Here Comes the Snow!

Tonight is the first major snowfall forecasted for Madison (well all of Southern Wisconsin really). They are only calling for 2-5 inches around the city but I guess conditions and visibility will be bad enough that they declared it a "Winter Storm Warning". We are used to much worse but tis' only the start of the lovely winter season. We had about an inch last week but it was so warm the next day it melted away (my kind of snow). I am really hoping we don't beat last years 100 inch plus record snow fall! A little goes a long way. This evening we took Finley out to see the snow. He's just loves going outside in his Baby Bjorn carrier.



Our nice attempt at a self-shot family portrait!!

Home Sweet Home

Whew!! After 3 days and 3 nights away from home it's good to be back. We hauled home from Merrill yesterday morning around 10:30 am only to get back on the road a few hours later (this time a much shorter trip) to Janesville where Nate's parents live. His little brother Jake was home from school (in Northern Minnesota) and he hadn't met Finley yet. It's also Nate's dad's birthday is next week so there were a few reasons to get together. It's always tough to juggle families at holiday's and though you can't always spend time with everyone we do our best to make up for it. Here are lots more pictures from Thanksgiving and the weekend.

Having his Thanksgiving bottle with Daddy

Fast asleep after another walk outside

Cute Thumbsucker

With his Great Nanny (Nate's Nanny)

With Grandma Erika

Meeting Uncle Jake

With Grandma Patti


Finley did really well with all the traveling however his sleep schedule got a little off so I hoping to work back into the routine this week. I'd much rather wake up with him at 6:30am than 5:00am so this is important for my sanity!! He continued to go to bed around the same time so I am not sure what caused the change. Probably just being in a different place. I really cannot complain that my 3 and half month old has been sleeping 7-10 hour nights for about a month or so. I am thankful for this and know that it's subject to change without any warning!!

It is becoming a reality that Nate's deployment is quickly creeping up on us. We tried to put it out of our heads but I am not sure it's entirely possible to do that. We are thankful and grateful for our amazing son, the last 3 and half months together with him and for the remainder of the time we have as a family before deployment. Now if we could just figure out how to freeze time before it flies by!!

Finley's First Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Currently it's snowing here in Merrill, my mom is busy getting turkey ready on the table, Nate's watching football and Finley is sleeping on my dad's lap after a nice bottle and of course I am blogging.
We arrived yesterday early afternoon and my mom and I set out to do a little shopping for some Christmas gifts. Other than that we are just hanging out. Here is what Finley has been up to so far on his first Thanksgiving.

Naked Swinging (he's wearing a diaper!)

Baby Bjorn with Grandpa

Baby Bjorn with Daddy

Took a walk in the woods with the doggies and mommy and daddy

Up close snow baby

Ready, Set, Go...

It's more ready than go these days.. I mean the time it takes. The go part usually comes after a long, exhausting process of ready. We are prepping up to take a short trip to my parents house for Thanksgiving. They now live in Merrill which is about 3 hour drive, give or take. We are only staying 3 nights and my mom has some stuff for Finley but you'd think we were leaving for a year by the amount of stuff we are taking. I think my list is a page long. Play mat... check, bottles.. check...Baby Bjorn...check- double check... can't live without that and so the list goes.
Imagine...2 adults, 2 large dogs, 1 three month old little boy and ALL of the necessities of baby life (well today's necessities) packed into a Toyota Highlander and you will see us. I hope it all fits!! Thank goodness the cats don't come along or we'd really be in trouble!! I probably won't be posting until we are home from our holiday trip- or until I recover from unpacking!! Happy Thanksgiving!!

Much Sweeter

Just thought I'd post something much sweeter than yesterday's post...







Just had to throw this one in as it's the typical Howie checking in and getting in the way

Can we get a new couch?

Another rockin' Saturday night with a 3 month old in our house tonight. We decided to take a few pictures of Finley in his Old Navy jungle pajamas that I just think are adorable. Things were going well minus the giant drool on his shirt, and then... (See video)

Sorry I took the video sideways... it's still worth a view if you can handle it. Nate and I laughed, Finley laughed and then we cleaned up. I promise he had not eaten in over an hour!! I guess he showed us.

The Babysitters

I had written in a post earlier at how lucky we were that our pets (all 5 of them) have accepted and even learned to love Finley. Do you think Finley will look back at these pictures and be mortified that he was surrounded by cats and dogs as a tiny baby? Finley seems to enjoy laying on the floor with the pets. He loves to watch the dogs and never minds when a cat joins us on my lap when he is taking a bottle. I'll have to capture one of those cute moments sometime. Mostly we call our dog Howie the "babysitter" because he is never too far from Finley. When Finley goes down in his crib- Howie goes into the room to lay down too. Howie is pretty much there for every diaper change, he gets nervous when Finley is on the floor and watches over him pretty much all the time. He is always in the way when I try to take pictures. Sometimes I even get questioning looks from Howie if Finley gets fussy as if he is saying "What are you doing wrong- the baby is crying?" All in all its very cute.

Toe Grabber

I FINALLY was able to capture a picture of our little toe grabber. Finley had discovered his feet about two weeks ago but it has taken me that long to get some pictures. The reason for this is that he was only doing it during diaper changes and when he is falling asleep at night. Neither are great times for picture snapping!! He's really into grabbing his feet and playing with them to make diaper changing a challenge for you. He smiles and coos like he knows exactly what he is doing. It's also super cute- when you put him down sleepy at night he does two things- the right hand thumb goes into the mouth and the left hand grabs his left foot- simultaneously. He just seems to not want to play with his feet when he's dressed? He does "talk" to his feet when he's sitting in his carrier though- usually loudly at Target. Well I finally took his clothes off like a diaper change when he was playing on the floor today and sure enough...

3 Months!

Finley is 3 months old today. Here is a little video Nate and I took last night before Finley's bedtime. He loves to talk back to you and you can see what a mover he is. He is also very intrigued by the camera and tends to just get mesmerized by it...

Birthday Party

This weekend on Sunday my nephew, Gavin, turned three years old. We attended the party at Nate's brother's house. Here are a few photos of the event. Finley enjoyed watching the other kids. Happy Birthday to Gavin!

The Boys


Gavin tearing into presents

A Gavin smile

Letting little sis Olivia play with his new Geo Trax

Down for the count

We have been down and out for the last few days. The whole family fell ill after this weekend and it's been a rough road. Nate, Finley and myself caught the stomach flu if you want to call it that. I call it misery. We came down with it on Tuesday- Veterans Day. Nate had the day off work as a holiday and we planned to do something as a family. Well, we layed on the couch as a family. Poor Nate spending his holiday sick- after a long, wet week at Ft. McCoy too. Thankfully Finley got it the least but now we all seem to be coming down with a nasty cold. I can handle a head cold over flu symptoms and throwing up though. My poor little guy is just snarfling away (as I like to refer to it). I will be posting a few things today as I meant to post the last few days but was just too sick. Let's hope things are uphill from here.

Murphy's Law

It never fails! Really. It's a given and I have grown accustomed to this. Whenever Nate leaves, be it for a few days or a few weeks or a few months things have a tendency to go wrong. It's called Murphy's Law and if I had the chance to meet this Murphy I'd likely have a few words with him. Just when I thought things were going so smoothly this week it all came crashing down today. Finley has been just wonderful all week, today; grumpy boy. The dogs have been really well mannered all week, today; vomit, rough-housing inside and muddy paws. Nothing has broken all week- today; the shower head... while I was showering. Any new mom knows that these few minutes to shower are precious. Not only are you not sure when you are going to get them, your never sure if it's going to be long enough to even rinse out your conditioner. Well after drying up the bathroom (somehow water managed to spray EVERYWHERE when the thing cracked) I was a good Miss Fix It and removed the old one (holy crap was that on there tight!) and put a new temporary one up- I am going to let Nate put the fancy one up. Let's face it... he will be home in 2 days and I have a million other things to do. I know Murphy will show up once again when Nate leaves for Iraq and I'm saving my skills till then.

Picture Post

Gravity draws those cheeks down in the Bumbo sitter..

Laying with Cooper

Rolling over

Trying to grab Cooper's tail (he was successful)

Election Day!

Today was Finley's first experience voting... well not exactly. He did however accompany me to the polling station to vote. Our polling station is just at the Elementary school in our neighborhood.
It took about 45 minutes to wait in line and cast that ballot and I had Finley in the stroller- he did amazing... not what I can say for the baby in front of us. I was sure the two of them would get each other going but my little guy just sucked his thumb and fell asleep. Guess voting isn't very exciting for an 11 week old. Overall I was pleased that we did not stand in line for an eternity as the news has been reporting of many polling places. I get excited about elections... I think it is always time for a change when the election year rolls around and I am happy to participate as my civic duty.
I will avoid the political discussion to keep things light and just say may the best team win...hopefully the one I voted for!!

Night Out

I am a little behind on posting... things have been kind of busy this last week/weekend. Nate was gearing up for week at Ft. McCoy. On Wednesday we had tickets to see "The Capitol Steps" at the Overture Center downtown. Nate's parents came up to watch Finley. Oh and the show was very funny. You can look them up online. Here are a few pictures of their evening... Grandpa Greg was the photographer.

Grandma and Finley Match

Bathtime

Cute in a towell

Happy Halloween

Here is what Finley did on his first Halloween...

Read a book with mom (The Witches Ball!)

Slept in his swing

Slept while waiting for Trick-or-Treaters

All in all Finley's first Halloween was I guess relaxing for him? He did like wearing his costume but really it was just jammies with a hood... and the scariest of monsters have to have their pacifiers. Take that Frankenstein.