Sweet Helaina

We are all in love with Helaina at our house. She continues to be a mellow baby for the most part and actually slept for five hours in a row last night.
Finn has been a wonderful big brother, asking to hold her frequently and being gentle, with helpful reminders from mom and dad. He will talk in a high pitched baby voice to her saying "oh Helaina, you are so tiny". He also on a daily basis asks me "will Helaina ever be able to play?" or "is Helaina big enough to play yet?" I am sure it won't be long and he will regret wishing for a playmate when she is wanting all of his toys!

Helaina is growing quickly and at her two week check up was already a pound above her birth weight. I think today I am just starting to see the beginnings of some intentional smiles which warms my heart.

Finn had a rough week at daycare this week with two separate minor head injuries. One tripping over a rope and landing face first on the concrete and then pulling a plastic toy garage down onto his head. He is wearing his war wounds proudly and doesn't seem any worse for the wear. I am tempted to take him to daycare in a helmet next week however! Finn did receive his "report card" from daycare this week with glowing remarks. He is a quick learner!

Baby Helaina

Another little video.

Click link below.

Helaina in Swing

Finn Plays Ball

Finn continues to take an interest in baseball. Asking Mommy, Daddy, Grandpa Ken and Grandma Terri to play. Invariably he needs to be the batter and whoever he can convince to play will be the pitcher. If you invoke the "everyone needs to share" rule, you may get to bat a few pitches yourself.

There are a few rules to iron out to align with your typical idea of baseball but Finn's version is pretty fun too.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWPLPtHoD6U

I'm trying to direct link the web address above but if that doesn't work try to copy and paste the link into your browser.

Finn's big sister Helaina arrives

After much anticipation we finally welcomed baby Helaina Alice to our family. Born Tuesday 7:40am at Community Memorial Hospital in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin she joins her brother Finn. Weighing 6lb 9oz and stretching out 20 inches she stayed with mommy two days while Finn held down the fort at home with Grandma Terri and Grandpa Ken.

We are all home now and trying to redevelope the newborn routine while maintaining the 2.5 year old routine.

I'm feeling a bit nostaligic remembering back to Finn's first few months and then seeing how big he is already reinforces what everyone says about enjoying this time.

The hours aren't the greatest but the moments are.

roast beef, baseball and babies

We have had a busy couple of months trying to prepare for our new addition and trying to do our best to help ease this transition for Finn. We have days where he seems excited about the baby and talks to my belly telling the baby he will be a good big brother and play with the baby and other days where I hear "I don't want a baby", fortunately these are few and far between. He does stand by the name "Leroy the dinosaur" for the baby but does waffle between whether it is a boy or a girl. He does take pride in helping me put cream on my feet and also my belly...usually talking to the baby at the same time.
This is a big week for him. Today he told me Grandpa Ken, Grandma Terri, the baby and the Easter Bunny are all coming this week! How exciting for a 2 year old!

Finn recently planted some flower seeds at his daycare. That evening at dinner I asked him what it takes to grow a flower...his response..."seeds, dirt, water, roast beef and sunlight". Ok, seems reasonable, right??

Finn has developed quite the imagination. He has a pair of striped pj's that whenever he wears them he becomes "stripey" the tiger and will only respond to this name. He will crawl around on his hands and feet and paw at us. At other times he pretends to be other animals and we are the mommy and daddy version of those animals. For instance, the other morning he woke up as a baby bunny and hopped out of bed letting me know that I was his mommy bunny.

Now that spring is here, Finn has baseball fever! We have spent the last two weeks playing baseball every morning and every night and if possible during the day as well. He has a short little plastic baseball bat, nerf-like baseball and little glove. Typically daddy is assigned the role of pitcher and Finn is the batter. I usually get the role of people in the stands and once in awhile he will throw the ball to the "people" and also at other times he tells me to clap for him. When he hits the ball he will run in a random pattern and eventually fall down, his version of sliding. He will yell out "single" or "double" or "foul ball" or sometimes even a "home run". It is pretty cute to watch.

Updates!

We have once again been negligent in keeping Finn's blog up to date. We seem to get busy with one thing or another and by the time Finn is in bed we are either too tired to do another thing or busy getting ready for the next day.




Since our last post...Finn has graduated to a big-big boy bed and has loved every second of it. The new truck and tractor bedding was a big hit and no tears were shed over moving the crib into the "baby room".



Finn's great aunt and uncle (and great dog) came for a visit which we all enjoyed. I think Finn wore out Uncle Frank, whom I am told had back pain after the visit...likely from wrestling a 35lb toddler. Finn kept Aunt Barb and Uncle Frank busy, needing their constant attention and making sure they got to play with all of his trucks and tractors.



We once again headed south to visit Uncle Ed, Aunt Jess and cousins Kaiser and Quentin. Luckily, Milwaukee now has a nonstop flight to New Orleans, making the trip a bit easier for all involved. Unfortunately, Finn carried "the plague" in the form of cough, runny nose and fever to Louisiana and nicely shared with our relatives...sorry about that! Finn especially loved playing with and wrestling with his cousins and also took a liking to his Aunt Jess, spending quite a bit of time in her lap playing. He also loved a trip to the John Deere plant with Uncle Ed to see the cool sugar cane harvesters. I think with Finn's interest in tractors, he and Uncle Ed will continue to be good buddies!




We enjoyed the Super Bowl at our friends, the Ogren's, where Finn got to play with some of his buddies...James, Aidan, Sofia, Chapin and Charlie. What a crazy time that was! It is fun to see them all getting bigger and starting to interact more.



Finn and Chris have enjoyed some time outside in the snow, making their annual igloo. Finn comes inside with red cheeks and a smile on his face, telling me how he threw snow at Daddy and how Daddy got snow on him too.




We continue to try to prepare Finn for our expected new addition this April. He will occasionally sing "rock a bye baby" to my tummy, but mostly ignores my growing belly. We ask him if it will be a baby boy or a baby girl and he looks at us like we are crazy and says..."it's a baby!". He also at one point randomly asked me if the baby has eyes, which I responded, I hope so! When asked recently what we should name the baby he responded, Leroy the dinosaur...seems reasonable, we will take that in to consideration!

Finn continues to make cute comments...recently when asked by Chris to hold his hand in the hallway, Finn responded, "Daddy, this is not the parking lot!"

Finn missed most of last week at daycare due to a nasty daycare virus. We seem to be well on our way to recovery and he also got to stay home two of the days with one of his favorite babysitters, Miss Conni.

Big Boy Bed

The door to Finn's room just open as Laura and I were sitting in the living room and this reminded me that I needed to do this Blog and had me asking why did we do this :)

Of course we knew we needed to transition Finn as we will be having a new arrival who is going to need the crib. But the change in his sleeping habits has been a challenge.

Instead of crying to let us know he was up in the morning he now calmly comes out of the room with no other sound than the click of the door knob.
Also, at night he will after thinking we have put him to bed come out of the room as like a game.
Well the sooner we get over the novelty of the big boy bed the better.