Thanksgiving Day

 

4 blog posts in one day you say???? Yes it's true. It's because I have the whole month of November to account for when I was too busy to post stuff. This was our Thanksgiving feast, organized by some friends for those who weren't going away for the holiday. There was a ton of good food, as you can see. Jess made rolls and a pie that was all gone before all of the other desserts because it was amazing. Even though we had a really good time with everybody, we both wished we could have been with our families.

And you can see Austin mid-stride on the left side of the picture.

Finals week help

 
Thanks mom for coming out and helping us so much during finals week! There was no way that I would have had time to study as much as I needed to if you weren't there to watch Austin for us. You're the greatest!

Austin fun words

 

Austin is walking all over the house like he owns the place. He has really developed a personality that's really fun to be around. He has also learned a whole bunch of new words:
"aught" for "hot." He points at all the lightbulbs, space heaters and all the lights on the tree.
"caca" for when he points to the trash and anything else we say is caca.
"ee ee ee" when he points to his name hanging on the wall of his room.
"Choo choo" for the trains on the quilt hanging in his room.
"woo woo" when you ask him "what does a doggy say?"
"Dooooon't!!" after we babysat somebody's two year old who Austin kept bugging by touching his arm. Austin picked up on the word pretty quick and now says it whenever you do something he doesn't approve of, like change his diaper. The other night I put him in his crib, and ten minutes later after some fussing I hear him yelling out "don't! Dooon't!" He didn't want to go to sleep I guess.
"neenoooww" for what sounds cats make.
"ball" for absolutely anything that is round.
"dee dee" for dad, babies and binkies.

Rockettes Christmas Spectacular!

 

For Jess' birthday tonight we dropped off the baby at a friend's house and went out to the the Radio City Rockettes Christmas show! It was a lot of fun. They do a total of over 300 kicks, have 1300 costumes for the entire cast, and they even had a cool living nativity scene with sheep and camels. I didn't actually count the kicks or costumes, the program had the facts. I stopped counting after 4 kicks.

Our baby boy is growing up!

A new record caught on tape!!

The Spooky Family

 

I figured I'd upload a pic of the whole scary family, so here it is. I think I look more like the Emperor from Star Wars that Lord Voldemort, but oh well.

Ward Halloween Party

 

Here's Mrs. Potter and Harry Potter himself. We all went to the ward Halloween party tonight with a Harry Potter theme. I was Lord Voldemort and I am proud to say that I looked so scary that I made a little girl cry. Austin won "Best Costume" award from the primary but I don't know what it counts for, seeing how the primary presidency includes Jess. It should also be noted that the other awards handed out to kids for costumes happened to go to the other kids of the primary presidency. Scandalous.

New Pics!! :)

Me and Austin had a little fun outside today. We updated the web albums with some good pics, including my new favorite of him on the steps. He's pretty determined to never smile for the camera though. Check them out!

New Family Web Albums

Hey this is just to let you all know that I've started some family web photo albums that you can access on the right hand side of our blog's main webpage. There should be 3 links called Life with Austin, Scenes from Ohio and Dental School. I will update and add to these every so often. Once you open up the webpage where the albums are at you can bookmark the page so you can visit it easier. You can also comment on the photos so be sure to let us know you stopped by the page.


We had a Columbus Day parade go right through our neighborhood! It happened right at lunch time so we were all there to see it together. They threw out lots of candy but we didn't eat a lot because we bought our own candy at home and have been eating it all day everyday. I have at least. There were like 5 marching bands and Austin started to do a little dance each time one passed. It was lots of fun.

Happy Birthday!

Austin had a birthday! We are so surprised at how quickly time has gone by. We invited some people over and made him a turtle cupcake cake. Then for the family party we went to Cici's pizza for a sweet pizza buffet. It really was mostly for me because I absolutely love that place, but we did it in honor of Austin. He ate an entire piece of pizza by himself. I ate 12. (per Jess's request, I must clarify that this is Ryan writing this entry)


Austin got caught by his two girlfriends who found out about each other at the party. You can tell that Evelyn in the back is most upset because she still has to see Austin every Wednesday when her mom babysits him for us.






These kids are from the rival kid gang across the tracks. They surrounded Austin and wanted to know why he was having a party on their turf. Austin just wanted to drive around in peace. Actually I think these were the only kids there old enough to sing happy birthday to him, and that's what they were doing.

Standing tall!

Austin is just beginning to stand on his own! Here he is breaking his record of 7 seconds, with a new record of about 8 seconds! To be honest I don't really know exactly how long he stands but everytime it gets longer! In this picture he was kinda chuckling to himself like he knew he was doing something cool haha.





This was when he decided that he was done going for his record so he'll just plop down. I could tell he was so proud of himself. After plopping down he went back to pressing the power button on the TV off and on about 100 times.

Elder Bond

See ya later Matt! He entered the MTC two weeks ago. We just heard from him last week and he's doing great and loving his district. Matt is a really good kid and he's going to do a lot of good work in Minneapolis, MN for the next two years as a missionary for our church. Me and Jess weren't able to go see him off but we did see him last month before he left in a quick trip to California. I'm taking bets to see how much weight he gains in the MTC all day buffet.

"Uh-oh"

Here's our big boy walking all over the furniture! He can pull himself up onto ANYTHING (and pull down anything off of anywhere). This of course has led to more tumbles but he's got a head as strong as a rock so it doesn't phase him. This is also a nice shot of his new squinty smile that he does all the time. His latest and cutest thing is when he does this squint smile and nuzzles his head into your chest to give you loves. He's a very sweet boy. He also has figured out how to say "uh-oh," making that his official first word. He likes to say it so much that right before he drops something off of his high chair he'll warn everybody and say "uh-oh" before he lets go. Then it drops and he peers off the side to find out where it landed.
It's funner than ever being a parent, me and Jess love every minute we get to spend with him. Jess is still doing great running almost everyday and getting ready for her second marathon (crazy girl) and I am busy doing a lot for school. Soon I'll start studying for the national board exam in December, which basically tests on everything having to do with the body. It's gonna be fun!

Big boy!

We went in to get austin from his nap and look what we saw! He just pulls himself right up as quick as he can. I'm not sure if he knows exactly how to get himself down though without a little tumble. I can't even believe how old he's getting already. 10 months in just a few days!

FYI

Hey this is a test post to just let you all know that from now on when we post something on our blog you will get an email showing what we posted and giving a link to our blog's website. Follow the link to see what we have updated recently! Just to get your attention I'll include a cute picture of Austin

Roseola Virus Austin

Our poor baby finally got over his roseola virus that had him drained of energy for a couple of days. You can't really see the rash very much here but soon after this picture he had a lot of red spots all over his chest. We're glad that now he is back to normal.

Tragic loss in the family

This is hard news for me to break. Today me and Austin were at home while Jess was working. We decided to watch some Baby Einstein but soon realized that my Xbox was broken. It's called the "Red Ring of Death" and it happens when an Xbox passes from this life to the next, named after the appearance of three flashing red lights on the front of the console. I couldn't believe my eyes. I have heard of such things happening but never thought they would happen to me. Tragic. So, being a somewhat common problem that this is, Microsoft has a 3 year warranty and will replace my Xbox free of charge. 3 weeks from now I'll have a new, working Xbox 360, but school will be starting so it won't actually matter. Oh well.

Sick Boy :(

Poor baby is sick with the Roseola virus.  This is his third day of fever and it's expected to break either today or tomorrow, at the latest Monday.  His eyes have just had this sad, glassy look and he's just been really clingy.  You can definitely tell that he's not feeling that great.  It's sad to see him this way and feel him burning up.  102 is about the highest it got which is still 5 degrees away from any danger, but it's a bad feeling knowing that your baby is sick.  The virus isn't anything major, it just causes a fever for a few days and once that goes away a rash appears.  Thank heaven for motrin and tylenol though.  Good news is that it's almost over.

Test photo sent from my wireless phone

Hil's wedding

Here are some pics from Hil's beautiful wedding. It was an awesome day for everybody! The decorations were great and all the dresses and tuxes went together well. We were very happy to have come (even though there was no chocolate fountain like I had insisted upon haha). The last pic is from the Scott house.

Expert Crawler

I don't know why but the audio isn't in sync, it's slightly delayed.

Break dancing

Austin, Jess and I have kinda been learning how to break dance in our spare time. We recorded a video to share with the fam. Here it is, hope you enjoy. Email me and I'll try to help you learn the moves if you want.

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Austin, Personal Training, and Prophies

Here's our latest update since last September! Nothing has happened really. Just kidding, we just kinda forgot entirely that we started a blog. Maybe it was all the crazy stuff going on, maybe it was the pressure of writing witty blog entries. Now we have been compelled to start up again because of Jason and Brooke's good example and good looking webpage. Jason and Brooke, you have always inspired us. Thank you.

So Austin was born with no complications and a somewhat long labor (20 hrs). I kept telling Jess to hurry up cuz I was getting pretty bored just standing around, but she was insistent on taking her time. Today Austin is sitting on his own, sleeping through the night (FINALLY), eating solid foods and saying "da da da de de deet." He also randomly shrieks.

Here is a recent photo of us out in a Cleveland blizzard awhile ago.


Jess is working as a personal trainer at a really high-tech gym, voted number one in Cleveland! She only works twice a week cuz that's pretty much all the spare time she has. Right now she's doing a lot of introductory sessions and is building her one-on-one client base. On the other days of the week, Austin keeps her busy busy with plenty of Mom things to do. She's the reason why he's on track with eating, sleeping and growing. She's actually taught him to read Spanish and translate it into baby language, which I think is a first for any baby in the world.

I am almost done with my first year of dental school and have been pretty busy for the last two months. Lots of studying to make it through the 6 finals I have coming up. It's pretty stressful but I haven't had a breakdown yet so all's well. I've done 3 teeth cleanings this semester and have one more left. And now I have to go study.

Sometimes Austin tries to study with me but I think he gets bored: