Growing and Changing!

Finn is almost 9 months old!  It's hard to believe how much he's grown and changed since he was born.  He has such a distinct personality and it's very fun to watch him make his presence known in the world around him (he's really noisy, so his presence is usually pretty hard to miss!).   Some new things - he just started clapping and imitating mouth noises recently, which is very entertaining.  He also loves to read books, especially ones with photographs of kids and babies. Whenever we turn to a page with a picture of a kid on it, he gets really excited and laughs.  He has always been so interested in watching other kids (either his cousins or the kids at the baby sitter's  house) and I think he learns so much from them.  He's SO close to crawling, but just doesn't seem to want to make that final little move to hands and knees (probably because every time he tries, he ends up doing a face plant on the floor).  I see him getting more and more frustrated by the fact that he's not mobile, especially when there's an interesting toy just out of reach!  Hopefully this will be all the motivation he needs to start scooting around!  He's starting to eat "big boy" food at most meals now - favorites are watermelon, bananas, peas, and broccoli.  He's doing lots of puckering his lips and chewing...we're assuming this means that some teeth are on the way!

Pucker Face

The Children's Garden

We took a trip to the Children's Garden at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens this week.  It was such a cool place for kids to explore (although there's only so much exploring one can do from inside a stroller - but when he's bigger, I'm sure Finn will love this place even more!).  Here are some of the pictures from the day and from a recent visit with Finn's cousin Mallie and a trip to the park.

Dinner at Dan's

We got a call inviting us to an impromptu cookout at my cousin Dan's on Friday night.  Just a little gathering of some of the "older generation" cousins with some of the "next generation" cousins!  It was such a fun time...thank you Dan!

Everyone was just relaxing outside on the patio or on the lawn, when all of a sudden.....

A dance party broke out in
the basement!  

Mallie was the star of the show!

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Grandma Heffron has been keeping Finn all stocked up with the latest and greatest toys (thank you grandma!).  He loves standing up at his little play table (with mom close by, of course)!

But standing up there is a lot harder than it looks! (see below)

Here are a couple of my favorite recent pictures:

A Day at the Beach - Take Two

Today, we loaded up the Gilbride, Heffron, and Fadel (Erin's friends) kids for another day in Vermilion.  We spent the morning on the beach and the kids had a blast!  Finn seemed so much happier playing in the sand and water this time around.  I think being able to sit up without any help allowed him a little more freedom to explore!  He loved it - kicking his legs around in the sand, picking up handfuls and rubbing it on his legs, and watching the little waves splash onto his feet.  

He also loves watching the other kids.  He thinks Jack and Mallie are particularly funny (especially Jack pretending to eat his toes).  He is very interested in Annie too - and I think the feeling is mutual!  The girl cannot keep her hands off of Finn.  It's hilarious.  Whenever we put them down on the floor, she makes a beeline for him and immediately starts touching his hair and face.  Today, they were sitting on the blanket together and Annie just gently nudged Finn so he kind of fell over on his back.  Then, she just started touching his face and messing with his hair.  Finn didn't even make a peep!  He was just as interested in her and totally didn't mind it at all (there's a picture of this below)!  Also...whatever toy Finn is playing with at the moment is the sole object of Annie's desire.  There is no distracting her from it either - she knows what she wants!  I just love seeing them play together because it's so good for Finn to have this kind of contact with other kids.  He learns so much from all of them, I think especially from Annie because she's right at his level and doing all the things he wants to do!  I can't wait to see what Finn's relationships with all of his cousins will be like as they get older.  They're all so different and I know they're all going to bring so much to one another's lives.

A Trip to the Garden

We had a fun day on Monday...Drew's birthday!  He took the day off and we went down to the Roosevelt Greenhouse and Gardens.  It was so beautiful - and, best of all, free!  Finn had a great time looking at all of the flowers and fountains.  So did we!  In fact, we had so much fun that I couldn't even choose which pictures to post, so I posted all of them!