18 months old

My baby is 18 months old and officially no longer a baby.  Good thing that's merely a relative term :)  Hopefully she isn't scarred for life because I'm not ready for her not to be a baby anymore!

We had her well child check this week and here are her stats:

27 pounds

33.5 inches tall

18.6 inch head circumference

3 shots

Needless to say, that last part was not exactly her favorite.  She forgave them though when they gave her a cute pink rubber ducky to take home.

So, she's still at the 90th percentile for both height and weight.  Perfectly proportional!

The nurses and doctor all said she was very "charming" and I tend to agree (biased though I may be).

Nuggets about my little nugget

Only has 8 teeth still
Favorite bedtime comforts are her pink blanket and 2 puppies
Favorite foods: bananas, spaghetti, milk, crackers, grapes, strawberries, used to love green beans, chicken nuggets
Loves to dance
Loves to jump on the trampoline
Would play in the puddles in our basketball court all day long if we'd let her
Loves to follow her big brother around and do whatever he is doing
Loves to talk.  I've lost track of her vocabulary.  But lately she's been learning phrases.  Her favorite now is "how are you?"  And when you ask her back she'll answer "good"  It's quite adorable.

Another thing I find funny is her shoe fetish.  Apparently she doesn't like seeing me barefoot because she always follows me around with my shoes trying to get me to put them on.  She doesn't like them on her own feet for very long though.

She sings "row, row, row your boat" very well as well as "twinkle, twinkle" and every once in a while I'll catch her singing along with the ABC's and counting.  Obviously not well, but recognizable.

My little princess :)

Look alikes

So Finn has been walking around a lot lately pretending to be "grandpa.". It really makes me giggle so I snapped this picture of his impersonation. I'm not exactly sure why he thinks he looks like grandpa because my dad doesn't have a huge gut, but it's still funny.

And another Finn funny is that when I take a bath, I'll twist my hair onto the top of my head with a clip so it doesn't get wet. A couple months ago he told me in a very distraught voice, "no! I want my mommy back. No grandma hair!". He apparently doesn't want me to cut my hair anytime soon. Cute kid!

3 years old

Finn turned 3 on July 12.

He's the most amazing little boy I've ever been part of, and I love him dearly.

Stats:

33 lbs
38 inches tall

That puts him in the 60% for height, 50% for weight.

Finn is a little stinker.  He is brilliant, and funny, and definitely daddy's little shadow.  He still wants to be with us every morning and climbs in our bed loaded up with his stuffed animals, blankets, and water cup.  He loves cars and trucks, and wants to be outside 99% of the time.  He has a little friend next door named Ella with whom he loves playing.  He's a pretty smart cookie.  He makes me laugh every day.  He has a little impish grin.  His smiles lately have been more like grimaces if you ask him to smile.  The only way to get a good smile is to ask him laugh and then snap a picture.  He's going to start preschool this fall and I'm happy/sad about that.  He has absolutely no interest in potty training.  We keep asking him but not pushing it, and typically he'll answer, "no, not today."  One sad potty training story is that one night he was able to go potty and so he got a little hot wheel car as a reward.  The next day he said he wanted to try again because he wanted another potty car.  He sat, and sat, and sat, and tried so many times, and then cried because he couldn't go potty and get his car.  Awwww, the poor little sweetheart.

For his birthday, we decided to invite family over and celebrate both his and Spencer's birthday, as it was the day before Finn's.  Finn has been in love with Mickey Mouse for the past 6 months so I decided to surprise him and make him a Mickey Mouse cake for his birthday.  That morning when I was decorating it I asked Finn what he thought.  He looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes and said, "Oh, are you making me a Mickey Mouse cake?"  That look made it all worth it.  I think he enjoyed his party.  He still remembers the car that Aunt Jennette gave him for his birthday.  (He remembers where he gets each of his cars, crazy kid).

He'll still ask me to sing him some bedtime songs, but now has been getting interested in bedtime stories as well.  Some nights I'll lay on the floor of his room and we'll tell a story together.  I love to hear his imagination working.

I tried a little birthday interview because I think it's a cute idea.  But I couldn't remember all the questions, so it's abbreviated.

What is your favorite color?  white
What is your favorite thing to eat?  fruit snacks
What is your favorite thing to do?  play with cars
What is your favorite movie?  Mickey Mouse
How old are you today?  10
What do you want to be when you grow up?  Roller skater (no clue about that one because he's never seen anyone on roller skates)

There are way to many things to say about this kiddo.  But we love him!

The birthday boys.  Love that we have two sons with birthdays close to each other.  I don't have the personal cute stuff to add about Spencer but we love him just as much (cute newlywed).

Flashback and forward

We may just be related

Lemonade and trucks

Saturday our neighbor girl had a lemonade stand so we went over to visit. Finn decided to stay and play. Here's a pic of him lounging around in his chair while mommy got some weeding done.

Later we brought Finn's truck up and he took his sister for a ride. Glimpse into the future of these two cruising around the town. Hopefully not too soon though!

16 months old

So I keep postponing my post on Zoe. This is also for her 1 year birthday sadly enough. I can't find her measurements though so I never did it and now she's 16 months old. Oops!

The little darling is still a chunker :). I think she was around 95% for weight and 92% for height at her 1 year. Which means whe has actually slimmed down a little! She was a great cruiser but didn't start walking on her own until a little after 15 months. Now she acts like an old pro. She's been quite the stranger anxiety baby. In fact I would love to take her out in public because she would smile and cuddle into my shoulder when anyone would try to smile or talk to her. I loved it! I'll take cuddles anyway I can get them, even if I have to manipulate the situation!

Zoe has 6 teeth still. 4 top and 2 bottom. Not sure when the rest will come in. She's finally officially off baby food for the past month or two. Usually because it's just easy to use a jar of baby food for complete nutrition instead of finding foods that will fit all the food groups. Yep, lazy mama sometimes. She was the harder thing ever to wean! One teaspoon of milk in her regular bottle while I was at work was the only way we could get her off pure nursing. It was amazing and the weaning process took about 2 months at that rate. But at least when we went on our vacation to Florida my parents weren't left with a starving child. Her favorite foods right now are spaghetti, bananas, graham crackers, peaches, and green beans - she literally ate an entire can of green beans herself a couple of times.

Zoe is well on her way following along with linguistic prowess like her brother. She's got quite the vocabulary if she wants to. She says the sounds of a puppy, cow, sheep, horse, says up and down, please and thank you, mommy and daddy and Finn (aka mim), Ella (neighbor girl), puppy (every inch of her being says that one), eat (takes after her aunt kristy and appreciation of good food as a kid:), bye bye, hello (on the phone), hi (in person), no (naturally), banana, apple, and probably more.

She goes to bed around 7:30 or 8 and wakes up around 7:30. Although lately she's started crying forever at night again, and I don't know why. It's so hard to hear. She takes one 2 hour nap during the day. She's an overall easy going kid. But she is learning to throw a little temper tantrum. She does like to yell really loudly at random times as well. Not because she's upset or mad, but she does it anyway. It's quite cute!

Well, that's my littlest nugget. So happy she's part of our family! Hopefully I'll be more timely on my future updates so that I can remember their milestones better.

Little bit of this and that

So, I'm hopelessly behind on my blog.  So much so that I don't even think I can catch up.  But here's a pitiful attempt.  First we'll start with out trip to Florida in February.  It was a lot of fun!  Some of the pictures are only on our phones, but these are our camera pictures.  First day we went to Cape Canaveral to visit the space station.  It was impressive to say the least!  We were lucky enough to be there on a day there was a launch.  Usually they don't launch as expected, but it blasted off right on the correct minute due to good weather, so we were able to check a rocket launch off our bucket lists.  Amazing!  Pictures don't do it justice so I won't even attempt to post that.

The next day we went to Universal Studios Florida and went to Harry Potter World.  Perfect weather, not very crowded, great experience.  James loved the Harry Potter ride the best and my favorite was one of the roller coasters.  They are developing 3D rides now that really feel like you are part of it all. After that, we headed south driving down to the Florida Keys.  On the way, we stopped and took a fan boat ride tour into the Everglades and saw this awesome alligator (or crocodile - shoot me, I don't know the difference).  I even got a picture of him with his mouth wide open, but this was closer.

Next was a trip down to Key West.  We rented bikes to tour around the city and I must say that's the best way to see it.  You can't see much in a car, but we really enjoyed these bike rides.  Plus, it was good exercise.

The southernmost point in the continental US and we were there :)

On our way back up to Orlando, we went to this random garden which was made entirely out of limestone (which looks like coral) by a lone gentleman who was jilted in Europe in his early 20's so he made this entire garden/house in dedication to his love for her.  He died alone and never married.  So sad, but also amazing.  I'm sitting in the bathtub below (water was running through all the fixtures when he lived there but now it's not) and the picture of James is him pushing open a 1 ton door arranged perfectly so that it can be moved by one person.  The man that built it was a genious in the physics department.

The last night we stayed in the most beautiful resort (and for only $38 a night) and then headed home the next morning.  We had such a great time on that trip and are very thankful to the grandparents for watching our kids while we were gone!

Next up: Zoe's 1st birthday (yep, she's almost 15 months old), Christmas maybe, my trip to Anne of Green Gables land, Thanksgiving Point gardens with the grandparents, my first garden, etc.  So much to document for my records, so little time!