Finally, a relaxing weekend!

This is Austin Avocado hair.  For some reason, this picture just cracks me up!  He was wild that night, and finally starting to get back to eating food.  He had avocado, which he somewhat enjoys eating.  Needless to say, it ended up as hair gel by the end of the night.  He's starting to feed himself more and more everyday.  He loves peas, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peaches, pears, watermelon, bananas, raspberries (he tried his first one last night), and crackers.  He pretty much has started to pick up everything, except for meat.  He doesn't seem to like it much!

We finally got in a relaxing weekend at home.  We didn't really do much, for a change, which was nice.  Jared and I worked more on the yard, which looks like a mess.  We had a bunch of dead areas that we had to reseed and level out a bit.  We also are working on the landscaping, trying to get it back in order.  Since Austin came in the fall last year, most of it went neglected for a year.  So this year, it's in need of some TLC!  Since we have started to work on the yard,  Austin has discovered that he LOVES to play outside.  I guess it's more like crawl around outside, but either way, he enjoys it.  Since we've been doing the yard work, we let him crawl around and explore.  Because of this, he now bangs on the doors and cries if we don't take him outside.  It's pretty cute.

Tooth number 8 has finally broke the surface, which seems to be a bit of relief to Austin.  He's still working on his molars though, and he has his fingers in his mouth constantly.  Since he's started teething a lot again, he's stopped sleeping through the night most nights.  Hopefully, he'll get back on track again soon.  I feel bad for him, because you know it hurts!  And the only thing we can do for him is give him Motrin and love on him!

Austin has finally started to drink again from a normal cup, so I'm hoping that I won't have to give him a sippy at all at this point.  Wish me luck!  He's starting to drink his formula out of a cup at breakfast and dinner time.  Today was the first time he took the formula out of a cup for breakfast, so I'm hoping that we're getting there with him on it.  I'd like to have him off of his bottle before his first birthday, and we're slowly getting there.  Finally!  We've been working with him on this since he was about 4 months old, and originally, we thought our doctor was crazy.  But believe me, it can be done!  It just takes a lot of practice!

Austin has continued to discover new things to play with around the house, mostly in the kitchen.  He LOVES to play with the pots and pans, the chopper, and the tupperware.  As you can see, he not only crawls in the cabinets to get the stuff out, but then he spreads it all over the floor and plays.  It's a good thing I clean our floors quite a bit!

This is a picture of Austin from Saturday.  Notice he has his very first Michigan Wolverines Tee......for daddy of course!  He's learned how to say "Touchdown" by lifting his hands up in the air.  He actually really enjoys watching football on T.V.  I'm thinking he's going to be a sports fan when he grows up.  He enjoys watching golf also!  In this picture, I was folding his laundry.  He decided to "help" me by crawling in the basket and throwing the clothes all over the floor.  As you can see, he had a blast!  He watched part of his first movie on Saturday night.  We turned on Horton Hears a Who, and he sat there and laughed at it.  It didn't keep his interest for long, but he did manage to watch a few minutes of it.

Well, I have officially been unemployed for a year at this point.  I can honestly say, I never thought that I would enjoy it this much.  Austin is such a joy, and a pain at times, but I can't imagine being away from him.  Austin has changed our lives in ways we never could have imagined, and it's truly a blessing.  We have accomplished many things in the last year, that we never imagined were possible; one of those being, me staying at home for this long.  One of the biggest obstacles we had to face since I quite my job is money, for obvious reasons.  You don't just drop about half your income and not feel a thing!  At this point though, we finally seem to have gotten a grip on money, which is an amazing feeling.  Jared has worked so hard to keep our little family afloat, and for that, I am very grateful in ways that he may never know.  Thanks Jared, you're the best!