Wow! I can't believe it has been since Christmas that I posted what Finley has been up to.  The reason for the lack of updating is Finley has started to keep me and everyone around her very busy!  A quick recap of the past four months...  We had a wonderful trip to Mexico with the Brennick Family.  Finley was a pleasure to travel with and we had so much fun playing with her cousins on the beach.  We were then off to Park City for the month of February.  Finley had a chance to spend time with lots of family.  She got to meet her Aunt Morg's for the first time and spend lots of time playing with Uncle Jeff on his Ipad.  Grandma Jane was also around to watch Finley so the grown ups could get some nice ski days in.  Finley then had a chance to spend Gigi's birthday with her which was so special.  We have since returned home to enjoy the Spring weather and lots of park time in Houston.  Finley also started school at the beginning of April.  She attending this darling Montessori school called Bonne Vie and her teacher's name is Ms. Glennelle.  Finley is doing so well at school.  It is fun to watch her come home and practice the things that she is learning.  The past weekend she was marching everywhere she was going so we assume they are doing some sort of marching at school.

A funny thing that happened a few weeks ago is that Finley learned the word car.  She knows that we drive a car and one day it clicked to her that cars are EVERYWHERE!  We would go to the grocery and her eyes would get huge as she would point out every single car she could see, car, car, car.  It sure is fun to watch as her brain has started to connect the dots.

She is doing great with her words.  Every day she tries to sound out a new word.  She has even started to put two words together.  We go walking with our neighbors dog Duke most mornings and she loves to say "bye-bye, Duke".  Finley is still fascinated with four legged creatures.  Maybe we will have to get one soon.

I am thoroughly enjoying the peace and quiet of the mornings when she is at school.  I am sort of struggling with the temper tantrums and food throwing that go along with being 19 months old.  I hope we are having the terrible one and a halfs and that this doesn't continue for the next year or so.  It helps that Finley wakes up each morning as happy as you can imagine and points out the birds right outside her window.  Such simple pleasures in life.

Hanging out with Aunt Morgs

Uncle Jeff is so much fun

I love Mag Mag

Just enjoying a sunny day in the snow

Just being me

Easter with my Daddy

My family in Punta Mita

My cousins Piper and Andrew

I did a really fun Easter Egg Hunt with the Lollars at the Bay

Happy New Year - 15 months

It appears the last time I blogged was when Finley took her first steps.  A lot has changed over the past six weeks, as of January 1^st Finley has started running!

A quick recap of the holidays:  We went to Park City for Thanksgiving and spent the weekend with Gigi, Papa and Maggie.  Finley loves Maggie and learned the word dog over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  I stayed an extra week with Finley so that she could spend a week with Grandma Jane as well.  It was so nice for Finley to be with all of her grandparents in November. 

When we arrived home from Park City things went downhill.  Finley started with a cough which turned into croup which then became bronchitis and resulted in a day spent in the emergency room.  Just when we though she was getting better from bronchitis I noticed a small rash on her chest so I took her back into the doctor on a Saturday morning.  After being seen by all three doctors on staff they determined that she had shingles!  What?!?! Infants don’t get shingles, well apparently one in five thousand do, from the chicken pox vaccination.  After a very stressful two weeks getting Finley healthy we were able to spend Christmas in St. George with the Milligan Family. 

Finley loves to play at home in her play area.  She can be amused for hours stacking and sorting things.  Yesterday she started lining things up and then moving them to different rooms and lining them up again.  I love that I am home to see her start to develop into a little person and I love watching her do things deliberately.  One darling thing that she does is after she has a bath and her jammies are on we usually let her come downstairs to play for a bit.  When she gets downstairs she will take off her socks and then take each one individually and place it on the stairs beyond the gate.  It like she doesn’t want them on, but at the same time she doesn’t want to lose them!  Finley is very talkative.  She seems to be getting a new word almost every day.  Right now a few of her favorite words are dog, cheese, juice, more (more more more more all day long), turtle, night night, bye bye, and hi.  She loves to work on her sounds and will try to copy pretty much anything that I say to her.

She is still a champion sleeper.  She asks to go down for her naps and to bed at night.  She will start sucking her thumb and go to the stairs and say night night and then ask for dog, her favorite stuffed animal that she sleeps with.  I still have her on 2 naps a day just because she seems to want them. 

We are heading to Mexico next week with the Brennick Family.  I know that Finley is going to love being around her cousins!

Happy Thanksgiving

This year I am twice the size of the turkey

JB, Finley, Elise

Here I am at the Christmas Carnival with my friend Claire

Holy Cow Santa brought me a wagon!

On a Christmas hike with my Mommy and Daddy

Im telling Papa about my wagon

Merry Christmas 2012

Here I am with the Milligan Family

Walking!!!

The day has finally come that Finley is walking.  She got a little bit of a late start but when she decided that she was going to walk, she stood up and walked, and walked, and walked.  In honor of her finally walking I have been playing dress up with her with all of the dresses in her closet.  Little girls look so cute when they toddle around in their too long or too big dresses and tights.

We are packing up today for our Thanksgiving journey to Park City.   It is hard to imagine that just one year ago we had a tiny baby, we lived in NYC and it was raining so hard on the two hour trip to the airport that we missed our flight.  Tomorrow morning we will wake up, feed Finley some cheerios and wear our summer time clothes and drive ourselves to the airport.  Oh what a difference a year makes!

Finley is getting really good with her sounds and associating them with objects.  She knows Dada and Mama which is precious.  She is also quite good at parroting any sound that I give her.  Today we worked on the M sound and the G sound.  She is going to see a few special people on Wednesday and we want to make sure she knows their names.  She is so cute with Pa-Pa, it might be my favorite thing that she says.  We are working on Gigi for her Grandma Gail and M for Maggie.  She is also going to see her Grandma Jane and she is especially talented at saying NaNa.

Finley loves making friends wherever she goes.  I told Todd that she is going to LOVE the airplane tomorrow as there will be so many people to look at her smile.  She will also get to wave hello and goodbye to everyone that she sees.  She is also going to love eating her first Thanksgiving meal.  I anticipate that stuffing will be her favorite and if she is good we may have to give her a taste of pumpkin pie.

I am so MAD but isn't my dress cute?

Look at me walk!

All Done.  She is getting really good with her sign language.

Honey Badger

For those of you who have not seen the honey badger video on youtube, it is a funny narration of an African animal who doesn’t care.  Todd and I have started calling Finley the honey badger because nothing phases the kid.  She throws her food so I take it away, she doesn’t care…I took her to the doctor and he said her throat is really sore has she been eating and drinking…yup, honey badger doesn’t care.  So yes, we endearingly refer to our 13 month old daughter in the same tune as an African possum who eats rattle snakes.

Poor Finley spent most of her first month being one sick.  It all started with her one year old vaccinations and the flu shot.  From the flu shot she ran 104 degree fever and her body covered in fever sores.  Following the fever she developed bronchitis, which turned into an ear infection.  When I went to check on the ear infection that is when she had the virus which caused the sore throat.  She rounded out all of her sickness with a brand new molar (bottom right, just in case I want to remember).  Having a sick baby was just awful.  I would sleep with her every night on my chest, our doctor told us that crying would really hurt her ears so we needed to do whatever we could to keep her comfortable for the 8 days of her infection.  I would be up with Finley all night and then go to sleep at 8 in the morning when I put her down for a nap.  We were on this schedule for what seemed like forever. 

On a fun note Finley is taking a few steps here and there.  Her preferred mode of transportation is still on all fours but she is capable of taking up to ten steps at a time.  She stood up in music on Halloween and walked across the room, I was in shock.  We had a really fun first Halloween in our new house.  Finley dressed as a ladybug and had so much fun in her costume.  Finley fills her days pointing at things and hugging her dolls.  She is also making lots of sounds and enjoys hearing herself.  Yesterday she talked like a pirate with a real low back of the throat voice – “Aye”.  Finley also loves her Daddy and has started to get upset when he leaves the room. 

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is this month.  It is hard to believe it has been a year since we missed our flight to Utah and spent the night in an airport hotel with a tiny baby that had to sleep in her car seat.  

LadyBug!

Costume day in music class

Trick or Treat

My Daddy is the BEST

Mommy wanted to get in on the fun

Look at me go!!!!

I am a super fast crawler 

Finley is One

We made it, Finley turned one, and we are all still alive and kicking!  The entire month of September has been very special for our family. On September 15^th we baptized Finley at St. Martins Episcopal Church.  Finley’s baptism was beautiful and we felt so blessed to have so many friends and family honor her special day.  Finley’s Godparents are people whom Todd and I have a deep respect for their religious, ethical and personal values.  We know that Finley will be in good hands as they watch over her and guide her in life.  We combined the celebration of her baptism with a little birthday party at our house.  I couldn’t wait for her to have her first taste of cake, Finley proved to be very cautious and dainty with her cake.  I wish I could say the same for the spaghetti and meatballs that she had for her birthday dinner!

Finley spends her days telling stories, some of which are reallllly grand with lots of inflection and drama.  She also enjoys trips to the park to swing and did I mention that she loves to go get coffee with me in the morning!  We were at the park last week and a Spanish speaking nanny was asking a little girl if she wanted “mas”  Finley looked right at the nanny and did her sign for “more”, all those months of sign language are finally paying off.

Finley spent her birthday morning having pancakes with her friend Isabelle.  It was really fun to have a little girls breakfast, I hope that we can make pancake breakfast an annual birthday tradition.

Our biggest challenge these days is throwing food.  She just loves to drop her food right off her tray and then peer over to make sure that it hit the floor.  This really makes me want to spend hours making food for her!  That being said her favorite foods at the moment are spaghetti and meatballs and blueberries.  It is amazing to me what she will eat, I keep waiting for the, ‘I only want grilled cheese phase’, I am sure it is right around the corner.  We are still anxiously awaiting her first steps, I can't wait for her to wear all of those cute little dresses in her closet.    

Editors note (for some reason I can't control the order that the photos show up...sorry)

Happy First Birthday Finley

I like to Party

This is my very special Baptism at St. Martins Church

This is my Godfather Marwan.  He is so special to me.

My Mom says living with me is like living with a wild animal

This is my Godmother Jenny.  She is a wonderful role model for me and I love her very much.

Go ahead...take my tray away, I don't care...

Almost One

We almost have a one year old!  I will be so happy when I can just say, “she is one”, rather than try to figure out if I am rounding up or down to the half month or full month when someone asks her age.   We don’t have any extravagant plans for Finley’s birthday,  I think we will just go out for Mexican food.  This will be the first year that we get to celebrate both Todd and Finley’s special day together.

Finley is constantly on the move getting into everything but her toys.  She has become obsessed with the Iphone.  She can spot one from a mile away and do whatever it takes to get her hands on it.   She has also started standing on her own, she can get up from a seated position and stand for a few seconds and then she will seat herself back down.  Walking is right around the corner.  Finley is getting better and better at eating.  She loves spaghetti and meatballs and goldfish crackers (just like her daddy).

The past few weeks have been filled with lots of travel.  Finley is great to travel with; she enjoys airports as there are so many people to smile at.  Todd was pushing her in her stroller and noticed as we walked everyone was smiling – she was putting on a show in her stroller.  Getting to the destination is the easy part, when we arrived she got so excited that she didn’t want to sleep – at all.  Our first trip was to Park City so Todd could play in a golf tournament.  Park City was fun because it was a trip filled with family.  Finley got to spend a week with both her Grandmas and her Papa. She also got to play with her cousins Andrew and Piper.  Our next trip was to NYC and to East Hampton.  It was so much fun to take Finley to the beach, she loved eating the sand, lots of it!  Finley got to play with the dog named Finley which was lots of fun.  When Finley sees a dog she gets physically excited and her whole body shakes with glee.  On our way back to the airport we rode the Hampton Ambassador bus, there were about five people on our bus one of which was Hoda!  She was so friendly and looked right at Finley and said now that is a cute baby!!!

This past week we have been playing with the twins.  Oh the big girls are SO much fun.  Finley loved going to the museum, swimming and out for lunch with her girlfriends. I also got a chance to hang out with my girlfriends as Allison and Nicole both came over for a sleepover.  Five baby girls later we still know how to have a good time, even if it was a Sunday night!

Watching my Daddy play golf

Piper is teaching me how to swing

Just hanging with my Daddy

I got this exersaucer for Christmas and it is still fun 

Me and my Grandma Jane

This dog is named Finley too!

What is this stuff - I wonder how it will taste

This is my family

Ten Months – Gecko Eating

In the past month Finley has started babbling and getting into pretty much everything.  When she started to learn how to crawl I had a really hard time keeping up with her because all that she wanted to do was to practice crawling and I would have to chase her from room to room.  I didn’t know how I was going to function for the coming months.  Well, now she has learned how to pull up so she pretty much stays put in one room and goes up and down and up and down.  Our days continue to be very scheduled, both Finley and I function very well on a regular schedule.  She wakes up has her bottle, then we walk to the coffee shop so I can have my milk!  When we get home we empty the dishwasher, this activity will keep her busy for about a half an hour. 

Last week Allison and I were talking about caring for little people and she described her day in segments:  before the morning nap segment, between morning and afternoon nap segment, and after afternoon nap segment.  Allison likes to go to the gym and take her girls because it takes up an entire segment.  On Mondays Finley goes to music, which she absolutely loves, but it also takes up segment 2 of our Monday!

Finley has FIVE teeth now.  She has three bottom teeth and two top ones, however, not the middle ones like a bunny, she is a full on vampire!  She has started to figure out that she can chew with her gums, so when she puts food in her mouth she makes very dramatic chews.  Yesterday, she finally figured out how to use her sippy cup.  I think the fact that it was filled with delicious white grape juice may have helped.

Last week I received a call from Favi, Finleys babysitter letting me know that Finley had caught a gecko and managed to put the entire thing in her mouth, alive and moving!  I called the doctor and in all the years they had never heard of a child crafty enough to eat a reptile.

We are heading to Utah this afternoon.  We have not flown with Finley since March so it will be an interesting trip.  She is a very happy content child so I am sure it will just be one fun adventure for her and an opportunity to smile at a lot of strangers.

I love my music set

I celebrated ten months with Isabelle

I love to swim

Leggo my Eggo

My favorite time of day

Happy Ten Month Birthday Blue Eyed Baby Girl