Finn is 9 months!

That's right - my baby is NINE months. Can you believe it?


We've really been soaking up this awesome weather we are having. Before we know it, the snow will be falling.











Brotherly Love, although Jack isn't so sure of Finn touching his shoulder


Kisses



Here is Jack scratching Finn's back


Jack telling Finn all about how the lawn mower works


Finner Winner Chicken Dinner - We LOVE you and can't believe that you are already 9 months old. Even though you were such a fussy baby and almost sent me to the looney binn - you are an amazing baby now and so easy going. You are such a little peanut!

• You will eat ANYTHING we put on your tray and you inhale it. 
• You are constantly on the go. There is no more snuggling time and you feed yourself a bottle no problem.
• You have a bruise every other day on your face from falling or getting trampled on by your brother, but you cry for about .3 seconds and then are laughing.
• You love playing with your brother and chasing him and pulling his hair
• You are slowly starting to stand by yourself and love to push things and run with them. This makes me very nervous.

You are such a delight Finn and I'm so happy that I have such wonderful men in my life :-) Stay tuned for Finn's doctor stats next week!

Activity Board and Fall Chores

A few weeks ago I got the itch to take on a crafty project. Ever since Jack has started "school" and swimming lessons, he wants to keep going to school and swimming lessons every day. We kept telling him school is on Tuesday and swimming is on Saturday. I thought maybe I could make a fun activity board that would show the month, day and the activity we were doing that day. I decided to throw a weather and holiday category as well. My initial thought was to do a felt board, but according to the rude worker at JoAnn's they don't sell those boards anymore. Ok. So I made a quick game time decision and went the velcro route. Here is the final product:




So in the mornings we change the day and look out the front door to check the weather. The activities that I have for us to choose from are school, swimming lessons, and play with friends. I also have the holidays so we can put those up too. I'm thinking I'll put them up the month they occur in. He seems to like it. Finn likes to pull the weather pieces off too. Jack screams "no Finn, don't do that" ha ha.

Yesterday the leaves started falling a LOT. Jack helped me rake in the afternoon and then after dinner it was like we didn't even rake. We went out there again and jumped in the piles. It was fun!

Halloween Costume Time

So we still have about a month before Halloween is here, but I didn't want to wait until last minute to have costumes figured out. Finn was easy. He is just going to be what Jack was two years ago...

Pooh

For Jack's costume, we searched the new Halloween store high and low. I was kind of set on him being Dopey from Snow White, but that would have required me to make his costume and I just wasn't up for that this year. So we opted for....

UPS Guy

Tom and I also have a Halloween party we are going to this year! Yeah! I've been working hard on my costume. My glasses are finished and they look something like this....

Tom refuses to be a jersey shore guy. I suggested he dress up like Dora, but he shut that down too. So what do you think Tom should be for Halloween? What are you and your kiddos (if you have any) dressing up as????

Bunk Bed Time!

Yesterday after the boys woke up from their naps, I had this weird sudden burst of energy. We recently received these awesome hand me down bunk beds from a good friend. They had been sitting in pieces in the garage and Tom had to park his car in our driveway. So I decided I would at least bring all of the pieces inside. Well then I looked at the manual and thought this can't be that hard. Some of the pieces were already put together, so I didn't have to do everything from scratch. At first I couldn't even figure out which end was what - but slowly I managed. Even with two screaming kids downstairs. Tom came home and to his surprise, I was almost done. He had to fix a few things, but we were both so happy they were up! Jack just LOVES them. 

When we tucked Jack in, he didn't even ask for his nuks! Ha. Then 10 minutes later he was screaming for them. We decided to just tell him now that he has a bunk bed he doesn't need them. He whined for about 5 minutes and then fell asleep.

Here is a pic, the quality isn't great - it's from Tom's phone. I love how Finn is just pounding his sippy cup. ha ha. Oh and yes, Finn loves the bunks too.

Next mission - potty training. BLAH.

Getting My Body Back

When you are about 7-8 months pregnant, you pretty much lose control of your body. It's not to say you can't control what you put into your body, but your skin stretches in ways you thought never possible. By both of the boys' due dates I had had enough! I'm not one of those people who LOVES being pregnant (not that there is anything wrong with THOSE people, I'm just not one of them :-)). I love being pregnant about 6 weeks out of the 40. That's about it. Then you have the baby and you are on such a high because it is OUT of your belly and you are not pregnant! But your stomach doesn't go back to the way it used to be. Sure you might think you are starting to look great. Then you will see a picture of yourself and gag. Ha ha. Ok maybe not to that extreme - but it's hard work getting your body back. It's even harder with the second kid. With Jack I got zero stretch marks. With Finn, I got a few around my belly button (for all of you girls who have belly rings and haven't gotten pregnant...BEWARE)! Anyway - sure, I could look a lot worse than I do. I'm wearing my pre pregnancy jeans and my weight is almost back down to what it was before - but it just isn't the same!  I even ran a half marathon when Finn was only 5 months old. However, while I was training for the half I never watched what I was eating by any means.

Well...about 8 months ago, Kelly joined Velocity Sports and raved about it. So I decided to check it out. There is one in Champlin, about 10 minutes from my house. They have a 10 week fitness challenge for adults. I JOINED! It starts in TWO weeks. Here's the deal. You sign up online for your classes - you pay a flat fee and you can go up to FOUR times a week! They are hour long sessions and there won't be more than 10 people in your class. It's basically circuit training and they work you hard! They have a variety of times to choose from. I love this because I am paying good money and I will feel guilty if I don't go. And there is no point not to go four times a week. I'm getting my body back people - watch out. Oh and this might have been brought on by our Mexico trip we are planning to take in January too :-)

Here is the other kicker....I'm going to try and eliminate processed foods from my diet five days a week. Two days a week, I can pig out on whatever I want, but the other five - no processed foods! This will be hard, but not ridiculous. I'm learning a lot about cooking and I like meals that use fresh ingredients the most anyway - so hopefully this will help enhance my menu items for the family as well. I've got two weeks before this all begins! Can't wait!

A Day In The Life

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I'm joining up with my good friend Elissa and some other photography people and doing Scavenger Hunt Sunday. You should TOTALLY join me :-) Come on, it's fun!

The rules are simple:

1. Anyone can participate. 
2. You're encouraged to take five new photos this week for the challenge. 
3. If you get stumped, you may use one photo from your archive (although I'm not too strict about it - I do my best to take fresh shots). 
4. Link up to  Ashley's Blog on Sunday (or Tuesday at the latest) - you can use the button above. 
5. Have fun!

Here are my interpretations of the topics this week:

Wish or Dream

I wish I would have found the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow :-)

Clean

I run my dishwasher every single day. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes before I go to bed. Some days I even run it twice. I love when my dishes are CLEAN!

Currency

Who doesn't love their change jar? I love when ours gets full and we cash it in and treat ourselves to something fun.

Pair

My son just got these super cute hand-me-down rain boots. They are a little big right now for him, but it doesn't stop him from marching around outside in them.

Square

This isn't a fabulous photo, but it sure does have a lot of squares, doesn't it? This is one of our pillows on our living room couch.

Want to participate next week? Here are the topics:

1. Miniature

2. Water Droplet

3. Bedhead

4. Colorful

5. Eyes

Flash Me! Friday - What's Around You

It's Flash Me Friday time.  Want to participate? Hope on over to Jen's Blog and leave your link.

This week Flash what's around you


Well today I spent the entire day (9-5) at a Lightroom workshop. Lightroom is a photo editing tool that I use. It was a tad advanced for me, but I definitely picked up a few good pointers. It didn't help that I have an awful head cold and kept sneezing through the entire class, but I survived. Therefore, I will just give you a quick flash of my handy dandy macbook that I spent all day editing photos on :-)

Happy weekend - here's to hoping this cold goes away!

I'll take sleep for $400, Alex

You'd think we had a newborn in the house the past three nights with how little sleep we've gotten. The other night Finn was up for about an hour just screaming due to teething. I gave him ibuprofen and it didn't work, so after doing everything we could think of, we finally just put him downstairs to let him cry so he wouldn't wake Jack up. That same night Jack was up about 3 times because he dropped something, fell out of the bed, or some other crazy reason. Then last night Jack woke up twice. The first time he must have just had a bad dream. The second time when Tom went in there Jack was saying that Elmo was sad. He doesn't sleep with an Elmo or have an Elmo in his room. HA. I'd like to get inside the head of a 2 or 3 year old for a day. But I know this too shall pass, so I'll just suck it up.

Yesterday we had Jack's first day of ECFE. We've been talking about it for weeks now and he was so excited. First we had to drop Finn off in the sibling care room. As soon as I told Jack to say bye to Finn, he freaked out. He did not want to leave his brother. He was trying so hard not to cry, it was so cute. But then he just lost it and I thought to myself, oh great - here we go again. But we walked up to Jack's room and he finally calmed down once we started to play with the toys. We didn't separate yesterday, but the parents did sit at a table on the other side of the room to meet the parent teacher. Jack did great, he wasn't clingy and played with the toys without me. Last year all Jack wanted to do was run out of the door, so I'm so happy that phase is over. There is one other mom and son that were in our class before, so it's nice to have a familiar face. Finn did fine too - it's during his naptime, but I brought snacks and a sippy cup for him so that helped.

Photography class is going great. I'm proud to say that I actually shot some pictures in the Manual mode. For all of you who don't know what this means, it means that I adjusted the settings in my camera myself. Usually I shoot in Aperture mode. I'll just post one assignment because I think you will like seeing the difference.



Our house is literally shaking right now. If they don't pave our road soon, I am going to have a mental breakdown. It's just awful! Survivor starts tonight and it's the finale of Big Brother! How excited is everyone for the new shows to start? I don't even know what show I am most excited for, there are too many I guess :-)

Makeover

Well so far I've gotten pretty positive feedback about my new blog layout. I am extremely happy with it. I cannot take all of the credit for it though! After I started playing around with my blog background and settings, I became extremely frustrated and could not figure out what I wanted. I finally came across Becca's blog design website called Jumping Jax Designs and wrote her an email and the rest is history.

I purchased this cartoon picture from a separate website, but Becca totally put my spin on it. In fact, this is the original picture I purchased.

Becca was able to change me from this brown hair brown eyed beauty into someone who somewhat resembles me. She also changed Finn and cloned him and made it big brother Jack. I also wanted the high rise buildings out of the background since I don't live in the city. Didn't she do a fab job?

Before I really started blogging, I thought people were crazy for paying for their blog designs. The truth is, this is my outlet during the day. I guess it's one of my hobbies too, as sad as that sounds. I wanted my blog to be a website that I loved to go to or loved to contribute to. I would get frustrated with my picture headings after about a month because of how much the boys change. Sure one day I will get rid of the bottle on this main picture and make it not so little kiddish, but that won't be for a while. And when it does happen, you can bet I will be contacting Becca.

Some might ask, where is Tom in this picture? Well I couldn't find any super cute pictures of families and when I talked to him about it, after he rolled his eyes telling me I was insane for discussing my blogging issues - he said it was fine he wasn't in the picture and he would prefer not to be. Can you blame the guy?

Quick question - do you guys like reading the Flash Me Fridays and like it when bloggers have something they do or blog about each week? I'm thinking of doing a little more of those, but I'm not sure. I definitely don't want to take away from blogging about my boys and posting pictures, but I feel like I need a little bit more structure and/or creativity with this blog. Help me out!

Happy Birthday Dad! and Fun With the Blairs

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!


Last night the Blairs came over for an impromptu bbq. Then we headed to the park and I snapped a few super cute pics.

And I saved the best for last



What do you think of the new layout :-) ?

Flash Me! Friday - Cold Weather Comfort Food

It's FRIDAY! You know what that means, time for some flashing. This week, we are changing it up a bit and doing a recipe theme. Favorite cold weather comfort food. Want to participate? Just hop on over to Jen's Blog.

I was dead set on doing Creamy Wild Rice soup, but Darcy beat me to the punch. Our recipes are so similar that I'll just let you visit her blog to get it :-)

I am a soup and chili lover. I haven't perfected my chili recipe yet, so I'm going to hold off on that recipe. However, I will give you the recipe to my 2nd favorite soup in the world, French Onion. I am extremely picky with this soup and it's totally hit or miss in my mind. This recipe that Kelly gave me, is a hit. It's so easy to make. I don't get to make this soup very much because my husband hates onions. Sometimes he'll be a trooper and eat it anyway. Yes, he must really love me. So here it is

                                                        This is not my picture, I took it off the internet

French Onion Soup


6-8 onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup of butter
4 ten ounce cans condensed beef broth
1 soup can water
2 tsp worcestershire
1/8 tsp pepper

In a large pan cook onions in butter until tender, about 20 min. Transfer onions and butter to crock-pot. Add beef broth, water, worcestershire and pepper. Cover and cook on low 4-6 hours. Ladle soup into bowls and lay a slice of provolone cheese on top. Put under broiler to slightly brown and melt cheese. Serve with crusty french bread. YUM.

Enjoy your weekend.

MN Zoo and more photography class

Today I took the boys to the MN Zoo with my friend, Tara, and her two kids. It was seriously the perfect time to go to the zoo. All of the big kids are back in school, it's not a million degrees outside and NO CROWDS. We left the house around 9:30 and Finn screamed bloody murder the entire way. For those you who don't live in MN, the MN Zoo is about 35 minutes from Maple Grove, at least. This was so frustrating for me. Especially since we left around Finn's naptime and I thought he'd nap the whole way down. Side note - I swear Finn is teething. I've thought he was teething since he was 4 months. He is 8 1/2 months old and still has ZERO teeth. When Jack was his age, he had about 6. Wow, kids are different. Anyway, the zoo was so fun. Jack loved looking at the animals, running around, playing with the exhibits, going into the dark tunnels. He wasn't afraid of anything. Finn was fine once he got into the stroller, but again he screamed the entire way home too. Then we get home and I wanted to nap, but of course both boys decided not to nap. That's how it always goes. I took some pictures today at the zoo, not a lot - but a few. I'll post them this weekend.

Now for my photography class update. I'm really struggling with the creative part of the class, but oh well. Here is the doll assignment. I used probably the freakiest looking doll on the planet. Thanks for letting me borrow it, Ruby!

F/16 shot


F/5 shot


Every week, we have a portrait challenge. This week, I chose Finn. Those eyes are dangerous!




That's all for today. Go Vikes!

PS - do any of you still read Kelle Hampton's blog Enjoying The Small Things? The birth story of her second daughter, Nella, is in the October edition of Parents magazine.

Look for some changes coming to my blog in the next few days, or week. And watch for tomorrows Flash Me! Friday.

Assignment #2

Photograph a simple object, I chose a nuk. Do you like the Bailey hair dangling off of the bottom? I could have edited this out I suppose.

School is Starting

In just one week Jack will be starting his "school" (ECFE) again. I have high hopes that this year will go a lot better than last year. I'll be putting Finn in the sibling care room (required for babies over 5 months), which will hopefully start the separation process with him and we won't have issues the way we had with Jack. Yeah, one can only wish. I am super excited for ECFE, I love love love it. Even though Jack was unbelievably awful last Fall and I couldn't separate from him for more than 5 minutes and he would NOT calm down, the teachers and other parents were so amazing with me. Always reassuring me I was doing the right thing. Remember, I was 7 months pregnant when we started and Finn was born before the end of the class, so he got to meet everyone too. And my dad was living with us, my brother and mom were in Colorado. I think it's safe to say I was a hot mess, and Jack I'm sure was feeling it too. Anyway - I can't remember what day I ended up getting for us this year - I think it is either a Tuesday or Wednesday morning. Then we have Jack's swimming lessons still ever Saturday morning. It's crazy to think that next year at this time I will be sending Jack to preschool probably two days a week. Well that's assuming I can potty train him, HA. In my ECFE brochure this month, there was this poem and I thought I'd share it. It just reminds me that my days at home with my little guys are limited, they won't be home forever. Maybe some day I'll get back out into the corporate world, doubtful - but maybe. Right now, I'm going to be at home with them and do my best to love every single minute of it.

A Touch of Love
You were six months old, and full of fun.
With a blink of an eye, you were suddenly one.
There were so many things we were going to do,
But I turned my head and you were two.
At two you were very dependent on me.
But independence took over when you turned three.
Your third birthday, another year I tried to ignore.
But I when I lit the candles, there weren't three, but four.
Four was the year that you really strived.
Why look at now, you're already five.
Now you are ready for books and for the rules,
This is the year that you go to school.
The big day came, you were anxious to go.
We walked to the bus, going oh so slow.
As you climbed aboard and waved goodbye,
I felt a lump in my throat and tears stung my eyes.
Time goes so fast; it's hard to believe
That just yesterday you were home here with me.
And tomorrow when the bus brings you home and you jump to the ground,
You'll be wearing your cap and graduation gown.
So I'm holding to these moments as hard as I can,
Because the next time I look, I'll be seeing a man.
-Cindy Zelinski

First Assignment

The first photography assignment was to photograph a stuffed animal by a window in manual or aperture mode. I know nothing about manual mode, so I shot in aperture mode. We had two shots, one at F/4 and the other at F/11. Here are my shots

F/4


F/11


Notice the difference? In the F/4 shot, the stuffed animal is more in focus leaving the background a tad out of focus. In the F/11 shot, it's not really focused on just the stuffed animal.

Do you like my selection of stuffed animals? Another shot this week requires me to photograph a doll outside in the grass. We don't own any baby dolls and I'm not about to go and buy one, but we do have a Dora doll - will that work? Actually, maybe I'll do this assignment at the Blair's house this week. Yes, yes that is what I'll do!

Today is cold and rainy and I love it. I'm going to make home made chicken wild rice soup. YUMMMMY!

Photography

One of my girlfriends, Elissa, told me about this online photography session she signed up for and told me I should do it too. I took a look at it and decided to go for it. I'm pretty nervous for it, but know that if I want to learn more about photography and learn how to use my camera - this is how it should be done. So it starts tomorrow and is four weeks long. I'll probably post some of our "assignments" just for fun. I use Lightroom to edit my pictures and it's kind of complicated. I'm also signed up for an all day class next Friday to learn more about it. I can't wait! I think editing pictures is a lot of fun, although it is a lot of work and very time consuming.

I don't ever anticipate wanting to do anything "professional" with photography but would absolutely love to take awesome pictures of my family, friends, friends' families, etc for nothing more than the love of picture taking. 

I have some pretty neat pictures of Jack and Finn and I am so bad at printing pictures off and hanging them up in our house. Does anyone have any creative suggestions of what to do with your family or children's pictures? I need to swap out some pictures (like our engagement photos) but I also want to add some wall decor with pictures. I am so not a creative person, this is what worries me about this photography stuff!

PS - Tom and I had a FABULOUS date night last night. It was much needed and much overdue. Jack and Finn did great and Grandma and Grandpa Starkey's house. Now that Jack can sleep in a big boy bed - who wants to take him in next weekend?

Flash Me! Friday - Extra Room

Happy Flash Me! Friday! Want to participate? Hop on over to Jen's Blog and leave your link.

This week it's YOUR EXTRA ROOM.

One of our "bonus" room is downstairs connected to our family room. Right now it has a desk, even though my laptop is never confined to just one place. And then a ton of toys. You'd seriously think I ran a daycare with how many toys we have. I suppose I could have done our basement room as the bonus room, but that has a queen sized bed, a pack n play and about a bazillion blocks covering the floor right now. Who wants to see that?

Here is the view looking into the "bonus" room from our family room.




Here is the desk and you can also see the bathroom



Here is a view of some of our bookshelves along with the ridiculous amount of toys that either have wheels or are standing toys. This is also where we put our christmas tree! (Jack was doing peek-a-boo while I was taking this picture, ha).



And here is the other corner where the VHS player is located.  This is the Air Force corner too, ha.



Have a great weekend everyone.

Hilarious YouTube

These videos have been all over facebook and the internet, but it's pretty hilarious so I had to post about it. My brother showed me them last week and then Ronnie just did a post about them too yesterday. Enjoy.


First, you have to watch this one, the whole thing. It's a true news story.




Then, watch this remix





Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Concerns? HA HA.

The Nuk Situation

Last week after Jack woke up from his nap he told me that he wanted to throw his nuk away and be a big boy. I have absolutely no idea where this came from. We talk about him being a big boy now that he's in his big boy bed and we talk about how big boys use the potty (which by the way is not progressing whatsoever), etc. He just assumed big boys don't use nuks. So...I took him out to the garage and let him throw it away in the garbage himself. That night, I was gone so Tom was left to deal with bedtime all by himself. Tom said it wasn't even a question, he went into the garbage, dug out the nuk, cleaned it off and gave it to Jack. I just laughed.

Is it really a big deal if he sleeps with a nuk at bedtime? Some may say yes, I say no. We took his nuk away during the days when he was about 15 months and limited it to just naps and bedtimes. I'm sure if the nuk really bothered me, we'd have a few rough nights and then he'd get over it. But really - who cares? Would you cut off your child's thumb if they were a thumb sucker at night? I think not. This was a great topic of conversation during one of the ECFE sessions I actually got to sit in on one time last year. The teacher said one of her daughter's was a thumb sucker and she tried to get her daughter's dentist to tell her daughter that something really bad would happen to her teeth if she continued to suck her thumb. The dentist told her he couldn't do that, so she accepted it and knew that some day her daughter would outgrow her thumb sucking. I feel the same with the nuk situation. I am not going to buy anymore nuks for Jack, I haven't for about a year. He has one nuk left and when it gets broken or lost or whatever, well - that's that. 

It's like everything else in parenting - just do what works for you and your child. I don't judge people who let their 4 year olds suck on nuks or bottles in public. I might think it's a tad ridonkulous, but I just assume that this a battle they'd rather not fight. Whatever works! Seriously. I think that's my motto when it comes to parenting - whatever works! My kid sleeps in the basement - whatever works. My kid is still in diapers - whatever works. I bribe my child with dessert so he'll eat his dinner - whatever works! ha.

So...did your babies take nuks or thumbs? Did you or will you take them away at a certain age? Do you think I'm crazy for not caring that Jack still sleeps with his nuk?