January Trips i.e. escape from Hoth

After spending Christmas together we were so excited to see family!! We drove to Dallas and it was beautiful. We went to the zoo enjoyed the Park (for the first time in 3 months) and got to see the Manions! Emery and B were instant pals.
Then our friends from Houston rarandomly had a 24 hour layover in Dallas. We were stoked, Logan and Finn couldn't have been more excited to see each other!

 Then we went to Utah. Daniel was able to come with us, then go on to see baby Nora get blessed in Idaho. Finn loved being with all of his cousins and we all got some much needed Nona and Papa time!

Johnston girls at our finest

B joined us for our girl's day Pedis

B is 6 months

now that she is almost 7 months (shhh) I thought I would update on her

• She loves her toes and to pull her socks off!
• She smiles and coos ALL day long 
• She loves Finn and will laugh at anything he does, even if she is in the middle of crying if he comes and talks to her she'll perk right up
• Turns out she hates pureed food and would rather have the hard stuff like pancakes and frozen veggies. 
• still no teeth
• still nurses like a champ
• rolling like a potato bug but she refuses to sit up on her own
• absolute joy to be around and that sparkle in her eye can put a smile on even Scrooge's face!

November updates

Daniel got a small break from school for Thanksgiving so we were able to get some much needed family time.
We went to a small theater in Saint Paul to see Planes. Finn loves the theater! something about bottomless popcorn and treats and big comfy chairs gets him excited....?

the were way more interested in the pre-show than smiling

Then we went to Blue Door for lunch to Minnesota's famous blucy and delicious cheese curds!

Daniel and I got to play a lot of cribbage like the 80 year old couple that we are.

Finn has gotten very independent and tires to do everything himself expecially when it involves semi sharp objects. Here he is "making a samich" sporting his Thanksgiving craft we did that week.

For Thanksgiving we got together with a couple of our friends and had a Brisket. It was all of our first Thanksgivings without family so we decided to get a little crazy and have beef instead of turkey. Followed by a fierce game of BANG and pie we oddly felt very patriotic.

Of course no shave November:

It started to get colder so this is a common sight around here: Had coat and boots all put on by himself!

A legit October

The entire month of October was much different for us this year. We didn't have to crank the AC so that we could wear our sweaters, or buy ice cold lemonade to keep us cool while we picked out our pumpkins... no no, this year was legit. I busted out our dusty winter boxes much sooner than I anticipated, but don't you worry, I had a giant smile on my face while I was doing it. 

We got bundled up and made sure not to waste a weekend. 

We hit Afton Apple Farms-- they had amazing apple pie, a huge playground and tire mountain, a fun hay ride, and raspberry picking.

Obviously Betsy was thrilled

We also picked out some pumpkins at a local pumpkin patch. 

Then painted said pumpkins:

We drove down to Stillwater for their Fall Festival, and while the actual festival left much to be desired, the town was incredible. I guess it's the oldest town in Minnesota so it is full of gorgeous homes and twisting old trees. We went at the peak of the fall foliage so it was lit up with fall colors.

Ok, the giant pumpkins were pretty awesome

 The kids got a fun Halloween package from Nona and Papa to get them in the candy spirit.

To get us into Halloween mode we left the kids and headed to fright farm....it was perfect.

 Then for Halloween we made all of Finn's dreams come true and dressed him up as Peter Pan and Daniel up as Captain Hook. This happened ALL night....

He was in heaven.

If Daniel agreed to wear "guy"-liner, then B and I were going to join the crew too. We picked our sides and became the trusty side kicks.

My favorite part of Halloween this year was watching Finn trick or treat. He and his friend Elsa ran around our complex baffled by the fact that they could knock on any door and GET CANDY?! He ran home and dumped out his loot and was thrilled that it was all his. Luckily like 20 minutes later he got just as excited to hand out candy and he had forgotten all about his own. I was able to dump it back into the trick-or-treating bowl and we handed it all back out.
Thank you Minnesota, quite a legit October.
I'm sure December will be even better!

Finn Update

Finn is 2 years and 7 months old.. seriously? He is officially a person now who has his own ideas, preferences, voice, creativity, and opinions. It is so fun to watch him play and see how his imagination runs wild.

 he loves swimming and I would be sad that summer is ending, but I think that he's going to like playing in the snow just as much!

 He loves to snuggle and read books, and sing songs. He can be heard all over the house singing songs, most the time they are songs we've sung together like primary songs  or Taylor Swift, but occasionally you'll hear him randomly make up a song about what he's doing, and those are my favorite! He'll sing "I'm goin potty, I'm goin poooootttty, yeah yeah yeah" then he'll explain to me that, that was a song about him going potty.
He is such a good listener, especially even when he aren't talking to him. D and I will sometimes have cryptic conversations about him when we're all driving in the car about things like, what the plan is for the rest of the day, or how we are choosing to discipline, then out of no where Finn will chime in and add to the conversation like we were talking right to him. So needless to say we are working on choosing our words more wisely

We have started playing with letters. He can quickly recognize the letters R, Y, and O. It's hard to see because he insisted on using a yellow highlighter, but this is his first F!

Here he's wearing B's bloomers because we had a throw-up incident in the car and mommy was Very unprepared. He thought it was the funniest thing ever! -thank heavens they fit him.

He LOVES his Rescue Bots- transformers that are rescue heroes- he watches the show whenever we let him and there are action figures for all the characters, so we devised a plan to put his love for them to good use. We set up a sticker chart and when he gets all his stickers he gets one! He's earned 4 so far and has two more to go. He will do almost anything for a sticker and I love how motivated it gets him to do things like brush his teeth and get on his jammies.

 

He does everything with them, and "rescues" people everywhere he goes. As cute as it is D and I are struggling to keep up with him and all his rescue aspirations!

 He often does work out routines complete with, burpees, lunges, some cool flops, and... incline perfect push-ups? He's Finnsane :)

 

Finn is the sweetest big brother and loves to "play" with B. He'll make up games where he's protecting her from a tiger or where they're hiding from a dragon. Whenever she's laying on the floor he'll go up and rub her arms and kiss her belly. 

 Super Why is also an obsession in our household and sometimes we even let it out of the house. We got this mask off a cereal box the other day and he didn't take it off for a solid 6 hours!

At the MN state fair I took him on his first ferris wheel ride. It was a HUGE one but he did so good. He loved how high we were "like Blades!" (his helicopter rescue bot)

Finn is so adventurous, courageous, tender, loyal, patient, energetic, creative, clever, smart, and so loving!
His favorite:
food- oatmeal
snack- pretzels
show- Rescue Bots/Super Why
color- blue
song- itsy-bitsy spider
game- rescue heros
store- Costco (he recognizes it instantly)