hailey | Our Armstrong Family

Look at all of those teeth! Finn now has a 5-tooth grin, 3 on top and 2 below. He’s been a champ through the teething process and really hasn’t been fussy or unpleasant. Honestly, he’s been sleeping longer during the night and typically one (of his 2 or 3) naps is around 3 hours a day!

While Finn continues to bring a smile to our face every day, we all shed some sad tears around here this week too. On Wednesday we had to make the hard decision to put Hailey down. It was the hardest decision I can recall making in recent years. She was totally together mentally, had a pretty good appetite, was able to go potty outside, wasn’t sick and so on, which made it extremely hard for me to go the route we did. But I realize that she wasn’t going to improve with time. I posted earlier in the week but here are a few more photos I found as I looked a few more places. Sweet memories with that girl.

Tuesday we welcomed Debbie to our family! She will be caring for Finn during the week and we are excited. She has a background in early childhood education as well as an 18 month old son that she will bring with her everyday. He and Finn can be playmates and learn all kinds of things together!

I didn’t really pick up the camera much this week with everything that was going on with Hailey, so you’ll find most of the photos are from the one day we had some fun together and several are from my cell phone. He is developing more and more of a personality and is like a little man. Lately he’s been hiding his face on the ottoman and couch. And you’ll see when we go out to eat we take a seat for Finn that “clips” on to the table. I find it a bit awkward and feel silly carrying it in to the restaurants (just being honest!) but we are always happy we have it. Finn sits right up at the table and lately he’s even taken to standing in his seat as he can touch the bench below. He loves it and it works out well for all of us :). Kevin and Finn play a game with the pacifier – they bite it with their teeth while pulling it out of their mouths and it makes a loud clicking noise. It’s rather cute, Kevin will do it and then give the paci to Finn and he will do it, then they go back and forth. Silly boys. We have a ton of new toys that Griffin loves exploring and playing with. He’s getting very good at walking through the family room with his walker. One day we gave him empty water containers to play with and he thought it was great. He loves giving zerberts, is quite expressive, and loves to dance. Here you can see some of his personality shine through! Kevin and Finn were playing together the other night and Kevin turned on Sesame Street and Finn stopped what he was playing with and sat still and watched the show for quite a long time. Then they got some good snuggles together.

While Kevin has been busy installing real safety gates we also resort to simple measures as you can see here 😉
Sweet dreams everyone!

2014 has officially arrived and despite having started the year off on a bit of a rocky road we are hopeful that this year will be another wonderful year filled with change, fun adventures, and family. We had a low-key New Year’s Eve celebration – just Kevin, Finn, and myself hitting up our local dive for a bite to eat. We later watched the ball drop on tv and called it a night.

We celebrated New Years Day with a nice dinner at our house. There were plenty of good eats including pork, sauerkraut, and a lucky black-eyed-pea dish. Dad is keeping quite busy with stained glass projects and has most recently taken up stained glass lamps. While we were home over Christmas I picked out some glass along with my mom and dad – and by New Years Day dad already had it finished and brought it with them! Check it out – it’s more beautiful in person 🙂 Griffin has been sleeping really well this past week or two. He takes two lengthy naps a day and one of them is often 3 or 4 hours! He is getting in 2 or 3 more teeth and has plenty of funny faces that he makes which prominently feature his funky toothy grin.

Tricia, our first and only nanny, who has cared for Griffin for the last seven months is moving on to her next phase of life and begins student teaching next week so Friday was her last day. She has showered Finn with love and cuddles from the time he was 12 weeks old. He smiles every morning when he sees her. He’s reached several milestones throughout these last 7 months and we are grateful to have had her be a part of our family. She’s also helped care for the dogs when we’ve gone on vacation, not to mention during the week when she is here. We wish her the best of luck and promise to have her babysit for Finn soon!

Part of our rough start to 2014 is Hailey’s declining health. Our sweet old girl has had a rough couple of weeks, but certainly a tough last few days. It has been very difficult for her to stand up, in particular her hind legs seem to give out or not have the strength to begin with to allow her to stand or walk. Since Friday Kevin has had to carry her outside. It breaks my heart. Once she stands for a few minutes she can walk a short distance. She makes it to her water bowl and over to her bed in the family room. We are hoping that part of this is due to the antibiotics she has been on to rid a bladder infection as something similar happened last time she was on medication in November. Within a few days of finishing her pills she regained her appetite and mobility. We’re hopeful, yet also recognize that she is 14 years and 4 months old and she’s not getting any younger. Love this cuddle bear to pieces and have fond memories of her storming through the house and yard as a young energetic pup.

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Finn ~ 43 weeks

Finn ~ 42 weeks