Finley Milligan: 2013

Thursday, April 18, 2013

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

Thursday, January 3, 2013

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!