Finn's First Christmas

Baby boy's first Christmas. So here we go, 36 of my favorite photos from the day. Yep, thirty-six. :)

Finn woke up at 9:15am and sees the Christmas tree and presents for the first time...

To my surprise he actually picked up one of his gifts...

And even ripped it a little...

Then he had fun playing with his stash...

Sweet baby boy...

Before we wheeled out Finn's final gift, Rob and I exchanged our gifts. Rob has a thing (passed on from his family) where he wraps gifts in obscure ways to keep me from guessing what it is. He handed me this one...can ya guess what it is?

Yeah, it was a CD wrapped with a paint roller, lol. I also got my new lens which I have lots to learn about but definitely am loving...

We then wheeled out our final gift for Finn...

First he pushed it around in circles...

Then checked out the steering wheel...

Then got him in it...our little cutie...

We then made our way over to my mom's house...

Sweet moments with uncle Greg...

Getting Finn strapped in...poor kid had to deal with the sun AND my hair in his face...

The cousins checking it out...of course they asked if they could go for a ride...lol.

We grabbed a family pic for the day...

And this next one cracks us up...totally taken on accident, but Rob said it should be our Christmas card for next year...

Please keep you hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times...good thing there's a lap belt. :)

Then the annual pickle finding competition for all of us grown kids. We do it for bragging rights and a lovely gift card. But mostly bragging rights. This year it involved standing on chairs and lots of hints. The thing is only like an inch big.

A fuzzy phone pic, but it shows how we all ended up. It felt like we were looking forever, but someone finally came out victorious....

Oh that would be me, lol. :)))

Then we headed over to spend time with Rob's parents.

The weather got warm as the day went on, so Finn was pretty much topless the whole day.

A lil container of ice cream all for me...

And to cap the post off with the sweetest pic my sister captured on her phone of Finn in his car. Sweet baby boy.

A busy, but good, good day filled with loved ones. Memories were made for sure.

Now to gear up for Finn's first birthday, about a week and a half away. My main project I'm going to attempt is making a video with pictures and video clips of his first year...I know it's going to take so much time and work, but I really think it will be something special to have and look back on. My heart feels a mixture of pride, joy and aching as I watch this boy grow...it happens so fast and I want to hold on to the sweet memories of our amazing boy.

Hoping you all are well and recovering from the season. The worst part is taking it all down. Boo. I'm going to try to not get crazy with it and just do one thing at a time, and those outside lights can just stay up till New Years or beyond.

Christmas Party

For the past, I don't know, 4-5 years? My mom's house has been the place for an annual Christmas party. Well her house got a year off this year, so Rob and I decided to put together a little gathering. 

And you know what the best thing is about having a party? It makes you clean every nook and cranny of the house (well except for the secret junk rooms that hold all the mess). So before friends and family started to arrive I ran around the house real quick and took some pics. 

I've been eyeballing those topiaries (plant looking things) on the piano for quite some time now at Target, and they were on clearance for 50% off, mmm...clearance.

But overall I used what we had for decor and just stretched it as far as I could. It's amazing what you can do with leftover ornaments, berries and lights.

The angle I took this picture is weird, but it shows I just piled some lights in these tin pails (that are from my baby shower...I heard they were only $3 or so at Home Depot)...and put some berries around em.

Then I just placed leftover red ornaments throughout the house...

Ah, that blank wall above the couch...I'll get to you someday...

I used our shelves to hold the plates, cups, silverware...yeah, I'm really enjoying these shelves. And then I used some of our lovely Christmas cards received to decorate as well.

Another thing I did to get ready for the party is I raided my mom's attic. I only grabbed the berries and that sweet little ornament tree in the pic below, but it all definitely helped. And also lent a hand in me not feeling the need to purchase anything.

Then using those tin pails mentioned above I balled up some cloth or paper to fill the bottom of the pail, then piled some ornaments. Then just cut a few pieces of our Christmas tree and stuck it in there. So glad I didn't buy stuff to fill these, super easy but I thought they turned out cute...

I didn't take many pictures during the party, just grabbed a few...

One sleepy baby ready for bed...

We made chili and everyone brought a dessert or appetizer to share. Such a great night indeed.

I can't believe that Christmas is in 2 days. Fastest. year. ever.

Random Schmandom

I guess you could call me spoiled sometimes.

One night when Rob was working I was getting Finn ready for bed. I started getting his room together and something caught my eye at the top of the wall above his changing table. A spider. You see, Rob and I for some reason get huge spiders in our house. I mean huge. The kind you have to battle. I'll spare you the details, but let it be known we don't just have little baby spiders - well we probably have those too. We have spiders that carry egg sacks. Sorry! Okay, sorry, I'll stop with the details. :)

Anyway, that night that I spotted the spider, I had absolutely no idea what to do. So I called my mom, hah. And immediately her and Leah (our friend/sister) rushed over to help. Long story short that involved a broom, a bowl and finally a vacuum, the spider was captured. All while I held Finn in the hallway. I admit it, I can be spoiled.

Like a couple of nights ago. As we're getting our home ready for a gathering, I wanted to hang some of our string lights from our wedding outside. And somehow it turned into my mother and her new knee on a ladder doing the grunt work. Love you, ma!

I was laughed at when in the middle of it all I asked for a picture of Finn and I...lol...you can never have too many. Gah, and that sweet face...

I did help by holding the lights and handing her zip ties and electrical tape...see, I do stuff. ;))

Oh and maybe you could tell in the pic above, but I went lighter on my hair...yep I've joined the ombre trend and I kinda love it.

Afterward we went to our local diner and had dinner. My mom was a little offended when Finn waved to a stranger but refuses to wave to her or any of us really. Leah was sure to bring up stranger danger to Finn, lol, never too early to learn. ;)

The busyness of the season isn't stopping, but trying trying trying to hold the reason of it all together. Hope you all are doing well and enjoying the time with family and friends. Love to you all!

Lights & Bullies

Last night we finally got our lights hung outside. Nothing grand or anything, but I just feel like it's my Christmas duty to get something on the outside of our house. We already had the garland hung, all that was needed was stringing the lights through it.

The temperature actually dropped (for us Floridians) last night, so we actually had to bundle up the little one. 

That photo cracks me up...his little legs were sticking straight out after I tucked the blanket under him. When I left him there to grab my camera real quick he was holding his hand toward the door...like sayin, mama, come on! I'm like a broken record, I know, but it just amazes me how quickly these babies develop and learn and grow in just a short amount of time.

So we parked the stroller where daddy was stringing up the lights...don't mind the wilty flowers. That flower bed is my box of shame right there, lol.

Then we got these sweet shots of Finn touching the lights...

Gah, that little face...

We also had a bit of excitement. I know you may be wondering where the "bully" part of this story may come in. Well, when we all went out in the front yard, Rob put a long leash around the front tree so Jack could join us. Here enters the bully...we have this neighborhood cat that I have deemed the bully cat. You see, there's this sweet cat that lives across the street who constantly runs over to say hello, we call him Boots. Many times we've found this bully cat initiating a fight with Boots (on Boots' own property, that just ain't right!). I've tried breaking it up, but that bully cat seriously isn't afraid of anything...and honestly I'm kinda scared of him, lol. One day I was pulling up in our driveway and he was in my way...normally cats get up and walk away, this bully cat just stared straight into my eyes and dared me to run him over.

Okay, maybe I'm reading a little into it, but he's messed with Boots and he just seems mean and nobody likes a bully. Maybe he didn't get enough love growing up, I'm not sure. :) Okay so back to Jack being tied up to the tree.

He was busy chewing a treat Rob gave him and all of a sudden, bully cat appears walking down the street. Jack looks up at the cat, then looks back at us...like as if he was saying "I'm sorry for what I'm about to do"...and then he ran and pulled right out of his collar and chased that bully cat like a wild animal. Obviously this could have had a bad ending, but thankfully Jack didn't catch the cat and thankfully no cars were coming down our street at the time. Finally we were able to get Jack to come back home and I gave him some treats. Maybe just for showing that bully cat who's boss and also the fact that he came back (we don't let him loose).

So in the pic below is our pretty lights, yes, but it's also one happy fulfilled dog...

Ah, so that was the ending note of our weekend. We had a full weekend all together so that was nice, it's hard with stuff to do in the middle of it all, but it was still nice. Love creating memories and appreciating moments that may seem little and trivial (like putting up Christmas lights)...gotta remember it can be the small things.

Oh hey, sweet boy... :)

This Is How We Do It

It's Friday night and I feel alright...just editing random pictures here on the west side? Lol, yeah, ok I'll stop before I ruin that any more. Just going through some random pictures from this week before I turn on an episode of Scandal (my new show I'm following on the flix)

On some of our nights, when I remember, I try to put a Christmas movie on. Mostly for noise, or for the music, it's not something that really holds his attention at all which I'm completely fine with. I think on this night I put on Jingle All the Way. Turbo Man to the rescue!

Pasta and tomato sauce, anyone? Don't you just want to take a piece of bread and dip it on that tray or that lil baby cheek? Yummay. :)

Working on those sippy cup skills...

Yeah, I definitely have a love/hate thing going on with serving this to him...but baby boy enjoys it sooooo much.

Ah, all cleaned up and taking a break on mama's lap...

Junior getting in on the peek-a-boo fun looking through the handles of this basket. There is something so seriously cute about seeing Finn's little face through that little hole.

He hasn't shown too much interest in our tree, but when he does he's been quite gentle with it.

And I don't blame him wanting to touch those sparkly white ornaments...I'm not a sparkly diva kinda girl...but when it's Christmas time, I kinda wanna sparkle up everything.

So there's some randomness for you. Gonna do some work on the house this weekend, maybe...mostly getting our lanai picked up and looking pretty again since our weather is mostly out of the disgusting phase. So we'll see what we tackle. Oh December, you are moving far too quickly on me. Christmas in 12 days!!!