Thanksgiving and Other Stuff....

We are staying busy in the Flynn household! Thanksgiving went by with a blur, with many friends filling our home for the weekend. Its hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner.
We are rushing around doing our last minute shopping, getting ready to depart to MN on the 19th! This should be an interesting flight, as Riley is not a fan of sitting still.
We took Riley to see Santa at the mall this evening, he bawled and bawled but we got a pretty fun picture out of the deal!


He knows this is the closet with the hats......

He is obsessed with us wearing hats! Preferably multiple hats and the Ski Goggles.

Lovely Kate joined the Portland crew for the week!

I think he got my sweet tooth......

Thanks to Uncle Sweany, he'll always be motivated...

Halloween

Riley was a dragon for Halloween this year. He didn't know what to think about all the little kiddies showing up at the door! Once we took Riley outside, we were able to keep his dragon hood up without him pulling it down. He did like running up and down the sidewalk after dark. Brendan craved up the pumpkin, and Riley thought it would be a really good place to hide his trucks!

Riley Turns ONE!!!

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I cannot believe that a whole year has already passed! It went much faster then I could have ever imagined. Riley is now officially a toddler. We had a great time back in MN for Riley's birthday celebration and Steve & Marnie's wedding in Duluth. I must admit that a night away hanging out with other adults was also a treat! We were also fortunate to spend a full 2 weeks with the Sweany's who have been living the past year in Australia. They left on their adventure the day after Riley was born so we had a lot of catching up to do!

Riley is doing Awesome! He is now 22 pounds and 31 inches tall. He is walking everywhere and loves to play with his basketball and football. Every once in awhile he can even throw it forward. Brendan is trying to teach him to catch, but its more likely to just bounces off his belly! He has adjusted well to his new nanny, and as far as we can tell still loves spending his days with Wilson. They are sure to be best of friends.

As you can see Riley had a blast at his birthday party. Grandma K made him a tasty chocolate bear cake that he enjoyed destroying and stuffing in his face! The man was on a sugar high for a couple hours!

Enjoy!

Riley On the Move........

Here's a little peak at Riley walking! Sorry about the camera quality. A new camera is being purchased this weekend, so we should have better video in the days to come.

Flynn's First Family Vacation!!!!!

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We spent an amazing 5 days in the San Juan Islands for our first real family vacation. We renteda cute little cabin, "the petite amour" on San Juan Island for 3 days. The cabin was cozy and surrounded by three tiers of deck. The middle one hosted a hot tub and sauna the bottom deck had a salt water pool, complete with a big yellow slide. From there you could walk down to the dock/overhang to get a better view of the adorable harbor seal that I befriended. It was pure relaxation (well once Riley went to bed!). Friday we spent most the day exploring the Island. The highlight was our stop at Lime Kiln Park (aka whale watch park). We walked down to the lighthouse and watched Orcas swimming back and forth for two hours! It was so much better then seeing Shamu at Disney. There were numerous shouts of excitement. Saturday we just vegged out at the cabin taking turns walking around with Riley. Sunday before we took off a Bald Eagle dive bombed us, amazing. The forth night we took the ferry over to Orcas Island and camped at Moran State Park. We had a great walk in sight close to the lake. A deer even came by for a visit! It was very hard for us to leave such a beautiful place.

Riley is changing daily now. During the trip he perfected his dead leg crawl, waved to a lot of strangers, and enjoyed his nightly ritual of crib Olympics. I think he will earn a gold medal for best imitation of a Monkey (jumping on the bed that is).

He is now officially walking!!!! I promise to have video this week, and gates (I hope).

Hope this finds everyone well and relaxed.......

First Camping Trip

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Our first camping trip went off without a hitch! Shana and I stayed with the little ones Friday night while our husbands went to Rockaway Beach for a bachelor party. The boys were so good, and really loved being outside playing in the dirt and walking (with assistance) everywhere my back would allow. Saturday we spent the afternoon by the River. Riley was in heaven watching all the other kids jumping in and running around. He went marching right in the water, splashing and loving every minute of it. His favorite activity besides splashing was trying to eat the rocks. I think only a couple little ones slipped by! Saturday our husbands joined us once again, just in time for the mamas to take a well deserved break!

Riley took his first couple steps on Sunday once we returned home. We were sitting in the basement and he was walking back and forth between me and Brendan! He gets so excited and pleased with himself, as he should!

10 Months

Greetings all, whew! We've been really busy since out last post. Where to begin, well my parents and youngest sister, Brittagh, visited in early June. We spent a weekend on the coast in Manzanita, which was a lot of fun. Riley really enjoyed his time with his Grandparents, Mike and Casey (or T-Bone) and Aunts (all three of them). He went to the Oregon Zoo and he loved looking at all the fish tanks and interesting animals. Riley also enjoyed his time at Fernhill Park getting pushed on the swings by Britt and Kenna. He was also able to hang out with his great grandma's cousin, Bobby and Diana, when they came over for a wonderful dinner for Bobby's birthday. Megan's good friend Susie and her husband, Brian, came to visit from Singapore on their summer break before heading to Tokyo on their next teaching adventure. At 10 months, Riley now has about 6 teeth (1 is just coming in) and enjoys all the food he tries. His main focus is on walking, it is pretty much all he cares to do. So we now spend most of our time hunched over walking with him, our backs are hurting. Hopefully his Aunt/Nanny, Kenna, does not file a workers comp injury for a bad back. Riley's newest face is sticking his tongue out, especially before eating. He is going camping for the first time next weekend and we're very excited for our trip to the San Juan Islands later in July. That is about it, here are some photos over the past month:

9 Months

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He had his 9 month check up and is doing great. He now weighs 18 pounds 10 ounces (25%) and is 29 inches long (80%). The doctor said we can start giving him samples of our food to get him used to our cooking and tastes. Hopefully he doesn't mind a little spice.
We had a wonderful week with my parents in town. We spent last weekend in Manzanita strolling the beach, hiking the Cape Falcon trail and just relaxing.
My parents also stayed busy doing tasks when Riley was sleeping. Our newly stained windows look beautiful. Our garden has been weeded, planted and is ready to enjoy. Such a tremendous help, we cannot thank them enough!

Riley now has 4 teeth, two top/two bottom. He is starting to think about crawling. I guess that means we should start baby proofing. I love seeing him move onto new stages, but there is just something about sitting him on the floor and knowing that he won't move that is so much easier. The things Riley loves to do now include clapping, playing peek-a-boo, jumping in his jumper-roo, pull himself up and babbling away, oh and of course putting everything in his mouth. He is at a very fun age.

Two month Recap

My how time flies! Riley is now 8 1/2 months, I can't believe two months have past since our last post. Riley is doing wonderfully and getting bigger every day. Here's a little recap of our past two months. I promise (christy) I will get better about updating this site more often.

March:

we rented a cabin in the woods for St.Patricks Day weekend. The cabin was fantastic, and it was great to be back in the woods for awhile!

Coley was able to join us for his annual Spring Break trip. It was great having him here and being able to spend quality time with Riley.

April: We went home to finally meet Riley's Cousin Emma and Claire. The girls are just adorable. Emma looks more like Jeff and Claire looks just like Michelle. Besides some stomach/digestive issues the girls are doing perfect! Jeff and Michelle really have a great system going. My goodness they are one busy family! I can't even imagine Riley times two.

Riley now has his two bottom teeth and his top two teeth are just starting to peak through. He isn't crawling yet, but loves to try and pull himself up. For not being mobile he moves around a lot. The kid cannot sit still. He babbles, but no clear words at this point. He loves to clap for just about any reason and his new favorite game is peak-a-boo. He has mastered putting his blanket over his head and then pulling it down and giggling. Its too cute. except he never wants to stop playing it!

we are honored to be Claires' Spiritual Advisors!

My parents are coming to town on Thursday. We are heading to the coast to spend the weekend at the beach! It looks like it might even hit 90 degrees on Portland on Friday, so hopefully it will be nice on the coast as well. It will be great to get away and relax with the fam for awhile.

6 Months & Growing....

Riley is now 6 1/2 months, which is hard to imagine. We took him to his 6 month appointment, he weighed in at 16.5 pounds (45%) 28 1/4 inches tall (95%) he's head is in the 75% percentile, its his good Irish genes. He is continuing to eat more "solid" food. Its hard to figure out which one is his favorite, but we get less grunts with Apples over any other food. Peas we don't think he's a big fan of, and really we can't blame him. He loves to pull himself up, and gets so excited when he's up on his feet. It seems the days of him cuddling in our arms are over, as he wants to be up checking things out and has a very hard time sitting still. No teeth, but we suspect that the bottom ones will be arriving any day.
We spent a fabulous weekend at the Bonneville Hot Springs Resort. Riley went to his first wine tasting. Like his parents he wasn't a big fan of the whites, but calmed down by the time the reds came around! We took him swimming in the mineral pool. We were worried he was going to poop in the pool, but luckily we avoided that disaster. He seemed to have a great time, kicking his legs and splashing a bit.
We are looking forward to Uncle Coley's visit next week, and then our trip back to MN to FINALLY meet the twins. Here are some picture from Brendans day of dress up Riley. Thanks to Uncle Coley for the pimpin' clothes!

Real FOOD!!!

Riley got to try real food for the first time! One afternoon he attacked my apple, and loved it. He made some really great faces as he explored the new taste and texture. Since he liked the apple so much this weekend we gave him some pears. He is doing great with the spoon, except for the times that I'm not going fast enough and he tries to shove it down his throat. Spoon feeding has moved us to a whole new phase of messy eating!

Things are going well in our house. I'm adjusting to life back at work, and Mckenna is doing a fabulous job watching both boys.

I loved the time I had off to spend with Riley and to get McKenna settled into Portland while Megan got back into the working life. We spent the mornings driving Megan to work, getting home to play, eat, and take a nap before heading over to the Daby's to meet up with Wilson and Kenna for the afternoon. One day, Kenna and I took the boys to the "Mommy Matinee" at the Kennedy School, Riley hardly slept and just enjoyed looking around at everyone and the movie. We also went to lunch a couple times, Riley now prefers to sit on my lap at the table and bang on the table while we eat. He is very curious when we eat and wants to join in the fun. We also went on a nice run together over to the Daby's one afternoon, Riley decided to sleep the entire run while I huffed and puffed as I'm horribly out of shape. In all, it was a great week, but it flew by and I would have loved to spend many more weeks at home with him. He's a joy.

Riley's First Xmas

WOW, what a busy month. I know that the holiday's always seem so fast, but this year was especially quick! Once again we found ourselves back in Minnesota this time to celebrate Christmas, Riley's Baptism, My 30th birthday and New Years. It was nice to be back for such a long time, but it was also very tiring. Unfortunately I had a horrible sore throat pretty much the entire trip which really sucked. Luckily Grandma & Grandpa were anxious to tend to Riley in the early mornings so Brendan and I could take advantage of some much needed shut eye (thanks Mom & Dad!). Riley was able to spend extra time with his aunts and uncles and get know them better, he seemed to grow up a little more on this trip. He also made his first trip to Iowa (his 3rd State) to see even more family members and experience the bitter wind chill, which he hated (he told me). In all, Riley had a great first Christmas in that he received wonderful gifts, and had lots of laughs.

On Sunday the 23rd we had Riley Baptised at my parents home. It was a very moving evening attended by just our immediate families. The priest, Father Tim Power, did an amazing job honoring Riley's new life and our beliefs. He had baptised all the Flynn children at the Flynns homes in St.Paul, so it was great to continue the tradition. Jeff and Daynia are his spiritual advisors. Brendan and I are confident that he will be in good hands.

The 3oth was my 30th birthday. We meet up with a bunch of friends and my parents and brother in Minneapolis for dinner and drinks and then went to the VFW for a night of Karaoke. I had an absolute blast, it was great being out on the town with friends once again!

We spent ringing in the New Year at Peter Sauers wedding to Amanda Copper at the Wabasha Street Caves. The ceremony was beautiful, and the vows moved us all to tears. Riley spent the New Year with my parents. They said he woke up just minutes before the ball dropped. He never wants to miss a party!

The best Christmas present I received was an extra week of maternity leave. I was supposed to return to work on the 2nd, the day after coming home from MN. Fortunately, I am returning to a new position and HR wanted me to start at the beginning of a new pay period. Which granted me an extra couple days off, what a treat!

Mckenna arrived on the 3rd to start her adventure in Portland and to nanny for Wilson and Riley. Brendan is taking off from work until the 14th to help Mckenna get settled and to spend some guy time with Riley. We are so grateful to have her here watching Riley.

Monday begins a whole new routine for the Flynn family as I return to work full time. I have loved every minute of my 19weeks of Riley, but am looking forward to getting back into work.

The things I will miss the most about being home:

- Hanging out with Riley in the morning (his best time of day)

-Drinking coffee in my PJ's at 11am

- Seeing Riley figure things out for the first time (ie rolling over)

-Having a free schedule to move at our own pace and do whatever we want

Things I'm excited for:

- Eating out, alone!

- Contributing to the savings account.

- Regular adult conversation, but if you need someone to sing itsy bitsy spider I'm your girl. I can even do the hand motions!

Riley had is 4 month appointment on the 3rd. He received his second set of shots, which of course he hated. He screamed bloody murder, it didn't help that he was also starving. He weighed in at 14.5 pounds, 26 1/2 inches. Still in the 75% for both.

Here are pictures from December. Hope everyone is well.

Cheers!