this boy

this boy has changed so much in the past couple of months. he really is much more a little boy than he is a baby. i love it and it breaks my heart at the same time, but i do think watching him learn and grow and become his own little self takes away most of the sadness involved.

he is becoming so much more social. for so long, he would stick by my side at playgroups, not wanting to play with the other kids. now he can hardly wait to take his shoes off and get going! he knows many of his friends by name and if i telling him we're going to see them, he says, "fwend! fun!" he loves all his friends and loves to play and interact.

being a late walker, ollie was also behind with the climbing stage, but has recently started up. a couple weeks ago, i moved a chair to the kitchen sink, put him on it and turned the water on. i gave him measuring cups and bowls and pots and he played for and hour and a half! now he moves the kitchen chair by himself, climbs up and says, "wata? wata? pease", while doing the sign for please. he also puts a chair up to the counter and watches me make dinner, doing whatever i will let him. he is a climber and a doer; he loves to be involved in everything i am doing. 

his language skills are exploding. almost every day he says a word that i had no idea he knows! honey, hungry, dog, car, truck, van, tractor, water, milk, bread, play, fun, friends, watch (as in, "watch this!" where did he learn that?), puzzle, book, shark, horse, draw, paper, plane, 'copter, bun, cinna (he sees a lot of cinnamon buns pass through our apartment) shoes, jacket, jeans...the list goes on. it is so fun to watch his little world expand as he learns more about his surroundings. he's always been pretty keen and alert, and only seems to be more so as he grows. he loves to learn. 

his newfound love of babies is adorable. just three or four months ago, he would try to push any babies out of my arms if i held them. now, he talks about the baby and pats my growing belly. whenever i hold a baby, he wants to "hold" that baby and screams if anyone tries to hold it. it's pretty cute, but i'm also wondering what my life might be like in 5 months...nursing a newborn with a two year old sitting in my lap, "holding" the baby, probably. ha ha! fun. he says, "bay-bee! bay-bee!" and wants to see/touch hands, feet, face, etc, of all babies.

this boy is growing and changing and brings a smile to my face and makes me a little crazy everyday. he is definitely becoming a toddler and i am learning how to parent him differently. it's been a challenge, but i'm so glad for his happy little personality. most of our days are filled with "fun!" and "fwend!"

halloween celebrations!

halloween was a blast this year. ollie had a number of different occasions to wear a costume (four, to be exact!) so we had two different costumes for him; an indoor one and an outdoor one.

he wore his cowboy costume to our monday playgroup at the church. we had a potluck lunch and a whole bunch of mama's and littles came out to play and eat. the babies all looked so darn cute in their costumes. my mom brought ollie those amazing boots a few months ago and i knew he needed to be a cowboy for halloween! he struts his stuff when he's wearing them, too.

 we decided to take ollie trick or treating this year, mostly because i really wanted to eat some candy. we dressed him up in his warm tiger costume (which he continues to request to wear whenever he sees it hanging in his closet.) he wore it a few times before halloween too, and has his growl perfected. he was the cutest little tiger who became a mute on peoples doorsteps and refused to growl for them. oh well. they still gave us lots of candy and we had fun walking around our beautiful neighbourhood in the gorgeous autumn air.

he drank some warm milk from his tiny mug when we got home. he loves his little ollie sized mug! look how pleased he is. 

i just really love babies in costumes. happy halloween!

little boy

ollie is becoming less of a baby and more of a boy every day. most days, it's fun. he is getting to be more adventurous and daring, but he is still a little timid. he is mostly gentle and calm, but he's definitely approaching his terrible twos. my favourite part of my sweet baby turning into a little boy is hearing him learn how to talk, listening to his little vocabulary expand, though it still seems like most of his words are vehicle related. his voice is so cute. some of my favourite words that he says are bear, turtle and juice. other words he knows and uses regularly include water, hungry, truck, bus, tractor, honey, outside and eggs. he just started saying his name in the past week or so, and it comes out sounding a little like robot talk; ah-ee. i love it.

his lopsided, one dimpled camera smile.

just last night, ollie was walking around after dinner eating a cookie. brian asked him if he could have a bite and ollie looked at him, shook his head and said, pointing to himself, "me. ah-ee" and then proceeded to eat the rest of his cookie. this little boy is our favourite.

and he really likes his new plane pj's.

"pane! pane!"

hey baby

i found out i was pregnant on the morning of august 14th 2013, the date of our third anniversary.

i woke up early, around 5:00, and drowsily took the test. i was surprised not to see a line right away but i went and crawled back into bed. i couldn't fall asleep. i lay there, wide awake, and it was just a couple minutes later when i felt something nudge me back out of bed to go take another took at the pregnancy test. i walked into the bathroom and there it was...a second line on that little plastic strip! i was so shocked! baby number two was on the way! i gave brian the pregnancy test in a little box before he left for work. he smiled and said, "you got me a present?" "kind of...", i replied. he opened it up and stared at it. if you know brian, you know it takes him awhile to wake up in the morning. he stared and stared and then he looked at me and said, "wait...that means you're pregnant, right?" we hugged and cried and couldn't stop smiling all day long.

the weeks between then and now have passed in a blur, but not without the remarkable happening. first, i got a midwife! i have tried with my two previous pregnancies but to no avail. third times a charm, i guess? i am so excited! i was placed with maureen and kerstin, midwives who work at the lucina centre, the new birthing centre where this baby will be born. it is such a beautiful, peaceful place and we are planning a waterbirth there. i adore both of my midwives and couldn't be happier with my care from them. they make me feel so comfortable. it probably makes me sound like a crazy person but i am so excited to give birth! ollies birth was incredible and i know this one will be just as, if not even more, amazing.

another thing to note is that i felt more nauseous during my first trimester than i did with ollie. dinner time was so hard for me, i had to choke my food down for a few weeks. nothing tasted very good in the evening, but vegetables have been especially disgusting, which is so strange coming from a girl who regularly cooks vegetarian meals. it's mostly salads and other raw veggies that don't taste so good. luckily, my green juice (spinach, cucumber, celery, ginger, lemon, apple & carrots) still tastes good, plus a few other yummy veggie dishes, so i don't have to worry about my baby getting womb scurvy. i mostly crave salty things, so brian is convinced this baby is another boy.

we are currently caught in the "to find out or not" debate. with ollie i definitely wanted a surprise, but i am feeling a little more relaxed this time around. i think brian is more anxious to find out this time, so maybe i'll be nice and let him have his way. we only have about a month left to decide before we go for our ultrasound! second (and subsequent, i'm sure) pregnancies go way faster than the first.

i just had my second appointment last friday. brian couldn't come but ollie came with me. he climbed all over me as kerstin and i chatted about my pregnancy and delivery with ollie. she fills me with such a feeling of confidence and easy comfort; she is lovely. as i laid down on the couch so she could listen to the babys heartbeat, ollie watched in confusion. his little concerned face was so cute. (he has noooo idea what's going to hit him in six months.) she told me, "this is kind of like fishing, it always takes awhile to find it, even at 14 weeks." and just as she finished speaking, there it was. the swift, galloping sound of my sweet babys heart. i teared up as i listened to that sound, a sound that is so precious and perfect to every mothers ear. as we finished my appointment, she said to me, "there is really nothing that could be going any better for you. you are having a perfect pregnancy." i couldn't agree more. i am feeling so blessed and healthy and happy. ollie likes to point at my belly and say "bayba, bayba." and speaking of a belly...

 

there is less than three weeks between those two pictures. !!!! i am growing way faster than i did with ollie, but i guess the body just remembers how to do it.

can't wait to meet you in the spring, baby number two!!

last night

brian is back in school this semester, which usually means nights of endless calculations and combinations of letters and numbers that i will never hope to understand, but last night, he took some time off so we could have a fun little night at home. we had the opportunity to have a yard share garden this summer and (naturally) our zucchini plant grew to an enormous size and produced over 20 zucchinis. last night brian decided to bake a double chocolate zucchini bread with no complaints from me or ollie. the little guy quite enjoyed licking the bowl & beaters and loved his bubble bath after it all.

i sure love these boys of mine. and double chocolate zucchini bread. 

finken family reunion: day two

on friday morning, every headed to assiniboine park. the weather was hot & sunny and all the kiddos had a blast playing in the water and the sand. everyone brought a picnic lunch so we got to stay for awhile and enjoy the sunshine & eachother. 

ollie & lilia, both hard at play. (don't they both have the most gorgeous eyelashes? beautiful babies.)

ollie hated the winnie the pooh statue.

after the park, ollie & i went back to the moores and took a long nap. then we all headed to the church for a dinner and birthday celebration for oma. it was so neat to see each and every one of her posterity there, along with many friends and family, to celebrate her 80th birthday with her! what a special occasion!

ollie & tadeo love eachother so much!

i love these next two photos of oma. all of her great grandchildren were standing in front of her and singing "happy birthday" to her. don't you love the way she is looking at them? oma loves her babies, and she makes sure they all know it, too.

what would a finken family party be with hazelnut torte? yum.

brian gave ollie a ride through the balloons. he looks like he's crying but he's actually laughing uncontrollably! 

sweet little chatting tommy. he's such a charmer. 

ollie tickling amber!

and we finished off the second day of the reunion with a family dance!

finken family reunion: day one

i've been going through my family reunion photos and in order to avoid a complete photo overload, i'm going to split the posts by days. the first "day" of the reunion was really just thursday night, when everyone gathered at oma's to meet & greet & get our reunion tees. we got to see a ton of brians family that we haven't seen since we got married. it was so fun to see everyone, milling on the lawn and inside. family reunions are the best!

                                           

ollie & lilia were born about 6 weeks apart. this was the first time they've met!

tommy chatting with his mama. so cute!

ollie & whitney playing a duet. 

more to come!