Happy 3rd Birthday Austin!

Austin turned 3 today! What a big boy he is. I can't believe he is already 3. Time sure flies!

Over the weekend, we went up to Nanny and Grandpa's for a family birthday party. It was, as usual, fun and exhausting. We stayed up late Thursday and Friday nights working on a special cake for Austin. For his 1st birthday we made a Winnie the Pooh birthday cake. Last year was Tigger. This year...

Veggie Tales!

Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato, and some French Peas...

The French Peas...

Close up of one of the peas...check out the freckles made from sprinkles (just like red freckles on the characters in the show - nice work Steve!).

Mommy and Daddy looking bleary eyed at 1:30am, showing off our completed cake. I made Bob out of Swiss Chocolate Cake and Larry was French Vanilla, with the cupcakes made with the leftover batter. Then buttercream frosting on the top with a little fondant for the eyes, Bob's mouth, Larry's tooth, and fondant over a large cut marshmallow for each of the noses.

On Saturday, we had lots of family over for the birthday party.

Nanny, Auntie Trish, GiGi, Mommy and Auntie Michelle.

Here is Alexis riding Christopher like a pony.

Disappointed Irish fans after a loss to Navy.
Austin opening his presents. It took a little while to get him interested in opening his presents, but he was very excited about all the fun gifts he received once he actually opened them.
Austin is very excited about story time with Mr. Peter at our local ABC and Toy Zone. He imitates him and loves reading the stories that he reads on a regular basis. So for his birthday, we got him 3 of the stories that make recurring appearances at story time. He was very excited and immediately got started reading them to everybody.

Here he is opening "Bling Blang"...And acting out "Ain't Gonna Paint No More".
We attempted a family picture for Nanny's Christmas cards, since we won't have everybody back together again before Christmas time. It was difficult with an overstimulated toddler bouncing around, but here's what we got.

Then time for cake...
Austin loved the Veggie Tales cake and the smile on his face when he first saw it made the hours spent making it totally worth every minute.

Then I lit the candles for him. After lighting the first few, Austin reached for one of them and, in an attempt to keep him from burning himself, I reached out to keep his hand away from the flame. In doing so, I lit my sweater sleeve on fire. I was pretty tired by this point. My family thought it was hilarious that I realized my sleeve was on fire, glanced over at it, and then went about my business not really caring that I was on fire. Luckily, it just burned the fuzz off the outside of the sweater and didn't really keep burning or get to my skin. Anyway, back to the birthday boy...

Blowing out the candles.Showing off his green tongue after eating the green frosting.Sunday was spent recovering from the busy day Saturday, and Austin enjoyed playing with his new toys and books. Then we headed home Sunday night.

We saved the presents from Gramma and PopPop Cronk for him to open on his actual birthday today, since there was mass chaos at the party on Saturday, and he was too excited about the presents he had already gotten to keep opening more presents.

Here's a video for Gramma and PopPop of Austin opening his gifts. I'll warn you, it's kinda long (~15 mins), but it's cute.


Other fun from the past week..

Video of Austin performing story time from start to finish, actually imitating Mr. Peter pretty accurately.

Austin loves reading and got a bunch of new books from his book order at "school".

I thought this was pretty cute...hanging out in his chair reading his stories. This one is about Owen, a little mouse who is rather attached to his blanket (sound familiar?). Very cute!

Austin recently rediscovered his Sit N Spin. Previously, we had it downstairs and it doesn't really turn very well on the carpet. We would sometimes put it on the office floor mat that the desk chair rolls on so he could get it to turn better. Then he decided one day to bring it upstairs and plopped it down on the floor in the kitchen. There he can spin around fast and has thoroughly enjoyed getting himself totally dizzy by spinning around on it.

He also recently made the connection that his Veggie Tales pirates from his bath toy could go on the Little People pirate ship he's got, so he put them together and has been enjoying acting out parts of the Veggie Tales "Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" movie.

That's all for now. Happy Birthday Austin!