Learning to Sit

Saturday was the first day we were able to sit Finn on the floor and let go for a few seconds. Since then he has gotten a little better every day. Today he managed to sit on his own for about 30 seconds. He needs to have something in front of him to focus on, but he's getting there. Baby steps!

Quick Changes

One of the things that makes Colorado Colorado is dramatic changing weather. Yesterday it was a beautiful, sunny day. It was around 60 degrees or so with a bit of a wind. So, while Finn napped, I put a light jacket on Kai and we went out to play. Here are some pictures of what we did.

Today we awoke to snow. By about 10am there were a few inches on the ground and we ventured out (once again, Finn was napping). Towards the afternoon, the snow stopped. Then around dinner time it picked up in intensity and is currently still falling. They're calling for 6+ inches. We'll see. Here are today's playing outside pictures. What a difference 24 hours makes!!

Finn is Five Months Old!

I can't believe how grown-up our little baby is getting! I can't say that he's getting big, but he is growing up. I thought I'd share a few tidbits about our little guy.

• Finn really loves his toys. He doesn't get to play with them that often because I find myself constantly wanting to disinfect them, but when he does get a toy handed to him, he often lights up.
• Finn is such a good independent player. I will often lay him down on his "happy mat" (the play gym) and walk away to do dishes or cleaning and he'll be happily playing. Whenever I return, he just glows.
• Finn learned to roll and just never stopped. He now sleeps on his tummy most of the time.
• Speaking of sleep, he's an angel. He takes 3 to 4 naps a day--one that lasts from 2-3 hours, and the others are about 40 minutes each. Putting him down is so EASY! He fusses when we walk in his room for nap time and will continue to do so for about 30 seconds to a minute while we rock in the rocking chair. At that point he will take his binky, suck until his eyes roll back in his head, and then cuddle. We cuddle for 2 to 3 minutes and then I put him in his crib. At that point he normally wakes up, but as long as I don't engage him or hesitate, he'll roll over as soon as I'm out of the room and put himself back to sleep. Sometimes it's instantaneous, and sometimes it takes 5 minutes, but he does it. And as he sleeps, he covers the entire distance of the crib. I always retrieve him from the opposite corner that he laid down in!
  
• His night sleeping has also become fabulous. As long as he's been up for two hours or so before bedtime, and I get his tummy good and full, he can sleep anywhere from 6 hours to as much as 8.5 hours. Ahhhhh.....heaven!
• We started Finn on rice cereal about 2 and half weeks ago. I normally give it to him right before he goes to bed. And admittedly, he doesn't always enjoy it. He's normally so tired he just wants the bottle. But the more cereal I can get in his mouth, the more he sleeps. So we keep going and hopefully one day he'll decide it's worth it. It sure is for me.
• Finn has been on antibiotics for 6 weeks straight now. I'm hoping that will be changing quite soon.
• Finn loves to bounce and smile and giggle and coo. If you stand him on your lap, he'll just start bouncing up and down over and over and over again.
  
• Finn LOVES his big brother (as long as that big brother uses his little voice!)
• Finn barely uses his binky. In fact, Reid and I joke that "the binky is not his friend." It really isn't. I'd estimate that he sucks on it for a total of about 10 minutes a day.
  
• Finn likes to be held, but does not like to cuddle. He just wants to be in on the action.
• Finn has officially been outside to play 3 times. He doesn't like it at all. But we're working on that. Poor kid has never really seen the sun. I guess that's what you get when you're born in Colorado in October and then have a mom who worries about you getting sick. We'll get over that!
• Finn just started wearing 3-6 month clothing in the last month or so. I actually think he's going to "not grow" into Kai's summer clothes. Kai wore 3-6 month clothes from August to October in DC. Finn will be able to wear those same clothes in about another month or two. I don't think he's going to go up a size by then.
  

Here are some videos of our little guy that I took today. He's wearing his green cuddlebug outfit (we're still hoping!) in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

Brother Play Time

Kai has recently discovered just how fun it is to "play" with Finn in "Finn's bed". Several times over the past few days, Kai has followed me into Finn's room after his afternoon nap and while I've been straightening up, the boys have "played" together in the crib. I tried to get some pictures, but the ones I got aren't that great. I stay pretty close to make sure that Finn stays safe and so it's hard to get both boys in the shot. But here are some of the ones I managed to snap.

PS. I haven't had a quote of the day in quite some time, but that's not because there are not a myriad of funny quotes running around this house. Recently, there has been a lot of talk of Kai needing us to build him a new house. Why you ask? Because he wants to be where "nobody else" lives. (I think he's still not overly thrilled about sharing ANYTHING!) Today he told me that Finn was gone forever. (I was sitting right on the couch holding him.) "Where did he go?" I asked. "To the doctor!" And my favorite that I can remember of recent days occurred before bedtime a few nights ago. As we were saying goodnight I told Kai, "You melt my heart." He must not have heard correctly because he responded with, "You melt my head."

Finn Found His Foot

(On Friday!) Gotta love the alliteration! And the cute baby who now knows where that foot is. Even in his carseat in church yesterday he stuck his feet straight up so he could see them. It so made me laugh! Even more interesting is that, for some reason, he thinks his foot can only reach his hand when there are no clothes covering it. Put a sock on him and he'll just look longingly at it. Take his feet out of his jammies on the changing table and his hand and foot instantly find each other. It's just too cute!

Operation Get Organized

I find that our days go more quickly and smoothly when I am organized and know what we are going to be doing ahead of time. So I made a list this weekend of things that I would like to organize and make sure to get done. Week 1 has been a success so far. We have managed to read from the Book of Mormon as a familiy every day, we had family home evening (yay! for planning ahead), I've had dinners planned and prepared every night (including fresh veggies--a big thing for me!), and Kai and I have had planned activities every day. (See the Letter of the Week post.) We even went grocery shopping with our grocery list. It's been good. I have a few more things that I'd like to schedule into our week, but for now I just want to get into this routine. So, we'll see how this goes for the next few weeks. Wish us luck!

Letter of the Week

A few weeks back Reid and I were discussing teaching Kai the actual sounds of letters (instead of just "A is for apple"). We feel that the next step for him now that he has mastered all of his letters and numbers is to learn that "a says ah", etc. I played with the idea of teaching him one letter a week, with different activities every day. Wouldn't you know that there are several websites out there with curriculum to teach your child a letter a week?! So, this weekend I got myself organized and we started this week with the letter A.

We're pretty much following the curriculm from Letter of the Week, but I am supplementing with ideas and printouts from First Alpahbet Preschool Activities and Crafts. Letter of the Week encourages a different activity every day, while the other site indicates that children under the age of 4 tend to tire out after 3 to 4 days. I am finding that to be true as Kai has lost interest in the letter A, after three fun filled days.

Here is what we did do this week for the letter A.

Monday--We made our A poster and introduced 6 a-word flashcards. Kai colored a letter A and then we went through several poems and rhymes about apples. Finally, we finished with music time. Basically, we watched several versions of "The Ants Go Marching" on Youtube. Kai loved it!Tuesday--We reviewed our A poster and words. We made applecrisp for our craft and we did applejack math. Kai was pretty good at our math and I was quite proud of him.


Wednesday--We reviewed the previous days and then we discussed what an antelope and an abalone are. I learned a few things, too.

Today we had planned on studying astronauts, but Kai just wasn't into it. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Next week, we're on to the letter B. He has really gotten down the A sound, so I'm hoping the excitement continues for the letter B.

Finn Today

I've been trying to get a few videos of Finn. The problem that I have consistently run into is the presence of a larger, older sibling in the house. :) So, today while Kai slept, I caught Finn talking to our wall and went to grab the camera. Of course, as soon as the camera came out he wasn't interested in talking much anymore. He did make a few great sounds and faces, though. It seemed as if whatever he had to say was very serious. Yes, I know that most videos of babies not doing much of anything are completely boring to everyone other than their parents.....so, you're not obligated to watch. I just think he's adorable! (If you skip to about 30 seconds in, it gets more interesting.)




At our past several doctor's appointments, there has been much discussion on starting solids with Finn. I didn't start solids with Kai until he was 5 months old and really didn't think we'd start solids this time around until 6 months. But everything about Finn has been different than I expected, so I'm just taking it as it comes. The nutrionist and doctors agree he doesn't need to eat as much as he does at night (he takes 2 FULL bottles) and so they thought some rice cereal before bed would be good and get us both some more sleep. I, however, was worried about him losing calories and his weight gain slowing down. (Rice cereal has very little in the way of calories.) So, it was agreed upon that we could start rice cereal with butter after his normal night time bottle. That way we could get more sleep and Finn could still get his calories. Tonight I had not planned on it, but we were getting ready for bed and Finn was not eating well. He had only taken a few ounces and was refusing anymore. So, I decided on the spur of the moment to put him in the high chair and give him some cereal. The kid that was so tired and sleepy just minutes earlier lit up and LOVED his cereal. I'm not even sure that he really got that much in his tummy, but he just seemed so pleased to be eating like a big kid. (He had been eyeballing my dinner all night.) I think the butter made things taste even that much better. Poor thing got so excited and wound up over it all that he had a hard time going to bed and ended up going down nearly 45 minutes later than normal. Hmmmm.....we'll have to see how we can fix that problem in the coming weeks. But for tonight, the smiles we got were certainly worth the extra effort getting him to bed.