February | 2014 | Our Armstrong Family

Here he is, our smiling, up for anything, traveling boy! He is such a happy boy, and definitely a cuddler. He’s begun to act shy in new situations or if someone less familiar talks to him, he kind of smirks or smiles and then curls in for a good cuddle tucking his arms under his belly. It’s pretty darn cute and warms my heart.

With every day Finn is showing more interest and ability to communicate about what he wants to do, to eat, to go, where something is, etc. It is really amazing to watch him make decisions and to communicate his preferences. For instance, we will ask if he would like his bottle or a yogurt, and he will point to which he would like. Or the dogs will be around us and we will ask him “where are your dog dogs?” and he will look to find them and then point.

This week we were pretty busy getting ready for our vacation to Florida for Brett & Missy’s wedding. So busy, that I ended up packing my things the morning we were leaving! So I put Finn on the floor with Lily and they played together while I packed. Here he is all cozy in his fleece pajamas as it’s super cold outside. Here is the view out our front door!

It’s crazy the amount of baggage we had to haul around for our trip! We each had a suitcase, we also took a pack and play for Finn to sleep in, the stroller, and we decided to travel with the car seat. So, once we piled all of our things into the van we were on our way to the airport. Jim, Pat, Brett, Missy, Kevin, Finn, and myself were all on the same flight which meant we had some nice time to hang out together in the airport. Finn had some pizza and water from Grandma and Grandpa and he got to ride on the suitcase too. We decided to put Finn in his own seat, and we brought along his car seat and base. We were really glad we did. Our little man was awake from the time we left for the airport until we began taxiing to take off. You’ll see he was pretty tired at the end of our wait at the gate. But that made a super easy flight to Fort Lauderdale! He fell asleep before we were even off the ground and slept for an hour. That’s a pretty typical first nap for him. He was awake for an hour, and then dozed off again for the last 30 minutes. Just before we landed he woke up so we got him out of his seat so he could watch out the window. He did great on his first airplane ride!

Once we landed and gathered all of our baggage (see below!) we made our way to the hotel for the evening and got settled in. Then Finn met his uncle Todd for the first time and after a bit of hanging out, Jim, Pat, Todd, Finn, Kevin, and myself headed out to dinner together. It was within walking distance from out hotel and it was nice to get out and enjoy the warm weather! Finn loves to eat whatever he sees someone else is eating, and of late, his favorite is french fries. The following morning we got on a shuttle that took us to the port for the cruise. I was pretty impressed with the whole cruise check-in process. Considering we had Finn in a stroller, some carry along bags we were bringing with us too and everything had to go through scanning at security it all went really smooth. Then we checked in with the Celebrity Cruise Line and made our way to our ship, the Constellation. Everything went off without a hitch and Finn took it all in. This was our first cruise, so we weren’t really sure what to expect, but it was great! As soon as we boarded we were given champagne, which we kindly accepted, and then made our way to get settled in our room. Our room was in a wonderful location, the 8th floor, very close to the library where we let Finn roam around freely on occasion. We had a lovely stateroom with a balcony. Keep in mind these past two days Finn hasn’t had much of a nap schedule since we were traveling to and from so many places. He just isn’t interested in sleeping if he’s in a room with activity. So by the end of Saturday he was getting pretty sassy and in need of a good sleep! Here he is getting in a quick nap before we got on the shuttle to the ship. Once everyone was settled in we met up on the pool deck, level 10. We established a common meeting place where we could meet up with everyone at your own leisure. Finn was pretty tired at this point, but he loved being able to see everyone and roam from person to person – often receiving a french fry or two!

Just as we were leaving the port we decided to roam around the ship and get our bearings. Then we headed to our room and watched the first sunset on our balcony as we departed Fort Lauderdale.

More to come next week!

Last weekend we went outside for a quick 10 minutes of play in the snow. Finn sat there and took it all in, literally, he face planted at one point! He’s on the move so much lately I figured he would crawl around and check everything out but he didn’t move one bit! Lily and Cameron love to play in the snow and ran around super fast (at least Lily!).

The rest of the week was pretty busy with work and just the normal routine and somehow I didn’t really take many photos. We are leaving for Brett & Missy’s wedding this week (yay!) so lots to do to get ready to be gone for a nice warm vacation. Friday I took Finn to the doctor to re-check his ear. He woke up at 2:30 am Thursday morning and was up for about 45 minutes (since he’s been sleeping through the night that’s the second time ever he was kind of squealing and wouldn’t fall asleep on his own) so I figured perhaps his ear infection wasn’t totally cleared up and as it turns out that was it. Glad we got him in then instead of his original re-check which was scheduled for the day we are leaving on vacation! He is on another 10 days of a different antibiotic so we are hoping it will all be cleared up by the time we have to jump on a plane. As a bonus, we got to check in on his weight and height. Our “little” man is packing on the pounds. He checked in at 19 lb 8.8 oz (33rd percentile and up from 18 lb 10 oz just 2 1/2 weeks previous!). He is 28.5″ tall (though I’m always weary of the accuracy of the height portion of the exam). He’s all about grown up food and isn’t very interested in his bottle these days. I even asked the doctor how much formula he should have a day and she replied 20-24 ounces. I think we are closer to the 20….. We’ve tried several “sippy” cups filled with water, most of which I find are extremely hard to suck anything out of (even for me) and he tries to use them a few times before he typically throws them on the floor.

If given a choice of foods, or if he spots any on your plate or on the counter, Finn points to bread and goes “mmmm”. Here he is with a little sass, telling us he’d like some bread (aka a hotdog bun!)

Here are some photos from the rest of our week. Griffin is constantly on the move. He loves to walk along everything and then just plop down and crawl somewhere further away. Today I watched him pull down his shirt and put a leaf from one of the kitchen plants down his shirt. It was rather funny! I took it out, though I don’t think he knew I did because when he woke up from his morning nap I walked in his room to find him peeking down the inside of his shirt!