Millie Loves Her a Good Game of Peekaboo

If you Facebook with us, you've already seen this, but it seemed like it oughta be on the family blog. Seems like a great time to give a Millie update. At 13 months she is a super cheerful little thing who is extremely close to walking. Especially since her Grandma Sandy made sure the good people at Stride-Rite were put on the case. She stood up for about a half a minute yesterday before she realized she wasn't really ready for that. There aren't really any words yet, but how is she supposed to get a word in edgewise with her brother around. Peekaboo has taken on a huge role for her as has her daily attempts to remove my snout and ears like they were bullfight trophies.
We'll keep you updated as further stuff comes.

The Artist and his Vision

So Finnegan and his mother have a bit of a bedtime tradition working. Every night they turn on his turtle nightlight that projects constellations on the ceiling and they make a wish on a star. Contrary to how I understand such wishes to work, Alisha immediately asks him what he wishes for. For quite a while it was, "I hope we all have a nice time at the beach." Sweet, wight? So then we take our summer vacation where we have a lovely time at the beach,

 

 

After vacation Alisha asks him what he wants and, as he had been telling me for a week or so over lunches, he says, "I want to make Mama a heart and hang it on the wall." I leave this hanging for a while but definitely have plans of painting a heart with him on canvass. Well, his birthday weekend we go get some paint and a canvass and take to the backyard for the project you witness here.

I sketched a heart outline and held his hand to brush the initial hear outline, and Alisha helped fill in the background, but beyond that about 70 percent of the paint on this canvass is the boy's doing. LAregely by his demand. At one point early in the process when I was guiding his hand a bit, he just dropped the brush and said, "I don't want to do it." I apologized and gave him the brush and bit my tongue for the rest of the project.
I think at the lunches he often mentioned glitter, but I let that slide.

We are all so proud of the finished product and the artist, that it hands above our fireplace for all to see.

A perfect Valentine from our Finny little Valentine.

Birthdays!

The end of August and start of September will forever be the birthday season in our little household. Millie's first birthday was a road trip to Evansville.

 

In keeping with her "Cupcake" nickname, her birthday cake was an enormous cupcake. Above she's peeling open the more manageable fun-sized version,

 

She was intimidated for only a few brief minutes.

Finnegan was not to be outdone even at his sister's birthday. He monopolized the time of his Aunt Kara and partook of some home-made strawberry ice cream compliments of his great grandparents Gene & Carol.

His own birthday event was back in the friendly confines of our home here in Indy. Cars and Cars 2 were an overwhelming theme. I am quite amazed at how virtually everything can be redone into a Cars theme.

That said, I am heartened to see two old favorites from my far distant youth revamped for the Cars generation.If you remember the Playdoh fun factory, there is a great Cars spin-off version that involves Mater regurgitating various Play-doh shapes and the much beloved Viewmaster has gotten updated to be Finnegan's first binoculars that, with the flip of a switch serve as actual binoculars. Keen.

Another recurring theme of Finnegan's birthday has been his virtually year-long obsession with firefighters. The day before his birthday party we made a surprise trip to Indianapolis Fire Station 31 where Firefighter Dan, twenty-two years a fireman and second generation at that, enthusiastically gave a surprisingly intimidated Finn a great tour. My photos were crappy but our friend Tim took some that I hope to share in a separate post soon.

 

This visit was a great lead-in to Finn's Fire Chief uniform, complete with helmet, raincoat (this one fit better than the one he tried on with Fireman Dan), badge, extinguisher and a very annoying bull horn that cannot be used as a true voice amplifier but does have a very loud and very popular siren sound. The outfit is awesome and super cute, but that siren is killing us.

Worst of all, as Alisha realized late that night, we had no one to blame. The loudest most annoying gifts, usually an honor prized and relished by my sister, were this year entirely our own doing. In addition to the never-ending bullhorn siren we also gifted him, at my request, a saxoflute. Follow the link and laugh at our naivete. It came with two, count'em two whistles.

That wasn't all the excitement. There was a Lightening McQueen pinata which we filled with chocolates and then left hanging outside for three hours on a 100 degree day. Because we are brilliant parents. 

But seriously, look at the stance and the serious look on his face.

Did I mention it was a 100 degrees? So we sent him through the kidwash (my summer family craft and enjoyment project) a couple times which some how just got him dirtier. 

Don't freak-out. That is just mulch.

Any who. A first and a third birthday successfully celebrated fifteen days apart. Sounds like this will be a busy two-weeks for the rest of our lives.