Family Christmas Portraits

For Austin's 1st Christmas and our 1st Christmas as a family we decided to have professional portraits made. Here are a few. Enjoy!!!

So Big!!!

Austin turned 9 months on Thanksgiving Day. I can't believe it took 9 LONG months for him to arrive but yet the 9 months he's been here has flown by! In these nine months he has managed to have Mommy, Daddy, Nonna, Poppa, Grammie & Grandpa wrapped around his lil fingers. At his 9 month check up he was:
Weight: 20 pounds
Height: 28 1/4 inches

He's accomplishing so much! He's still a talker and his vocabulary is growing every day. He started crawling properly mid-November. I say properly because for the 1st half of November he'd crawl but yet drag his head. It was definately a sight to see. I'll try to load up some video of him soon!! Now that he's crawling he's EVERYWHERE!! It's so amazing to see him explore things that he's seen before but now that he can get to it himself it's so much more interesting! He's also a fast crawler. If he knows he's not suppose to go somewhere or get to something and he sees us approaching, he'll crawl at lightening speed while laughing. He is also starting to master pulling himself up from a sitting/crawling position to standing.



Every Tuesday we are going to Storytime at our local library and he loves it. He's such a great listener. He loves watching all the other babies/kids play around while watching the libarian read them a couple of stories. He loves to play with his books and he's collecting quite the library. His favorite books so far have to do with Elmo.

He's already starting to eat us out of house and home. We go through about 112 jars of baby food per month - and that's just for lunch & dinner! For breakfast he's enjoying YoBaby Yogurt and on Friday he gets blueberry pureed Pancakes compliments of Daddy. In addition to his solid food, he's still nursing and it is still going strong! [I am also still able to donate to the National Milk Bank] He is getting better and better drinking out of a sippy cup. He's realized if I stop chewing and suck water comes out!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!! Our Thanksgiving sure was different than last years, what with two new lil ones. I still can't believe that last year Christa was 8 1/2 months pregnant and I was 6 1/2 months pregnant. Let's just say this year there were a LOT more leftovers since the family wasn't feeding 2 very-hungry pregnant women!

This year the whole Lutz/Bradshaw clan all went to the Bradshaw's house and had a wonderful time. We all of course ate way too much and afterwards enjoyed watching Trista & Austin play around while watching the Cowboy's Football game.

Here are some photos's of the day:
All the momma's with their babies

Mom (Nonna) & Travis with Austin (9 months) & Trista (11 months)

Austin being a ham to the camera

Poppa and Austin


Couple of pictures of Trista & Austin together

Austin's EIGHT months old!!!

Man has the time flown by, last week Austin turned Eight Months old! He's grown so fast and has learned so much over these months. I can barely remember the little boy that would do nothing but eat, sleep, & repeat. ~He now has 6, YES SIX, teeth!! His top four are ever so slowly coming in and they seem to be more painful than the bottom two. ~He is throughouly entertained by menus! Who knew that menus could entertain a baby for so long!?!? ~He loves giving kisses - even to his stuffed animals. Open mouthed baby kisses are so sweet. ~He's been getting better and better at eating baby food. He's now onto breakfast, lunch & dinner as well as his snacks. Here are a few pictures of Austin enjoying a Yogurt Melt. As you can see in the later pics, he is competely oblivious to the one on his cheek!!~He still loves books! Loves being read to, reading to mommy, or eating them! ~He claps, waves "bye bye", and is constantly talking! "Dadada" is his favorite phrase right now. ~For the past two weeks or so, Austin has been up on all fours rocking away and trying to crawl without falling face first into the floor. We're thinking anyday now he'll master it!

~Austin's been getting better and better at standing while playing! ~With fall now here the weather has been SO nice! Here are a couple of pictures of us at the park. For Halloween, Austin was too cute - he was a Rooster. And in perfect "Rooster-style" he was flapping his arms and "talking" to us!

Race for the Cure: In honor of Grandma

This year marks the 10 year "anniversary" of my Maternal Grandma's death after battling breast cancer. So in her honor, my family got together to walk the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Phoenix, Arizona. It was great to see my extended family on my mom's side. There was a total of 14 people plus friends who walked with us in her honor.
Top Row: Uncle Myron, Aunt Melody, Uncle Brent, & Uncle Mark
Middle Row (L-R): Mom, Stephanie, Aunt Jill, Nicholas, Aunt Sandra, Samantha, Austin, me & Scott
Front: Katie

My mom, Scott, Austin and I flew to Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday and then flew back to DFW Tuesday afternoon. This was Austin's 1st plane ride and he did AMAZING - his mom on the other hand (not so much)!! Between Scott, my mom and me, Austin did great during the almost 3 hour flight. He was so fascinated with all the new sights and sounds on the plane - he even meet a few friends. When he wasn't talking up a storm to the other passengers, he was sleeping so peacefully! Throughout the whole trip Austin did great with the 2-hour time difference and adjusted on his own accordingly without any fuss. We realize he is the perfect traveling baby!!!

It was so nice for everyone to meet Austin. Here are a couple of pictures with his Great Aunts and Great Uncles!

- here's a pic of Austin with some of his 2nd cousins at IHOP after the walk. (clockwise: Stephanie, Samantha, Nicholas, & Katie)


While we were in Arizona, Scott, Austin and I got to met up with a Sandbox Baby (& her Mommy) at the Race for the Cure. We were so honored that they joined us for the walk! Here is a picture of Danielle (mommy) & Madison (baby) with us right before the walk began!

We also met up with another Sandbox Baby (& Mommy) when we all went to IHOP afterwards. Here is Loressa (Mommy) & Mia (baby).
It was so funny to watch Austin flirt with TWO girls at once. If we weren't sure from his actions in the past, this one definately solidified it -- Our son is a TRUE Ladies Man!! He kept on going back and forth between Madi and Mia. He just couldn't decide!! Decisions, decisions!!!

[Austin's shirt read: I LOVE BOOBIES (Which is why we need to hurry up and find a cure to help save 'em!!)]

After IHOP we went back home to regroup then headed off to the cemetery. There we tended to grandma's gravesite and talked about the past.




Ironically Scott's own maternal grandma (as well as his maternal grandpa and great grandma/great grandpa) was buried in the same Mesa cemetery. Talk about small world!!!





Overall it was an amazing trip for us all!! We are so blessed to have been able to all get together and in doing so, walk in my grandma's honor.