Just one good picture...please?!

I couldn't resist posting the sequence of this photo shoot b/c it involved a lot of things: a couple of outfit changes, a lot of bribery, the remote control and at least 4 adults in the background behind the camera all shouting and doing funny things all to get one good Xmas card shot. We never got that one shot but what we did get is far funnier. Here's just a glimpse of 2 2yr olds and a 1 yr old in front of the Xmas tree....our life may be interesting and crazy, but it is NEVER boring!

Our Baby is 1...and we can't believe it!

I say it all the time but I really can't believe it's been a year since we had Quinn. I feel like her little life goes by faster than most. I don't know if it's because she's my last or what but I feel like I blinked and I missed her 1st year. So sad but what a joy she is in our lives. She doesn't miss a step lately. She is mobil and nobody is going to slow her down. She is completely uninterested in anything age appropriate. She only wants what they're playing with or the things she knows she's not supposed to have...the electrical outlets, the xmas tree, dog food, the remotes...whatever she can't have. She's still a great eater. You have to give her fruit first and she'll eat it, otherwise if there's something different on her chair, she's not choosing the fruit! She's a teeth grinder, and loudly too. Such a happy and independent baby. She just walks around and amuses herself all day long with whatever she can find along the way to play with. She requires no entertainment at all. She loves Baby Einstein. Loves whole milk instead of formula. Didn't care much for her birthday cake. Hasn't played with one toy she got for her birthday...why would she? She has a lot more important things to do like keep up with her older siblings.

2 going on 15...

Finley Paige still continues to run the house, or at least we let her believe she does. She bosses everyone around. She is head of Darla, Brody, Quinney, Whalen...she's got her entourage in line! Yes, I did say Darla. She hasn't gone anywhere although I'd swear her days are numbered. Her little arms are a couple of weeks from falling off. Poor baby girl gets drug all over this earth and suffers more timeouts than one baby doll should have to participate in. She does continue to be Finley's one and only love though. She doesn't ask for much from Santa except for twin baby dolls just like Darla. Although when she gets them, I'm not even sure she'll play with them so we'll see how this goes. She has become quite the picky eater. She gags on quite a few things lately, we can't decide if she truly has an aversion to food textures or if she truly is just a master manipulator. I'm going with the latter. She has some of the funniest little sayings like calling people "big boy" etc. This morning she wanted to sit in Daddy's chair so he tried to act like he was sitting in her booster seat and she said, "Daddy...your big ole bummie can't fit in that seat!" She's just funny that way. She loves shopping (we're in trouble), she loves being with her mother lately. She has grown quite attached. If I'm in the bathroom, she's in the bathroom. If I'm cooking dinner, she's on the counter watching and asking questions. No telling what she might learn from all of this mom time but she watches every move I make! She doesn't miss a step. And she fills her brother in on everything he misses, and he loves her for it. She sure is funny, and I can't even put it into words. I'm convinced she's an old soul trapped into a little body. I never feel like I'm traveling with a 2 year old when I'm with her but I do just love being with her....

It's beginning to look a lot like a "Thomas" Christmas...

Brody has officially become one of the largest Thomas the Train fanatics that I know to this date. I'm sure there are others out there, but I don't know if they fell as fast or as hard as he has. I only have Grandma Vicki to thank for this insanely addicting and expensive venture! She has collected Thomas Trains for a while now and now has my son begging for a new train everytime we leave the house. We're at the store and he wants to look at the Thomas Trains (aka buy one). We're at home and I'm on the computer and he wants me to google Thomas so he can see it. We're watching TV and he only wants to watch Thomas DVD's...and boy are they interesting! We're at the dinner table and he has to have a Thomas Train watching him eat and we have to talk about them while eating. He's got me eating, sleeping and breathing Thomas Trains and I swore I wouldn't let him become interested in this. My fascination with it is simple though...he's so entirely happy and at peace with Thomas in his life that how could it be a bad thing right? I mean when your child's face lights up when he sees Thomas anything, it's sort of cute. Only sort of but still. So I find myself looking for that one train he's talked about this week everytime I'm out, although it changes by the minute. I bought him Thomas toothpaste yesterday and he slept with it! He's got the empty box in his bed as we speak! It's crazy. I'm convinced they lace those trains with some sort of addictive material. The Thomas marketing people are geniuses...and they're rich! Anyway...so that's literally all Brody has been into for the last month since I've blogged about him. He's become train obsessed and we're all on board! Sad but true. Other than that, the other thing he loves most right now is singing. It's so cute. He is in love with Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. He pretty much knows all the words. Other than Christmas songs and Thomas, there isn't much to Brody's life right now. He's a great eater. Loves everything. Would rather have water than hot chocolate. Would rather have pretzels than a cookie. He is his father's child. He's getting so tall and skinny. He has become downright silly. Singing all the time and making up funny names for people. On a bad note...he did flush his toothbrush down the toilet about a week ago and it hasn't worked since. Dad wasn't too happy about that but he got over it. He flushed and strutted right out of the bathroom to tell us about it like it was no big deal! He was quite proud of his accomplishment. We were less than impressed. But if that's the worst thing I can come up with in this blog to say about my favorite two year old boy...I'll keep him!