Happy Birthday Austin!

Austin is such a fun little boy to have as a part of my family.  Its interesting as a mom to see how each child brings such joy to me!  You think that with each one that you just couldn't be happier, and yet as you welcome each child into your home, you are just filled with so much more joy that you didn't even know you were missing!  Just looking at these pictures makes me burst with love for this sweet little boy.  I really can't imagine our home without him.

So, this cute, sweet boy turned 3 in September!  What a fun celebration we had for him.  He wanted his theme to be dinosaurs, so we had fun decorating the house with dinosaurs from our collection.   Here he is first thing in the morning.  He was so excited for it to be his birthday!  We enjoyed a fabulous breakfast of Fruity Pebbles and Lucky Charms.

Austin helped me decorate his cake.  I was planning on only putting two or three dinosaurs on it, but then he just kept putting more on.  It didn't turn out how I planned, but hey, its his birthday, and he loved it!

As I was snapping a few pictures, he started to lean to the side, then lost his balance and put his hand in the cake.  Luckily it wasn't too much of a problem to smooth the spot back over, and fix a few letters.  At first he didn't know what to think, and I thought he might cry.  I helped him to laugh with me about it, then it was all fine.

I love how at this age children are so genuinely excited about each and every present.  They would be happy with one toy from the dollar store.  It makes it all the more fun to spoil them, right?

Austin at three:

• Is so extremely happy.
• Loves to give hugs. I love to see him hug his grandparents, aunts, and uncles.  It makes me smile.
• When he is sad, he will cry, sometimes longer than necessary (you know the fake cry that eventually happens), but then suddenly he will stop and smile and say "Mom, I'm happy!!"  My favorite was when he was throwing a fit at a store in the mall.  I don't remember what he was upset about, but it was a small enough store I left him at the entrance crying on the floor while I made my purchase (I could see him the whole time).  I think the clerk helping me thought I was mean to just ignore him.  But then suddenly he came happy as could be to the back of the store announcing his usual phrase.  The clerk just laughed and couldn't believe it. 
• Loves his brothers and sister.  My favorite is that he refers to Lauren as "my Lauren."  He will tell all sorts of strangers "that's my Lauren."
• Is so susceptible to reverse psychology.  I love that I can tell him "Austin, whatever you do, don't eat ____." He will immediately start giggling and eat it, or do whatever we just told him not to do.  Some of my toddlers haven't reacted well to this, but I love it when it works so well!  
• Is an amazing sharer.  If anyone wants something, all they really need to do is ask nicely, and within a minute or two, usually less, he will just hand it over.  
• Loves to lead music.  Whenever we sing for Family Home Evening, or scripture study, he quickly gets up, and leads the music for us.  
• Loves music in general.  I've never had one who seemed to have such a love of music as such a young age.  He was late at starting to talk, and is still a little bit behind.  I joke that he sang before he spoke, but its not totally a joke.  He really did.  He didn't sing words, and still doesn't really, but he sings the songs usually right on pitch. He loves to sit at the piano and try to play it. There have been a few other things that show that deep love of music, but I can't remember them right now.
• Loves to tease, but is usually pretty good natured about how he does it.  One day he called one of his brothers the wrong name, just to be silly.  When that brother said his right name, he said, "No, you're ____ (another brother's name)."  This went on for quite a while.  
• Is easy going.
• Loves to be big and do things like his brothers.
• Is getting better at talking, but still mispronounces most words.  While I know its not the optimal, I actually find it so cute and endearing.  I know he will eventually grow out of it, so for now I just love the cute way he says everything.  My favorites are no (mo), Dylan (Dyl-Dyl), Jayden (Tay-Tay), Ethan (Ee-Tee), Austin (Au-Tin), Bob the Builder (Bob-be-bi-br-br-br... sometimes he add lots of extra syllables there, sometimes its just right), sit (um... just imagine it with an "h" after the s), smoothie (poopy), abracadabra (I can't think of how he says it, but its just cute).
• Loves to eat frozen fruit, smoothies, yogurt, airplane sandwiches (we have sandwich cutters-they are actually a tie fighter and the millennium falcon - but he just calls them airplanes), strawberries, pumpkin seeds, and raisins.  He's really not to picky and loves so much more, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
• Loves Elmo, Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear, dinosaurs, trains, and airplanes.
• Loves preschool and nursery.

Again?

On our cruise, Austin bit a chunk off a new bar of soap. Now a birthday candle? I think this boy really has a sweet tooth and is willing to test anything.

Bits and Pieces

Austin loves to play, and plays with all sorts of everyday things in the way I remember playing with them as a kid.  I don't remember doing this with laundry baskets, but I do remember doing them with chairs.  We would even get out the hand mixer to use for our gear shift.  I haven't passed that idea down, but it is fun to watch my kids play like I did.  Austin reminds me a lot of how Dylan used to play (and still does) but on a much smaller scale.  

Here is a display of more of Austin's independence.  He came to me with his hair all combed by himself.

Dylan played baseball during the spring.  He was on the Giants.  He loved it!  The only downer was that his team was made up of a lot of younger kids, and none of them were "super leaguers" so they got squashed in every single game.  Well, I guess there were a few they only lost by a few points.  They keep the teams the same for two years, so hopefully next year the kids will have improved some.  Either way, he had a lot of fun.

Jayden played soccer, no surprise there.  His best friend Zane, (in the picture with him) is getting pretty good at playing, and they have started to help each other out and play more "real" soccer, and a little less "herd" ball (although I wouldn't say Jayden has ever played "herd" ball as much as the rest of his team).  There are a few other kids starting to get it too.  They have a good team of all boys, most of which are his best buddies.  It has been so fun for him!

Devon got older this year.  Big suprise.  I won't reveal his true age - but you can get the idea by the mass of flames on his cake.  =)   And yes, that is a Darth Vader holding a candle lightsaber...

Ethan graduated from preschool in May.  This year was so good for him!  His class was of all kids from our neighborhood with the exception of two.  So these kids are some his best friends, the kids he plays with all the time, although there are a few more friends he loves to play with that weren't in preschool with him.  He is so lucky to have so many fun kids that live within a few houses that he can play with.   He learned so much at school this year.  He does great at letter recognition and sounds, knows all his colors and shapes, and so much more.  Thank you Miss Michelle for all your hard work!  One of my favorite parts of his graduation program was seeing him sing with confidence.  Last year he didn't want to sing - I'm not sure why.  He didn't sing anywhere, not even at home.  Then last summer he suddenly started to, and then now he loves it.   Last graduation I almost wanted to cry when he was sitting in front of everyone and realized he was supposed to sing the songs he had been practicing.  This year he smiled so big, and sang all of the songs so well!

This is Ethan and Ethan with Miss Michelle.  Ethan is one of Ethan's very best buddies.  We have all gotten in the habit of calling them both by their first and last names to distinguish them.  Its pretty funny to hear them talking to each other that way.  Sadly, we don't have to do that anymore since Ethan moved to New Zealand during the summer for a few years.  How we will miss him!



The yearly dance festival at the elementary went great!  Jayden's class did "Dance Like an Egyptian" and Dylan's class did a medley from Grease.  In the pictures, Jayden is 6th from the right, and Dylan is in orange in the middle.

And here are a few fun random pictures:

Success!

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to announce that Austin Miner Gibson is officially potty trained!  Can I tell you the relief I have that it seems to be pretty much complete?!?  I feel like it has actually gone pretty fast for him, in certain aspects.

For those of you with no interest in potty training, you might be just fine stopping here. I won't feel bad.  But just for the heck of it, I'm going to give you kind of a play by play of how it all went and what worked for us.

We started to introduce the idea of using a toilet way back in January.  He was pretty easy going and was all up for it... the only problem was he had no clue what he was doing!  He would sit on the potty for hours and hours each day, with no luck at all.  I wasn't about to put him in underwear when he had absolutely no clue what I was asking him to do, and I didn't have the time to clean up a bazillion messes a day, so we would put his diaper back on after lunch.  Then he would go potty in his diaper.  It was frustrating, but reassuring, because that showed some serious bladder control!  So month after month we kind of kept up this routine, some weeks less than others.  Finally around March he started to figure it out. Wahoo, we were so excited.  Life was a little too busy, though, to officially start potty training, so after Spring Break was over, we really buckled down and started the serious business.  I think this has been one of the best potty trainings so far.  I think part of it was probably just how Austin is, but also I think after potty training 3 other boys, I had some ideas to try and follow.  I ended up doing it in stages - mostly because as we were going, I would get an idea of what steps I should try next, and they ended up working great.  I think I will call that inspiration from above!

Once we had a little initial success where he accidentally went potty in the toilet, I think he kind of had the right idea.  For this stage I used my sister-in-law Nancy's idea.  We would get a candle, sing a little song of celebration (to the tune of Happy Birthday), blow it out, and make a big deal of him keeping his pants dry because he went potty in the toilet.  He loved this... all the way up until he got a little too close blowing it out and his nose got warmer than he was happy about.  I don't think it totally burned him, but he was pretty upset.  After that he didn't really want the candle a whole lot, but when he asked for it, he would have me blow the candle out.

At some point in time I kind of had some frustration of feeling like we were not having as much success as I wanted - especially when he was having accidents when he was not near me, and I think he might have started to fight it a little.  I  remembered checking out some videos from our library for Dylan, and thought maybe I could find some on YouTube.  There were ones with Elmo, and Bear in the Big Blue House.  He liked watching them, but they weren't the complete videos, so I was still looking for more.  I randomly found a video of someone documenting how they potty trained their little girl.  They had a doll, and first went through the actions with the doll of checking if they were dry, having success on the potty, getting rewards, and accidents.  Then it was the little girl's turn, and it kind of went through all that again. He watched a lot of it with me. I kind of then did the same thing with Austin.  Periodically I would have him see if he was dry, if he was he got a jelly bean.  I found that if right then I told him he could have another if he went potty in the toilet. We would have him get on the potty at regular intervals. I found about 2 hours was good for him, and he would go potty just about every time That worked great.  But, then again, eventually I felt like we weren't getting much progress beyond that. .  The next step for him was to tell me he needed to go potty.

So I decided to get some gummy sharks and put them in a jar, and told him if he told me he needed to go potty, he could have one. I started to not tell him to go potty anymore.  I figured if he realized I wasn't going to tell him anymore, he would eventually hate having wet pants when he had an accident and start to tell me. It didn't work super well, but I think this whole step was helpful.  I also decided to have Ethan help me.  I took pictures of him playing, making a surprised face that meant he realized he needed to go potty, running up the stairs, and standing by the toilet with a triumphant look on his face, then him holding one of the gummy sharks.  We did three series of pictures: one playing with toys, one playing his guitar, and one coloring.  I printed up the pictures and then we went through them many times over a couple days, talking about it.  He kind of got it, but was still not totally telling me he needed to go.  We tried this for a whole week, and had quite a few accidents.  I also found that he really has some serious bladder control.  Some days he would go potty when I had him at naps and bedtime, and then only have one accident besides that.  So, basically he was holding it for a lot of the day.

We have a trip coming up, and we are running out of time, so I decided to up the ante.  I had some Bob the Builder vehicles I bought a while back and was saving for possibly potty training or birthdays.  So I took those out and lined them up on the fireplace mantel, and along the windowsill in the bathroom.  He was so excited and wanted to play with them so bad.  I told him he could have one when he went potty in the toilet, but that it was his job.  When he needed to go potty, he needed to tell me, or he could just go up on his own.  Well, a little while later he said he needed to go potty, so I told him to run up to the toilet and go potty.  He kind of was still  upset I hadn't given him one yet, but we eventually made it up to the bathroom.  I expected him to get on the toilet and go potty.  Well... that little stinker climbed into the bathtub, and gave me a glare the whole time he stood there and peed his pants in the bathtub.  I still can't decide if that was total defiance, or if by chance he misunderstood me and thought that was where I wanted him to go.  I kind of think it was the first, but maybe I'm wrong.  Later in the day he again said he needed to go potty, so we got upstairs.  He started to climb into the tub again, but I convinced him to sit on the potty.  Success! And he was so excited to pick his first toy!  After that it has been history.  He has wanted to go potty a whole lot more than he did last week.  I think he has gone potty nearly every hour or two the last couple of days.  But he is doing it all pretty much himself now, and I think the only accident he has had since that day (Monday) is one when he was throwing a tantrum about something else. I am feeling pretty good here.  We have just about used up all our prizes, and I'll probably downgrade to the rest of the gummy sharks, then the rest of the jelly beans.  I'm feeling quite sure that he is what you would call fully potty trained.  I don't tell him to go potty even before bed and naps.. he takes care of that - often two or three times before he will actually go to sleep.  When he needs to go, he will sometimes tell me, or just run up and go potty.

FYI- I'm not counting nights in there because those are just tricky.  Sometimes he is dry, but often he is wet. I am trying to just do underwear at night hoping that it will quicken the process.  I would think he could hold it during the night, given our experiences in the day.  Here and there we have done pull-ups, and I'm thinking if this goes on much longer we will just switch to pull-ups for sanity's sake, for sure during the trip.  But it sounds so nice to actually ditch the pull-ups early on. I think that for my older boys, they just never had to worry so much about night during that initial potty training and just got used to not worrying and it was harder later on to get them to stay dry during the night.  I'm not sure that I'm right on that - I know they say that sometimes it just takes a while for them to stay dry at night. But I still wonder if that might be part of the problem.

Anyway... Hooray! I'm sure there will still be accidents occasionally, but I think we are on our way!

Mr. Independent (and Trouble)

Austin is a very independent boy.  I haven't been able to decide if its his personality, or him being slightly neglected because I've been so busy with a baby this past year, but either way... he is my most independent child.  He has poured milk by himself at least twice.  The first time he didn't spill at all, the second time he only spilled because the cup over flowed.  Pretty good I think for a two and a half year old.  I haven't been able to decide if this is good or bad.  Do I encourage and allow, or do I squash this before it gets out of hand?  Really... I have never let my kids do the kind of stuff he does.  He gets food out when he needs it and feeds himself.  I can't even think of everything he does, I just remember so many times thinking, "hmm, I normally don't let my kids do that, but he's really just trying to help himself."  I think it partly stems from him waiting patiently so much, that he just finally realized some of the stuff he had been waiting for he could just do it.  I think the first time he poured the milk he had gotten a cup and the milk, and was waiting for me for quite a while. I was busy with something, distracted and sidetracked, and the next thing I know he had poured himself a cup.  I hadn't meant for him to wait so long, it just happened.  Well, that has certainly blossomed.  He pushes chairs all around the house to get to where he needs and what he needs.  The other day I got off the phone to this:  

Austin also gets into all sorts of trouble if I'm not paying too much attention.  Just after the kids headed off to school one day, I found this:

And this:

And here's how it all started, I'm sure:

Smile for the Day

Here is your smile for the day - you're welcome.  It made me smile to see at least.  =)

I was busy in the other room for a minute and come out to see this.  What a nice brother... he really loves her so much!

Two Year Old Austin

If your name is Austin, and you are two, what do you do?

- You don't talk a lot, but you sure try.  You say Mommy, Daddy, Dylan, Jayden, Ethan, Lauren, binky, apple, rock, jump, there, Eeyore, cookie, all gone, stinky, eye, ear, owie, dee (for both drink and teeth), e-e (for blankee), I-o-no (for I don't know), uh-huh (for yes), and your own way of saying airplane, open, thank you, more, milk, candy, socks, shoes, and a few more.

- When you "say" you're sorry, you don't say a word, but go rub the top of the person's head.

 -Love to ride in the stroller to go on walks.  If Mom uses a single stroller and puts Lauren in it, you are not happy about that.

- You understand a lot, and are usually very obedient.

 

- Scream when Ethan gets near, especially if you suspect he's going to take whatever it is that you have.

- Love to read books. Also, your new favorite thing to do while reading books is to destroy them by ripping them apart. Drat!

- Have a very sad face when you get in trouble.  Your eyes get big, your lip turns down.  You are sensitive to getting in trouble.

- Overuse the word owie.  It is used for real owies, when you don't like something that happened (like a toy being taken away), and it is also what you call stickers.  This may come from the band aids you get when you get shots (owie).  They do kind of look the same. Also, you have tried to use a glue stick to fix an owie - a great problem solving idea for such a little guy!

- Love music. Recently it is suspected that you are trying to sing either Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, or the ABC song (the tune is there, just not the words)

- Kind of want to sleep in a big boy bed, but not really.  You get in the bed like you're going to go to sleep, but then cry as soon as Mom or Dad leaves the room.

- Suddenly want to do things yourself like pour milk or cereal, or get yourself a drink from the water dispenser in the fridge.  You also have begun to push a chair up to all sorts of places to reach what it is you want, or want to do like turning lights on and off, washing your hands at the sink, or getting something that has been purposely put out of your reach.

- Love to jump in your bed and on the tramp.  When you wake up from a nap, when Mom comes to get you, you are usually jumping up and down.

- Have a huge sweet tooth!  Once you catch sight of candy, or even canned fruit, it is hard to get you to eat anything else.

- Love to help.  One of your new favorite things to help with is the dishes.  You are really good at loading the utensils when they are dirty, and unloading them when they are clean.

- Get eczema behind your ears, and on your cheeks.  When you see Aquaphor, you can't help but want to put some behind your ears.

- Love animals, as long as they don't approach you.  The moment they make their way toward you, it terrifies you. You also make a few animal sounds, like arf, quack, moo, meow, and neigh (sounds like a laugh).

- Love  to be the center of attention.  You will do all sorts of crazy things to get a laugh.  One is to flop forward onto your stomach on the floor.  Very dramatic, and very silly.

Happy Birthday Austin-boy!

We celebrated Austin's birthday in style this year.  The day before his birthday we went to Hogle Zoo.  It has been over four years since we have taken our kids to the zoo - back when we got to go to the Bronx Zoo for free with Devon's work.  Austin was so funny to watch.  The first animals we saw were the monkeys and Austin was squealing and screaming at them.  He loved it! 

The new tiger exhibit is awesome, because you can really see the tigers up close.  I think this one was like ten feet away from us.  We heard him chuffing and making all sorts of sounds.
 

After going through the hot and humid reptile house we were all ready for some ice cream.  I think this had to have been one of the highlights.  That ice cream tasted soooo good.

I had the great foresight to take off Austin's shirt.  Devon didn't think we needed to, but I decided we should anyway, and I am so glad I did!  By the time we were done he was covered.   This picture is only a few bites in, and he was enjoying it!

Lauren was happy and so easy.  She is a sweetheart.

My kids were having fun playing on this statue outside the gorilla house.  It was getting near time to leave, and I think Ethan had had it.  If you look closely, that's him in the stroller crying.  I'm not even sure what he was crying about, or why he was in the stroller at the moment.  I do remember when we were trying to walk to the next thing he was refusing to walk with us and crying up a storm.  Its one of those great parenting moments where your kid is screaming and everyone is looking at you, and you're trying to decide what to do.  You try walking, and seeing if they will follow, but they don't.  Fun stuff! I can't remember how I got him to finally come along with us, but somehow I did, and we did alright the rest of the trip.  Whew!

After the zoo we stopped at Grandma and Grandpa Kirk's house for a mini party with them.  They treated us to some pizza and little cupcakes. 

Austin had the right idea of how to blow the candle out, but I love how his mouth is as he tries to blow.  Ethan finally helped him a little.  Grandma and Grandpa gave him a little fire truck and a snake, both of which he has loved and played with lots.  The snake has been added to list of bedtime requirements.  When its bedtime he gathers his snake, blanket, and Eeyore to take to bed with him.  Funny little boy!

On his birthday we had another little party.   Grandma Gibson came to join us.  Grandpa was busy with meetings for General Conference, so we missed him, but he was where he needed to be.

I made an ice cream cake - nothing fancy, but it did the job.

Austin was so fun to watch as he opened presents.  Grandma gave him a Winnie the Pooh book and stuffed animal.  He loves to bring it to me to put piglet back in his arms.

I found this guitar of Dylan's that has been put away in the closet for a few years.  Dylan used to love this, and I thought he would enjoy giving it to Austin.  Austin thinks it is awesome!

Austin had lots of help opening his presents.  I'm not totally sure that he did the majority of the opening.  He didn't mind, and his brothers had fun, so I guess that's what's important.

A great way to end the day... enjoying cake.  (Just not the mess on his fingers)