I HAVE A 12 YEAR OLD????

 It is hard to believe that it has been 12 years.  On one hand these past 12 years have gone by so fast but on the other hand I just can't believe that it has been that long ago that I became a Mommy!  What an incredible young man my son is growing up to be.  He is so handsome, smart, funny, dorky, silly, tall...yes very tall!  He is taller than me, I know this doesn't sound tall since I am only a towering 5'3 but when your child grows taller than you, it seems REALLY tall.  

Austin has to share his Birthday month with 2 younger siblings, Sebastian and Abby.  This year we had a joint family party for Abby and Austin since their birthdays are only a week apart.

This was the first extended family birthday party he has had in years, I think since he was 4 or 5.  So it was really fun for him to celebrate with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, and of course siblings and Mom & Dad.

On his actual Birthday he was with his other side of the family, the Conrad's.  His Dad brought him home that evening.  Vinnie was out of town so I made plans to take Austin out to dinner,  Grandma was going to come over and watch the little kiddos but it snowed and snowed and snowed that night, the roads were not safe for travel.  Austin and I ordered some pizza and then I handed him his birthday gift from us (Mom & Dad).....an iPod!!  He was so excited, this will have been his 3rd iPod in a year.  His first one froze so we sent it in and they sent him a new one, the 2nd one he dropped in the toilet and it never worked after that and since water is not covered under the warranty he was out of luck. So now, 6 months later he has a new one.  The upside of this is the iPod's are much better now and have more features than before.  He had a great 12th Birthday!  It didn't end there, the snow storm had stopped by the next day so Grandma came over and watched the little ones and Austin and I went to Texas Roadhouse for his Birthday dinner.

Happy 12th Birthday Austin!

Time to put up the Christmas Tree...

(This is what I used for my Blog header for December)

We had so much fun putting up our tree this year, everyone helped!  Last year, Abby was of course only 1 month old, Gabe and Sebastian had no idea what was really going on, in fact they only cared about taking the ornaments off the tree as soon as we hung them up.  Vinnie was working nearly everyday so he wasn't there to help so it was just Austin & me.  NOT this year, we were all there!  Sebastian really loved looking at all the ornaments...

and Abby liked to give him a hand...

Here is cute little Abby in her Christmas dress....

Abby's 1st Birthday!!!!

Has it really already been 1 year?  The time goes by so fast!  This past year has just been a whirlwind, it seems like my little baby girl was just born and yet she is already walking all over the place, getting into things, and talking!  Her birthday fell on a Friday this year but we had a family party for her on the Sunday after.  She and Austin shared a party, since his 12th (yes, I said 12th) birthday was the following week. 
She had her one year check up on Nov 22nd, she weighed 20 lbs 5 ounces and was 28 inches tall.  Dr. Bosworth said that put her in the 75th percentile for her height and the 50th percentile for her weight.  He said that she was tall and skinny.  She had a healthy check up and everything seemed to be right on target or even a bit advanced.  She has her 8 front teeth (4 on top and 4 on bottom).  She loves to dance, at the sound of any music she will start to sway side to side, so cute!  She is a good little eater, she will try almost anything, in fact she really seems to like steamed broccoli.  We switched her over to whole milk without a problem, she seems to like it just fine.  She loves to give kisses, wave, clap, and she loves to carry a purse.  She is such a little doll!








She didn't really seem to care too much for her birthday cake.  She took a few dainty bites but didn't want to make a mess I suppose.



 

 


Happy 1st Birthday Abby!



Sebastian's 1st day of pre-school

Sebastian has been involved with the Jordan School District in the early intervention program since shortly after we moved to Utah.  He has had a developmental specialist come to our house once a week to work with him on his speech and prepare him for pre-school.  You have to be 3 years old to go to school.  We found out that he will be going to school with Gabe and they will be in the same class.  He turned 3 on a Wednesday and started school the following Monday.  He goes twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays.

He was very excited to have his own backpack.

Every Morning he walks Gabe out to the bus and gets on the bus to check it out and then gets off and waves to Gabe...BUT, today he gets to go with him...

Daddy was a bit teary eyed watching his Baby boy go off to school on the school bus.

And here you are home from school, you put your finger to your mouth and said "hmmm"

You had a great day at school and Teacher Salli said that you did everything you were suppose to do and you participated in all activities, YAY!!



SEBASTIAN IS 3 ALREADY!!!

I cannot believe that my baby boy is 3 years old already!  The time goes by entirely way too quick!  Seems like not too long ago he was just a baby and we were able to hold this little guy in our arms and rock him to sleep.  It is hard to believe that he will be starting school this upcoming Monday.  He will be going to pre-school with Gabe.  He is going to be so excited!  He loves to get on the school bus every morning with Gabe but this time, he will be staying on the bus with him.  Sure wish I could be the little fly on the wall to watch how that all goes...

We decided not to do a BIG party for him since he doesn't seem to really understand what is going on anyway, we thought that it would be more enjoyable for us and for him to do something very low key.  My mom came and joined out little family.  I made him a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, he is our chocolate nut!

 He loves dinosaurs!  This is his new thing and he is always asking for dinosaurs when searching thru their toys....

Grandma Marci got him a set of Animal Planet dinosaurs and Austin got him a set of the mini dino's...

We got him this plush Rock filled with 7 different plush dinosaurs....

Grandma & Grandpa Almanza and Nina Tish got Sebastian a lot of really cute new clothes for his birthday, yay....SCHOOL CLOTHES!  :)

Mommy & Sebastian

That's my Baby Boy!!!!

Abby is 11 Months Old!

These are some of the many faces of our little Abby!  The picture on the left is her famous look that she likes to give us when she wants something.  She does a cute little whine sound along with it.  It almost looks like she is getting ready to cry but she really is just trying to "work it".  She is such a little cutie and has quite the personality!

She has recently learned how to go up the stairs and loves it!  She will climb to the top and then start to give us her little whine with her "workin it" look and want us to come and get her.  As soon as we get her and bring her to the bottom of the stairs, she goes right back up!  This other picture on the right is her being very proud of herself for being able to climb into the chair on her own.  She loves to learn new things and loves to be praised for them.  A couple of days ago she attempted going down the stairs on her own.  She goes down frontwards and just scoots her little bum down each stair which leaves her in a squatting position and then she wiggles her legs out from underneath her and then scoots down to the next step.  Sebastian did this too when he first learned to come down the stairs.  Makes us so nervous because it looks like she could easily topple forward!


Abby loves any and all food!  She will be our only one that is not picky!  Hopefully it will stay this way.  She tries to copy some words that we say, if she is thirsty, she will bring us her emtpy water cup for us to fill it up.  Anything that resembles a purse (meaning that it has a handle) she tries to pick it up and put the handle over her shoulder.  She is just too cute and so much fun to watch!

Halloween 2010

Austin has always had some clever costumes and the awesome face paint to go with it.  Usually Vinnie airbrushes his face for him, last year Austin chose to go as "Jason" and wanted to wear the mask.  This year he came up with this idea on his own and said he wanted to be "Al Capone, all shot up".  He said all of his friends really like his costume and he got a lot of comments while trick or treating.

We were going to take Gabe, Sebastian, & Abby out trick or treating but unfortunately it rained and never let up.  Since they don't really get the whole trick or treating thing, or even the costume thing, we decided to stay in and pass out candy.  Gabe could really care less what was going on except for when Austin's friends came over to get him.  Here he is trying out one of their costumes:

Sebastian on the other hand really enjoyed all of the trick or treaters coming to the door and got all excited, EXCEPT when they left, he would cry.  Poor little guy, I think he was so happy and excited thinking that these kids were coming to play with him but they left.  We didn't put Sebastian in a costume at all because he just wasn't into that.

Abby was a little Ladybug, in fact I bought her costume last year when I was still pregnant with her.

Happy Halloween!