Austin Turns 3!!

Well, I can't believe it, but we have a three year old! How did he get to be so big and smart. Looking back it feels like way less than three years. However, I don't really remember what it was like before he was born. He is our everything!

We all went to the store to pick out what kind of cake he wanted, like the shape. At Micheal's there was too many cake pans to choose from. He just kept grabbing different ones saying that was the one he wanted. Finally, we narrowed it down to three: a train, Lighting McQueen, and a monkey. He picked Lighting. After we bought the cake mix (Funfetti), we came home. I started that night on the cake.

The pan all prepped

Now, this cake was quite the task. It told you how much of each different color frosting you would need, and there was like 10 different colors listed. I decided to cake the frosting from scratch. However, after getting home I realized all I had was lard, not shortening.... Never use lard to make frosting. It tasted fine that night, but after a few days it was gross!

I decorated Austin's door the night before, and filled the hallway with balloons. He had been talking about his birthday for weeks, so I wanted to make it special! He was so excited when he walked out of his room the next morning. Side note: the gloves on his hands are to stop him from picking at his nails - Doctors orders.

 He even got a special birthday hat! This was the only time I could get him to keep it on longer than a few seconds. By the end of the day, the string to go over the chin was off, and the ribbons at the top were almost gone.

That night we had one of Austin's friends over for cake and ice cream. His friend helped him open the presents. Austin wouldn't turn around and look at me, instead, he put all the presents on the couch and faced it to open them. Silly boy!

Then it was time for the cake! Ignore the frosting mess on the sides, by that point I didn't care. It took forever to frost the top!

Happy birthday buddy! Mom and dad love you so much and we are blessed to be your parents!!

Videos from December

This is Austin opening his Santa present. He doesn't seem all that excited but afterwards it really hit him.

He loves taking baths, but never splashed his own face before. Now, he does!

Christmas in Colorado

Well, after the Thanksgiving failure I was really hoping that we would make it to Colorado without any problems. Luckily, no issues happened. We love driving halfway to Grand Junction, stopping for the night and then only having four hours the next day. It is so nice to only have Austin sitting in his car seat for four hours inside of 8-9.

The second leg of the trip Austin was so tired. He didn't get to sleep the night before until like 10:30 so he napped a bit on the way.

After we got there, he was so excited to see Chloe. She put on a Christmas movie for them both to watch. We definitely watched some pretty bad movies that were holiday themed. Like, really, you have no idea.

That night we went to the zoo. Now, this zoo is awesome! Way better than the zoo here. It is also on the side of a mountain so very hilly. The zoo lights were wonderful and they had almost the whole thing open. Austin loved it! It was cold and snowing, so we asked Austin if he wanted us to bring the stroller. He did. When we got there he wouldn't sit in it. I knew then that we shouldn't bring it in, but we did. We pushed around an empty stroller the whole night.

With his Pappy looking at some animals!

Then, on Christmas morning there was a very special present waiting under the tree. It was wrapped in Santa paper. Austin was so excited! Santa brought him a choo-choo train that moves. It wasn't blue but Austin didn't seem to care. Nana helped him put it together.

This smile says it all! 

It was a very good thing that we didn't bring our presents. We got tons of stuff and are very grateful for everyone that gave them to us.

There is a place in Colorado Springs that is called Ghost Town. We decided that we would go the morning we were leaving. It was fun, but not what I expected at all. Luckily, we only had to drive halfway so we could stay a little later than planned.

Austin loves his Auntie Debra! He wouldn't sit on these saddles without her joining him. There was also a place to shoot fake guns at targets. That was certainly fun for everyone, even the adults.

There were some really old coaches. Only one could be sat in/on.

After, we went to get some food. Austin was so grumpy! He was so tired that everything was causing meltdowns. Afterward, we had a few things to get at Brandon's parents house. By the time we were up the canyon from the Springs to Woodland Park, Austin was out! He didn't wake up when we got to the house so he couldn't say goodbye. About an hour later when he woke up, he was so mad and sad! He just cried for a bit saying that he wanted to say to goodbye and give hugs. It broke my heart to see him so upset that he didn't get to say goodbye.

The next morning he was a happy camper with some food!

We are so grateful that we were able to go to Colorado, driving in the winter, for Christmas. We decided to come back a little bit early to have a few days with Daddy at home before he had to be back at work. I am happy that we could go this year. I don't know how many more years we will travel for the holidays but we will as long as we can.

Merry Christmas!!