Santa came to Queen Creek on the Polar Express

Santa made a special visit on Christmas Eve to pass out bells from the Polar Express! Austin wasn't sure what to think but he liked grabbing the beard. He really enjoyed grandma Katie telling the Polar Express story and watching the train scene on the big screen. He is rolling all over the place and it looks like crawling will be happening really soon. Right now it looks like he is swimming in the air. Once that belly lifts up, the crawl is on!

Merry Christmas from Austin!

Here is Santa's helper preparing Christmas. There are actually wrapped presents under the tree now haha! It's funny how when you are the adult Christmas comes too fast without enough time to do as much as you want to. He loves the sound of ripping paper so he is going to have a blast on Thursday! We are hoping everyone has had a wonderful holiday season and gets to enjoy their family. We are so lucky to have Tom's parents join us for Christmas and we are having a special Polar Express party with Tom's cousin and their kids!

Swimming on Thanksgiving

We had the Bickmore family reunion at our house for Thanksgiving which included about 50 visitors. We kept the pool heated and everyone swam on Thanksgiving-can't beat that. The kids kept wanting to put their face in Austin's floating Duck and were making him laugh. It was cute. All three of us ended up with a cold after everyone left. Lots of nose blowing but we are all almost over the cold. We lost our camera cord which is why we haven't posted pictures in over a month. We are back in business:-)

Austin and Gregory

Austin was named after his cousin Gregory Austin. Gregory just turned 14 and was smiling and cooing with Austin on him to take a picture! Austin is still sleeping 11 hours each night. He takes 3 naps on top of that. The naps aren't always super long but he gives us sleep at night and we all couldn't be happier about it. He still loves eating his hands and sucking his thumb occassionally. He is now able to scoot around in his Elmo chair with wheels and loves his exersaucer. The exersaucer also bounces and he is really getting into bouncing. He had his 4 month check up and is just barely shy of 19 pounds and is 26 inches long.

If We Could Talk to the Animals

Austin loves to stare down this giraffe and talk to it. Not sure if it is the bright colors, someone smaller than him or what but he giggles and talks to this giraffe during his "tummy time".

He officially sucks his thumb! He goes back and forth between the pacifier and his thumb but it is nice he can comfort himself now. Sometimes he prefers to eat three fingers at a time but usually just his thumb. It seems that babies are doomed to mess up their teeth either with the pacifier or with their thumb. Braces seem to be a guaranteed business!

Trunk R Treat

Our ward had a Trunk R Treat. Tom got to wear his emporer outfit from China with the hat and braided tail. Gayla is a tye dye dress and wig-whatever you want to call the costume....hippy or clown were most common answers. The wig was in our toy box and Gayla made the tye dye dress on her mission in Oregon and never gets to wear it. Austin had so much fun he fell asleep:-) Willy is our tongan brother that LOVES to hold Austin. Austin just curled up and fell asleep with Willy-so cute!

World's Cutest Baby

Announcing the World's Cutest Baby in case you were wondering who it was....Austin loves to chill in the Boppy while we cook or do dishes. Tom was making him laugh and we caught a picture. Could he be any cuter?! His two dimples show every time he cracks up!

Austin brings so much joy!

How can you look at this picture and not smile? He is showing off his dimples and is such a happy little guy. This was on our way to the fair. He is very social and loves being around big groups of people. Probably because everyone fusses over him and he looks back at them and shows off his dimples! He is still sleeping about 10-11 hours per night. He knows his routine and lays down easily in his crib each night when it's bedtime. He is such a great baby and brings so much joy! Since it is still 90 degrees in Phoenix, we bring him in the pool around 4pm since the pool is heated to 92 degrees. He loves it and kicks his legs and laughs.

Austin's reaction at the fair

We went to the fair last Saturday. Everyone around us was laughing because he was so happy and then we sat him on the bull and he screamed. He looks so cute when he gets mad! Cuter when he is happy but it is cute when he gets mad too. He was cracking up at the cardboard picture when he got to stick his face in. He looks like a cowboy in that picture but when it came to the real thing on the bull, he figured it wasn't his thing!

Halloween coming!

Happy Halloween! "I Am Your Baby" is what Tom keeps saying instead of "I Am Your Father". He loves his costume! He sneezed and the hat fell forward covering his face and then he put his head back and we took the hat off and he was cracking up. We are excited for him to get candy and we get to eat it:-) Our ward is having a trunk or treat activity on the 28th and we are excited to show him off in his costume. He is laughing so much more and smiling really big. At his two month doctor appointment, he weighed in at 14 pounds and 13 ounces and is 24 inches long. Tom jokes that Austin will be asking to wear his clothes soon!

Catch a Wave!

Sorry this is sideways....Thank you Anne Jones for request of temperment and sleeping patterns...Gayla's boss pays for this lady we call "The Baby Whisperer" and she comes and teaches your baby to sleep. We had her out when Austin was 4 weeks old and by the second night, he was sleeping 8 hours through the night! We faithfully feed him every 4 hours-not while he is sleeping. He is up to 10-11 hours right now and shifting up to a 12 hour night! He is a chill little guy. He is smiling a lot more and even chuckles sometimes.We have been blessed with a happy baby! Last night we went to the movie theater with him and saw "Forever Strong"-super good rugby movie at select theaters...anyways he was big eyed at the beginning of the movie and then fell asleep for the rest of the movie-what a champ! We had a fun "family date night"! Hoping to go to the zoo next Saturday!

Austin is chillin'

He looked way too cute in his converse and diaper! Isn't the "King of the Beach" rash guard so crazy cute? He is growing so fast that his belly squishes the tummy part! He LOVES the pool!

Austin is getting big

Austin likes his tummy time mat! Sometimes it is fun on his back and every once in a while, he even rolls onto his tummy! His head is so strong!

Austin's baby shower

Austin's baby shower was so cool! There was more stuff than our wedding reception! Some men in our ward made the coolest bookshelf that looks like an airplane since Austin's room has a theme of WW2 airplanes. Amy Scott made such a delicious cake with cookies spelling his name and showing off his cool initials. Brandi Tilini made favors with Austin's picture on it. So many other people did wonderful nice things that it's hard to include all! Thank you everyone for all the wonderful gifts!

We took professional pictures when Austin was 2 weeks old. Here is a family picture. We just had a HUGE baby shower on Saturday. We are so overwhelmed and grateful for everyone's enthusiasm and support for our family! Tom's parents came into town for a few days and snuggled with Austin. We got our first date night while they were here. We were going to a

Austin's cousins came!

Austin's cousins came for Labor Day weekend and he loved the noise! He barely fit in the kitchen sink for a bath since he is so big! He's ready for a full size tub!

ATV rider

Tom took Austin's cousins out for rides on the ATV and Austin got to hop on at the end!

First time swimming!

He was a champ in the water! I guess it is warm enough when the water is 90 degrees and outside it was 105 degrees. He loved it! We bought him a rash guard today to completely protect him from the sun.

Karate Kid

We are in Arizona

It feels great to be home! We broke up the drive over two days and spent a night in Vegas. Since Austin was taking about a 6 hour nap each day, it worked out well. He just slept the whole drive and only woke up to eat and get a new diaper. We took him to the doctor on Monday and he is back to his birth weight and grew a little. The first picture is at the doctor's office-he loves to be naked all of the sudden! He is now 22 inches. His cord is still hanging on by a thread but should fall off any time! On Wednesday this week, Brandi Tillini came over and tooke pictures of Austin. The Rookie picture is on our kitchen table with blankets all around him. Baby model anyone??!

More Utah news

A few months ago, Tom found the FBI onesie that says "Fat, Bald and Innocent" so we had to put him in it. He comfortably fills up the 0-3 month clothes already. He has such big lips and is a handsome boy-do we sound like proud parents or what?! Our nephew Quin is on a mission in Spain and owns the ridiculous bling bling hat and jacket. We had to put Austin in since his initials are ATM. He wasn't too happy about it all!

We stayed in Utah for 2 weeks

In order to leave the state with Austin, we had to be cleared through ICPS. This is basically the two states of Utah and Arizona communicating to approve us leaving Utah with Austin. This took about two weeks since public workers in Utah now only work 4 days a week and are closed on Friday-that's why Gayla is majoring in Public Administration!

We stayed with Gayla's sister, Tera and her dad. Tera gave us her master bedroom which was nice with all of our TONS of luggage! He loves to sleep on our chest so we are spoiling him here at the beginning and all bonding in the process.

Our little one is home!

We got to visit our birth mother and Austin at the hospital on August 3rd and take our first family picture. We have all been waiting for this day but can feel how difficult it will be for our birth mother. Such a strange situation where it is crazy happy for us and extremely sad for her. The placement happened on August 5th and was really emotional. Our birth mother made a scrapbook for Austin with all of our emails that we sent back and forth since February and pictures of her family. She put pictures of her for every grade of school so Austin can see if he looks like her. She made him three blankets-she is way more talented than either of us:-)

Our baby has arrived!!

Yesterday morning our birth mom called at 6am and said, "Gayla I'm dialated to a 9 1/2 and he should be born within 30 minutes to an hour!" She sounded so calm that I was taken off guard. I told her we would pack up the car and start driving! Her mom called us around 10am and let us know she would have to have a c section since he was face up instead of face down and too large to come down the birth canal. He was born at 11:30am Arizona time and came out 10 pounds and 6 ounces. No wonder he came in the form of a c section! He is 21.75 inches long and has black hair. We get to see him and birth mom today! The placement will be tomorrow and we can only imagine how emotional it will all be. Thank for you all of your love and support and enthusiasm for ATM!

Tom and Gayla are going to have a baby!!

We are trying to join the blogging world! Our baby is due today and should be arriving any minute. His name will be Austin Thomas Mead. If you break down the initials you will notice an abbreviation we all love, ATM! His nickname will be cash and we are quickly learning he is the withdrawl on the ATM for now:-) We could not be more excited and thank everyone for their enthusiasm and love and support.