Finley's 1st bday

I love this. It reminds me of the story of the 3 Bears - Papa Bear's chair, Mama Bear's chair and Baby Bear's chair!

Finley turned 1 on March 17th! I can't believe she is a year old. Man, what a year it was. I often think back to when she was just 10 days old and we were getting our house ready for the inspection when we sold it the first time (it later fell through and we had to sell it again) and she just laid on the changing table without making a peep the whole time. I remember kind of forgetting about her and being so busy with staging the house and getting it perfect.

She has been an absolute dream over the past year. I cannot imagine doing everything we did and having any other baby. She has been a godsend, a blessing and a joy. She always has a smile on her face and is content to play quietly all day long. She adores her brother and sister and they love her beyond words. They fight over who gets to sit by her at meal times and usually each move their chair on either side of her so that everyone gets to sit by Finley. Many times, Finley refuses to let me feed her, but will happily take a spoon full of oatmeal from Berkeley. She gets at least a million kisses every day from them. Berkeley plays with her, holds her and makes her laugh. She refers to Fin as her 'beauty' girl instead of her 'cutie' girl. Oliver is fiercely protective of her. When she starts heading toward the fire place he takes on the stance of a football player and uses his body to try and block her while yelling "Mom! Finley is heading towards the fire place!!" What a great big brother. He too, hugs and kisses her almost as much as Berkeley does and loves to "read" books to her.

She is the only one of our babies who has gone into the nursery at church at this age and has made it through the entire service without crying. I have never had a baby quite like her and I have just thoroughly enjoyed every minute of her. She is still so tiny. I took her in for her 1 yr check up and she only weighs 15 lbs 9 oz and still wears some 6 month clothes. I'm not complaining...I want her to stay little for as long as possible.

We love you Finley, our teeny tiny baby button. We look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you!

Finley - 9 mo. pics

Here are some pictures of Finley at 9 months old. I took them all together during the mad rush of the holiday season, so as you can see, there's really no variation in outfits this time around! Things really do change by the 3rd one, don't they?!! She was really hamming it up and having a great time. I see she is starting to take after her sister as far as her love for the camera!

Hundreds of pictures later...

and finally a good one!

Ok, these were just too funny not to post. I was telling Laura that I took hundreds (literally) of pictures of the kids to get one good one for Christmas cards. As I was looking through them trying to find a good one I couldn't help but laugh at some of these. They really do look like they are being tortured, don't they?

Berkeley was such a good sport. She kept saying "Mom, Oliver is killing my back". He kept leaning back on her and the wagon was digging into her which was probably quite uncomfortable. I just kept repeating "Smile through the pain Berk, smile through the pain". You gotta throw some life lessons out there during those photo sessions :) She deserves a medal for all of that though, really. Poor Finley...she was unusually fussy and a few days later we went to watch the parade at Snowflake Lane and ended up in the ER due to a UTI. If I would have known that I wouldn't have put her through all of that. I kind of thought she might be getting a new tooth. Boy, was I wrong! Sorry Fin! And Oliver, what can I say about my Oliver? He kind of fits the stereotype of the middle child, doesn't he? Oh my gosh he cracks me up in these photos.

I only chose the "best of the best" of these. They could have gone on for miles and miles. They really are too funny not to post. Anyway, as you can see after many tears, lots of bribing and the promise of sugary treats, we finally ended up with a good one at the end. I wish I could say that a good time was had by all. The photos prove that that was not the case. But, I finally ended up with a cute Christmas pictures of all 3 of them. Was is difficult? Yes. Did I need a throat lozenge at the end? You bet. Was it worth it? Of course.