Notice anything funny about this picture?

How about this one? Perhaps a 26lb, red-headed stinker?
Austin, showing off his muscles.

Sometimes I share Austin with Aaron. Here was one of those rare moments.

Well, we are about 3 weeks in to being a family of five and things are going pretty good. Austin has been awesome, he is such a sweet little guy. He occasionally has some fussy periods when I think he has a few tummy bubbles that are bothering him, but thankfully it's not too often. His umbilical cord stump fell off last week and Jacob said "Mom, Austin has a belly button!" As of last Thursday (2wks, 1 day) Austin was up to 10lbs 2oz! Gaining weight well, but thankfully not as well as Brody did... I want my last baby to stay a baby longer than Brody did (but still be healthy ;) ). Speaking of weight, as of that same date, I am down 27lbs (I think total weight gain was 26lbs)! I'm cautiously excited... with Brody I lost all the pregnancy pounds in a quick time and then a week later I was up 10lbs again (and never lost it!)... so we'll see and beyond that I need to lose a bunch of non-pregnancy weight anyway!

Brody has adjusted just fine to being my 'older baby'. He always wants to know where the baby is, but leaves Austin alone for the most part now. I still (and for a loooong time) will have to be very careful that I don't leave Austin anywhere vulnerable, but I'm kind of used to that now.

Then there is Jacob. I underestimated how hard the change would be on Jacob. We've had a few issues with Jacob acting out lately. Our 'issues' involve him hurting Brody for no reason, knocking over glasses of water on purpose and having potty accidents, to name a few. The good news is that he has been a great brother to Austin and hasn't taken out any of his frustrations on him. I'm sure it will get better with time and more routine with Aaron picking up his regular work schedule and Jacob understanding when/how often he goes to school.

Speaking of school, it's going really well. Seems like we've spent a lot of time there in the short amount of time that we've been members... I had a 2hr meeting with the membership guidelines lady a week ago, we all had an hour long meeting with the teacher last Thursday, Aaron and I had a 2hr parent education meeting there last Thursday, Jacob had school Friday and then we spent another 2+hrs there last night helping out with the monthly clean (just a once a year commitment, so we wanted to get it out of the way). Might as well jump right in, eh? Especially since we are joining mid-year. It's crazy to think we'll probably be spending the next six years there! Hopefully we like it! I worry it's not academic enough, but everybody there seems to LOVE it and many have older children so they must think it has prepared their other children enough kindergarten. Jacob's first day went great. They have a drop off and pick up system that is super convenient for me so I don't have to haul three kids in and out and through the snow! I wasn't sure if Jacob would be ready for it or not on his first day though, but when I asked him which he preferred he said he wanted to be dropped off! It went great and he looked like such a big boy waiting in line for me to work my way through the line of cars. I was confident that he enjoyed his day there when on the way home he asked me what we were doing tomorrow and I said "nothing, what do you want to do?" and he replied "Go back to school!" :) That alone makes me love his new school... but I also love that it is in town, so it gave the little boys and I an opportunity to do a little shopping at the mall. The boys did great and it was fun to get out of the house for a bit. I think Fridays are going to be my favorite day of the week :)

PS - I just noticed that the 14th was my three year blog anniversary! Wow, did that go fast! I really need to work on putting this into book form for the boys... maybe this summer.