Finley will be "1" on March 3!

It's hard to believe our little girl is growing up. Here's some photos starting back in July so you can see how much she's changed from then until now.

Our trip to Florida ... finally!

The kids' first time at the beach in Daytona Beach.

Day one ... Sea World. We fed the dolphins and stingrays, saw all sorts of amazing amazing including a hippo and we watched the dolphin show and the Believe show with Shamu(my personal favorite). Brandon and Ally sat in the "soak zone" for Believe. Of course they were the only section that didn't get soaked ... bummer.

We had breakfast with Mickey and friends at the Contemporary Resort. Finley's favorite was Minnie, obviously.

Magic Kingdom really is an amazing place. I just love everything about it there and I think the kids would agree.

Animal Kingdom was great too. I think this might have been Casey and Ally's favorite. Ally got drenched on one of the rides but that didn't stop her from going on it again.

And on our last night we had dinner on top of the Contemporary Resort at the California Grill. If you time it just right you can watch the fireworks at Magic Kingdom either from the walkway off the roof of the restaurant or just sitting at your table. Our table was situated just right so we could watch them from right there. The retaurant dims the lights and pipes in the actual music playing at Magic Kingdom during the fireworks so it seems like your actually at the park watching them. It was a great way to end the trip.

and now we're exhausted!

enough said!

Finley thinks she's so grown up!

She's sitting like a big girl in her chair, wearing her backpack like she's going to school, wearing sunglasses like a studdette and joining in everyday conversation. She really is growing fast.

we're playing dress up

Finley's great grandma bought her this dress. It's still too big but we tried it on anyways just for fun! Thanks Oma!

Happy Birthday Ally!

Ally turned the big "8" on December 27 so to celebrate, we spent the day doing what she wanted. I took her and three of her friends out to lunch and then swimming at a hotel. From there we surprised and took her to Build-A-Bear because she's been wanting to do that for awhile now. After that we went to dinner at Osaka Japanese Steakhouse. The kids had a great time there and loved the food. It was a great day! Happy B-day Ally!

Finley's First Christmas!

Finley had a long, exhausting day of opening christmas gifts ... actually we all did. Casey and Ally were up at 4 a.m. That's right. We made a deal with the kids that when they woke up they could turn the hall light on so we would know they were awake but they were not to come upstairs. It worked pretty well. Finley woke up shortly after 4 a.m. too and she did not want to go back to sleep. The anticipation was killing her too I guess. So finally at 4:45 we just decided to go for it. After we had our christmas we went to my parents and then to Brandon's moms for the evening. It was a full day of opening gifts and few naps. Finley was exhausted by the end of the day at my moms and Oliver was there to make sure no one bothered her. It was a great Christmas!

A year will be here before we know it!

Finley is 9 months old today. I can't believe it. She had her 9 month appt. today and Dr. Lass said she is doing fabulous! She weighed 19lbs. 15 oz. and was 27.5 inches long. She was in the 75th percentile across the board. She is pulling herself up on everything. I had a pot on the kitchen floor the other day for her to play with and it was upside down and she managed to pull herself up to standing with that. We're not pushing her to walk anytime soon, or let's be real, at all but it's bound to happen sometime. Brandon is just convinced that the longer she crawls the more coordinated she'll be. I was, by far, no athlete so unless she gets some athletic ability from her dad then coordination really won't be that much of an issue anyway. Not to mention it's hard enough to keep up with her when she's crawling. I can't imagine when she's walking.

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

I got Santa hats for the kids to wear this year at Christmas and they loved them. Duh! They decided to cheese it up for the camera.

I'm a mess!