Collecting Acorns

Finley is obsessed with acorns.  And pecans.  And any other random piece of nature she can find on the ground.  We have tried to take her collection to the Swap Shop, but everytime we are there and remember to bring the stash with us, the Swap Shop is closed.  Hopefully, one day soon, we will remember our goodies and it will be open for trading.  I wonder if Finley will give up her collection for something new from the zoo.


Of course, Ugly Bear has to go on the walk for Finley's acorn hunting expedition.

Indoor Picnic

Who do you invite to an indoor picnic?  Ugly Bear, Winnie the Pooh, Snowflake, Pink Doll, Elephant, Tigger, Grammy and Grandad.  That's who.

Just one more present...

When Grammy and Grandad were visiting, I think Finley opened at least 4 presents before the presents had been put under of the tree.  Finley loves opening presents, especially ones that play music.  Everytime music is on, Finley is a happy girl.  I normally listen to sports talk radio in the car, but whenever Finley and I are going somewhere together, we listen to music on the radio.  For the record, her favorite song is Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina's "Stereo Love", which is a pretty amazing song.  She proclaims it as her favorite whenever it comes on.  It is the funniest thing ever.  At least she is liking dance music from the start.  Must be all that ATB I play for her.  Finley opened a music player and she loves it, just like we knew she would.


After present opening time, it was time for an indoor picnic by Finley's kitchen.  This girl will cook all day long!  I wonder why...

Shopping at Berings

We went to Berings this morning before playgroup because I needed to get a set of keys made. Berings is a really neat store, it is a cross between an old timey hardware store and a fancy boutique. They have smocked dresses on one side and powertools on the other. They also have kid sized shopping carts and Finley had to have one. She did such a great job pushing it around the store, I think she was more excited to have her own cart than she is at the regular grocery store in her car cart. She did comment "It's not pink!" After the keys were made, the man put the bag in her cart and she replied with a thank you. We made our way to the check out and she put the keys up on the counter to buy them. Then she proclaimed they were "Finley's keys" and we headed off to playgroup.

Beautiful Dancer

After a month long break, Finley was back at ballet today.  Mr. Carlos was filling in for Miss V, which is a very good thing.  We all asked at the end of the class to make it a permanent change.  He is so gentle and good with the kids.  Everyone was put at ease and enjoyed dance class!

Happy Birthday, Joe!

Joe's 3rd birthday party was this past weekend at Pump It Up.  Finley had a fantastic time and once again, she was slow to warm up to the jumpy houses.  The typical Pump It Up party consists of 45 minutes of bounce house and slide fun in one room, then another 45 minutes of bounce house and slide fun in room two, finishing with pizza and cake with the birthday boy.  All and all, a perfect party.  Especially for Finley.  She takes a solid hour to warm up to the idea of going in the bounce house, but once she gets the nerve to do it, she loves it!  I took her down the slide in room one and she was not a happy camper.  When we got to room two, she spied her favorite bounce house with the basketball nets and balls.  She spent the majority of the party jumping inside and playing with all the balls.  Clifton did take her through the bounce obstacle course, but I don't think she was a huge fan.  The funniest part was on Monday, she kept asking to go to Joe's house.

"Joe's house has bouncy houses"
"Joe's house has slides"
"Joe's house has balls"
"Joe's house has pizza"
"I wanna go to Joe's house"

Don't we all...



Daddy did what he had to do to get Finley through the obstacle course.  She was all tears once we had to leave the bouncey house room, but the tears stopped as soon as she heard "pizza" and "cake".  The fantastic cake was Shannon's last cake before the arrival of little Shelleycarrieharriet.  It was delicious!

Children's Museum with Grammy and Grandad

Last week when Grammy and Grandad were visiting, we headed over to the Children's Museum to have some fun.  Finley loves the area where you can pretend to grocery shop.  Considering how much she loves the regular grocery store, this is no surprise to me at all.  She also loves the area where you pretend to be a veterinarian, this little girl adores animals.  There are so many fun activities for toddlers at the Children's Museum.  It has been so wonderful to watch Finley explore more of the museum than just the Tot Spot. 

More Presents...Again!

Grandma came over today to bring Finley more presents for Christmas.  Betty Foley and Mike Foley had sent presents for Finley.  Finley was so excited to open her gifts!  I think she is going to expect a present whenever the doorbell rings.  She already thinks that all the packages that get delivered to our house are for her.  Considering how much I order from Amazon, she has this thought quite often.  Finley got a awesome new Mother Goose book and a tent with a giant tunnel.  Finley loves the tunnel, but I think Camden and Wrigley love it even more.  I have caught both of them scurrying through it and Wrigley has been playing with the strings all night.

BTHO LSU!

World's cutest Aggie fan says Texas A&M needs to beat the hell outta of LSU tonight at the Cotton Bowl!

Hot Dog!

The only show Finley really watches on television is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. And she is obsessed! At the end of the show, everyone does a Hot Dog Dance. As soon as the dance starts, Finley knows the show is about to end and says "More Toodles!" If you ask her to do the hot dog dance, she will oblige. Asking for more toodles as she "dances", doesn't she look like a baby Paula Abdul?

It's 2011

Sorry for the lack of posts, we have been busy visiting with Grammy and Grandad.  They were in town to celebrate Christmas a week late.  Finley had the best time playing with them, we sure hope they move to town soon.  They arrived Sunday night and after a yummy meal at Pappasitos, Finley convinced them to open one of the gifts they brought.  It was a dish set for her kitchen.  She loved it!  She had a meal set up for everyone in no time, including the favorite at the moment "Ugly Bear". 

She insisted bringing "Ugly Bear" to the gym today and Miss Stacie asked "do you know she calls her bear ugly?"  Yes, we do, because she is pretty ugly and Finley has no clue what ugly means anyhow.

Ready to Party Like it's 2011!

Tea for Two

At our Christmas Eve dinner at Kam's, Finley finally tried hot tea.  She has had countless tea parties with her tea sets, but I wasn't sure she knew what tea was.  Especially since she often served me "chocolate tea", which honestly, sounds better to me than regular hot tea.  If we ever get some real cold weather, I can serve her some "chocolate tea" (hot chocolate) with marshmallows.  The biggest surprise: she liked hot tea!  She has such strange tastes, it is really funny to watch what she will and won't eat.  She is getting better about trying new foods, but she will spit it out if she does not enjoy it.  And this still includes all green vegetables, which is so frustrating.  As long as she tries it, I am going to be pretty laid back about it.  She eats so much meat, she is just an all protein sort of girl.  She can take down an entire plate full of chicken nuggets, but she will also gobble up chicken marsala.  At our dinner, she also loved super spicy pork dumplings, well, only the pork part, she wanted nothing to do with the dumpling dough.  She ate almost an entire bowl of hot and sour soup and still saved room for chicken and rice.  Toddler moms, when did you stop using a bib?  Finley requests hers, so I figure as long as she is happy wearing it, we will continue to put it on her.

Gymboree Fun

We are back in the swing of things at Gymboree and Finley is loving it, even though it is nearly impossible to catch her smiling with my small camera. I need to bring the big camera to class in order to snap a real time picture. Even when I have it in the Pets and Kids mode, it still has quite a delay on it. Finley is becoming much more adventurous in class. Her favorite things to do are to ride the rocking horse and jump on the trampoline. She is getting to be quite the jumper. They also did a 'skiing' activity this week where she wore felt booties and slide down the slide, she loved it!

Holiday Party

A couple weekends ago, one of Clifton's coworkers had a holiday party.  There was a big jumpy house in the back for all the kids.  Finley avoided it for over an hour, but she once she realized she wanted to play in it, it was near impossible to get her out of it.  We had to tell her that we would go to another jumpy house "later" in order to get her to leave.  She also had some fun times in the wagon with Jahan from playgroup and his sister, Nadia.  There was a jumpy house at Wyatt's birthday party, so our "later" promise was fulfilled.  And it took her over an hour to warm up to the idea.  Let's hope she wants to play at Joe's Pump It Up birthday party straight away!

Christmas Day

Finley started her day so excited to see what Santa had brought her. We started off with a donut breakfast before we hit the presents. Finley got so many neat toys from Santa Claus: a shopping cart, Mickey Mouse sports bottles, wooden train, all sorts of Color Magic books and markers, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse toys, personalized Pooh and Snow White books, a Mickey ornament and the Little People Zoo. She also got a Sock Monkey jack in the box and new fleece dress from Auntie Heather. Aunt Sharon and Uncle Al gave Finley a new keyboard, a stuffed elephant and a Babar book. Grandma adopted Pandu the tiger for Finley at the Houston Zoo and Finley got a new stuffed tiger to play with, along with a magnet and Zoo cup. Finley has a lot of new toys to play with!






Clifton set up a 'store' at our kitchen table for Finley to go shopping with her new shopping cart. It was adorable. Finley had the best Christmas!

Santa Brought the Shopping Cart!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Visions of Sugar Plums....

Visiting with Santa

Once again, it was time to visit the Bass Pro Shops for Finley's free picture with Santa Claus.  She did much better this year, there was no smiling, but there wasn't any crying either.  Let's hope Santa listens and brings Finley a shopping cart, train and baby doll.  Let's take a look back at last year's visit...she sure has grown!

Santa's Happy Helper

Finley has been a super trooper in all the shopping I have been doing lately.  I snapped this picture after a visit to Costco, in which Finley sampled: biscuits, vegetable soup, chocolate cookies, mozzerella sticks, hummus, fudge and tilapia.  No wonder she is smiling.

Santa's House

I got a gingerbread house kit after seeing Sarah's adorable gingerbread house.  I think more icing ended up on Finley and I than on the gingerbread house itself.  We didn't really follow the directions very well, there was up to 4 hours of waiting in between the drying phases.  We gave it a solid 15 minutes and went to town.  Finley had a great time decorating the house and only suck one or two candies.  She did enjoy licking her fingers whenever even a tiny bit of icing got on them.  Finley calls our gingerbread house, "Santa's House."

Playing with Daddy's New Presents

Clifton has gotten two awesome presents from work, an ipad and a Flip Mino HD Camera.  The real beneficiary of his new toys: Miss Finley.  She loves playing different games on the ipad, especially the color match game.  I can only imagine what technology she will have when she starts school.  So, look for more videos of Finley in the future, now that I have a video camera that can fit in my pocket!

Check out Finley's New Ticker

Finley is all set for her second trip to DisneyWorld!  But it will be her first trip with her Daddy.  She is so excited.  She has been very attached to bear friend recently and really wants to take him to Minnie's House in Toon Town.  Toon Town is closing on February 10th, so we will make it just in time for one last visit to Finley's favorite house, thank goodness! At the gym this morning, her caretaker Stacey made her a Minnie crown.  Everytime Finley is at the gym, she and Stacey color a picture of Minnie Mouse together.  She is certainly Minnie obsessed.