Birthday Boy

We spent the whole weekend celebrating Finn. On Friday we had some friends over to eat some cupcakes. Marc snapped some cute pictures of the birthday boy before his friends got here.

  

  

These cute girls were so excited to celebrate Finn. Anywhere we went last week they would tell people about his birthday.

These boys are going to be best friends, whether they like it or not. It's fun to watch them try to interact with each other. 

First cupcake!

 I was a bit worried he would be traumatized from getting sung to by all those people, but it didn't seem to bother him.

Sorry for all the pictures, but you know we had to document every single bite! He ate half the paper from his first cupcake before he realized it was all gone. 

  

  

   

Clean up is no fun...

On his actual birthday we started out with the traditional first birthday pancake breakfast. 

Ha! I guess his first strawberry was a sour one, these pictures made me laugh. I guess he recovered okay though, since those were the only things on his plate that he ate.

 

Nora wanted to pour her own syrup. Only about half of it made it on to her pancakes before she tried drinking it straight up.

Finn got his first taste of bacon, too. He was definitely a fan of the flavor, but he didn't have quite enough teeth to eat it all up.

We had to do a little birthday photo shoot when we got home. Finn loves this bouncy horse, he will just go stand by it and say  "mama, mama, mama, mama" until I help him up there to ride.

And of course the sisters wanted to jump in as well. They love him so much.

While Finn napped these two decorated his cake. I wrote his name but they did the rest.

Surprise! He loved this cake as well.

When he saw the rest of us using forks he squawked at us until he got one, too.

  

And of course it's not a birthday without presents! He was mildly interested in the wrapping paper. Luckily T and Nora were more than willing to help him out.

 

Happy First Birthday Finn! 

A Year With Finn

My baby boy turns one today. Let's review the time since September 13, 2013, shall we? It went by in a flash.

Brand new boy!

These girls were thrilled to get him home.

Three weeks old. 

Two months.

Four months.

Five!

Six.

Sweet seven month old.

Eight months.

Nine!

Ten.

Eleven

And today!

Finn is such a delightful baby. He just makes us all so happy.

Some things about Finn:

His nicknames include: Finners, Finnegan, the Foof, Mr. Fefferman, Foofers, McFloof, Finnamon, Sfinn (like Sven), Mr. Sir, etc. Our poor kids rarely get called by their actual names.

He hates baths. So much. So, so much.

He loooooves to nurse. He is a total Mama's boy. Those things are probably related. Currently he likes to nurse with his legs and torso dangling off the chair or the side of the bed. Not my favourite, but when I shift him back to having his whole body on the chair he just wriggles around until he's dangling again.

He does love his Daddy bunches too, though, and those big sisters. They can get him giggling like no one else. Few things make me happier than seeing the three of them giggling and playing together. And lately the girls are pretty much the only ones to consistently get kisses from him. And Marc usually has about ten seconds to pick him up once he walks in the door from work or he will hear about it from Finn.

Finn works so hard to master new things. He's working on climbing up on the couch and it's fun to see him staring down at his legs, concentrating on getting them to do what he wants. He did the same when he was learning how to stand on his own, and when he was learning how to walk. He's been quite deliberate about most of his milestones.

He's hit or miss about eating "real" food. Some days he loves to eat anything and surprises us by just how much he can pack in, and other days he turns his nose up at everything we offer him. Some favorites include pasta, avocado, broccoli, tomatoes, cottage cheese, any sort of meat, and of course, his beloved Costco animal crackers.

He loves to play peek-a-boo and patty cake. He can't help but try to dance or clap along if he hears music.

Finn still is very stand off-ish to strangers, or basically anyone but us and a few friends that have been around long enough to earn his trust. If someone dares talk to him when he is crawling or walking around he will just flatten himself to the ground until they move on. And if, heaven forbid, he gets held by someone he doesn't know he will just stare at the ground and refuse to acknowledge them until they put him down. He did spontaneously wave at a stranger for the first time ever when we were grocery shopping the other day, so maybe he is making some progress.

He loves, loves, loves to play with cars. It's kind of surprised me how early he started seeking them out over the plethora of his sister's "girly" toys. He can most often be found rolling a car back and forth on the ground.

That being said, when we are in the basement he often makes a beeline for the dollhouse full of princesses.

Finn likes to play catch. It is the cutest thing to play with him. If you roll him a ball he will grab it and roll it back to you, or sometimes he will just pick it up and bring it over to place in your hands. The girls love to try to play it with him, but it usually gets out of hand pretty fast.

He makes the cutest scrunchy-nose face when he smiles, sometimes. I love it. Sometimes he makes the same scrunchy-nose when he's not smiling, and it just gives him this look of utter disdain.

He says no, mama, and dada, and is very chatty recently with all his other baby sounds. When he wants to nurse he will climb into my lap, pat me on the chest and say "ba ba!".

He haaaaates loud noises. Can. not. stand. the vacuum cleaner, poor babe. If I have to use it when Marc is not home he just sits a safe distance off and cries until it's over. Luckily for him we just have the one rug that ever needs vacuuming, so it doesn't happen too often.

We love this boy so much and are so grateful every day that we get to have him in our family.