We are family - I got all my sisters with me...

This weekend, Finn and I had some (not all) our sisters with us.  My mother and her two sisters, Vicki & Ann, and their daughters, Kristin & Carly came out for the weekend.  Although my mother is THE grandma, she is ever so gracefully sharing the title, as Grandma Vicki and Grandma Nan were in the house as well.

Girls' weekend!

 

Three generations

10 week family photo

This is going to be a photo-heavy post.  Not a lot of words, as no words could describe how wonderful it was having all the girls here this past weekend.  As they say...  A picture says a thousand words...

There was lots of playing and holding and snuggling...  Everyone took their turn holding Finn and playing with her.  She definitely felt some major love last weekend.  And she is definitely a snuggler.  Anytime that she would get fussy because she was tired, one of the girls would take her, place her on their chest with or without a blanket, and the little lady would fall right to sleep.

And we even went out to eat!  We took everyone to Melt, a restaurant that only serves grilled cheese sandwiches.  But they serve almost anything that you can think of in those grilled cheeses!  In fact, there were sandwiches ordered that contained a piece of lasagna and one entire sandwich was even deep fried!

 

 

  

  

 

On Saturday, we went to the Westside Market to have gyros.  We also stopped over at the Great Lakes Brewing Co. where I had a baby... In a bar...  I was amazed at how many bad looks we got from women who saw that I was carrying a baby in a sling while standing there having a beer.  Now I can understand the bad looks if it is midnight and I'm out to get sloshed.  But it was 3 in the afternoon and we didn't look like the type that was out to party it up.  In fact, she slept the entire time that we were in the brewery, wrapped snuggly in her Moby. 

I'll have more to say tomorrow -- it appears that my attention is wanted somewhere else...  It seems that birds that were playing so nicely with her before have suddenly turned on her...

You're gonna miss this...

You're gonna miss this

You're gonna want this back

You're gonna wish these days

Hadn't gone by so fast...

These are some good times

So take a good look around

You may not know it now

But you're gonna miss this...

Why does time have to go so quickly...  I have two weeks left on maternity leave and I am dreading it with every fiber in my being.  I'm finally getting to know my little lady and I like our little daily routine.  

Right after I had Finn, I was ready to go back to work.  I really didn't have a great deal of knowledge about babies and I didn't know what to do when she cried.  Those first 3-4 weeks I was counting down the days until I could get a little bit of "my old life" back.  Now I'm hoping for the opposite.  I'm hoping that time will stand still, just a little bit longer so I can enjoy my girl.

Somewhere in the last 10 weeks, this crazy little lady has become my everything.  I can't imagine life without her.  In fact, I guess it's been almost 11 months since she has entered my life.  I found out I was pregnant on June 11th and it was then that my life became about preparing for her arrival.

Those 9 months of wondering... Would it be a boy or a girl?  Once we found out it was a girl, what would she look like?  Who would she resemble more?  How should I decorate her nursery?  What kind of personality was she going to have?  How will I survive having my life be all about her?

Now I can't imagine what my life was like before her.  I can't imagine not having her smiles and laughter in the morning.  I can't imagine not having her napping on my chest in the afternoon.  I can't imagine her not sitting with me as I read my book in the evening.

My life is forever changed in the most wonderful way.

E always jokes with me because I think that she is the cutest baby in the world.  I have told him that I think she looks like a Gerber baby, perfect in every way.  And it's stuck.  He always teases when she does something really cute, saying that she is definitely a Gerber baby.  He also teases when she is a fuss bucket, saying "Oh, I think that she is a definitely Gerber baby when she screams like this."

 

In the developmental front, Finn is almost 10 weeks old!  She'll be 10 weeks on Thursday.  She has now starting grabbing everything that is placed in her tiny little hands, mostly Mama's hair!  But I put her in her Pack 'N Play to change her this weekend and Lucy was laying in there.  I plopped Finn down and changed her.  She could feel Lucy's fur on her head and she started to stretch really big.

  

Her little arms started stretching high above her head, running her hand along Lucy's side.  And then she started grabbing the fur at Lucy's stomach!  Lucy just laid there, not even noticing the little hands pulling at her soft tummy fur.

Now all this softness in her hands made Finn really excited and she started dancing her little heart out!  With the Pack 'N Play floor still being at hip level, every high kick that Finn was doing was shaking the whole entire Pack 'N Play. 

All her intricate dance moves make playing in there a lot more fun for her because the shaking causes the toys dangling from above dance as well.  And hell, NO ONE likes to dance by themselves, am I right? 

Well, apparently Lucy wasn't in the dancing mood, because she got up and left after about 5 minutes of Finn's dance party of 1!

In other big news, Finn has her 2 month well-baby check this Friday!  So we will get to see how much she has grown in the last 6 weeks.  I'm not going to tell her that she is getting shots -- I'll let the doctor tell her that.

Today is also the day that I move all of her newborn clothes out and put her in 0-3 month clothes.  The girl is just getting WAY too long for any of her newborn clothes.  Even the pants that were fitting her are looking like high-waters!  Every time I would put on those pants, I always starting singing about how the Lord told Noah there's gonna be a flood.  Of course, there will be tears on my part, but knowing that my crazy lady is growing makes me very happy.  My boob juice is doing its job!

And the biggest news of all?!?!?!?  My mother, two of my aunts, and two of my cousins are coming this weekend for a visit!!!!!!  It'll be an all-girls weekend, save E.  Finn and I are really excited and will have a lot of photos to post on Monday!!!!

Our first laugh!

Houston, we have our first laugh!!! She first did it on Sunday and I wasn't sure if she was coughing or not.  But then she continued to do it that evening into Monday morning when I was trying to make her smile.

Listen carefully at the 17 second mark...

It is seriously the cutest thing EVAH'!  The lady is trying so hard to make her vocal chords work with her in laughing.  On Sunday, we even got our first squeal.  We was laying there, trying to laugh and out came this high-pitched noise.  The smile instantly faded off of her face, not knowing where that shrill sound came from, only to be replaced with a wide-mouthed grin once she realized that it came from her.  Oh, boy -- this one's going to be a wild one!

Today was also a big first...  Finn fell asleep for her nap by herself NOT laying on me and NOT swinging in her Mamaroo.

Sleeping angel

She isn't going to daycare for another 3.5 -- 4 months.  But this just proves my instinctual thinking.  

Baby girl just wasn't ready to nap on her own and she will when she is ready.  So I let her nap on me, enjoying every little breath, every puddle of drool that pools on my chest, every soft dreamy sigh...  I breath in the smell of her hair, that soft baby smell that will be changed by toddler smell (which I hear isn't as pleasant).  I watch her ever-growing eyelashes, lightly fluttering on her cheeks when she is dreaming, knowing my smell is enveloping her and calming her.  I touch her increasingly pudgy fingers, grasping at my shirt, knowing that my breathing is completely comforting her. 

And although photographs and videos will be wonderful reminders of how daily life is right now.  I'm trying to take mental snapshots of the sights, smells, and actions, knowing this isn't going to last forever.  I'm enjoying every single fleeting moment...

Hallelujah!

If I could attach a soundtrack to this post, it would Handel's Messiah...  So go ahead and click on the link in another tab because the clouds have parted and the angels started singing in the Murphy household...

Yesterday, Finn was able to spend a total of almost 3-4 hours not being held and being happy!!!!!  Stop for a moment and listen to the angels sing...  It sounds so melodious.

This new revelation was made possible courtesy of our Mamaroo...  THANK YOU, Mamaroo!!!!

 

The amazing Mamaroo

The Mamaroo is a motorized swing that supposedly moves more the way that you do when you bounce your baby, as opposed to conventional swings.  There are five different motions (directions it will move in, such as car-ride, kanagroo, tree swing, rock-a-bye, and ocean wave) which you can vary the speed on.  It also has five built-in nature soundtracks (running water, crickets, ocean waves, etc...).  You can also hook your iPod directly into it to play your favorite tunes for baby!

 

Finn isn't the keenest on her traditional swing.  I try it almost daily.  I can get about 5-10 minutes of her before she starts fussing, 15-20 if I run the vacuum in the same room as her.  So yesterday, I brought down the Mamaroo, figuring I might as well try everything (which I do on a daily basis -- we also tried her Bumbo seat -- not the biggest fan yet).  

Amazingly, it worked!  I put her on the car-ride setting, which is a up-and-down figure eight.  And I put on the ocean waves.  The girl was set!  She was quietly alert and looking around.  I could leave her line of vision without her having a panic attack, which is what usually happens.  

  In the matter of about 15 minutes, we went from this...

To this...

My friend, SaraBeth, stopped over so I could get some sewing done.  I am trying to sew up new outside cushions for our patio furniture.  Progress was made as I was able to get all the pillows sewn.  Now to tackle the seat cushions...  But SaraBeth started to read to her and the results were pretty amazing...

Seriously, does the cow really say that?

Aren't those pigs funny lookin' things...

 The girl was totally digging the book about farms.  Of course, she was!  She's got some Iowa blood running through her!  But it was amazing to see her follow the pictures and acknowledge SaraBeth's words as she read through the book.  The girl is getting way to big for her Mama to grasp...

I also took some time yetserday to bring the pets into the action.  I used to take hundreds of photos of my furry kids.  I think they started becoming depressed with the black box NOT being aimed their way...

Bishop was never one to actually like the camera.  She got one too many flashes in her face and turns her head every time the little black box is aimed at her.

Lucy is a new addition.  She is only six months old, but is a big lover of Finn all ready.  She will come up and lay next to her on my lap and purr and purr...

Munk has sadly acknowledged that this little human isn't going away.  And even though she is taking a lot of my time and attention away from him, he still begrudgingly gives Finn kisses if we ask him nicely.

Norm is the other new addition.  He is Lucy's brother, making him six months as well.  But he is a MONSTER.  He is bigger than Stella, my other cat (who is 9 and refused to have her photo taken yesterday).  But he is as gentle with Finn as Lucy.  In fact, he is a favorite pillow of Finn's.  Okay, okay, he is a favorite pillow of mine to put Finn's head on.