Finn Turns Two

Our little Finn turned two this week! We love him so much! Let's take our usual stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Brand new boy. 

First birthday yumminess.

One year old Finners.

Literally the only picture I could find of 18-month-old Finn.

He is just the best. He is talking up a storm. He is such a cute, polite little guy right now, he says "Thank you!" for any little thing someone does for him. He is still working on getting all his teeth in, that has been a slow process for him! He loves, loves, loves trucks. He still excitedly points out any truck we see when we are out and about. He loves to zoom all his trucks around the floor, and you better watch out for your feet or he will run you right over. He loves to color. He will scribble all over a paper and then tell me "see, cats!" or "see, Daddy!" or whatever else he thinks he has drawn. He loves his sisters so much and has a cute and different relationship with each of them. He is very concerned when either of them is hurt or sad and will hurry over to hug and kiss them. We love him so much and are so lucky to have him in our family!

We tried to do a little two-year-old photo shoot but he was quite uncooperative. Marc still managed to get a few good ones. 

I thought maybe getting Pineapple the kitten in on the action would make him smile more, but little stinker just kept hiding his face in the chair. 

We had Stake Conference on his actual birthday, which wasn't awesome for a two-year-old. Luckily he knew he had a Paw Patrol cake waiting for him when we got home. All three of them have been so excited about this cake for weeks! It was pretty yummy, but the icing picture part was not delightful. It was a little too hard for actual eating but once we peeled it off they were good to go. 

The kids picked these party masks instead of hats. They turned out kind of creepy... 

Trains! He's always so excited to play with the trains at the library, and he was thrilled to get his own.

Loving his new Anna doll. He was happy to share his train set with his sisters but wouldn't let them near his Anna doll! And that Toot book! We got it from the library a few months ago and Finn just thought it was the funniest thing he has ever read. We renewed it as many times as we could and he was so bummed when we finally had to return it. He would ask me often "Toot? Liberry?", so of course we had to get him his very own copy for his birthday. 

Teresa had school off today for Rosh Hashanah, so Marc took the day off work so we could keep celebrating. We took the kids down to Baltimore for a pirate cruise. Nora was a bit nervous while we were waiting to leave, she needed us to clarify several times that they were not real, actual, mean pirates that we would be meeting. 

Tired boy. We were scheduled to go on the 9:30 cruise, but they didn't have enough patrons so asked if we could switch to 11:30. Of course that made it fall right in the middle of nap time. Finn still had a blast, but he had to take a few breaks in there. 

Cute little pirate boy

Overall I think he had a pretty great birthday! 

Things he says and some pictures

It's hard to believe that our little Finn is going to be two in less than a month! He is talking more and more, enough now to get his very own post about things he says!

He got about two drops of water on his shoes a few weeks ago and was very distressed about it. He kept saying "oh no! Shoes....wet....my shoes....wet". He wouldn't put them on because he thought they were wet, so I told him Daddy would take them and dry them off. Marc took them out of the room and brought them back and showed him that they were dry and now Finn can't stop talking about it. Every day he tells me "my shoes....wet....Daddy die (dry) shoes....Daddy my shoes die". Apparently it was quite the impressionable experience for him.

He loves to jump off things and always says "two, fwee (three), jump!" before he does.

He will lie upside down on the couch and say "Mommy! Hep me! (help me), Owa, hep me! Eesa, hep me!" until one of us helps him down. Owa = Nora, Eesa = Teresa

Finn is super loving Marc right now. He will go stand by the window multiple times a day and say "My dad? My dad ome (home)? Soon? My dad ome soon?"

He still calls the cats  "woof woofs" but when he pretends to be a kitty cat he crawls around saying "meow, meow".

Usually he still calls trucks "volvos" but has started using the word truck, too. He has to have his volvo book read to him every night before bed.

Marc took the kids out to run errands last weekend and let them each pick a poster for their rooms. Finn got a Paw Patrol poster and was so excited when we hung it up on his wall. He kept saying "Paw troll! Nice!" and will come to me and say "Mommy...paw troll...see....nice!" when he wants me to go look at it with him.

He has started doing the cutest thing when we are sitting on the couch. He will run over and fling his arms around my neck and say "I luffff you" and then give me a kiss. Pretty much melts my heart.

He calls horses "doosies" and has to point out that he has "shocks" (sharks) on his shoes to anyone that will pay attention to him.

Now some pictures!!

T snapped this picture of him on a hike. I'm so glad his hair has grown back since then!

Enjoying some sand. He wasn't too sure about it at first.

Loving on the kittens. One of them died about three days after they were born, it was very sad. It didn't seem like it was smaller than the rest of them or anything, so we don't really know what happened. Poor T was the most upset, she kept crying about it off and on during the day. They named it Banana posthumously. 

Nora is holding Fluffy.

T is holding Tiger. The other two remain unnamed for now. 

Tired boy conked out as soon as we got home from church. 

Love him so much! We got to spend lots of one on one time while the girls were at art camp every morning for a week. 

Our kids have had a ridiculously difficult time learning how to ride bikes! It was a bit concerning, honestly. Our street is on a hill, though, so we figured maybe taking them to a flatter spot would help and it did. It was fun to see Teresa being so proud of herself when she could finally pedal it well. 

Poor Finn gets to do much less painting and crafty stuff than the girls did at his age. He had a blast and was actually not as messy as I thought he would be. 

Has to be just like Daddy. Using a toy guitar to steam mop at the same time as Marc.

I have a whole phone full of selfies of T and the poor cat. 

This boy must be naked as often as possible. As soon as we get home from anywhere he starts tugging on his clothes and says "Dis off! Dis off!"

Love these three so much. 

Dancers

Teresa and Nora were excited to be able to take tap and ballet classes this past year. They were in the same class and had so much fun going every week. I was usually feeling pretty crummy thanks to this pregnancy, so Marc got to enjoy some time as a Dance Mom as well. They had a dance recital in June and had so much fun dressing up. We got their costumes in April and they were chomping at the bit to finally be able to wear them. They were so funny after I got them all made up, I heard them giggling while they looked in the mirror and talking about how ugly they looked with make up on. They both did a fantastic job during their dance. I was pretty bummed that they only did a tap number for the recital. The studio they went to was super tiny and we weren't allowed to watch while they practiced, so we thought it was lame we didn't get to at least see a ballet number as well in the recital. 

And then this past week they participated in a little week long dance camp that a teenager in our Stake put on. They each went for an hour of lessons every day. They were in separate groups this time, and I think they enjoyed that, too. They put on a little performance on Friday.

Finn is a good little trooper, being dragged along to all the stuff his sisters do!

Cute girls.

I took some videos of their dances because Marc had to go to work. 

Here's Teresa's, she is the second from left. You'll want to go full screen so you can actually see what is going on. Try not to be overcome by the amazing quality of video my phone can take. 

And Nora's. She is also second from left. 

They both had so much fun dancing this year, but neither of them seem particularly inclined to keep it up. Nora has been asking to learn tae kwon do, so we told them they could probably try that in the fall instead.