Mother’s Day on the Farm

While Brian’s mom spent Mother’s Day weekend in Colorado visiting her daughter and grand-daughters in Colorado, we took the three-hour road trip down to Oregon to spend it with my Mom.  This was the first time in probably 10 years I spent Mother’s Day with my mom, and the first time we spent a co-mother’s day with her, which made it very special.

The trip was sort of impromptu, so Gigi was quite surprised when we called on Thursday to let her know we’d be showing up at her house (with her favorite grandson in tow) late on Friday.

Naturally, the weekend was less about Mother’s and more about Finn, which was fine by us.   The weather was BEAUTIFUL so both he and Ollie got lots of outside time – sat in tractors, ran around the grounds, tore apart the house… just a normal weekend for an 19 month old boy.

hey! i’m driving a tractor!

 

“helping” papa in the shop

  on one of his many strolls around the farm

Finn has decided the blowing kisses is fun – especially when the receiver pretends the kiss knocks them over…

 

As if getting to visit my mom on Mother’s Day wasn’t enough of a gift, my darling husband put together two really beautiful photo compilations chronicling my first and second years as a mom.  He had to shrink the file quite a bit to make it small enough to put on You Tube – my home version is huge and crisp and so lovely!  But we wanted to share the fun, and I wanted to say a big “Thank You!” to my sweet spouse who makes every day better than the day before.

Don’t forget to turn on your speakers… BW did a wonderful job picking out some really sweet music.

i am so in love with these two guys.

Huntin’ Wascally Eggs

Although this is technically Finn’s second Easter, this is really the first one where he’s been old enough to really do any of the silly egg stuff.   And unfortunately we still haven’t landed on a church yet, so right now Easter is just silly egg stuff instead of silly egg stuff + the Resurrection of our Savior.  One thing at a time, I guess.

Being an active little bunny himself, he was, of course, totally into the idea of discovering the eggs.  We “hid” six big bright eggs in plain sight in a few spots around the house, and had fun following him around to capture the moment he found his little treasures.  He didn’t even really care what was inside of them, only that he found them!

our little hunter, with his personalized bunny basket 

investigating his findings

ollie, of course, wants to “help” 

look what i found! 

School Pictures

Apparently, Finn’s school had school pictures sometime ago.  Being the super observant mom that I am, I didn’t even know it was happening.  Since we had pro pictures done at 1yr, and plan on getting family pics every year around his birthday, school pictures just didn’t hit my radar.

So last week while I was in San Francisco, BW picked up Finn’s pictures.  Honestly, they couldn’t be funnier.  Between his horrible outfit (as I mentioned, I did not realize it was school picture day) in clothes that were too small, the fact he needed a haircut REAL BAD, the absolutely murderous expression on his face and the single tear making its way down his cheek, I couldn’t have posed this better  myself.

We came up with a dozen different scenarios that led to this picture:  Perhaps they had to end outside playtime early to take the picture?  Or maybe they tried to *gasp* COMB HIS HAIR.  Or maybe, in a truly offensive move they dared wrench a goldfish or graham cracker out of his pudgy little hand before insisting he sit STILL on a little box in front of a fake background.

Whatever the scenario, it has started what I’m sure will be a collection of school pictures that can (and will) be used for girlfriend blackmail sometime in junior high.

Here’s the class pic.  Finn does not look any more pleased with this scenario.

Haircut #2!

- Posted live from the scene!

Our Little Monkey Turns One (Oct 2009)

Previously, at the Walker House…

Finn started the tradition of “birthday week” early in life.  His real birthday landed on a Thursday, so his party wasn’t scheduled until the following Sunday. 

Not to worry!  Auntie Jennie & cousin Rylie came to visit. so Finn spent his birthday day playing with family at Nana & Papa’s house & then that evening, we had some birthday ice cream & opened presents (round 1).

Smile!

have you heard?  it’s my birthday!

note the change of expression when he sees the candle…

 you’re gonna love ice cream, kid.  it’s in your DNA.

cousin Rylie “helping” finn open his presents

Our attempt to get the cousins to take a picture together took some perseverance, but paid off in the end.

SUCCESS!

Thanks so much to Jennie & Rylie for making the trip out to  celebrate the Big 1 with Finn & family.  It meant so much!

The weekend following, we threw another birthday party for the Finn-man.  What started as a “family-only” affair ended up getting a little bigger than we had planned for, but we still think everyone had fun, even our little birthday monkey.

Unable to resist, I bought Finn an absolutely adorable monkey costume for Halloween.  We didn’t actually GO trick or treating, but since his party was pretty close to the 31st we (I) thought it would be OK to dress him up for the grandparents for the first part of the party.  He was a good sport to say the least.

Then all the other kids & adults showed up, we ditched the monkey costume and settled in for the party portion of the day.

  

For grub, we had a “make your own pizza” bar, thinking it would be fun for some of the older kids (& let’s face it, some of the adults too) to get involved in the food prep.  Plus, pizza at the time was one of Finn’s favorites!

 

The cake was supposed to look like a monkey as well (to match his birthday invite) but it didn’t come out great.  Luckily, Finn was too young to care and the cupcakes were still delicious!

   

this ball machine from the hobarts was a huge hit!

Here’s a (fairly long) video of the whole “Happy Birthday” scene, compliments of Rob Hobart.  Thanks Rob!

All in all, it was a great birthday – thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate!