Finn

Now that I have written such a long post about Lily I feel I should write something about Finn too. Neil is slowly but surely getting annoyed with me running back to the computer every spare (and not so spare) minute. Today is posting day!

Finn, what can we say about him? Finn is our superstar. He is a genius and mama and papa are his biggest fans! He makes us laugh a hundred times a day. He is beyond cute, a little Daddy-look-alike. He is affectionate and most of the time compassionate also. He loves Lily, even if he sometimes hurts her. Finn loves to laugh. He loves playing with Charly, the neighbour's black cat. If you don't mind our messy house, watch this:

Finn is bilingual, with English being his preferred language. It's what we speak at home, so this is only normal. His German is still trailing a bit, but I am sure he will catch up very fast once he goes to kindergarten. His language skills are advanced for his age (that's what his pediatrician says, anyway, but we think so too, of course :-). Finn will tell you that God made monkeys, owls and - cow poop. And that he wants to eat noodles and sea lion for supper. Or he comes running and shouts that the cow's udder broke off! (And he's right, sadly enough one of his plastic cows will need reconstructive teat-surgery now.) Being able to communicate with him now is so much fun. He can count to ten in English and sing German and English songs. One of our favourites is when he magically transforms into the Amazing Spider-Finn. He turns off the light and sings the Spiderman song, running around in his glow-in-the-dark spiderweb pajamas. His uncle Karl loved that one, too!

Finn loves books and puzzles, but most of all he loves tractors. His blue tractor being lost is a major catastrophy at our house. I have a replacement stored away just in case. Lately we have let him watch "The Little Red Tractor" DVDs on the laptop (we are a TV-free household), a British children's show about - you guessed it - the adventures of a little red tractor. It is really cute, and he loves it. One episode is 10 minutes long, exactly one inhalation-session for Finn. We have stopped for now, but he usually inhales 3 times a day. His lungs are sometimes good, but as soon as he gets a cold they sound bad again, so he will have a bronchoscopy done soon. Our doctor will let us know in January which children's hospital will have an opening for the procedure the soonest. Munich, Regensburg or Landshut are our options.

Other than that Finn is a healthy little boy. He is on the small side, but neither Neil nor I are giants, so this seems quite normal. He still only weighs about 24-25 lbs (about 11 kg) and is 35 in tall (87.5 cm). By the way, Lily weighs 19 lbs (8.5kg). When Finn is hungry he is a good and tidy eater, when he is not you swear he is the messiest kid you've ever seen. He is a good sleeper, at night and for his afternoon nap.

It has been an amazing year with our little boy. We love him more each day and are looking forward to a new year full of adventures and discoveries with him!

Lily

This will be a post about Lily, our precious little Blümchen. She is 7, almost 8, months old already! So what is she doing these days?

Well, the big news is, Lily has figured out how to get around. She is "army crawling", pulling herself forward with her arms. This works great on our tiled living room floor, and we are glad to have in-floor heating now that it is winter. On carpet she will also get on her hands and knees and rock back and forth, so it probably won't be long before she will crawl on all fours.

Another biggie in our house is that she is sleeping through the night! Can you believe it? We still kind of can't. Our nights with her were REALLY rough and we had decided to "sleep train" her after New Year's, since we were all tired, Lily included. But for a few nights now she has slept 10+ hours without us having to go in to her (or one of us actually sleeping beside her, as we did). Maybe it is because she is crawling now and just pooped at the end of the day. Maybe she just sleeps better in her crib. She was still sleeping in her nice big bassinet until a few nights ago. It has wheels so we could rock her back to sleep when she woke. Which she did every hour sometimes. With her becoming so mobile it was not safe anymore, so we switched her to the crib. Whatever the reason for this miraculous change, we sure hope it will last!

Lily sleeping through the night also means that our breastfeeding relationship has come to an end, as I had only been nursing her at night for a few weeks. She gets all formula now and does great on it. Well, she also eats some "real" food, but more about that later. Lily had never been an enthusiastic nurser and while I wanted to give her the best possible start in life we often struggled with breastfeeding. So I am happy we lasted that long. Lily still has zero teeth and she does not like baby food. If we try to feed her pureed baby food she will taste it and then not open her mouth anymore. If you are tricky you might get a couple spoonfuls into her, but that's it. She prefers chunky! (Maybe because she is a cute little chunk herself? :-) She loves to feed herself Cheerios, and will eat cut-up banana, avocado, soft-cooked carrot and potato pieces.

What else can we tell you about Lily? She is a very happy baby and a joy to have around. She babbles and laughs and loves to be hugged and played with. She will giggle when you tickle her and laugh out loud when you dance with her or let her be an "airplane". She is beautiful. People say Lily inherited her looks from the Swedish side of Neil's family, with her cute button nose and big blue eyes. Neil says she reminds him of his grandma Violet. Seeing her grow from a helpless newborn into a little person is a miracle all over again. She is so different from Finn! Everything seems to be the opposite, beginning with her birth! She seems to be more temperamental than Finn. Lily can be LOUD, and she is tough. We sometimes have to scold Finn for being too rough with her, and Lily is the only one laughing! Finn didn't crawl until he was almost 10 months old, but he started getting teeth at 4 months. Finn slept well at night and was a challenge during the day (at least for the first few months); with Lily it was the other way around. Lily loves going to sleep with a soother in her mouth, Finn wasn't interested in one. Lily likes bottle better than breast, Finn nursed until he was 14 months old and HATED bottles. It will be fun to discover more of their differences as they grow older. We have truly been blessed with two little miracles!

Wow, what a long post. If you have read all of it - congratulations. Reward yourself with a little video of Lily practising her newest skill:

Karl and Kristin

Dear Uncle Karl and Auntie Christmas,

yesterday I woke up and you were gone! Mama said that Papa was taking you to the airport to go back home. That made me sad. Please come see me again soon! I love to read books with you. Lily misses you too. She thinks Papa should grow a beard.

I love you.
Finn

Christmas pictures part 2

The best gifts under our Christmas tree this year! :-)

More Christmas pictures part 1

Hope you all had Happy Holidays!

First, a few pictures:

Christmas Dinner: Raclette

Finn cooking up a storm with his new playkitchen

A Little People airport - yay!!

Happy little chef making toast

We had a really, really nice Christmas here in Germany! It was very special because of two very special people celebrating with us: Finn's and Lily's uncle Karl and auntie "Christmas", aka Kristin. They came all the way from Canada and were in Germany for about 2 weeks. We had lots of fun together! They brought a ton of children's books, and Finn LOVES them. So we spent the holidays playing, eating, reading books and enjoying each other's company. A few days before Christmas Karl, Kristin, Neil and Finn went to get a tree. Neil chopped down the big one and Finn a little one. On Christmas Eve Neil, Claudia, Finn and Lily went to church while K&K prepared the house for the big gift-opening, putting the presents under the tree and setting up Finn's and Lily's new play kitchen. (We follow the German tradition of opening gifts on Christmas Eve.) Finn and Lily got spoiled with lots of new toys, clothes and other gifts. Lily got two new adorable dresses - one from auntie Kristin and one from her auntie Ulli - that her mommy is absolutely in love with. :-) I just love dressing up my little princess.

Here is a video of Lily opening one of her gifts, and as you will see, the wrapping paper was a huge hit with her.

After opening all our gifts we had a "Raclette" dinner ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raclette ) we all enjoyed very much. Well, all the adults that is. Lily stuck to her Cheerios and Finn was too busy playing with his new kitchen to eat. Before the kids went to bed Neil and Claudia put on a puppet show telling the Christmas story. Because, after all, this is the gift that matters more than any other. The King of Kings, being born as a baby, the gift of the Father to all who will receive Him. Jesus, the Annointed One, the Christ, the Only Way back to where our souls long to be: in His Presence, surrounded by His love - HOME.

The living room at 8 am.

The same room at 8pm.

Look, Lily, over there!

Our blue-eyed little pumpkin!

Finn is napping upstairs and Lily is playing on the floor beside me - time for a quick update.



We are all doing well, Finns lungs are clear, but he is still inhaling with cortison once a day. Lily got over her cold only to catch a virus that has been going around. She vomited like crazy, but luckily was spared the diarrhea. (Sorry if anyone is eating while reading this :-) Anyway, it was NOT fun. She could not keep anything down and I had to take her to the doctor. I was told to syringe feed her tiny amounts to get her fluids up. That worked, so we didn't have to got to the hospital for an IV. Now she is all better and none of us got it, thank goodness.



Neil is on a business trip in Budapest today and tomorrow. We won't see him until Wednesday night, Finn misses his Papa already. Later today I will take Finn and Lily to playgroup, where we will have a little Christmas party. I've heard rumors that Santa Claus will come for a visit!

Good luck with your move!

We will be thinking of you this weekend, K & K! Hope all will go well with moving! We are sooo looking forward to seeing you NEXT WEEK, woo hoo!!!

Love,
Claudia, Neil, Finn and Lily.