding something to play with. He loves our thermos from when we packed our dinners for Cavs games. He rolls them on the floor and plays. Austin is so much fun right now!



For Halloween, Austin was a monkey. Brian got his costume the day after Halloween last year. It was a great costume for him. It was nice because it kept him warm. Plus he looked so cute! We went trick or treating in Grandma and Grandpa D's neighborhood. We went around the block and were only out and about for about a half an hour. Then we went to visit Great Grandma. We knocked on her door with Austin to surprise her. Trick or Treat! Then on Halloween we went around our block with our neighbors. We probably walked around for 45 minutes to a few houses. It was a lot of fun. As usual, Austin likes being out and seeing people and things. He seemed to really enjoy it.

Vacation without Austin (8 months 3 weeks)

Leaving Austin to go on vacation was extremely hard. The morning we left Austin woke up extremely early for some reason. If Austin did not wake up, I was not going to wake him up. But I was happy he woke up because I spent more time with him. Leaving to go to the airport was the hardest. I did not want Austin to see me upset but it was hard not to cry. When I handed him to Brian so I could walk out the door I was devastated. I could not believe I was doing this. I already missed him and had not even left yet.

My parents took us to the airport so Austin could stay home with my mother in law. Again I did not want Austin to see me upset. When I left my mom, I fell apart again. People at the airport had to think I have never traveled before. I knew Austin was going to be well taken care of but I was going to miss him.

Once at the airport, I was okay. I still thought about Austin all the time but I was ready to have some fun. Once we arrived to Fort Lauderdale, we waited for Melissa and Jonathan to arrive. Then we got on the biggest cruise ship in the world: Allure of the Seas. The ship was amazing! It was by far my favorite cruise ship ever. There was so much to do on board. It had little neighborhoods that were really cool. It was really kids friendly too. I wished we had brought Austin at times.

Brian and I had an excellent week together. It was nice to spend some time together. We love our vacations because we get to spend alone time together. Our lives have always been hectic and with Austin they are even more crazy.

The ports we went to were Haiti, Jamaica, and Cozumel. In Haiti, we just went swimming in the ocean. It was cloudy so we loved it. In Jamaica we went kayaking and climbed up a water fall. The kayak did not have a rudder with made steering really difficult. Climbing the waterfall was amazing! I really enjoyed that. In Cozumel, we did the amazing race with Melissa and Jonathan. I love it! I have always wanted to do the amazing race and this was my opportunity. The best part is we even won!

We really had a great vacation. We missed Austin a lot. The emails and pictures sent to us really helped me feel closer to him. We were really happy to see him at the airport when we got home.