Monthly Archives: December 2013

Finn ~ 39 weeks

POLARIS_20131214_000019Yep, we visited Santa and Mrs. Claus!  Finn wasn’t too fond but had a period or two without crying.  He had just woken up from a 3 hour nap, then we put him in some clothes and hauled him off to meet Santa. He did like chewing on the sucker afterward, through the plastic of course 😉POLARIS_20131214_000020 POLARIS_20131214_000016 POLARIS_20131214_000014 POLARIS_20131214_000015DSC_0277 DSC_0283

Finn has his second tooth! It is an upper lateral – kind of funky! But cute nonetheless. After all, as my dad says “you don’t get to choose the order in which they come in!”DSC_0008He likes to play in his play yard and he loves to dance. Whenever music comes on he starts bouncing and dancing. He is pretty content to play by himself for a good stretch of time. DSC_0009 DSC_0011

The Christmas tree is still pretty popular around here. Whenever Finn has free reign to crawl around the family room he typically heads to the tree. He loves to stand along the cabinets and touch the tree and take off an ornament or two. Check out the video:

DSC_0111 DSC_0115DSC_0262 DSC_0266 DSC_0253 DSC_0250Thursday we celebrated Kevin’s birthday with dinner out with friends at Pies and Pints. It was a pleasant night complete with chocolate cake. Finn does really well when we are out and about in restaurants. He just loves to look around and take it all in. He is very observant. He loves to eat food and has recently tried (in convenient pouches) raspberries & greek yogurt, spinach, pears, & peas, and just plain greek yogurt. He has a hearty appetite and also enjoys feeding himself puffs, avacado, bananas, and any other finger food we give him. DSC_0138 DSC_0141 DSC_0139 DSC_0128 DSC_0129 DSC_0146 DSC_0147 DSC_0149 DSC_0150 DSC_0151

We came home and celebrated Cameron’s 12th birthday with party hats and dog toy presents. Finn enjoyed getting in some play time with the girls and their new tennis balls. Cameron loves it when someone plays fetch with her (or keep away in this case). And Bear has her spunk back it seems. She up moving around alot more and has her appetite back. She can get pretty feisty around dinner time!  We had a second chocolate cake (though I must admit we were so full we didn’t eat any that night!) and presents for Kevin too 🙂DSC_0165 DSC_0174

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Another favorite activity is to empty the dog toy bucket and the magazine rack! This week Finn also climbed up the stairs! I stayed behind him to see how far he would go and he went halfway up the stairs in the loft without skipping a beat!DSC_0231 DSC_0239 DSC_0246 DSC_0235

Have a good week!

Finn ~ 38 weeks

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This week we had a fun adventure to cut down our Christmas tree! We headed to Cackler Family Farms in Delaware, it’s where we went last year too. It was a relatively warm day (for December!) and after a short walk we settled on an 11′ Canaan Fir.

It’s been a busy week but in the end we were able to get the tree decorated and most of the Christmas decorations up. Kevin has had a grueling week of work, working through the night on two occasions. You’ll see the photo of him with his overnight bag in the mix below! Things should setting down this coming week we hope!

Griffin continues to be on the move.  He loves to have free range and will often crawl to the first dog bone he sees. He thinks they are amusing and often crawls with it in his hand to go visit the girls. He enjoys spending time in his play yard. In fact, he kept himself entertained for almost an hour and a half one evening while I put the lights on the tree. He has been opening and playing with books a lot lately and he loves the music table and talking Elmo.  He is eating really well, often having food two or three times a day. He is always interested in what we are eating and so far we haven’t found anything he won’t eat. His favorite right now is butternut squash with bananas a close second.

The pictures can tell the rest!DSC_0870DSC_0863 DSC_0872 DSC_0882DSC_0867 DSC_0862 DSC_0859 DSC_0895 DSC_0887 DSC_0906 DSC_0897 DSC_0910 DSC_0912 DSC_0914 DSC_0917 DSC_0920 DSC_0925 DSC_0934 DSC_0942 DSC_0943 DSC_0944 DSC_0955 DSC_0971 DSC_0981 DSC_0984 DSC_0985 DSC_0974 DSC_1005 DSC_1013 DSC_1015 DSC_1019 DSC_1024 DSC_1026 DSC_1027 DSC_1033 DSC_1040 DSC_1039 DSC_1057 DSC_1061 DSC_1062 DSC_1071 DSC_1081 DSC_1082 DSC_1094 DSC_1096 DSC_1113 DSC_1130 DSC_1139 DSC_1140 DSC_1147 DSC_1157 DSC_1162DSC_0849 DSC_1191 DSC_1205 DSC_1207 DSC_1210 DSC_1212 DSC_1213 DSC_1217 DSC_1218 DSC_1226 DSC_1230 DSC_1233 DSC_1234And here are a couple of photos from our first snowfall, or at least the first of any significance!DSC_1089 DSC_1084

Finn ~ 37 weeks


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What a busy week we had!  With the Thanksgiving holiday this week we headed north to Mansfield for our annual Hosta seed planting tradition with my parents. Around the first week of November each year my dad lists his hosta seed offerings on his website www.hostaworks.com. Last year Kevin gave it a face lift complete with the addition of the Seed Shoppe, an automated shopping cart type sales function. It is so much easier than the manually tallying of years past! So early in November Kevin got he site up and running for 2013. Then, every year on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, my dad and I plant the seeds in the basement “seed room” while Amy and Andy package up the seeds to be shipped to those who have ordered them. With the addition of two more kiddos this year we weren’t as productive in the seed room as in the past, by the end of the weekend we had only 27 trays planted – that is about half! But we had fun nonetheless!

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On Thanksgiving Day we woke up and had a nice breakfast at my parents. Graham helped Beepa make strawberry pancakes. Finn had his first taste of both bacon (see first picture below) and pancakes.  I mean, it is Thanksgiving after all, right?! Check out the video – Finn is pretty good at chewing these days 🙂

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Then we headed south to Enon for the Armstrong Thanksgiving at Uncle Steve and Aunt Cookie’s home. We had a fun visit though Griffin was rather shy for the better part of it. He enjoyed some butternut squash and some of Grandma Armstrong’s corn dish. Yum! We enjoyed seeing all of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and kiddos!DSC_0722 DSC_0725 DSC_0724 DSC_0727 DSC_0731 DSC_0733 DSC_0744 DSC_0748Then we returned to Mansfield for dinner with my family. The kids had some play time while dinner the turkey was getting prepped.  Finn is very observant when he’s around other kids. He and Graham had some fun play time together as G was showing him how his toy worked. At dinner Finn tried turkey and peas.  I know, they say to introduce foods gradually!! Thanksgiving was the exception on that rule…..but Finn did great with everything – no tummy aches and no reactions. DSC_0750 DSC_0752 DSC_0768 DSC_0773 DSC_0780 DSC_0788 DSC_0800 DSC_0801 DSC_0802 DSC_0760 DSC_0765DSC_0795 DSC_0811DSC_0832 DSC_0819 DSC_0820 DSC_0822

Yummers. Turkey and peas! Finn is getting good with his pincer grip!
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Yet another family tradition going back to when I was a little kid is Black Friday shopping with the family! Here we are starting out for breakfast at Bob Evans, and then by the end of the day Finn was tuckered out and fell asleep on Grandpa in the store! It was a fun day complete with lots of food and shopping success. IMG_20131129_085633_087 IMG950110 IMG_0116 IMG_0119And here is a final pic of the week along with a video of Finn dancing and laughing.

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