Six in a Month?!

Austin is going to be six on ONE MONTH!
My first baby is getting SO big.  I can hardly believe it!
He is such an experienced little person.
He has lived in California, Wisconsin and Kansas.
He rolled over when he was two weeks old.
He sat on his very own, from a crawl at six months old.
He didn't walk until he was 13 months old, but when he was a year and a half he ran face first into a bookshelf.
He needed stitches for that.
When he was little he wouldn't go anywhere without a ball.
Now he can sit and draw for hours and hours.
He loves studying Spanish.
He's fascinated by plants and bugs.
He's a good singer, and is usually singing or humming something.
He is an exceptional big brother and super loving and helpful most of the time.  :)
He is friendly and caring.
He takes pride in the fact that he has friends ALL over the country!
He is thoughtful and empathetic.
He is an animal lover.
He's a picky eater.
He LOVES candy and sweet things.(He gets that from his dad.  I try to keep him in check though.)
He says he doesn't like school, but he does very well in it.
I love looking back at where he's been, and I look forward to where he'll be.

♥I'm so glad to be raising such an incredible little boy.♥

Happy last month of being five Buggy!!!

The Camera Loves Him!

My baba will be six on Thanksgiving!!

 

 

 

 He's still a hammy man!

♥

 

Sword fight!

Grab This Button

If you have another/other kids and are expecting or have already had a child with Ds...  Don't worry, they'll be accepted and loved just the same!

♥Love it!♥

~Brotherly/Sisterly Love~

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While having a special needs sib presents challenges, it also comes with opportunities. Kids who grow up with a sibling with special health or developmental needs may have more of a chance to develop many good qualities, including:

• patience
• kindness and supportiveness
• acceptance of differences
• compassion and helpfulness
• empathy for others and insight into coping with challenges
• dependability and loyalty that may come from standing up for their brother or sister.

The above info was taken from The University of Michigan Health System Website.

I Heart Faces: Thy Trusty Old Probe

To see more things that go "vroom" go to I Heart Faces!

The First Day of School

Can't believe my little buggy's a kidneybeaner!

They weren't excited at all.

;-)

It was a good day!

Let Freedom Ring!

HAPPY

INDEPENCE

DAY

Top to Bottom: Austin (7mo), Nayeli (15mo), Kheaven (9mo)

♥God Bless the U.S.A.!!!♥

I Heart Faces: Pets

Our only pet right now is a hamster and he's not very photogenic.  

For the I ♥ Faces photo challenge this week I decided to go back to about three years ago when we had Freckles.  

Austin ♥ed Freckles!

:)

I ♥ their faces!

What faces do you ♥?

Are they for real?!

Sometimes I wonder if I'm raising a baby, a toddler and a pre-schooler or if somehow I've been relocated to an alternate universe where my children are all of a sudden pre-teens.  Austin wasn't really a sassy toddler.  It was just him and me,(no siblings to compete with for attention) and he, as far as I can remember, seemed to listen wonderfully.  Nayeli has been a little more demanding.  I expect this from her, because she's my little princess.  The fact that she now defies me using complete sentences is a little disheartening.  I wonder why she's so reluctant to just come when I call her name... When I call for her a second time she yells back, "Why?"  I call her again and she says in a snobby tone, "What mama?!"  I don't think I talk to her, or anyone else like that.  Does she get it from Disney movies?  TV?  Or is this just how she is?

(She hasn't put her "cell phone" down in three days!!!)

Austin has become more of a free thinker than he was in his toddler days.  He too now questions my authority.  For anything I ask or say it seems I must have an explanation.  My least favorite thing is when I tell him not to do, or to stop doing, something he asks, "What will happen if I don't?"  It's not an unacceptable question, but I feel like he should know the answer...  a time out, or grounding from a game or toy, depending on the situation.  When he asks it feels like I can tell that he's weighing what he wants to do with the consequence.  This is probably a good skill for him to develop, but inside I'm thinking, "Do what I say because I say it.  I'm your mother and that's how it should be!"  

(Is he telling me to talk to his hand?!)

Kheaven got upset today because I wouldn't let him have a plastic bag.  He LoVeS crinkly things.  There's no way I'm letting him play with a plastic bag though.  I replaced the bag with a crinkly toy.  He was very upset and proceeded to start crawling toward the bag.  (It had the supplies I needed for cleaning out the hamster's cage in it.)  I moved it again and it was the end of him.  He pushed himself up on his arms as far as he could and threw himself over.  It was a fit.  Nine months old and throwing his first fit isn't too bad I suppose.

(Time for music lessons, already?!)

:-)  I "complain" but I wouldn't trade it for the world.  I guess I didn't expect my children to be this way so early in life, but I'll just use practice for when they're this way and their older...  I pray by then they understand respect and have enough for me to not do some (if not all) of these things.  And of course, the wonderful things that fill my heart with enormous amounts of love and joy occur more than the "teenagey" things.

Where We've Been and What We've Been Up To

Spring/Summer has brought many adventures this year so far.  We have enjoyed rock/fossil hunting near Wilson Lake, several trips to Wichita for various reasons, including the NDSSW Annual picnic, and we've also been to Kanopolis Lake and Mushroom State Park as the picture collages in the previous post show.

Wilson Lake

Gramma Glora's Porch (During visit for NDSSW)

Sleeping on the way home from one of our excursions.

Kheaven is crawling now!  He mostly does the army crawl, but he is starting to alternate his legs when he moves.  He can also stand while holding on to furniture and/or fingers.  He loves to give kisses, sing and play pat-a-cake.  The coolest thing he's done as far as motor skills go recently is pop open a flip top on a water bottle!

Nayeli keeps learning new words and using them in sentences.  She is starting to have real conversations and she loves talking on her toy cell phone!  At the park she compliments other little girls, saying how much she likes their shoes or hair.  She is quite the entertaining sprite!  This past week she decided she wanted to try and sit on her baby brother twice.  He didn't seem to mind, but I wasn't ecstatic about it.  She climbs on him like she wants him to crawl around with her on his back.  Silly girl!

Austin is having fun running around outside, kicking the soccer ball around, and playing basketball.  We had a couple of storms last week and they didn't knock the basketball hoop down, but instead bent and snapped.  We may need to work on getting a new one.

Austin with some of his best friends.

I have been going through all of our things getting ready for my very first rummage sale.  I can't say I'm excited because I have NO IDEA what I'm doing!  I am far too much of a perfectionist to just have things outside for people to buy... and working in retail for ten years isn't helping.  I want everything to look like it would in a store to optimize selling, and that's just too much work!

Some things we're looking forward to doing in the near future are visiting our local water park and possibly visiting WI in August just before school starts!  We've been busy and had so many fun times during that busy-ness!  Hope all of you have been having a great spring/summer as well!!!

i heart faces: "Jump for Joy!"

I was going to skip this weeks i heart faces challenge, as I didn't have any decent jumping pictures in my photo library.  However, yesterday when we decided to go outside it happened to be raining.  :-)  Of course, Austi, being the boy that he is, just HAD to jump in the puddles.  :-)  He was definitely full of joy while doing it too. 

We ♥ spring!

i heart faces: "Hands-On Fun"

Yay!!  I think this is my first i heart faces entry for 2010!  This week "Hands-On Fun" theme seems like a good place to jump in.  Hands are one of my favorite things to photograph!  This picture is of my son Austin, his best friend and his best friends best friend.  Sidewalk chalk and bottled water made for some GrEEn hands on this hot summer day in Aug of '09. 
:-D

Happy 5th Birthday to My Buggy Boy!

There was no denying you were gonna be a cute kid!


WONDERfull at ONE!


A Totally CooL Two Year Old!


Full of life and glee at THREE!


Thoughtful and friendly at FOUR!


FaBuLoUs!!!  at FIVE!

(poor little man woke up with pink eye)

I'm sooo glad he's in my life.  The best five years ever, no doubt!