some more of emma.

melissa is on the board of gabriel's angels... this amazing organization that "uses" dogs as therapy for children that were abused & neglected. she invited me to their fundraising brunch, where i was able to learn more about it & it's such a great cause. i wish i knew about it while kylie was younger. she would have been perfect for it. anyways, she has meetings every so often so we get to watch emma, regularly.

during one of our b-sitting sessions they were being goofballs & cracking up over nothing.
we took them to see their first movie- gnomio & juliet. it was a really cute movie & we were amazed at how well they did. sitting still, for the most part, the whole time. they'd sit in their own seat & then want to sit together. they'd take each other's food & toys. quite entertaining. finn doesn't look like he's enjoying it & i wish now i'd taken another picture, but i was afraid of pissing someone off! we took advantage of harkins summer special, 10 movies for $7. so we go to a movie a week now! today we saw mastermind- awesome! we need way more awesome things like this for the summer- it was 103 today, or something like that.
& then on another play date we had swim suits & water tables & hoses & popsicles!

cutie patooties.
time to get unsticky!


privacy part showing ahead... consider yourself warned :)

none of finn's swim trunks fit him. none of them have real drawstrings. this pair is for 12 month olds. i know he'll hate me for this one day, but it was too funny.


& then on another play date we went to our aquarium. finn shouts nemo & dorie the entire time. looks like he took a little break to smoochie smoochie! i LOVE this picture.

mda walk

back at the end of march we walked with our friends heather & brian's team "warm hearted walkers" in the muscular dystrophy walk again. i raffled off another portrait session & we raised several hundred dollars! the highest bidder is my good friend kate, who is waiting to use the session for when their beautiful adopted child from ethiopia is in their arms!

heather teasing finn pre-walk. we don't use the stroller all that much anymore so i wasn't sure how he was going to do in it, but he did great. very patient & attentive to all the people. this day is always emotional, for me at least, watching all the children in wheel chairs or kids sitting in their parents wheel chairs as we walk around tempe town lake. but it's a wonderful cause & hopefully one day very soon we'll find a cause/cure!

after the festival we did some more walking around the tempe arts festival. this was one tired mama. so i was happy that finn wanted to relax and read some books.
then after heather & brian were done walking around the festival they joined us for some yummy charcoal grilled hamburgers. but first some rough housing with heather in the card board house.
& then some bike riding & chalk drawing outside.
daddy attacking finn with the whatchamathingers.

& then after we put finn to bed, we celebrated earth hour, where cities across the world were turning off all electricity for one hour. so we unplugged everything & lit some candles. lovely.

it twas a busy day.

finn's first swim lesson

my friend & co-worker jackie use to be a swim coach. so, she suggested we meet up at a pool soon & start swim lessons. these pictures are from his first one. we've done three so far & are hoping to pick them back up when i get back from hilton head this weekend.

she was really good with him & he'd only get up set when i'd finish my laps & he'd see me sitting at the table with lunch ready :)

waiting for permission to go in.

some play to start the lesson off. he tripped & went face first in a fairly deep spot. (granted he could have stood up no problem) & he just floated, which she suggested was a great sign that he wasn't panicking or drinking the water. hopefully he's a natural & loves swimming as much as his mama, because he is definitely going to be a swim team kid.

kick kick kick.



yeah for summer & pools.

tempe town lake bike ride

we met bryan after work at tempe town lake so finn could ride freely on his skute. the sunset was beautiful!

a giant grasshopper somehow got in the house & we thought it would be a cool learning experience to show it to him. so the boys got down low & were studying it when the damn thing jumped onto finn's head. he FREAKED out & bryan screamed. i was dying laughing. if only i'd been filming it.
he is now officially afraid of bees & grasshoppers, flies & any other kind of bug. i'm trying to make it less traumatic by singing "shuy fly don't bother me" whenever a fly is hovering around and it works occasionally.

okay, short post tonight. i'm heading to bed early!

trying to calm down.

we've had a slight peanut scare in the last 24 hours.

finn had a rough start to the night, waking up every half an hour or so from midnight until 1:30 crying. bryan got up first. i got up the last time & was rocking him to sleep when i had some moderate discharge & while i was half asleep -it made me really anxious.

& then my stomach just felt weird, smaller. not as huge & uncomfortable as it had been. i grew more anxious. bryan promised me it felt the same & that he could feel the baby kicking. he fell back asleep- i didn't. this morning i called my midwife telling her "i was having my first-real-pregnancy-freak-out ever." she cautioned me to calm down, a miscarriage at this point in the game is so rare. i'm healthy. the baby's healthy. if i wasn't still discharging & i felt motion in there i was probably fine, but she would order an ultrasound if i wanted it. to be sure. so i could relax.

i had been with friends this past friday just moments, literally, before they found out they lost their baby (they were just around the end of their first trimester). it had me freaked out & really sad to say the least. not to mention the things i've seen with 'now i lay me down to sleep'... we're by no means out of the woods. my cousin lost a full term baby & i'm only now even close to imagining what that could possibly feel like. usually, i'm able to overcome those irrational fears but, today i'm embracing them 100% & scared.

so i picked bryan up from work & we went in to a very sterile, new lab to have an ultrasound done. we waited for 45 minutes & then a nice, but not necessarily friendly man, squeezed hot gel on my stomach. he does his thing searching around- shows us everything, all the babes parts. he says here's the placenta & amniotic fluid. i ask if it looks good & he says "i can't tell you that."

the state of our medical world- afraid of liability is such BULLSHIT. you are a professional. you have the answers right there at your finger tips to ease my mind... my heart on whether or not my baby is slowly dying because i'm losing fluid & YOU CAN'T TELL ME!!!!!!!!!!! argh. he goes on to show us fingers & toes & i have to assume because he is being so nonchalant that everything is fine & that's his way of telling us. bryan rubs my ankle. he's convinced everything is okay, i think, but knows how worried i am so he's taking it seriously for my benefit.

i call my midwife afterwards & report back to her what we were able to find out: heartbeat is 122, the baby is measuring 5 pounds 1 ounce & he thinks the due date is more like the 17th of july not the 19th. she says that's all wonderful & that the protocol is they would have had to call her before i left if something was wrong. so not to worry. but that i needed to relax & not stress myself or the baby out.

so i'm home attempting to take a nap- because that just about wiped me out. i nearly fell asleep while bryan was driving himself back to work. finn will be up any minute, so i've given up on the nap & thought writing about it might make me feel better.

i should let my shoulders drop to a normal height. i should allow myself to smile. yes, sad things happen in life, miserable, horrible sad things, but it hasn't & isn't happening to me today. i'm fine. this baby is fine. finn is fine, bryan is fine. my world is okay, better than okay.

we have exciting things to look forward to, specifically finn's 2nd birthday party tomorrow morning! we have everything we need except the chocolate icing he's requested. & some way to draw nemo & elmo & thomas the train on his cake, that doesn't include food coloring! any suggestions?

so my hope is peace. for me & for you. to really live in this crazy world where anything can happen, but to somehow find a way to do it peacefully.

i'll leave you with a picture of nana & finn reading before bed. she leaves tomorrow after the party & finn has loved having her here. if not for the presents & cokes & snacks she's happily given him, for all the loving attention & doting she's done.

finn's birthday party.

we're having it on june 4th, partly because my mom will be in town for it! i'm really excited about the theme... "painting party". i'll wait to share details but i've been making the party favors & they're turning out so cute!

so, i've been thinking of what to get finn...

he's still REALLY into books & can now patiently listen while we read books with fairly large paragraphs on each page. we've moved to the world of paper books instead of board books. a few of his favorites are:

anything critters or berenstein bears or golden books: winnie the pooh, jungle book, NEMO!!!!, curious george, etc. he can sit there in the glider or at his desk for more than 45 minutes reading by himself. it's one of my favorite things to watch him quietly, for a few minutes, curiously stare at the details on the page.

he is obsessed with trains, fire trucks, ambulances, garbage trucks, recycling trucks, helicopters etc. we love this brand: green toys

this was on sale awhile ago on zulily & now i'm kicking myself for not buying it. we have the dump truck & he loves it.

i'm also craving this piece of furniture. finn has been bringing a kitchen chair over & standing on it to attempt to help me with cooking or baking. i'd love to involve him in more, but it's not all that safe. this would help though!

at our midwives appt today they just got some new wooden animals that were so awesome!
she bought them at this store: little artika in scottsdale.

he could also really use an outside play.climb.thing. some sort of jungle gym. but i'm not crazy about plastic (as you're probably tired of hearing) & wood has a tough life in this heat & metal is off limits for several months because it would cause some major burns... so, we'll be deciding on that one for awhile. any suggestions?

but honestly overall he has so much stuff that he's good. he doesn't NEED anything.

i already bought him a few new puzzles with fire trucks on them :) so that'll be fun to watch him open up.

oh! a friend dropped off some baby stuff & with it was a baby rocker thing. finn is obsessed with getting in it, wrapping a blanket around himself & cuddling with his monkey. we at first were trying to tell him to get out- but don't want him to resent the baby since it has all these things he can't play with. so we let him climb in and relax. it's really cute, but that made us realize he doesn't have a chair of his own. so now i'm on the hunt for a cool kids sized chair for the living room. i'm thinking the ikea ones are pretty cute.

anyways, hope you have a wonderful weekend, celebrating & remembering our soldiers.

i'm grateful for them. oh so grateful.

a lazy evening...

lately, we've been enjoying some unusual weather. it seems unseasonably cool... i mean, i feel like we should be melting by now- so we are living it up. walking at night, eating dinner outside, having cook outs, water parks, etc.

here is a lazy evening. i absolutely love weekends. most weekends, i barely bother with the computer or my cell phone. i just try to enjoy bryan being home & spending time with my two boys before our world is altered by this new child that is entering our world in almost 2 more months.

finn on his skute bike. no tricycle for him. this is supposed to help him learn to ride with balance so we can skip the training wheels. he's really a great little skuter.



hope you're having a great start to the summer too :)