finley rose is 8 months old...

i can hardly bear to type the words...

knowing that she is my last baby has made me hold her more and refuse to admit that the one year mark is approaching all too quickly.

even though she has just started sitting up solidly on her own she is proving daily that she

is ready to show that she can do some things on her own. thankfully, she is just as satisfied with being on my lap or in my arms.

she is a quiet baby. sometimes she makes a noise and seems startled by the sound of her own voice. she rarely cries and her cry is laughable in its inability to convince. at 8 months old i still have to use a monitor to hear her even if i am one room over. she does the funniest little yell when she gets really upset. i hope i can get it on video sometime because it makes me laugh every time.

oliver jack told me today that he loves baby rose more than he loves me. calvary dotes on her and harper adores her. i am head over heels madly in love with her and kyle willingly and eagerly takes over holding her once he gets home....

she seems to be following harper's footsteps in that she is tiny. she is still wearing mostly 3-6 month clothes with no signs of needing to move up. and she seems to be following jack's footsteps in that she loves to snuggle. and she seems to follow in calvary's footsteps in that she is beautiful...

the world through calvary's eyes...

the other day calvary asked to use my camera to take some pictures...

i love that kid.

the opening of presents...

oliver jack is 2!!!

back in december my little oliver jack turned 2. and 2 he is.

every day the wonders and frustrations of 2 remind of us all of the truth that oliver jack is indeed 2.

although i have had 2 other children pass through this stage, oliver jack's beautiful spirit of wonder makes it all seem new...again.

he is beyond mischievous. truly, he cannot be left alone. the marring of his birthday cake while i was blow drying my hair is evidence of so much. i came out and his hands and face were black from cake icing. when i asked him what he had done he simply responded, "i eat treasure." and sure enough, he had taken a chair and slid it across the floor and climbed up to the counter to eat the treasure chest off of his birthday cake.

silly me for thinking i could lay out all of the goodies for his party before hand.

our family all came to help celebrate the life of this little boy and we had a great time. jack was so excited to open each and every present and he would literally jump up and down with excitement as he anticipated what each package contained. he happily obliged harper and calvary to "help" him open because he was so excited he couldn't even open the presents himself. after each gift was opened, he would come over and ask me to "open this now".

and as difficult as those moments of aggravation are, the overwhelming joy that his sweet spirit holds is enough to remind me that these moments of two are short lived. so although he cries for his paci, demands snacks 50000000 times a day, sneaks off and pours juice on the baby, colors on anything if a stray marker is found, and wakes me up with the sun each and every day i want to remember the way he grins at me when he is being sneaky, the way he shakes his hands and shouts "i 'cited!" when he gets excited, the way he holds my hand when he climbs in the bed in the morning, and the way he kisses his sweet sister's cheek all throughout the day. he is truly every bit of 2 but the sad truth about 2 is that this year will be quickly gone...