Monthly Archives: July 2013

Finn ~ 17 weeks

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Finn continues to be enamored with his hands and feet! He is now constantly putting his foot into his mouth. He seems to favor his right leg, in particular, though he at times uses both of his hands to grab at both of his feet. This is a look at what he frequently does in his carseat. There are also a few others from the week.

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He is very coordinated and loves to grab at your face when you get near him.  He is also quite good at reaching anything overhead. He has always loved his monkey and he also loves this musical toy. He has even pushed the button several times himself to either skip to the next song or to begin playing the music!

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I love to put out both of my hands in front of him – he will put each of his hands on my hands, like we are ready to play patty cake! He also loves to blow bubbles or “talk” to you by spitting and sputtering with his lips.

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He is consistently taking 2-3 hour naps during the day. The 6-9 pm time frame is commonly his awake and at times fussy period of the day. He regularly crashes for the evening anywhere from 9-11 pm and will sleep for usually 6 hours, so it is around 7-8 hours between feedings as he usually eats an hour or so before he goes to bed. Things are going pretty well, and I’m hoping to solidify a decent schedule before long!

We took our first official family “vacation” to Chicago this weekend from Thursday to Sunday. We headed to our favorite city for a fun weekend filled with a couple of concerts (Robert Plant on Friday and Company of Thieves on Saturday) at the Taste of Chicago. It was a trip that brought along many firsts! We left at 6 pm on Thursday, so it was a late travel night, but Finn did great in the car. We stopped once along the way and rolled into our hotel at midnight (1 am Columbus time). Finn slept awesome each night in our room – he continues to be a champ sleeper during the night. We were across the street from Grant Park, where the Taste is held, so we were able to walk over in about 5 minutes.

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Can’t go to Chicago without a stop at Corner Bakery!

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Our hotel is the building to the right of the light post!

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Here is a view of our hotel from the Taste, and then a view from our hotel overlooking Grant Park.  It was beautiful weather all weekend long!

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Daddy loves the Billy Goat – though we didn’t have any cheezborgers at the Taste, we visited the Navy Pier location instead. 

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Robert Plant, featured concert on Friday!

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First family concert! Finn had in earplugs, and slept through the entire opening act!

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Saturday we took a cab to the North part of Michigan Avenue as it was a fairly lengthy walk and we needed to get to the Taste in time for the concert!  Here is Finn in his first cab.

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We did quite a bit of walking after our initial cab ride. After our stop at Garret’s popcorn (I’m waiting in line below), we walked to Navy Pier, about a half hour trip. We took a family ride on the ferris wheel.  See what a difference a year makes? The first photo of Kevin and me is from July of 2012.

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After the Ferris Wheel we ate a quick bite at the Billy Goat at Navy Pier before heading to the Company of Thieves Concert!

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Finn loves to arch backwards and look at things behind himself, here is a perfect example!

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Among the other firsts:

First trip to a big city – Chicago, our favorite city!

First elevator ride (other than a hospital!) we were on the 25th floor of the hotel!

First trip in a cab – up Michigan Avenue to head to Crate and Barrel

First (and second!) concert – Robert Plant, then Company of Thieves, both at the Taste of Chicago

First time wearing ear plugs – he did great with these, we used the silicone ones that are shapeable. They definitely worked quite well and he wasn’t bothered by them at all.

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First time in a Ferris Wheel – we went all together at Navy Pier.

First time to Indiana

First time to Illinois

First time to Garret’s popcorn! We waited in line for ½ hour for the amazing stuff.  It’s tradition!

First time away from the puppies!  Tricia watched the girls while we were gone. As always, they were excited for our return:)   Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of them this week!

And here are some final shots of this past week and our weekend away!

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Finn ~ 16 weeks

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Last weekend we spent some time in the yard doing some major reclamation of our gardens!  The weeds had grown like crazy and taken over our front bed in particular. Between being gone a lot and all of the rain lately we haven’t had much opportunity to work outside. Luckily Finn took a couple of good naps during the weekend which allowed us to spend some much needed time outdoors. Things are once again looking good!

Finn is really getting to be a pro at hand-eye coordination. He is constantly grabbing at any and everything with his hands.  Beginning this week he is in love with holding his feet with his hands. It seems like he constantly has his legs up in the air at ninety-degree angles and is reaching for his toes.  His favorite position when being held is to stand upright, facing whoever is holding him. He has really strong legs and is quite good at grabbing (or swatting) at your face!

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He continues to sleep in a “sleep sack”. We had a rough night this week where he was waking every two hours, ugh! That makes for one tired momma! Not sure what that was all about but hopefully we won’t have too many more of those.  I’m hoping he will “sleep through the night” soon. He usually sleeps about 6 hours, but oftentimes his last feeding before bed is sometime in the 9 pm hour, which means he is getting up around 3 am! We’ve also had to make the next diaper size upgrade as he was seeming to leak through 1 of every 2 diapers. I stepped on the scale with our little man this week and I think he is right around the 14 pound mark. He has some cute perma-wrinkles in his upper thighs.  He continues to lose some hair – mostly on the left and right sides of his head. The back still has plenty of hair and the top is as crazy as ever. What is coming in is definitely blonde!

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I love his expressions here!

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Work is going pretty well for me. I’ve been really busy with lots of planning and season re-cap meetings since my return. The days pass pretty quickly and Finn is doing really well with Tricia while I’m gone. He sleeps and eats great, usually taking 2 long naps (2 hours or more) during the day. She takes photos of him and posts them in our baby app so both Kevin and I enjoying being able to see him throughout the day.

We have been enjoying a short work week this week due to the holiday. On Thursday we had a fun family cookout to celebrate the 4th of July with the Beilstein’s, Bethune’s, and Armstrong’s. It was a fun afternoon filled with plenty of food! We really enjoy having everyone over. Finn was so into it that he felt he’d rather join the party than sleep, so he was up most of the time other than a few power naps of about 1/2 hour each! He made up for that on Friday though, taking a few rather long naps. Kevin and I enjoyed a nice day around the house and then went out to do a bit of shopping at the mall Friday evening.

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Kevin was playing ball with Cameron the other day. It never lasts long, as Lily always feels she must get in on the action. Bear is getting along pretty good these days. She hobbles along, but still makes it almost everywhere that everyone else does!

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Tonight is our second date night. We will be taking Finn to Amy and Andy’s while we head out to dinner and a movie. We are looking forward to that!