A Not-So-Fun First

Austin threw up in public for the first time today. We were at the library, storytime had just finished, he had asked to be picked up so I was holding him and looking at a shelf of books. Seemed like a perfectly normal morning. Then cough, cough...yuck. Did I mention he had blueberries for breakfast? There will probably be purple stains on the library carpet forever to remind me of this morning. Did I also mention that we walked to the library today, so we got to walk home smelling a little pungent? Thank goodness Austin and I were both wearing layers so we could take off the worst parts of our clothing, which we carried home in a plastic bag provided by our totally wonderful children's librarian JoAnn.

This happens to every mom at some point, right?

Smiles

Austin is quite a smiley kid but it is pretty hard to get a smiley picture. Here are a few successes from this week.

Visiting Gran and Pops

Austin and I headed down to Texas last week to visit his Gran and Pops. As you can imagine Austin had a GREAT time! Gran and Pops quickly became his two favorite people--Austin ran to meet my FIL at the door every night when he came home from work just like he meets Zach at home, and he cried if my MIL so much as left the room he was in.

Gran and Pops picked out his Halloween costume and took him trick-or-treating.

Austin got to try a Three Musketeers. (By the way, how is it that a toddler instinctively knows that a lumpy, brown unfamiliar food is good and snatches it up but turns up his nose at an unfamiliar green vegetable?)

Pops built an awesome house for Austin to play in.

The weather was beautiful and we spent lots of time outdoors.

Bill and Becky's neighbors have some ducks and Austin liked to watch them. We fed them one day. I don't think Austin really "got it" but he liked throwing bread through the fence.


Austin has become a climber. Doesn't he look awfully pleased with himself to be up there?

Weekend Project

Last Thursday I went to a jewelry-making Girls Night Out, even though I hardly ever wear jewelry. Before I left I remarked to Zach that I might wear it more often if I had someplace to keep it that was visible and accessible, instead of stuck at the bottom of my closet in a bunch of different little boxes.

The next day, inspiration struck. I've had this bulletin board for practically all my life, push pins are easy to come by...and voila.

So far at least, my reasoning is working out: I wore a necklace today. Austin was fascinated. Note to self: no delicate chains for the foreseeable future.

Comparison

The first picture is August 2008; the second is now. Wow! My baby is not a baby anymore.

Just a Few Pictures

I love this age! It is so fun to watch him figure out his world day by day.

Visit from Grandma

Austin had a visit from Grandma Susan recently. She quickly made it to the top of his list of favorite people--she let him play on her bed, climb on the couch, and other normally off-limits activities. :-)

Austin loves books and asks to be read to many times a day.

Grandma brought this hooded towel. Austin loves to run around the house wearing it like a little froggy superhero.

We went apple picking while Grandma was here. (Leading to the applesauce making mentioned in my last post.) Austin liked putting apples in the buckets. I don't think he has made the connection between the whole fruit and the apple bits he eats at home--he didn't try to take a single bite out of the apples. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time wandering around the orchard.

What Would I Do Without Google?

Let's just say it was 10:00 at night, you'd spent ALL DAY in the kitchen making and canning applesauce, and you had a pan with scorched applesauce on the bottom. And you'd really like to kick back and relax, only this yucky pan was staring you in the face. Did you know that a little bit of baking soda and water in the pan, boiled for a few minutes, makes the stuff come right off? Thank you, Google!

Practicing to be Mr. Universe???

Sometimes dinner seems more like a training session...

Weekend Project

After reading about it, talking to friends about it, pondering it, and even taking a (mostly worthless) class, I finally jumped into the world of canning. Over the past year and a half I have become more and more convinced of the merits of eating locally, so preserving some of the summer harvest for myself seemed like a natural step in that direction.

So Friday morning Austin and I drove out to Yarnick's (one of our local farms) and bought a half bushel of tomatoes and a half bushel of Italian sweet peppers, plus some onions and jalapenos. Austin conveniently took a three hour nap (I asked Zach to pray specifically for that), the entirety of which I spent in the kitchen. And when he woke up, simple vegetables had been transformed into beautiful, tasty salsa.

Canning is kind of addictive, as it turns out. I keep grabbing my Ball Blue Book and looking for more things I can make. So many possibilities!

Mommy's Helper

This morning after breakfast Austin and I went upstairs to brush our teeth and do morning chores like making the bed. I was doing this and that in my room and noticed that he was going back and forth between my room and his. You know what he was doing?

Carrying diapers from the basket in my room into his room and putting them in the drawer! (I think there are a few on the floor because the drawer got full.) The correct drawer, no less, even though it is hardest for him to reach. I love it!

At Least One of Us Has No Reason to Feel Guilty

After church this morning Zach suggested we go out to lunch. Given that it was basically naptime, we knew we had to choose someplace quick and casual. We settled on Wendy's. (It just reopened this week due to a fire last summer, so it is currently the place to go in Indiana.) This is not really like us, you know. Going to eat fast food, I mean. We could probably count the number of times we eat fast food per year on one hand. We are more into slow food, organic food, local food...

But anyway, we went, ignoring any feelings of guilt. Zach ordered their new Asian Sweet and Spicy Boneless wings (which we highly recommend, by the way) and a baked potato, I ordered chicken nuggets and mandarin oranges; we also ended up with a small fries due to a Wendy's mistake. We figured we would just share our stuff with Austin. Did he want Daddy's wings? No. Did he want Mommy's chicken nuggets? No. Did he want french fries? Maybe a few bites. Did he want mandarin oranges? Yes. He ate the whole bowl while Zach was getting our drinks!

Kind of makes you feel good, you know? You must be doing something right when you take your kid to Wendy's and all he wants to eat is mandarin oranges.

Bible Story

Every night at bedtime we read a Bible story with Austin and pray with him. Here's how it went tonight, with a picture to help set the scene.

Daddy: This is a man whose name

Austin: (pointing) Daw! (dog)

Daddy: is Isaiah. God

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: sent him to tell the people

Austin: Daw! Daw!

Daddy: what they should do. He is called a

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: prophet. Can you say "prophet"?

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: The people are bad and God sends him to tell

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: them to stop being bad. He says that

Austin: Daw!

Daddy: if they don't, God will hurt their country, and wreck their cities, and burn up their houses.

Austin: (laughs)

Daddy: God is sorry when His people sin and

Austin: (laughs)

Daddy: do wrong things. God sends Isaiah to help them stop doing what is bad.

Goodness, I love this little boy!

Pictures I Should Have Posted Already

Sorry, Mom and Becky, I know I haven't been posting pictures of Austin nearly often enough for you. Here's some cuteness from July that I just never got around to posting before. Most of these are from the Collins' visit a few weeks ago.

I think this is cute; they're watching SportsCenter together.

Austin vs. Eeyore