Dear Rowen, Happy Second Birthday!

Dear Rowen,

Today is your day, today you are TWO! It has been the fastest but most rewarding two years of our life.  Your dad and I often remark how we wish we could freeze time right now because we love your wonderful personality at this age!  You are feisty, caring, happy, funny, and you and your brother are the light of our lives!

This year has brought many changes both in you and for you, so here is a little bit of what you were like in your second year:

1. You started walking shortly after your first birthday, and you haven't stopped moving since then.  You are happiest when you are outside running and exploring.

2.  Every night you sleep with little dog, big dog, and eeyore.  Recently Buzz Lightyear has joined the bed crew, and I love peeking in at night to see who got voted off of the island.

3. You have been sleeping in a bed instead of a crib for the past ten months. On week nights you are put to bed around 630, and most nights we hear you playing with your pals for about an hour.

4.  Your favorite book right now is Goodnight Construction Site.  You LOVE making the noises of all of the machines, and saying 'night, night' to each of them.

5.  Your speech has taken off this year, and each week you are picking up new words.  I almost died from the cuteness the other day when you walked into school and said 'Mornin' to the front desk ladies.

6.  Right now you insist on wearing a coat and hat everywhere we go, and let us know of your discontent when we try to make you do otherwise.  It will be interesting to see if you will insist on this trend once spring finally arrives.

7.  You saw snow! And loved it, we couldn't keep you out of it!

8. Your favorite foods right now are bananas, waffles, green beans, mac and cheese, yogurt, cereal, chicken, refried beans, and in the summer you loved watermelon.  You are a little vacuum and will pretty much eat anything we put in front of you.  The only thing I can think of that you aren't particularly keen on is sour cream.

9. You adjusted amazingly well to the arrival of your little brother, and as time goes on your interest in him grows.  We are hopeful that this time next year the two of you will be the best of friends!

10.  We took you to the beach and you hated it. We will try again this year.

11. You got your first set of stitches and a little Harry Potter scar on your forehead as a result.

12.  You love school, and get excited to go everyday. You are always giving out hugs to your teachers.  Your job when walking in/out of school is to carry Finn's bottle bag, and you take this task every seriously.  You also have taken to inspecting your daily report sheet as if you could read it.

13.  We introduced you to a few Disney movies this year, and right now Toy Story is your favorite.  We would of pegged you for a Woody kind of guy, but you are obsessed with Buzz, or buuuzzzz as you like to say.  You and daddy work daily on saying 'To infinity and beyond!"

14.  You love all things that move, trucks, trains, and planes.  Every time you see a plane overhead you wave furiously at it, and choo choo's make you giddy!

15. You are obsessed with books! You would probably choose to read books over almost anything else.  Sometimes you sit on the floor and read the books to yourself, and I swear you are saying your favorite parts out loud!

16.  Jack and Lola are your best friends, and like any friendship you have good days and you have bad days.  Some of the time you want them to leave you alone and five minutes later you will be on the floor wrestling with them.  They love you because of all of the sweet treats you taste like!

17. Coloring, building blocks, playing with trucks or trains, and riding your push toys are some of your favorite indoor activities, and on most weekends you will spend hours quietly doing all of these activities.

18.  You are a sweet heart, always willing to give a hug and a kiss to anyone who requests one.  I hope you grow out of this by the time you hit high school or you may give your dad and I premature grey hairs!

This year has been amazing, and each day seems to get better than the last. We love watching you grow and learn and develop a big little personality.  We love you more than words can describe.

Happy Second Birthday Rowen!

Love,

Da, Mom, Finn, Jack & Lola

~Finnegan James- Three Months Old~

Dear Finnegan,

Despite you being almost 3.5 months old, I decided I needed to sit down and document our third month together.  Each day you continue to bless us with more and more of your sweet squinty little grins, and we simply can't get enough of them!

You have for the most part mastered sleeping through the night, although I suspect we will be giving up the swaddle here in the next few weeks as you are on course to roll yourself from back to belly any day.  When you do manage to get your hands out of the swaddle it does wake you up, and I may  of called you a wee mental terrorist on one or many occasions when you give me your sweet smiles and girgles at 2 in the morning.  Go back to sleep Mr. Finny!

You continue to be a great eater and enjoy four 8oz bottles a day.  This month brought a huge change to your life when you started going to daycare.  Thankfully you are in the same class your brother once was and the misses are all already smitten with you! You seemed to adjust extremely well to stating this new phase of your life. Each morning I wake you up at 430  for your first bottle, and by 520 we are on the road for the day.  We usually give you your last bottle around 5pm and you go down for the night around 6.  

You still LOVE to talk, you babble and coo from sun up to sun down.  Sometimes I think you are trying to tell me how to solve our country's current financial crisis the way you sigh and seem exasperated that I simply don't understand what you are saying.  All of your babbling makes us wonder if you will be an early talker, but I guess we will just have to wait and see. 

It is truly amazing how the heart grows to make room for more love, and it seems as if you have lived in our hearts and our lives forever.  I know in a few short months it will be hard to recall the days before you were born.  Each month continues to get better and better with you, and we love you sweet Finny with all of our hearts! 

Squirt Toys and Big Boy Smiles

A little over two weeks ago, maternity leave ended, and I went back to work.  Our 'new normal' routine hasn't been entirely figured out just yet, and will hopefully get a little easier this week since Rudy returned to his job, but for now the days are long.  I wouldn't describe them as hard days, but they are long, and between dinners, bottles, baths, and trying to keep our house from looking like a tornado flew threw it, we haven't entirely figured out when we are supposed to breath.  I know once the dust settles things will seem easy again, we will have our routine, and all of the upheaval of the last few weeks will be the norm.  But for now, its tiring.

More often than not in the last week I have been wishing time away.  When we get home I'm wishing it was bedtime for the boys, and bedtime for me.  When  I wake up, I wish the day was already done. 0At the beginning of the week I'm wishing it was Friday. And on Sunday I start wishing the whole week away again to get to Friday.  

But while I'm busy wishing time away, my boys are growing, they are changing, and in the busy hubble bubble of the day, I'm missing their time.  Last night I sat down on the floor with my camera while giving Rowen a bath.  I couldn't recall the last time I took pictures of him while he was playing in the tub, and felt that I needed these pictures of this moment.

And as I was snapping away, peaking here and there through my camera roll while Row was busy directing his orchestra of squirt toys, I realized just how much he is changing.  His smiles, his eyes, the shape of his face, its all changing.  This sweet little baby that made me a mother is quickly becoming a big boy, and if I don't stop and enjoy little moments like this, I might miss the joy and excitement of my almost two year old sweetheart.   

When Rudy and I are old and these little boys that are cluttering my house with dump trucks and trains are gone and grown, I don't want my memories to be filled by how long the days were, but instead filled by images of laughter, love, and sweet little boys with squirt toys in the tub.  

Rowen's First Snow

Yesterday afternoon the snow started to come down, and Rowen simply couldn't contain his excitement!  We didn't put him in the full snow get up just yet, we may save the snow pants for a day if and when we get several inches of snow, and despite the frigid temps, Rudy took him out to walk about, and he absolutely loved it!

~Finnegan James - 2 Months Old~

Dear Finnegan,

Finn Finn, Finny, and Finny the Finns, you have been with us a whole two months, and while this is a short time, it feels like you have been with us forever.  Day by day we watch your personality, and your sweet cheeks, grow.  

This month you have begun to smile.  You are very selective about smiling, and while I try all day to get you to smile, you usually give your smiles freely to your daddy when he gets home.  Maybe you just think he is pretty funny.  This is probably my favorite milestone of the month!

One other distinct little personality trait we have seen is that you our sweet boy are a chatter box.  You LOVE to talk, and babble, and ooo and ahh all day long.  And if I sit and talk to you I swear you think you are talking back to me.  You are a loud baby and we think you will be an early talker. 

As far as eating goes, you eat about 7oz every three and a half to four hours.  You are still a lazy eater, and definitely a sloppy eater, so while your brother hardly used a bib, you are getting excellent use out of them.  We typically wake you up for your last bottle around 930 or 10 pm, and then you go down for the night.  You are exceptionally gassy and we haven't quite figured out to fix this, but we go to the doctors tomorrow so hopefully we will have some answers.

In the sleep department, you are great, sort of.  You sleep in your crib every night, in your carseat.  We think it helps with the gas, and if it means you sleep until almost eight every morning, then we are happy to do so.  We have been working on taking more naps on your back in your crib so hopefully we will be able to transition you out of carseat sleeping soon.  

This month there have been a few firsts for you.  Your first road trip north, which you did great on.  Your first New England Christmas, where all of your aunts competed to hold you all the time.  And your first New Years.  Just a few important firsts to note.

We have been so blessed to have you in our lives and our love for you grows each day.  Your brother Rowen we are pretty sure can't wait for you to grow up and play with him.  Happy two months our sweet Finny! 

And just for comparison here is Rowen on the left and Finnegan on the right both at 2 months...

Choo Choo

Over the holiday break,  Rowen developed an unhealthy obsession with trains.  In the toddler babble we hear all day we hear three words most often: no, thank you, and choo choo, priorities people. We can blame Grandpa on establishing a love of the locomotive in his little heart, and on Christmas morning he wanted nothing to do with any of his gifts except for his little Thomas the Trains.

We had underestimated how much he would love trains, and had thought to hold off on purchasing him a train table for a few years.  But upon seeing his new found love, and since we really didn't get him anything for Christmas ourselves, we decided a train table might be in order to pass the winter days away.  

Rudy and I set it up on New Years Eve, yes we are party animals like whoa, and we were able to surprise Rowen in the morning with his own little city! 

Choo Choo!!

Wrap Me Up Tight

Today my sweet Finny turned seven weeks old, how that much time has passed escapes me.  While we continue to figure out the little things that make up his growing personality, one thing we know for certain is that Finn loves to be swaddled and tight.  From the day he was born he has loved the security and comfort of a swaddle, and today the easiest way to calm him is to wrap him up just right.  

This afternoon between attempts to take his picture with his brother, and almost getting crushed by said brother, I caught a few pictures of my little burrito baby all wrapped up.  Rudy says he looks spot on like Rowen in these pictures, I disagree...

And oh my gosh, how can you not love his little spikes of hair???