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)

Rollin with the Homies

Bets rolled over on Sunday 9/8 for the first time!
She's been reaching around from her back to her belly for a while but could never make it over her arm, so I thought she would figure that out first....
Nope, turns out she hates tummy time almost as much as Finn did here is him figuring it out.

also note on her schedule,  I wish that I had written down Finn's so for baby number 3 (if they in fact will exist) I'll be able to look back
She is so good at taking naps, eats every three hours during the day, and we're working on getting her all the way through the night
today her schedule went like this:

6am eat, back to sleep
(I'm trying to decided if I should keep her awake for that first 1.5 hr then put her down for that first nap then her feedings will be bumped 30 min....)

8:30 up and so happy, eat
play time with Finn
10 down for a nap

11:30 up eat
play time
1:00 down for nap
---Finn down at 1:30
 (happy happy mommy for about an 1 hr)

2:30 up eat
mommy B time
4:00 Down for a nap

5:30 up eat
play time

7:30 eat down for bed

10-10:30 dream feeding
right back to sleep

hopefully sleeps on through, figures crossed :)

Betsy Boo

 This poor second child gets way less blog posts and progression pictures taken of her. But she couldn't be more perfect and couldn't have come to us at a more perfect time. During all the craziness of these 2.5 months she has been a little piece of heaven.

@ 1.5-2 months old:

She is already such an good eater, sleeper, and cuddler. She loves being in your arms but will settle in anywhere.

She is alert and loves to be a part of what is going on. She makes eye contact and starts to smile at us, and Finn just can't get enough of it. Which is just perfect because she can't get enough of Finn. She follows him around the room and gets so excited when he comes up to her, even if sometimes

he gets a little too close...

 @ 2-3 months old:

Betsy is so full of personality! She smiles at you no matter what even if she is in the middle of crying.
Tummy time is a happy time for about 2 minutes and when she is done she is DONE
She loves her play mat and is already trying to roll over from her back to her belly
She will sit and play all day if I let her and only cries when it's time to eat or time for a nap.
She loves her Bink still but only when it's time for bed.
She loves to talk and "giggle" with us especially D. Any time he holds her she will just stare up at him and make the sweetest sounds, Daddy's girl in the making.
She has such a sassy cry,  I kind of love it.... she will be super content then in one second she is completely worked up, only to settle right back down when you give her what she wants.

 She is so active and LOVES to kick her feet and grab with her little fingers.

 This is how I found her one morning, she had kicked in her swaddle blanket so much that it pulled her jammies down off her shoulders and even got one arm completely out of the long sleeve. Then of course she was not at all upset, but proud of herself.

Betsy's favorite is when Finn plays in her play mat with her

We love you Boobers and we are so happy that your sweet, content, joyful, patient, and loving personality came to join our family. We are better people with you in our lives and we love you so much!

Minnesota-- "where's the snow?"

We made it here to Minnesota and we are so excited! This new adventure started on our way,  pugga helped us SO MUCH by driving our moving truck. We were able to make it all the way to Missouri and saw Liberty jail before we stopped for the night. Such a spiritual place to visit, I really enjoyed the tour and Finn was captivated by the life size replica complete with Joseph Smith.

 Far West was gorgeous, we stopped by that on the way out the next day. It was super peaceful early in the morning and it's surrounded by rolling hills and farm land. That mixed with the sweet spirit that resides there made it such an incredible place to be.

Pugga and Finn racing, getting Finn ready for another long day in the car

 This was definitely the best moment of the trip. Home sweet home for the next 2 years. The first thing Finn said when we told him we were in Minnesota was "Where's the snow?" for weeks leading up to moving we kept telling him that it was cold in Minnesota and that we could build snowmen and go sledding, so he was pretty disappointed when it was summer .

 Finn was so happy to have all of his toys back that he prayed about it for days after we got here. This kid has been such a trooper these past few weeks !

 Our apartment doesn't have AC which at first we were like "WHAT????" then we remembered "oh yeah, we don't live in a lava pit  Houston anymore" so with the windows open at night, a couple of fans, and nakey babies we are getting along just fine : )

We have a few weeks before Daniel starts school to explore our new home and we didn't waste time. we went to a fun farmers market where they were doing a live cooking competition, I was in heaven!

 

We checked out the Como Zoo. It is free fifty free! and was totally fun, it had everything from gorillas and tigers to Sparky the Seal.

 

 We went shopping for winter clothes at some fun Outlets. Having Daniel has made everything so much fun especially for me "hands free shopping, like what??" The only thing that got Finn through the long day was the promise of a giant popsicle at the end and it didn't disappoint

We went camping at one of the 10,000 lakes and had a blast. Both kids did really well. Our thin Houston blood was unfortunate during the cold night, but from what we have heard if mid-fifties was giving us trouble we're in for a treat this winter..... game faces officially on.

Bottom line:
 WE. LOVE. MINNESOTA.
It has been a fabulous couple of weeks and are excited for many more to come. 

as crazy as it gets.....

hopefully because these past few weeks have been CA-RA-Z!

We've been packing up to move to MN for weeks and it was finally becoming crunch time to get out of our house. We had 1 week left to finish up everything when we got a bit of a scare. Sunday morning after a long sleepless night we took B's temp and it was at 103. Finn had NEVER spiked a fever this high so I was really nervous. We called the dr's office and they told us that because she was so young (4 weeks) that we needed to go directly to the ER. When we got there they explained that they follow a certain protocol for babies this young with such high fevers. This protocol was a long painful 48 hours in the NICU complete with all kinds of testing. B was such a warrior and even with that darn high fever that kept coming back and making her feel terrible she was such a sweet baby, we got a lot of mommy daughter snuggle time, and all the nurses were smitten by her. Everything turned out ok and with a rash that showed up the day after the fever broke it was concluded that she had won the battle against Roseola.

with the fever bugging her she couldn't sleep very well unless she was in someone's arms so it was so sweet to finally see her peacefully asleep all on her own.

SO we made it out of the hospital by Tuesday and needed everything ready to go by Friday um yikes! Then an angel straight from heaven swooped in and made everything possible, my sweet sister Betsy and Cambo. Finn was so excited to have his cousin to keep him entertained and I was so grateful for Betsy!! In those quick 3 days we were packed up and ready to head to Utah.

We packed all 6 of us- B, Finn, Cambo, Betsy, D, and myself into the car and started our 30 hour drive. After spending one night in Dallas with D's family we drove the rest straight through. Daniel was a machine and drove all but 5 hours of the entire trip but B gets team MVP, we had to wake her up to feed her most of the time!

Um how long??

We fit like a glove...a tight glove

We made lots of fun stops

When we got to Utah we had fun hiking,

Catching fish with our bare hands...?

 Longboarding,

Looking for buried treasure,

Going on motorcycle rides--D's first one,

 Hanging out with our Besties!

and going to the 4th of July Parade.

 After a few fun days in the valley we headed up to Moose Hollow near Ogden for a family reunion. There Finn was overjoyed by how many cousins he had to play with! and B got A LOT of snuggles.

Re-enacting the BOM story of "Ammon and the Arms" with light sabers made from pool noodles

B loved Parker! It was so surreal to see my first little nephew, now old enough to pass the sacrament, hold my baby girl. Um I fighting my sister to snuggle him and change his diapers only yesterday right?!

 After all this fun it was time to face a 30 hour car ride back to Houston, where we are currently staying in a 1 bed room sublet for 3 weeks, until we finish our move to MN for D to start Grad school.

If it wasn't for Team Umi Zumi Finn probably wouldn't have gotten back in the car

We drove the first 8 hours caravaning with my brother Cory and his family, which is lucky because about 6 hours in we ran out of gas, and coasted into a gas station with our car dying out 50 yards away from the pump. Then about an 1 1/2 after saying goodbye to them in Denver our car dyed again. This time it needed a new Surpantine belt. We stayed in Limon Colorado for the night and found a mechanic in the morning that diagnosed the problem and ordered the part. We had a lazy morning swimming at our hotel before we hit the road again around 3 in the afternoon.
We pulled into D's parent's house around 3 in the morning slept like babies for a solid 4 hours until our babies woke us up.
We had a relaxing morning and afternoon with D's mom and Grandma House, and left for home around 2. Finally back in Houston grateful for such a fun trip and already missing everyone like crazy!

B meeting Grandma House for the first time