.Christmas cars, and teeth.

Christmas came and went without much of a fuss here.  Finn opened a single gift (matchbox cars), and that was that.  The rest of his gifts went unnoticed until the next day, where I proceeded to open them up

But thank goodness for those little cars of his, because poor Finn has decided that he would like some teeth, and they are coming in full force. 

look at those tired eyes...but he has a car so he's happy

He has been a miserable mess of snot and drool for the past 4 days with a fever hovering between 99 and 101.  I've been trying very diligently to get Finn to take Motrin/Tylenol, but he has also gotten very good at spitting out everything that goes in his mouth.  That includes even his favorite foods like applesauce, carrots, oatmeal, and yogurt.  Luckily he is still downing his bottles well.  He is easily finding sympathy to his cause through his nearly constant whisperings, and his sleepy little eyes.  One positive to it all is all his cuddliness.  He wants to be held and snuggled almost as much as he wants to play with his cars, and of course I indulge him, because I love his snuggling too.
Along with the 2 new teeth came a raspy little cough that has lingered and gotten progressively worse.  So after another 4 am night, I made an appointment to see Dr. Buchanan and hopefully get some relieve for our sad little man.
Besides our sick boy, we had a wonderful holiday with family and friends, and we feel truly blessed!!!

.old roomies, fresh powder, and a little momma.

I look forward to this time of the year not only because of Christmas, but because people are in town that aren't usually.  Today I got a chance to hang out with 2 of my favorites, the Child sisters...although Carla now has a different last name, I will forever call them that.

Carla, me,& Colette

We got out and enjoyed the fresh air of the mountains with a little snowshoe outing.  It was a perfect day...we finally had some fresh snow, and the sun was out with beautiful blue skies.

We hiked our way up to doughnut falls, which aren't so doughnutty anymore with an abundance of rock in the falls, but it was still a fun hike.  We were the first ones on the trail and we only saw a few people on our way out.

Me & Colette

Carla & Colette in front of the falls

We laughed, reminisced, caught up, and just had an all round good ol' time.  I sure do love these ladies!!
As a bonus to the day, when Finn and I got home he started saying momma.  It's melting my little heart!

.a few of my favorite things...at present.

With the business of Christmas in full swing, I was thinking about some of my "favorite" things in my life right now.

Stretchy ribbon: this stuff is simply a pleasure to tie packages up with. So much more forgiving then traditional ribbon. Try it you won't be disappointed.

Christmas cards: the mail is wonderful, but even more so when it's filled with actual letters...not just junk mail. Having all these beautiful cards from wonderful friends and family, made me realize my mistake in not sending any out this year. There will be cards next year from the hoffmans.

Losing weight: even with all the Christmas goodies being shoved in our faces, ice cream in the freezer, and birthday dinners...my pounds have failed to stay around in fact I'm down again this week. I'm still a good 20 lbs from were I really want to be, but if I can keep it off during this month, then I might have a promising new year.

Scentsy(autumn sunset): this aroma is currently filling my house, and making me feel nostalgic. It's the goodness of winter smells all rolled into one!

Rocking baby boy Finn to sleep: I'm finally getting some good use out of my rocking chair since Finns birth. Because of how I nursed Finn I could never really rock that boy to sleep. But now that he's a complete bottle feeder, we spend our nights rocking and singing. Nursing was special, but this is wonderful too, and I'm glad I get these moments with him.

I have more, but as usual when you get down to writing them out the memory fades.

.11, can it be.

My heart is breaking just a little bit to think that this little boy of mine is nearly a year old. 

It's just one of those truths in life that kids grow up too fast.  We are looking forward to spending our first Christmas together with our very own little dude.  Shopping is a breeze for him since we just see what he gets excited about in the store and throw it in the cart...ha ha ha, lets just say the theme this year is all about cars.
At 11 months, Finn is still not walking, but he gets around very well with crawling and scaling furniture.  He mostly says dadadadadadadada, but he also throws in a few gagagagag's and nanananan's for good measure.  Sadly no mama's yet.  So he's not much of a talker yet, but he does understand simple commands like, "get your doggie", and  "bring it here/come here".  Something that we can't get enough of is all of his animation.  When he gets excited he gibbers, squeals, throws his arms around, and occasionally growls.  He also loves to dance when he hears any tunes...so FUN!  Finn is still completely fascinated by circles, he can spot them on anything and loves touching them.  Another thing that Finn insists on doing is turning on and off his light as he gets up from sleeping.  He figured out what mom and dad were doing and now wants to do it before leaving his room.

I weaned Finn about 2 weeks ago, which turned out to be emotionally harder then I thought it would be, but I can tell since supplementing Finn with formula along with solids, he has started chubbing up again.  Welcome back rolly thighs, momma missed you.
Sleeping is wonderful...2 full naps, and 11 hr nights makes for both happy baby and happy mommy!
With one final month left, Finn is one happy, curious, dancing, moving, growing little boy, and we love him!

.we all need love.

Yesterday while sitting at church I noticed a beautiful thing that changed my perspective.  There is a family in our ward who have started coming back to church.  They have a couple young boys, who I call the wild boys because they often run around with no supervision and create havoc.  I understand more and more the reason why these boys act the way they do after seeing how their father disciplines them, but I still have a tendency to be annoyed at the behavior of these boys.  So there we are sitting in church watching these young boys run around the chapel.  They ran up to the front where another family was sitting.  Instead of the mother ignoring them, or showing the boys back to their bench, she picked up one of the boys and just held him.  And there he sat the whole time just being held by this awesome mom of six while his brother chilled on the pew next to them.  It occurred to me that those boys are just looking for love...they crave it!  They don't need to judged and pushed onto somebody else who can deal with them, they just need the positive attention that love brings.  It really opened my eyes and humbled me to see this, already flustered mother, take the time to give these two wild boys what they want more then anything...LOVE.

.lights.

The last few times we've made it down to Temple square it has been soooo packed, and I get so flustered with the crowds that we just end up rushing through without enjoying the lights at all.  So this year I wanted to hit the lights earlier in the season to better enjoy.  The young men had planned to go on Wed this past week so Finn and I just tagged along.  In hindsight, I would have gone earlier and as our own family because Finn was just a zombie the whole night, and there was a lot of waiting because we have teenage kids that needed to be corralled.  Oh well, the lights were beautiful, and the crowds were so small it was wonderful!

This was how Finn chilled the whole time, bundled and slightly eschewed in the baby bjorn

I love this red tree