Last Dance Class

We had our last dance class for the year this summer.  Finley is going to have a busy summer of gymnastics and swim lessons, but I know she is going to miss Mr. Carlos and her dancing friends.  I hope that we can get Finley back in dance class in the fall, she definitely loves it and next year she can start intro to tap.  Her favorite part of class is always when Mr. Carlos brought out the tap shoes to keep the beat.  The class all got lollipops for doing such an amazing job in their recital.

Tammy's Playgroup Baby Shower

I am so lucky to have found such an amazing playgroup.  Tammy is expecting a little sister for Samantha in August, so we all got together to let the kids play and eat, eat and play.  And most importantly, we got to celebrate the impending arrival of little Sloane, I am sure she will fit in just perfectly into the playgroup madness! The amazing diaper cake was made by Courtney, it is so unfair that she is such a talented seamstress. Every diaper cake I see her make tops the previous version.  All the kids get along so well, it is such a nice way to spend our Thursday mornings.

Crawfish Boil at Kirby's

Look how much our little crawfish lover has grown.  This year, she actually got to eat the crawfish.  And eat the crawfish she did!  She must have had at least two dozen, possibly more.  And she ate plenty of Clifton's bacon wrapped filet.  And when she was done, she asked for more crawfish.  And she proceeded to eat an entire plateful on her own.  She loves em!

She had so much fun collecting pine needles with Grandma and she even got to meet a turtle that had hitched a ride with the crawfish.  Note her most adorable crawfish dress.

Lunch at Sea

Finley has been really loving the boat. If we are going fast at all, Finley is glued to my lap. And the most curious thing is, she usually falls straight asleep. Within seconds. It is as if the boat somehow lulls her right into nap time. This past weekend, Finley took her first swim in Taylor Lake. She did fantastic, she was a little scared at first, but she really loves the water. She especially loves her froggy bathing suit.

Dance Recital

I have a bunch of pictures to get through, but I figured I would go ahead and post the sad little video I took.  We were in the very back of the auditorium, unlike the dress rehearsal where we were in the front row.  Finley did a fantastic job.  We are so very proud of her.  We have one more dance class until the summer break, then I hope to get her into Mr. Carlos' Intro to Ballet and Tap class in the fall.  Finley had lots of fans in the audience, Grandma, Aunt Rose, Faith, Max and Courtney. 


Here is another video from another mom. Finley is the one running around crazy on the right.

This sums it up...

Besties! Can we set the wedding date?

New Max and Finley Videos

This is mainly for Brian...

Max spent the day with us yesterday and Finley was beyond thrilled. She loves having Max come over and even tried to teach him her recital dance. When I drove him home, he was singing "All around the kitchen, cock-a-doodle-doodle-do!" There was more sashay-ing, more of Finley being bossy from her big chair and Max teaching lowercase letters to Finley. Max is such a joy to have over. Finley woke up this morning asking, "when is Max coming over today?"

Making Tortillas

Finley absolutely adores the Children's Museum. Thankfully, we live only a few blocks away so we can visit very often. It is so much easier now that I don't have to drag a stroller,  Finley can make the whole walk herself.  I am super excited about being able to go on Mondays this summer, they are opening only for members. Normally the museum is closed on Monday and in the summer, it gets crazy busy every day of the week. This last visit Finley spent the most time in the Mexico section. They have a kitchen, restaurant and store. She has so much fun shopping for the food and then preparing it for me to eat. She especially liked making the tortillas and serving them with salsa.

Dress Rehearsal

Finley dress rehearsal was this week and she did fantastic.  I cannot wait to see her dance at her recital.  There were no complaints about her bun or her costume, success! All the little girls in Finley's class loved to be on the stage, it was so adorable to watch. Especially Samantha, who kept walking to the front of the stage to look for her daddy. So precious.

Blogger Issues

Blogger was down yesterday and it ate my post about Neon and Noah's visit.  Here are the pictures again...I will try to remember what I wrote as best I can.  We had such a lovely time with them and cannot wait to visit them in Dallas this summer.


There were lunch dates at Benjy's

Toddler feasts of mac 'n cheese and chicken nuggets with Max

Indoor picnics due to rain with Alicia and Emily, Shannon and baby Emily, Courtney and Max

Baby Emily's first trip to the zoo

Mamarazzi!

Toddlers at the Zoo

And finally a dinner date at Cafe Rabelais

Dance Recital Preview

I am nervous about what is goin to actually happen on stage...

Maiden Voyage

Our boat was delivered this past Friday and we took it out Friday night for our first family trip.  We took the boat over to Kemah and had a rushed dinner to try and make it back to the marina before sunset.  Finley was not a happy camper when we went shopping for her life jacket.  She was not a fan, even the pink life jacket couldn't win her over.  We settled on a red and blue octopus jacket.  When we arrived at the boat on Friday, Finley was still insisting that she wouldn't wear the life jacket.  Once we got it on her, along with a lollipop bribe, she was so overwhelmed with boat excitement, that she didn't even care about wearing a life jacket.  She did great!  She insisted on sitting on my lap whenever the boat went fast.  Her favorite part was the no wake zone in the Kemah Pass, just her speed.  We took the boat out on Saturday morning and had a picnic lunch on Galveston Bay.  We also went out on Sunday night and went up to explore Taylor Lake.  Finley loves her new boat.

Happy Mother's Day

I hope all the moms out there have had as fantastic Mother's Day as I had.  Finley started the morning off with two beautiful cards she had made herself.  We then headed to Reef for Mother's Day brunch.  We went to Reef last year to celebrate Mother's Day and it was just as good this year.  And it was just as impossible to get a picture of Finley!  Finley stuffed herself silly with biscuits, sausage and bacon.  And I was lucky enough to have a tuna dish that was very close to my favorite dish ever, Ribbons of Tuna.  I hope it sticks around on Reef's menu.  After brunch, we tried to get Finley to take a nap, but she wasn't having it.  So we headed down to Clear Lake for an afternoon on the boat.  Of course, Finley fell asleep five minutes into the car ride.  She was in a great mood on the boat and we did some exploring of Taylor Lake.  What a wonderful way to spend Mother's Day!

More Easter...

We have been quite busy around here lately, we have had two weeks full of houseguests, which has been lots of fun, but has left little time for blogging.  Grammy and Grandad arrived on Sunday with more Easter presents for Finley.  As soon as they pulled up Finley said "Maybe they will have presents for me."  Does she know her grandparents or what?  Finley got some books for spring, a singing chick and a talking book. Thank you to Grammy and Grandad!

Easter Egg Hunt

On Easter morning, the Easter Bunny had hidden eggs all over our house for Finley to find.  Finley was so excited, especially since the eggs were filled with Easter candy.  We quickly discovered that the eggs would all be eaten that morning, so we had to put the basket up for fear that Finley would decide to live solely on M&Ms and peanut butter eggs.  Finley loves playing with the empty eggs, we hide them and she still loves to hunt for them.

Royal Wedding

We certainly did not get up at 3 am to watch the pre-wedding hype, we didn't even wake up at 5 am to watch the actual wedding itself.  We did DVR the wedding and wake up at 8:30 am to do a lot of fast forwarding and some watching.  I kept promising Finley that we would see "White Princess" soon.  She loves her Pink Princess and Blue Princess Little People.  It took what seemed like forever to see Kate Middleton and once we did, Finley asked to go downstairs and watch Sesame Street.  The funniest part was when she asked "Where is Mommy's hat?"

Easter Basket

Finley loves Peeps.  Finley loves chocolate bunnies.  Finley loves pastel M&Ms.  Finley loves Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs.  Finley is an all over Easter candy fan.  And as an added bonus, she got a My Little Pony Ferris Wheel. 

Boat Shopping

This past weekend we headed down to Clear Lake to do some boat shopping.  Finley loved climbing all around the boats.  She especially loved this red one.  She was up on it twice and both times she had to be forcibly removed from the boat.  She much preferred shopping for boats indoors as to outside.  I wonder if she realizes that boat shopping is the only time that she will be on a boat while it is indoors.  We start swim lessons with her in June once we get back from California.  There is a two week swim lesson session for every weekday and then it goes to once a week after that.  She will be ship shape in no time!  Finley was also excited about the "Finley potty" on board.  Now only if I could get her as excited about her Finley potty at our house.

Coloring Easter Eggs

Finley was super excited to color Easter eggs this year.  At the gym, Miss Michelle and Finley always decorate eggs with paper.  She was super excited to get her hands on the real thing.  I had saved all the eggs from our first two Easter egg dying sessions.  Sadly, Finley decided to pick up the egg carton that I had stored them in.  Before I could run over there to intervene, the egg carton was opened and most of the eggs were on the floor in pieces.  Only three eggs survived.  Ah well, means we can make more this year. 

City Centre

We met up with some of Clifton's co-workers and their kids last night at Discovery Green.  Finley was so happy to see Jahan, her friend from playgroup.  His mom is in my playgroup and his dad works with Clifton, such a small world.  Finley was slow to warm up to all the activity, she was happy to sit in her chair and observe for the longest time.  But once Rameen started chasing the kids and acting like a monster, she was all over it.  Clifton thought Finley needed dessert, so they got the biggest chocolate cake slice possible.  He insists that he only had two bites, which means Finley polished off the rest. 

Early Easter Present

Finley got a package from Aunt Joan today, of course she wanted to open it as soon as she saw it was for her.  I figured why not...  I asked Finley what she thought was in the package and she said "shoes!"  It was not shoes, but it was an adorable baby doll all dressed up in her Easter bunny finery.  Finley asked for her pack n play full of her dolls right away and wanted to feed the new baby a bottle.  She then proceeded to feed all the baby dolls in a row.  It was so cute!  Thank you so much Aunt Joan!

On a non-baby doll related note, other than a slight runny nose, Finley is all better.  No fever for well over 24 hours, which means so is no longer contagious and more importantly, it means we got to hit the gym together today.  We didn't do anything else today, but tomorrow we will try and get out even more.

The Home Stretch...

I think we are almost done with this illness.  Finley's fever is pretty much gone and all she has left is a horribly runny nose.  Finley has done so much artwork, I am running out of space to hang it all up.  And she is insistent that it gets hung up when she is done.  Notice the large stack of artwork that I have no place to hang anywhere.  I am going to be so happy to get out of the house tomorrow with Finley.  We are just going to hit the gym and see how that goes, Finley is so excited to get back to the gym and I am so excited to be able to get out of the house.

Quarantined!

A true multitasker, eating soup and painting Winnie the Pooh. 

The pediatrician said Finley would be contagious until she is fever free for 24 hours.  That hasn't happened yet.  She was up at 5 am yesterday with the fever back in full force.  A dose of Tylenol and an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, then she was ready to go back to bed.  She kept asking "Where are we going today?" and I felt so awful that we couldn't go anywhere.  We painted, colored, played stickers, built with blocks and watched lots of Mickey Mouse. She was super happy with being able to eat whatever she wanted and drank lots of juice.  She didn't want to stay in her jammies, so she picked a pink dress to wear.  Last night when she went to bed, she asked for her big comforter.  I think she must be getting really cold with the fever at night.  Breaks my heart.