Austin at 3

My sweet baby boy turned 3 years old almost a whole week ago. And I'm still a little in shock. How can it be that we're already here? It seems like he should've stayed 2 for longer. Even though it's bittersweet to see him get older, I am loving almost every single second of watching him grow. Of course we have our share of unpleasant moments... and those I could usually do without, but oh how I love life with this one. He keeps me on my toes, keeps me laughing and entertained, and keeps me wrapped around his little finger with his mama's boy antics and sweet way he loves me. He blesses me daily and I can't get enough of him. Or his 2 brothers. =)

A peek at life with Austin at 3...

 

*You start the day early (we have to wake you up around 6:35) and are usually up and at 'em. So far you are definitely our "morning person" child. 

 

*You miss Garrison while he's at school (he's your best buddy by far) but you really seem to love school at home. You tell me every morning when you're ready for school and love doing little projects and crafts and school work. You definitely hold me accountable. =)

 

*You take an almost 2 hour nap every afternoon. You always sit in my lap and pick out 3-4 books for me to read to you before naptime.  

 

*You go to bed between 8:00 and 8:30 every night depending on how "talking time" goes with Garrison and how wound up or tired y'all are.

*You love being my helper. You hold the door open for me everywhere we go so I can get Layton's stroller in and out. You also love going to the basement with me to be my little laundry helper. Pouring in the detergent is your favorite. =)

*You are very sociable and seem to have a lot of your daddy's personality. You tell everyone hey and what your name is and how old you are all the time. You love waving to people... friends and strangers. You will carry on a conversation with anyone. You just have an out-going, friendly, personable way about you.

*You are so funny! You know how to be silly, wild, into everything, and just a mess! You crack us up all the time with the things you say and do. You are just FUN to be around.

*You are loving and affectionate and still our sweet cuddle bug. You still like to be held. You still like to sit in our laps. You give hugs and kisses all the time. You say I love you often. And I'm going to enjoy all of it for as long as it lasts! Even though I know you'll outgrow most of these little traits I'm hoping you'll always be affectionate at heart.

*You are a mama's boy through and through. Still. =) You love me in the sweetest, most sincere, BIGGEST way. Being on the receiving end of your unconditional love is a priceless gift that I am so grateful for.

*Your current favorite foods are cereal bars (Nutri Grain bars), ham, yogurt, grapes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, spaghetti, chips, and tacos. Right now, you love all of these a LOT. You are a tad inconsistent with what you like though so we'll see if this list changes before next week.

*Baseball, soccer, and golf are your favorite sports to play. You also love riding around in your car outside. You aren't a huge fan of super hot weather though so we haven't been out a ton lately. Hopefully that's about to change though! Fall is in the air!

*Your favorite TV shows right now are Team Umizoomi and Clifford. You also occasionally watch Super Why, Curious George, and Sesame Street.

*You are loving choir every Wednesday and always get compliments on how well you participate. =) I'm so thankful you got to go ahead and be included with the group even though you're one of the youngest. It is going great so far!

*You do NOT like loud noises... you especially do not like loud noises combined with something new and lots of people. You get overwhelmed and easily scared in those situations. While you are apprehensive and hesitant about brand new things, if they don't involve loud noises, you usually come around. =)

*You are a great little brother AND a great big brother. You share a special bond and love of your brothers that I'm praying remains strong forever.

*You adore your grandparents, AnAn and Frankie, and your cousins.

*You love having your back scratched! =)

We are so blessed you are part of our family, Austin Selph! Happy Birthday to our energetic, sweet, loving, full of personality, favorite 3 year old ever!! We love you!

Austin's 3rd Birthday Party

On Saturday we celebrated Austin's 3rd birthday with lots of family and FUN and I think the birthday boy loved every second! Yay for baseball party success!!

(Austin decided on a baseball party for his 3rd birthday over the summer when we first mentioned a party theme to him... and he never wavered once. He knew what he wanted and he stuck with it. And I can reeally appreciate some decisive decision making around here since at least two fifths of our household is the exact opposite. Ahem... pointing to myself and my firstborn...)

We held the party at my parents' house (HUGE THANK YOU to Granna and Papa!!) again this year in keeping with the tradition of having the first 3 birthdays at home and because of our teeny, tiny house not being an option. We are so thankful for my parents hosting so many birthday parties for us! This was a super fun party to plan...we loved doing concession stand food and decor of all things baseball. I think it all came together perfectly and was pretty special for our birthday boy. =)

My amazingly talented friend Megan designed our invitations for us and they turned out just PERFECT! She designs all of our invites and cards for us year after year and every single time we are in love with the finished product! Thanks again Megan!!

 

Family shot before the party began. =)

 

Party entrance! My sister let us use her Braves wreath on my parents' front door and it was perfect for welcoming guests to our party. Thanks AnAn!!

 

Party decor!

 

I always like to do some kind of picture display at every party, with 1st and 2nd birthdays being the biggest and then sort of toning it down starting at the 3rd bday party. Wonder how my boys will feel about a few pictures of them displayed at their birthday parties when they're teenagers? =)

 

I stole this centerpiece idea from a friend and loved how it turned out! We never have a "party table" full of all our food and decor because we need all the tables for seating since we always serve a meal at our "home parties". This year our "concession stand" had hotdogs, peanuts, popcorn, nachos, and fruit.

 

Another centerpiece... The number 3, sunflower seeds, cracker jacks, and a tin pail of peanuts.

 

And another centerpiece... They were really fun to come up with and I thought they turned out pretty cute.

 

The cake table!

 

It turned out adorable and oh so yummy! And my mom made the most delicious white chocolate dipped oreo baseballs. The sugar was overflowing!

 

And this year I finally remembered to get a picture of the favors. We used little red pails and filled them with Baby Ruth candy bars, a pack of baseball cards, a squishy baseball, stickers, a wooden bat keychain, and a "magic towel". I made our nieces' favors slightly more girly. =)

The waterslide was a HUGE hit and Austin loved it this year! Yay! He was sort of nervous at first (which made me wonder if he'd miss out on the fun just like last year), but thankfully once he got used to it he had the best time! The other kiddos loved it too. Jumping in the pool of water at the bottom was one of Austin's favorite things. =)

 

Opening presents was pretty fun for the birthday boy too. Of course!

His 2 big tranportation gifts came from Nana and Pops and Granna and Papa and he is so excited about them both!

 

Singing Happy Birthday was one of my favorite parts of the party. Austin sang the entire song with everyone the whole way through. So adorable! Garrison's face in the bottom corner is pretty funny too. He thought it was hilarious that Austin sang Happy Birthday to himself with everybody else.

Austin's 3rd birthday party was SO fun and a super special way to celebrate our middle man! Thanks to all of our family for coming and helping us celebrate our very favorite 3 year old!! And many, many, MANY thanks go out to the grandparents for all of their help with everything from party planning, to party hosting, to providing and manning the waterslide, to last minute purchases, to helping out with Layton during the party so I could focus on Austin. It was truly a team effort and Terrell and I were so blessed by everyone's help and generosity. Yay for a successful 3rd birthday party in the books!

Happy Birthday again to our sweet 3 year old, Austin Selph!!

Friday Favorites: Austin's Birthday Week Edition

My absolute favorite parts of this week were enjoying the long weekend with my guys and celebrating my middle's 3rd birthday. We have had a full, exhausting, exciting, blessed week.

**And a quick sidenote about my "job experience" this week... I was worn out and run ragged but everything went really well! I definitely have some ideas and things I want to tweak in the future once we have a bigger house, but I thought things went very smoothly keeping up with a 3 year old, almost 1 year old, and a 6 month old for 2 whole days! For the immediate future I will probably be keeping Baby M a couple times a month. The perfect way to ease my way into working again. =)

***And another quick sidenote about my pictures this week... Living in "This Old House" is getting old. The background of my pictures is not cute. Ugh. Trying to make the best of it though since there's nothing we can do about it. Our house in Covington has shown a few more times and has been "2nd choice" for buyers twice now. Pray hard for it to be 1st choice for someone soon!

Now for my favorite moments from the week...

*Celebrating Austin Carson Selph's birthday of course! And I just loved this collage my sister put together on FB. My babies are LOVED. Such a blessing!

 

*Speaking of the birthday boy... We painted an airplane together. Clothespins and craft sticks have lots of uses. =)

 

*Garrison is learning to tie his shoes! He's doing really well and I'm super proud of him. This is a challenging little milestone and my firstborn is known to get frustrated easily when he can't get something just right, right away. But he is handling this with patience and almost has it down!

*Austin and I put our painted airplane in the sky later this week. Learning about transportation has been fun for both of us.

 

*Tuesday evening I was exhausted. It was my first day keeping Baby M and mama was just SPENT. It seriously reminded me of the first day of school when I was teaching. Everything was tired. My feet, my brain, my voice. Everything. So Terrell let me take Garrison to soccer practice. Alone. Ahhhhhh. Sweet relief. It was the most relaxing thing ever. I sat down and rested while I watched Garrison play soccer and while Terrell held down the fort with the littles. That hour long breather was just what I needed.  

 

*Celebrating Austin's birthday with all my boys was the best. I can't get enough of them!

*Lunch time sweetness with this baby. He is so cute when he eats I just want to kiss him all over. All of my boys I have enjoyed mealtimes from a very early age. =)

*Austin and I made a transportation collage by cutting out pictures of transporation from magazines. It was a great way to review everything we've talked about, great practice with scissors, and great fun for Austin with a glue stick. =)

*Last night soccer practice was cancelled for both big boys due to weather, so these 2 played and played and played all night with these balloons. They had so much fun... of course it didn't end so well when things got out of hand... but they had a really long stretch of just playing and laughing and not being too wild and crazy, and that part was wonderful. =)

Tomorrow is party day for us! I have a LOT to do between now and 11:00 in the morning but I know it will come together and that we'll all have tons of fun celebrating our sweet boy. Happy Friday and Happy Weekend!!!

Recap of Austin's Birthday

My middle baby turned 3 years old yesterday morning at 8:37. He's had my heart for every minute of his life from the moment I knew he existed. I loved celebrating with him and seeing his excitment this year on his birthday when he really seemed to "get" that it was his special day. I even felt sort of emotional and was all like Wait... do I have baby fever or do I just miss my baby being a baby now that he's turning 3 years old? Terrell assured me it had to be the latter. Ha. Oh, hormones. Anyway, it was a really fun day despite things being a little different having Baby M here with us all day. Thankfully she fit right in and I think we all enjoyed celebrating Austin.

We started the morning bright and early and Austin woke up to Happy Birthdays from mama and daddy and balloons in the hall. Balloons are a really big deal around here so I think this was the perfect start to his day. =)

Next up- Birthday Breakfast! We missed our Dunkin Donuts but were still grateful for cinnamon rolls and donut holes from Ingles. Austin sang the entire birthday song with us complete with Happy Birthday dear Austin, Happy Birthday to you. It was precious.

 

After Garrison got home from school we enjoyed cupcakes for snack!

 

Then after choir, we went out to Austin's choice for supper... El Durango! Chips and cheese dip were a definite highlight of his bday experience.

After we got home we gave him his present... a brand new big boy dune racer! He was thrilled and seemed completely surprised. He said, Look! It's a new jeep! Haha!

We typically don't do BIG, EXPENSIVE birthday gifts, but this year we made an exception (and thankfully found this gift on sale). We finally have a huge yard where the boys can drive around their cars endless miles and the Fall season is when we're outdoors the most so we just couldn't wait til Christmas. Austin had a "lil dune racer" but was quickly outgrowing it and and couldn't keep up with Garrison's regular dune racer. So this was like the perfect gift for my middle. I think it's safe to say he LOVES it. =)

 

He tested it out and took Garrison for a wild ride! This picture was the pefect action shot.

Now we're just finalizing everything for Austin's party coming up on Saturday. He is sooo excited about his baseball party... and to know the celebration continues. Hopefully the weather cooperates so all the kiddos can enjoy the big blow-up waterslide! I'll recap his party next week along with one more "All About Austin" post in honor of him turning the BIG 3. =)

Our Long Weekend

We had a really busy, full of fun, long weekend. The best kind!

We kicked things off Friday night by planning to take our big boys to our high school's football game. We just knew they would love it. And one of them did. Our oldest. Austin, however, was not a fan. He was terrified. I should've known by the look on his face in this picture it wasn't going to end well. Poor baby. The game was a huge rivalry game and it was crowded and the noise was out of control and he cried and cried and quite literally freaked out wanting to leave. So I took him home to my mom who was already there keeping Layton and all was well. So far, we don't think he's scarred or anything.

At least Garrison had fun! He was really into the game and didn't want to leave! Maybe Austin can try out another game next season. This one was just a little too up close and personal for him I think.

 

On Saturday we celebrated Austin's birthday as a family by going to the zoo! And we all had a great time! Muuuch better experience than the night before. =)

Our original plan for Austin's "birthday experience" (something special we like to do for each kiddo as part of their present), was a Braves game. It would've been perfect considering his upcoming baseball party and love of the game. However, we couldn't work it out this late in the season for a reasonable price so we opted for the zoo instead. And we all had a really great time. I think the zoo was pretty perfect for our birthday boy.

 

Plus, Layton got to attend this family outing and he was pretty impressed too! =)

The weather was really great on Saturday morning and didn't get super hot until after lunch when we were almost ready to go. I think riding the carousel twice and the family of gorillas was probably their favorite part of the trip. The whole fam was pretty exhausted on the way home.

Saturday night was spent at home watching the Georgia game. Yay for a better season opener than last year! My big boys were wide open during the game (apparently football games don't quite hold their full attention just yet), but Terrell did great being a patient daddy and a nervous fan. =)

Sunday turned out to be really fun and productive. Terrell got Austin's birthday present put together (which is hiding at my parents' house) and then we grilled out with my parents Sunday night. There is just nothing quite like Sunday nights with a day off on Monday. It really is one of the best things ever. And I finally let the boys play on the playground in my parents' neighborhood that they've been begging to play on. We were melting after approximately 4 minutes. I toughed it out and survived 20 and then declared it too hot. I am SO ready for Fall temps!

Yesterday we spent most of the day in Covington... we went to check on our house and take care of a few things there, plus bring back a load of decorative stuff we left hanging on the walls. And we couldn't go back to Covington without going out to eat at Stevi B's. It was a fun day. Then after naptime the boys played in the sprinkler and the baby pool while daddy washed cars. I'm pretty sure they thought this was the perfect way to wrap up our long weekend.

**Pray for me today and tomorrow as I get a trial run at keeping a sweet baby girl! I'm nervous but excited to get a preview and first-hand experience of what it will be like in the future once I start my new job. =) Happy Tuesday!