Finley is 18 Months

As she does for all of the milestones, Shelley had pictures takes, or made for my Southern friends, to commemorate 18 months. While we'll be sending some out, here are all of the ones we got so that you can have them on your computer and print out any you want (just click on a picture to enlarge, then right click on it and select "Save Picture As"). Thankfully, she takes after her mother and can pose for a picture on the spot, as you all know, her father has never been accused of being terribly photogenic.

I apologize we haven't been updating more, but we just haven't taken many pictures of videos of her doing anything exciting. I know you just want to see any, so I will try to do a better job of capturing her in even mundane activities.

Hope to see you all soon.

Finley Sleeping

Finley has started to get into stuffed animals -- which is dangerous, as Jack has always assumed any stuffed toy is his to destroy. So far, he hasn't killed any of her animals, but we are just waiting for it to happen.

That written, she likes to bring her animals to bed with her, as you'll see in the bottom picture. She loves her Snoopy, so you can see her with it below. The other one, though, is that two nights ago, she demanded to take her bottle of water with her, which was fine with us if it would put her to sleep. She is a funny, funny baby.

The Last Week

I know I haven't been as timely as I aspire to be lately with posts, but given the summer is the busiest time of the year for work, I hope to be able to be more diligent with my posts.

Over the past week, we've had Grandma Susie and Nana Pat in town, and Grandpa Steve just got here yesterday. I think we all know they are here for Finley, which, in truth, is why you're at this blog, too. So, without more filler, here are the pix:


Lambs' Farm is a big complex by our house with a little train ride, merry-go-round (which is what Finley is on in this picture), petting zoo, and a restaurant, all staffed by people with developmental disabilities. Finley LOVES the train rides, so Shelley, Nana Pat, and I took Finley to ride it again last weekend.

Finley and Grandma Susie after they got back from the swimming pool last week. Finley had 3 little boys chasing her, one of whom tried to take her pail from her. She, of course, was having none of that and pushed the little boy away.

As you've seen before, Finley likes to practice her yoga -- here she's working on the gymnastics she learned at baby gym.

First, note the cute pig-tails. Second, she still loves Monty -- enough to crawl into the dog bed with her.

Two Videos from the Week

As you've seen before, Finley LOVES the water. The first video shows her in the pool chasing after the little spouts that shoot water into the air. Her new game is to cover them with her hands, as you'll see here.

This is one of my favorites. Finley learned that some things can be pulled apart or broken with enough force. We are in the backyard sitting on the deck when she decides to break a twig. Pay attention for the look on her face, as well as when she starts quivering with effort as she works to break it (around :32 seconds).

Random Photos II

More random pictures as we try to clean out our cameras for the Blog -- I'll post a couple of cute videos later today.



This is from a couple of weeks ago when we were at Relay for Life -- Finley is trying to master Bags.

This is her solution, since she lacks the upper body strength to throw the bags.

This is from when Shelley and I were visiting Finley's new class room before she moved to the toddler room.

As Gobbler is making Shelley's back tight, she sometimes will use some of her yoga moves to stretch. Frequently, Shelley will join her hands behind her back and then bend over. As you can see, Finley is working on her yoga, too.

Finley has been mastering the straw -- this is from a series of pretty funny pictures we took of her at BW3s trying to get the straw into her mouth and still get water out of it without spilling.

Just a picture of her in a cute little dress.

This picture is from this past Sunday -- in honor of the Cubs taking sole possession of 1st place. I hope my STL family uses this as a screen saver.

Random Pictures Since June 26th

While most of the pictures posted on the blog seem to be taken on my Blackberry, every so often we capture some on our "real" camera. Here are some from between Darcy's wedding through vacation and up to this evening. We have more random photos from my Blackberry, as well as a couple video clips, that I'll post tomorrow, too.

You may or may not know that since the second week in July, Finley has been transferred to a toddler room. She is the youngest in the room and the only one that doesn't really talk in fully coherent words. . . yet, although she is improving by leaps and bounds lately. That said, despite the fact she is the smallest one, her teachers have told us she is the best eater in the class - always cleans her plate and isn't picky at all; I'm sure that comes as no surprise to anyone. As you can see above, tonight was her first experience with corn on the cob, which she likes almost as much as "regular" corn.

Another food first - her first Oreo. Double-stuff, naturally. Her pack is eager to lend a paw.

In addition to being the best eater in the class, she may also be the most fearless. The week before she started in the new class, they brought her over for a few hours to introduce her. They had a small plastic pool filled up in their outdoor play area. While none of the other, older kids would go near it, when they brought Finley out, she immediately ran up to it and climbed in. They said she was happily splashing away. As I'd mentioned before, while she didn't love the ocean, she wasn't afraid to wade in.

By the way, I am healthy; the hair isn't a result of chemo, just male pattern baldness.

Finley loves to dance - this picture was from Darcy's wedding the weekend before we left for Florida. In class, her teachers say her favorite move is to spin herself around to the music; yes, inevitably, she gets dizzy and falls over (if you've ever seen Shae on the dance floor, it is apparent that her moves come from Shelley's side). Good eater, good swimmer, not such a good dancer -- the Lord doesn't always give with both hands! Here she is out dancing by herself with the bigger kids.

She thought she would take Grandpa Steve out for a spin, too. It was very cute to watch them dance.

Florida Videos

Finley loves the water, but the ocean, a little less. She sort of warmed up to it, but mostly didn't like the salt burning her eyes, which I completely understand. We spent a lot of time in the swimming pool just up from the ocean.

This video is Finley at the Ft. Walton airport as we were waiting to fly home. She must have run up and down this hallway 20 times -- all variations of this video.

Here is the ocean video I reference above. There would be some tide pools each morning that she would play in, but she never really seemed to enjoy the murky, salty water as much as the swimming pool.