January

January has been an awesome month! We were able to keep all of our couple New Year's Resolutions and I have kept none of mine :) Anyway, one of our resolutions was to go on a date once a month. Saturday was the day!

We pulled up to smashburgers and it was awesome! First off, the cashier let me order a kid's meal, so we only ended up paying a dollar for both of our meals after the Groupon! Secondly, while at the register, we debated getting a shake, but decided against it. Then, partway through our meal, the waitress brought us out a free butterfinger shake just because she wanted us to try it! It was so nice!! I really could not get over how nice that was! So I had to write it down. She made my whole week awesome with just that one cool and random act of kindness. Thank you waitress lady!!

Tyson's sayings:
My fingers are all ketchupdity!
I want to get that Daddy!!
I not tired! I happy!
Christian: Tyson, you're number one!! Tyson: No Daddy, I two!! Then he ran around with his scissor hands clipping at us :)

Tyson is still such an awesome brother! He is always giving his best toys to Austin when he cries. He also likes watching basketball with his daddy. It is our new bribe for getting ready for bed happily! We'll see how long this tactic works! He is getting to be pretty headstrong these days! In fact Christian was saying we should do a mini olympics and have one of the races being putting a screaming three year old in a car seat. It takes muscle, skill, and speed and it only gets harder as he gets bigger! If anyone has any parenting advice on getting your kid to eat or do anything without bribery, feel free to leave a comment!! (Oh, and also potty training help...he won't wear his underwear because he is afraid he will pee in them, so even if he just went in the toilet he won't put them on...)We could use any advice we can get!

Austin's sayings:
Waaaaah! :) He actually is the best baby! He is sleeping so well and instead of crying in the morning, he just breathes fast and I can hear him outside of our room! He is eating so well and is starting to smile...randomly, but they are smiles nonetheless! I love him so much!

We have been blessed so much and I am so grateful. What a beautiful life we have been given to share!!

Happy Anniversary!

Christian and I have now been married for four years! Can you believe it? So much has changed in so little amount of time. I never realized then what an amazing man I was marrying at the time but I have been so lucky and so blessed to be with Christian. I love you Babe!!
2007 in Mexico where we camped on the beach and painted an orphanage
2008 with the start of our parenting adventure!
2009 in California with Christian's family!
2010 as a family of four! I love you Christian! I really do more than I ever before have! I really am so happy to be with you!

Meet Austin

I love this face!

The crazy hair!
The crazy eye-brows!

Austin is my angel-baby! When Tyson is screaming and throwing tantrums, I just have to lock myself away with this little guy and everything seems to be wonderful again! He is so cute! Here are some of the things you may not know about him!

He has an outie belly-button which Tyson always wants to clean!
He has a double cowlick (just like all of the boys in this house!) People always ask if I've styled Tyson's hair, but no--it grows crazy like that without any help from me! Hopefully for both of our boy's sakes fohawks will be back in style again by the time they're teenagers!
He has light brown hair with reddish hints
He has beautiful deep blue eyes with crazy eyebrows that stick straight out!
He is happy and content to just look around the room even if he's not being held
He has a hard time sleeping in the day-cries sometimes instead of sleeping-but does incredibly well at night!
He makes bird noises and is a loud breather
He wrinkles his forehead and stretches when he wakes up--which I think is so cute!
He sleeps with his mouth open, just like his dad and brother
He has hairy arms and ears but this is already starting to go away :(

I love being a mom of two! It's so much more fun and I am enjoying the baby stage which I never did at all with Tyson. I was too paranoid about everything! We have been incredibly blessed and I love all of my boys so much!

Tyson

Tyson is an amazing boy! He is so fun to parent and is much better than I ever could have asked for. I'm so grateful for him!He thinks it's cool that I can make milk with the "machine!" He likes to try sometimes, too :)
He LOVES to read to Austin. He is so cute!

Some of his funny sayings as of late:

"Mommy, I made a 'bless you' thing!"--meaning he sneezed!
"Daddy at school?"--He asks this every morning
"Hurry, Hurry! Get that gumball!"--For Christmas, Christian's brother sent us a gumball machine that actually takes money. If Tyson ever finds money on the sidewalk, this is what he says as he rushes for home!
"I happy now!" He is sent to his room whenever he throws tantrums and is allowed to come out when he's happy. However, when we put him to bed, he often shouts this out even though he's not in trouble!
"There's a bug in there!" He says this if he has an itch in his ear, eye, under his shirt...anywhere!
"Feed me! Feed me!" He chants this whenever Austin is crying :)
"I don't like it!" He says this very definitively every time he is offered something new to eat...before and after he tries it! Yesterday he was offered unlimited goldfish crackers, juice, and cookies if he would take just one bite of soup. After many tears and about fifteen minutes, he tried a bite with a goldfish on top of the spoon. He didn't like it. He doesn't like many things!

He is getting so big! He recognizes Jesus in pictures, loves to sing (Santa rap is his all time favorite!), goes crazy for leapfrog movies as well as winnie the pooh, reads, plays on his own very well but LOVES to play with friends, and even has a fake laugh that he uses all the time! We love our Tyson-buddy! He is such a blessing to us!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!!
For New year's this year we babysat a few of the neighbor's kids and really had a blast! We had pizza, played skipbo with the older kids, and launched some mentos in coke! It was really fun to have someone to celebrate with us! Later that night our next-door neighbors had us over for a midnight barbecue, games, and to watch the fireworks! I was feeding Austin during the party, but Christian had a really good time! My favorite quote of the night was, "We finally bought real champagne this year instead of that cheap sparkling stuff...Oh wait, none of you guys drink!" We love our neighbors!! They are so kind to us!

Break

Over beak we did some fun things! Between feedings we went to wal-mart a few times, attempted the zoo, drove around downtown San Antonio, and visited the missions. Mostly we stayed home and did laundry--between 6 and 10 loads a week! I'm so grateful Christian is such a kind and patient person! I needed his help so much and he never once complained that this wasn't what he wanted to do over his break...although I'm pretty sure it wasn't his dream vacation from school! It was a vacation for me though! Not one day did Christian do homework or go on campus! It was dreamy :)Here we are at the missions!

Driving around downtown! I've never seen more tire shops and car junkyards in my life! We even drove past a garbage can with an actual car inside of it...it was pretty crazy!
Of course we have to have a picture of this little guy! We love him so much!!