October

We went with some friends to a pumpkin patch a few weekends ago. We completely forgot to bring our camera, which is totally unlike us! Our phone was able to manage a few pictures before its sad little battery gave out.

Pretty much every time T smiles for the camera lately she sticks her chin in the air and flares her nostrils, silly girl.

And, of course, our girls were so excited for Halloween this year. They cycled through several costume ideas before settling on being a zombie ballerina and a mermaid. Teresa really loves all things Halloween/spooky/zombie-ish, so it was no surprise that she picked what she did. And we've been watching quite a bit of The Little Mermaid lately, so that helped Nora out. Luckily she had a pretty fluid idea of what Ariel could look like, so I was able to use some shiny purple fabric I already had for her skirt and then we found the perfect mermaid top on sale at Wal-mart and she was ready to go. I had big plans, pretty much from the time I found out I was pregnant with him, to make Finn a cute sushi costume, but I got mastitis two weeks before Halloween and had a little bit of a freak out about being able to get his and Nora's costumes made in time. So when I saw a little fox costume on sale I got it for him instead.

The girls got way too much candy between the trunk-or-treat at church and trick-or-treating on Halloween night. Nora was so cute during trick-or-treating, she was just so excited, she would exclaim "Happy Halloween!" and wave at everyone we passed. At one point when we were walking she just kept singing "Happy Halloween to every-one, Happy Halloween to ev-er-y-o-ne!".

This one was before the ward activity: 

Cute little fox bum: (and Marc)

And then these were from Halloween:

My sweet little mermaid:

And my very scary zombie ballerina. She was a little worried that her make-up would be too scary for people. Didn't Marc do a great job on her make-up?

And poor Finn got no pictures taken of him on Halloween, so we dressed him up today and got a few pics of our little Finn fox. And, seriously, I narrowed it down the best I could, but the girls wanted to be in the pictures too, and now that there are three of them it's so much harder to pick one where everybody looks good. So. That's why there are so many of these. 

I'm so sad Nora was blocking Finn's face in this one!

I'm pretty sure we should have had T dress up as a lion this year - she totally has the mane for it!

This one of Finn and Nora is officially my new favourite picture. 

  

    

 And you know this had to happen:

In case you didn't get on the internet at all last month, and don't get that reference, watch this:

Nora really wanted to try his costume on when it came in the mail. I was surprised that she was able to squeeze herself into it, as it's a 0-6 month size. I was pretty sure there was no way it would fit Finn after seeing it on Nora, but luckily he is a gigantic baby, so it worked out.

Smiles, and Things They Say

I complimented Teresa on how well she was combing Finn's hair and she said "I know. That's because I am stylish". And then a little later she was talking to him and said "Finn, you look so stylish! That is thanks to me.".

Teresa asked why Mommies had to grow babies in their tummies. I told her that was how Heavenly Father designed it. She said "You know how I think we should get babies? I think Heavenly Father should get in his car, and drive to our house, and put our baby in a package and leave it on our door. And we can open the package and say 'Oh! A baby!'". Sounds good to me.

Nora was messing with Finn's car seat cover, and I told her to stop so he wouldn't suffocate. She lifted the blanket and said "Finn, are you succocating? Mom! He is NOT succocating!".

  

Poor Finn...but at least Nora looks good...

The T was upset with me at the park because I was making her eat her lunch before running off to play some more. She looked at me and said "Seriously, you are my real mom?"

Nora was complaining about a spider outside. Marc told her not to worry about it, that spiders are our friends. Nora responded "Dad. Spiders are not friends. Spiders are spiders."

I've been trying to get some pictures of Finn's cute little smiles the past week or so, but of course he stops the second the camera comes out. Nora wanted to show me how willing she was to smile for the camera.

  

Seriously, we just think he is so cute! Agh. I love him. I wish I could share him with everyone that needs baby kisses, because he is just so sweet and squishy. 

Both girls always want to hold him up on their shoulders like we do. Works okay for Teresa, not so much for little Nora. Poor Finn, he is a very good sport when we let Nora try to hold him like that. 

I just think Nora looks creepy in this picture. For some reason they really wanted to pose by Teresa's bike. 

Some more about Finn

We've been loving on this little man for a whole three weeks now. 

He's pretty much the best baby ever. Everyone knows the first rule of how well your baby sleeps is that you never talk about how well your baby sleeps. I don't want to jinx it, so that's all I will say about that. 

Marc took some pictures of Finn this week to celebrate his three weeks on earth so far. He really is such a little sweet heart. He puts up with so much from his loving sisters. Nora was throwing a tantrum the other day, while I held a sleeping Finn. She was frustrated with me for ignoring her while she screamed so she climbed up on the couch so she could scream right in my face. Little brother never even flinched, just slept on through the whole thing. 

Teresa and Nora are still in love with him. They love to get down next to him on the floor, and argue over who he is looking at.

They've both done mostly well adjusting to having a new baby. Teresa had some trouble with tantrums the first week we were home, but she seems to have passed the baton to Nora, who is just being a lot more of a two-year-old than she usually is. 

We've been having fun with Granny here, too. Lots of trips to the park, much to Nora's delight.

Baby-wearing. He likes it. 

Teresa climbed a tree! She used to ask to find a tree to climb, but then when we would find one she would change her mind and be too scared to try it. Then last week at the park she saw a little girl in this tree and I guess it gave her the confidence to try it out herself. She loved it and wanted me to take tons of pictures to show Daddy how brave she was. 

Nora was willing to let me put her in the tree, but she got tired of it pretty quickly. 

Oh, we had kittens in our shed again! This was a few weeks ago, right after Finn was born. T was at preschool and Nora and I heard some squeaking outside. There was that same darn stray mama cat from before, with a new litter of kittens in our shed! She must have some secret entrance, because we always keep the door shut. We brought one in to play with. Nora was in love with him, and promptly named him David. 

He was less than thrilled to be carried around in this basket, but Nora thought it was the best. 

She's about to cry in the below pictures, because she was worried that he got his claws in her shirt.  We were very tempted to keep him, but getting a kitten the same week you bring home a new baby just didn't sound like the best idea. Maybe mama cat will bring us some more kittens in a few months and we'll keep one of those... 

Finn already has some clear preferences. He can't go to sleep for the night unless he is nice and tightly swaddled. He also prefers to sleep flat, instead of in his nice, inclined little rock n' play sleeper that we used with Nora. He pretty much only fusses when he needs to burp or when he wants to be swaddled. 

Anything that gets near his mouth makes him think he is hungry. He eats really frequently during the day, which I don't mind, because he makes up for it at night. He is growing like a weed! He was 9 lbs 1 oz when we took him to the doctor the Wednesday after he was born. Then a week later we took him back for his two week check up and he was already 9 lbs 10 oz and 23 1/2 inches. We weighed him at home this week and he's already up to 10 and a half pounds. 

And here are a bunch more pictures of him, because he's just so cute. 

 

Little three-week-old feet.