Just To See You Smile...: Austin at 3 years old...

Happy 3rd Birthday Austin...

Here's what you are all about right now:

1. You love toy cars, or "vroom-vrooms" as you call them, and trains aka "choo-choos." You have a bazillion match box cars and know them all. You have even named some after the cars you see in real life, like "mom-mom's" car, "dadda's" car, "Uncle Wes's" car, "K-K's" car etc. You love to drive them on your blanket (I think you like to see the tires make tracks in the blanket fuzz) or your car mat. You could play with your cars or trains all day. I make sure to always have some with me wherever we go! If you're not playing baseball or some other sport, we can always find you playing with your cars!

2. You love to "gel" your hair (make it spikey in the front). Sometimes I find you in the bathroom doing it yourself, and you come out with almost the entire bottle in your hair. It looks more like a weapon than a hair-do, but I just smile and say it looks awesome!

3. You are officially registered for preschool and start in the fall. Wow, a kid in school, I feel old!

4. You call me "mom-mom." You have done this since you could talk. Sometimes I get mommy or "MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!" when you really try to get my attention, but it's mostly Mom-Mom. I love it :)

5. You hold my hand when we cross the street or are walking in a busy place. You never forget to either, you always say "hand mom-mom, hand!!" I love that you aren't old enough to be embarrassed to still hold my hand yet :)

6. You're constantly singing "We will, we will Rock you." It's your favorite song right now. It's the warmup song for the closer on Daddy's team and you're always singing it. You also love to sing "Rain, Rain go away!,"the ABC song...with that one you sometimes make up your own order of the letters just to be funny...or any other song you manage to make up!

7. You are a fabulous sleeper. You still take a nap everyday, usually around 2 hours, and you sleep sound at night from the time you fall asleep until usually about 10 hours later. You are very good at going to bed on your own and we can always count on you sleeping the whole night straight...thank you!!

8. Speaking of sleep, you have a routine every night where you collect a bunch of your cars and smuggle them into your bed. We have tried to cut back on the number you take with you, sometimes there can be up to 15, but you insist, and they never seem to interfere with your sleep so we don't mind. You usually go to bed and drive them around on your blanket for a while before you go to sleep, then you "park" them all in a row next to you and go to bed. We hear you roll over on them at night, but it never seems to wake you, I don't know how, if it were me, they would drive me bonkers!

9. You also have to go to bed with Mr. Turtle and Mr. Man. Mr. Turtle projects stars onto your ceiling and Mr. Man is a glowing person-shaped night light you can recharge every night and put into bed with you.

10. You love your "blank." It's what you call your blankie. It's the same one you loved as a baby. You have outgrown it, but you still insist I cover you with it eventhough your toes stick out. You always say, "but my toes mom-mom, my toes!" So I bought you the same blanket in a bigger size (they make it in a throw size, how lucky right?!) thinking that would do the trick, but of course it's not YOUR blank, so we use the new big one to cover your toes and you snuggle with your blank up at your chin :)

11. You love Orange Juice. It's your coffee in the morning. You want it every breakfast, you can't start your morning without it. just like your mom :)

12. Some mornings you come into bed with us, before Brooke wakes up, and you lay inbetween us and cuddle and lay there until we all have to get up. It's the best, I cherish those mornings :)

13. You are very loving. You love to give hugs, and you are so sweet. Especially when you wake up and just want to cuddle with me and your blank, I love it.

14. You love band-aids. You make up owies just so you can have one.

15. You love to brush you teeth yourself and love spitting in the sink. Actually I think you just love spitting. You spit right before you swing your bat too, everytime.

16. You are SO not potty trained. A year ago you had us fooled. You were so good at wanting to go on the potty. That didn't last long and for whatever reason, you want nothing to do with it. Nothing. We are working on it, you are just very stubborn.

17. You still hide when you go #2.

18. Every morning when you get up and I change your diaper, you say good morning to your penis. No joke.

19. You love making silly faces in the camera.

20. Your favorite cartoons right now are "Umi-Zoomi" and "Chuggington"...you can name all the train characters by heart. You love the movie "Cars" too.

21. You are very athletic. You love sports and are actually really coordinated at your age. At the moment, your favorites are Baseball, Golf, Football and basketball.

22. You love happy faces on people. You always tell me, "Look mom-mom, I'm happy!" and point to your face as you give me a big smile!

23. You are an amazing big brother and love your sister. You are incredibly good to her, yet you two definitely have your moments. I have witnessed some good squabbles between you two already!

24. You love playing hide and seek with Brookie. You yell at her: "Come get me Missy Brookie, Come here!" We think you call her Missy Brookie, because I am always saying, "Miss Brooke, what are doing!" When she gets into things.

25. You repeat everything we say, even the bad words...we are trying our best to be careful.

26. You think toots are hysterical. Yes you call them toots. And yes you call us out on them.

27. You think the word boobies is hilarious and giggle when you say it!

28. Your favorite books are your letter/word books, you have a few and you love going through all the pages pointing at all the pictures telling us what they are.

29. You love your daddy. You cry and get so upset when he has to leave for road trips, screaming "No bye-bye Dadda! No bye-bye!" It breaks my heart. You light up when you see him at his games taking the field or on the big screen...you scream Daddy!!! and get the biggest smile on your face!

30. You love to watch me put my make-up on and always ask me if you can paint your face too. If you are still asking me this 10 years from now, then we might have to talk. But for now, I think it's funny ;)

31. You can be down right awnry too. You have been known to color on things other than your paper (ie: walls, tables, floors)...hit your sister when she gets too close to your cars...play punching bag with a train track and the japanese style doors in our apartment in japan (see pick below)...throw a fit in the aisle of the store when you don't get the toy you see and have to have...etc, etc...

32. You love other kids. You are so social, not shy at all. You just mix right in wherever we are and are so happy playing with whoever.

33. You love snakes and lizards and love making their noises. Not a fan of real life ones though, not at all. You actually get kind of scared if we say there's a snake in the bush or something! You just like drawing them and and sticking out your tongue like them!

34. You love to point out the moon when you see it and at airplanes and helicopters in the sky. You get so excited when you see them, you literally jump up and down over and over screaming "look mom-mom, a plane a plane!"

35. I could pitch to you all day long and you wouldn't grow tired of swinging the bat, running the bases. We never leave home without a ball and bat.

36. You are so funny. You can be so silly and goofy!! You have the best laugh I love hearing it!! Same goes for your smile, I love it...it is so genuine and pure, you truly are a happy kid.

It's all of theses things, and the million more that make you so special and so unique Austin...they make you YOU, and you are one amazing kid.

Happy 3rd Birthday...We Love You Oh So Much...

guarding your "parked" cars at night...

Showing off your creative side and re-decorating the japanese style doors in our apartment in Japan with your train tracks. Must have thought the holes would add more light into our space.