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. 

Too Cool for School

This week I had my final lunch with the students I volunteer for. Because of testing, the students only had a half hour to meet, so I decided to take Finley with me. Normally, she stays at Courtney's house when I visit the school because I am there a lot longer. The kids were SO excited to see her since I often talk about her in my letters. One of them told me she wanted to take her home, she would just tell her mom that Finley was her cousin. Um, yeh, I am sure her mom would buy that! Finley was wary at first, every kid in the class wanted to give her a hug. Sadly, I am fairly certain this is where Finley caught her virus. Makes me so scared to send her to school.

104.1 Fever...Still Smiling

What a day! We woke up early to prepare for playgroup at our house, ten friends were coming over and I had to get the French toast casserole in the oven. This meant I had to actually set an alarm to wake up on time. Thankfully, I didn't need the alarm and woke up early on my own. And so did Finley, which is really rare, since she usually enjoys sleeping in. While I was changing her into her dress she told me her room was windy and cold. I figured the A/C had been on too high for the night and maybe we needed to re-direct the vent again. We got ready for playgroup and the chaos began. Ten toddlers sure can have some fun in two hours. Finley was pretty whiny, which was odd, normally she is all about playing with her friends. At 12:30 pm, she asked to go down for a nap. Now this is really strange, normally she likes to stay up until at least 2 pm. I figured it was because she was up so early this morning and she went right to sleep. When I got her up from nap, her little body was hot to the touch. I took her temperature: 104.1. Poor Bug! I got the ear thermometer and took it with that, it was 103.7. I gave her some Children's Tylenol and got her some juice to try and get her hydrated. She promptly threw up the juice all over her blanket while I was on the phone with the doctor's office. They told me to come in right away. I raced to the office and Finley was acting so normal and happy. I snapped this picture in the waiting room. Our pedi said a virus is going around and said to just keep adminstering Tylenol and Motrin. As long as she keeps acting "sweet and happy," there is nothing to worry about. Phew. What a rough day. And I feel so terrible that we have potentially gotten ten friends sick.

Fort

Last night I went out for sushi, I had to come home early and what did I discover?  Daddy and Finley had built a fort in her room.  Believe it or not, every animal in the fort came from her crib, she is still a major crib hoarder.  Nearly every night she asks for an additional animal and to take her books to bed.  All the blankets were from her crib as well.  Of course Wrigley had to join in the fort fun.

If the Shoe Fits

I had ordered Finley some pink Pumas from Nordstrom.  Even though I printed out the shoe size sheet, they were too big.  Finley and I made a trip to Nordstrom to get her foot fitted properly.  Our Nordstrom did not carry the same shoe, so they are being delivered this week.  Finley was great with the sales associate, she listened perfectly and he determined she was a perfect size 7.  Finley also loved the silver Toms, but we were in a hurry to get to the gym, so we didn't get a chance to try them on.  I think I may go ahead and order them since she liked them so much.