For many, the new year is a time to reflect while looking forward, making promises to themselves in hopes they become the best version of the they that they can be. For me, I just like to sit back and think about all of the presents I’ve just received and how many of them I won’t even remember until I stumble upon them in some exhaustion fueled temper rampage as I throw myself to the floor and catch that tiny glimmer of a new toy unceremoniously yet necessarily crammed underneath my bed for lack of closet space (thanks mom’s wardrobe!). I have to say, I am a loved and remarkably fortunate young man. Thank you to my whole family, all my cousins, my aunts and uncles, my great grandma and great grandpa that I got to spend time with in Spokane. My Gaga and Papa, Me’mere and Pe’pere, and Cohen and Rocco, my new favorite canine comedy duo. You are collectively the best. Also the “I love cats” video has been burned into my brain and I thank you for never ever bringing that up again dad.

As always, all pics are available to grab or print from my gallery HERE. If you don’t know the password, you may ask one of the super secret password keepers. If you don’t know one of the super secret password keepers, you may gain access by paying me in milk. I love that stuff.

Love always and happy 2012,

Finn

‘Ello there.  In all my years (2) I’ve not witnessed such a beautiful Fall.  I’d like to say (write) that if I had to choose a favorite season, it would be Fall (Summer) and this is not because it’s here and I’m getting to experience it (I am down to one nap a day), or that I got to go to the pumpkin patch and take a hay ride (tractor driven by a 14 year old), but that I really do enjoy the crisp (cold) air and vibrant colors (natural arboreal decay) that come along with this time of year.  Anyway, we had a fun weekend out and about, and I just wanted to share.  As always, my pictures are on my gallery here and can be downloaded for all the friends and family that may want any of them (print them life sized and put them in nice frames or smaller and on the fridge, whatever).  Thank you to all who made it to my birthday party (presenttimespectacular), it was a lot of fun (even though I spent most of it tired, laying on the floor and playing with my little wind up car).  Happy Fall, and here’s to the sun shining (basically just not raining) and a nice homestretch to the holiday season (foodfeastpresenttimespectacular).

Love,

Finn

Two years ago today, I arrived via aquatic emergence into my living room.  I had a short umbilical chord and a mushed nose, but I quickly became a no-sleep machine capable of remarkable bouts of awake-ness and an unabated curiosity with how loud I could make my voice.  Thank you to everyone in my life.  You have all been wonderful, supportive and tons of fun.  Thank you mom for the whole making me thing, you’re the best.  Thank you all for the well wishes, and please excuse me as I will be spending today doing what I do best, reading, playing, running, happy dancing and not sleeping.

Love,

Finn

Hey everyone!  Yeah, I didn’t forget about you, I’ve just been busy.  I can speak in almost complete sentences as well as eat all kinds of real food now.  I can also run, well, by run I mean make my parents laugh while I bounce up and down with my t-rexed arms going all Peewee Herman all over the place.  It’s okay, I can laugh at myself.  You know who else I can laugh at?  My dad when he dances.  Thanks to you dad, I now know with out any uncertainty what a dork is.

So, I got to spend last weekend with my Gaga, Aunt Michelle, Uncle Ryan, Auntie Cindy, Aunt Sarah, Story, G-ma Pam and brand new cousin Mattea!!!  Oh yeah, mom and dad were there too, but they’re always around and up in my business.  I jest.  They feed me, so I gotta stay cool.  Back to my new cousin.  I think something might be wrong with her.  She sleeps and eats and acts all calmly, then she sleeps again.  I think I need to teach her how it’s really done.  Everyone knows, anything worth experiencing happens at either 2am or 5:45am every night/extremely early morning, everyone.  Sheesh, well I’m sure she’ll figure it out.  Other than that, she’s really cool.  She shared all her toys with me and even let me borrow a vacuum cleaner!  I didn’t want to say anything lest she re-neg her offer, but it is also a lawn mower!  A LAWN MOWER PEOPLE!!!  I don’t know what got into her, but I like the idea of having a sharing attitude provide someone else with such euphoric bliss.  So, I got to go to the Everett Children’s Museum.  Woah.  I don’t know what heaven looks like, but I think I’ve got a pretty good idea now.  Trains, planes, fire engines, jeeps, drums, slides, giant pianos you play with your feet, tree houses, …you get the idea.  I also got to go to the Farmer’s Market with Gaga and Mad™ (that’s what I’m gonna start calling Mom+Dad because it’s shorter and easier, and far less offensive than Dam).  Well, the weekend got even cooler when I got to catch up with my friend Story back at the crib (I literally mean Mattea’s crib at the house).  We hadn’t seen each other since last summer and this time around we decided to turn the party up to 11 by taking our pants off and running around and getting amped on orange juice.  After the OJ had served its purpose, we turned that no pants party into a good ole’fashioned backyard pee pee party, and it was joyous.  Okay, I should get back to nappin’.  Thanks to Uncle Marble Rye and Aunt (don’t call me Meeeshele Noris) Michelle.  You guys have done a beautiful job at propagating me a future play mate.  Just gotta teach this girl to sleep less…

All these (and many other) pictures are in my gallery for anyone to grab, print, share, stare at here: Finn, Family and Friends

Love you all,

Finn

Hey everybody!  Guess what?!  Summer is here, and the livin’ is easy.  I think my family is setting me up for some major let downs later in life, because life has been a steady stream of awesome lately.  I get to go to the zoo and OMSI with my friends, I get to go see airplanes up close and I ride Thomas the train when I’m tired of doing all that other cool stuff.  Ahhhhh, yeah, life is good.  I got a cool new car seat which is radical and also looks like a cow.  I get to sit facing the same direction that the car moves now, which, duh, is way cooler not having to constantly translate things by reversing them in my mirror like I used to have to do.  I went to visit my Gaga and Papa in Spokane and we went to an airshow with AIRPLANES!!!  My brand new friend Rio was born on the day of his baby shower (his nickname in our little baby clique is “thunderstealer” already, so we have high hopes for him because anyone that can steal and harness the raw power of Auntie E’s thunder is going to be one powerful dude.)  I’ve been hanging out with my friends Otis and Lily (we run the toddler room at OMSI), we took a day off for fathers day, whatever that was, and then to top off a super cool month, we rode Thomas the Train.  THOMAS THE TRAIN!!!!  After that, mom and dad totally got out of my hair and I got to stay with Me’mere and Pe’pere for a whole night.  When I woke up, they were still there!  They got a new kitten named Deja which is cool because she follows me around and jumps off of stuff to try and tackle me, but I’m bigger, and wiser and she’s no match for my firm grip upon gravity.  Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of cool stuff going for me, so how do I repay my loving parents and grandparents?  I go straight terrible twos all over the place! Yeah, take that.  (Seriously though, there are only so many teeth I can grow whilst remaining calm and collected, it is flat out maddening and I have decided that it is just time to crack, so deal.)

Anyway, if this is Summer, I like it and will stay here, thank you very much.  Now let’s get to cleaning out my kiddy pool please.

Finnsanity, out.

So, here we are.  Another late spring with no sign of winter abating in the wet, wild northwest.  Of course, this is only my second spring ever, and both have been just like this, so I really don’t know anything else, but my parents say it should be nice by now, or at least not raining record amounts.  So, over the last couple months I’ve been doing all kinds of things, like learning the alphabet, remembering songs and counting in a round about way from 1 to 10, or maybe 7, perhaps 9 and 6.  You get the idea.  I’ve also really enjoyed this whole walking under my own power thing which, as I’ve come to realize, means I can run, jump, climb, fall, stretch, kick, slide, slip, fall again, dance and spin.  Pretty cool.  My palate has become more advanced as I’ve tried anything from sushi to sprouts, kiwi to cookies and eggs to avocados.  I pretty much will try putting anything in my mouth.  Whether or not I actually swallow it is another story, but I doubt anyone would consider me picky when it comes to food, which my parents love.  Here’s to hoping for some sunshine and warmer weather sooner than later as we sure could use it!

Love,

Finn

You know that I can reach that right?

So for the very first time ever, my mom went awol.  My dad and I took her to airplane land and honestly I have no idea what happened after that.  We left her in a jumbled mess of people that were seemingly walking in circles, we saw mom, then she walked away from us, then she walked toward us, then she said HI! and then she walked away from us only to walk back toward us a minute later!  Grownups are weird.  You know what isn’t weird?  Doing whatever I want.  It’s pretty cool, and between you and I, I don’t think my dad really knows what’s going on.  I was curious to see how many times I could get him to read the same exact book in a row, seven for those counting at home, and he never caught on!  What a sucker.

BUS! BIKE! PLANE! MOM?

So with mom out of the house, I have decided that all I want to eat is cheese and bagels.  That, has not been going quite as smoothly as my apparent reading trance over dad.  He keeps making me horrible concoctions of carrots and spinach, blechhh.  It’s cool though, we always get around to the good stuff at some point.  I got to go and visit my friend Charlie while my dad, her dad and uncle Bink tried to watch as the Portland Timbers got smoked for the second game in as many weekends.

Charlie not only has Viking lineage, but she's also like 1/32 Cherokee (or something)! I call her Warrior Princess.

Now, I’m not a soccer expert, but they don’t look great.  While they have their moments, and I believe that those moments will grow into the standard of play, their off the ball movement is uninspired, their finishing far from clinical and their defensive lapses seem to come up as often as an elderly person at the 5 am early bird buffet at Golden Corral.  The midfield seems entirely disconnected and unable to provide that crucial link to maintain possession as well as feed the forwards.  Well, I’m sure they will settle in, at least I hope so, or it is going to be a looooong season for dad.  Anyhoo, we’ve been taking Delilah to the park every day, even when it rains like crazy.

Wait, I can just walk around? All by myself?

Where the 2 year old ladies at?

So it’s been hard without my mom around, and I can’t wait to see her, but all things said and done, it hasn’t been as hard as I imagined that it might be.  Dad says she’ll be home tomorrow at some point, so we shall see how well the last day goes, but I think I get to hang out with my Me’mere while dad does that whole disappear for the day thing so I’m sure I’ll have a lot of fun.  Finally, in summation, and in true dad fashion, he forced me to sit in front of the camera while he flashed a really bright light in my face which he likes to do from time to time.  I was messing with him, but he still enjoyed the results, so… until next time, stay cool.

Sure, I'll smile for the camer.. PSYCHE!

Love,

Finn

A brief pause...

So here we are, February.  One of the most strangely spelled months in the year and also the shortest.  You know what’s not the shortest?  Me.  I’m getting bigger and taller, much taller.  My dad once challenged me as he mentioned that he is the tallest member of our family (that we know of anyway) and so I took that as a personal provocation from which I will base my motivation to become the tallest, fastest, most awesomest Spivachaud ever known.  I, of course, plan on being a gentle giant except when it comes to Chris Andersen.  No love for you turdman.

So Winter is here…  Yeah, that’s all.

In an attempt to maintain sanity (which is constantly challenged by the dark, gray, wet outsidy land), my parents have been taking trips all over the place!  We went to Sunriver, just south of Bend.  It was cool, except everything was closed.  Look at our beautiful championship golf course, CLOSED! Perhaps you and your family would like to visit one of the various state parks in the area? CLOSED, CLOSED! Oh, sorry about that, how about a nice little hike to a waterfall? DOESN’T EXIST! Oh, well, sorry, I guess you can just hang out and watch tv then. At least we had a beautiful sunset the first night we got there so that was cool.  We stopped in Bend on the way home and dad convinced mom to eat at an Indian restaurant.  I know right?  An Indian restaurant in the middle of nowhere Oregon.  Actually, it was delicious.  I myself had a Nan-a-thon and it was delightful.

The next weekend we got to get on an airplane and fly to Spokane!!!  It was pretty cool, at least I think, I napped the whole way.  I will certainly be telling my toddling friends about it now that I’m in the mile high club.  What?  That’s where you sleep in an airplane right?  Why are you still laughing?  Anyway my dad spent last weekend with us at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and we all got to celebrate Gaga’s birthday!  We drove to Idaho and hung out in Coeur d’Alene with aunt Shirley.  I spent some time with my cousins Mariah and Jayden playing piano and wearing a cowboy hat.  It was cool.  Then, the next day I got to hang out with a new friend named Avelyn.  She is cool and had awesome shoes.  Other than that, I’m still hangin’ in Spokane waiting to see just how long my hair will grow.  Seriously though, I think I’m a couple inches away from qualifying for locks for love.  Anyhoo, I hope everyone is doing well and getting through the winter and I want to send a special shout out to my auntie Deborah who has just finished up her final chemo treatment today!!!!!  I love you and hope that you’re doing well.  Say hi to my me’mere and don’t party too much you two.  Here are some pictures from the last few weeks:

Love to you all,

Finn

What a lucky guy I am.  As soon as I get tired of all my new toys from Christmas 1, (my interest and attention span rivals that of a young kitten on catnip) I get Christmas 2 a week later!  It’s pretty sweet.  We loaded up the car again and took off north along the wonderful, scenic, not at all frustrating to travel I-5 corridor.  I’m trying my hand at irony as it seems to be such a fun and interesting way to communicate, how’d I do?  We did have a beautiful day on our drive which, as luck would have it, meant that the pesky sun was all up in my grill.  I don’t know about you, but having to be rear facing on a long drive north when the sun exists entirely along a low horizontal trajectory in the southern hemisphere is just painful, so, yeah!  Great!  NICE WEATHER!  Nice weather in my face, crazy sun.  Okay, back on track.  We hit Everett and it’s like 18 degrees outside!  What’s up winter!?  That’s okay, uncle Ryan and aunt Michelle have a fire roarin’ inside and after my dad and uncle Ryan make the twenty three trips inside with all the stuff while mom and I eat cookies and sit fireside in a fresh diapie, we wait for Gaga and Papa (this is what I’m now calling my grandma and grandpa Spivey).

I wake up Christmas 2 morning and BAM, it’s amazing!  Santa thought so highly of me that he brought me a whole bunch more toys!!!  After doing the rounds I open up a super trike!  It’s red, which as anyone who’s anyone knows, means fast.  I proceed to spend the next half an hour sitting in it.  It is so cool, that my dad tries to ride my coattails by posing behind me sporting some kind of fanny pack or something.  Dad, PLEASE stop cramping my style.  The lady toddlers see right through that and I can’t be bothered to try and explain to them why my dad does what he does… Pft.  So we get to go out to dinner in downtown Everett, we visited with aunt Michelle’s parents and her brother, I get to stay up way past my bedtime, also, I got a balloon.  Awesome day!  Christmas 2 is cool, but I’m waiting for Christmas 3 as it hasn’t shown up yet.  I keep waiting for Santa to magically drop off more presents for Christmas 3, but he hasn’t and honestly I’m starting to wonder if I did something wrong.  I guess I will have to enjoy the cool presents I got from the first two.  Thanks everyone, until the next time Santa comes, or I have some other moment of substantial excitement in my life, stay cool!

Love,

Finn

I’m starting to get this whole annual holiday situation.  All I have to do is wait a while and it comes back around.  Then when it comes, we pack up the car and exchange garishly adorned boxes in exchange for being able to tear apart other boxes of equal luxuriance.  The cool part is that inside the boxes there is really cool stuff.  I mean, last year, I was totally cool with just looking at the boxes, they were neat all by themselves.  Now I get it.  You open them up and they have sweet stuff inside like books, candy and noise making toys!!!  That’s just plain cool.  I can get used to this, now if only I can figure out how to get my family to give me another birthday cake while all of this is going on I’ll be set.

So, because I have two sets of amazing grandparents, I get two Christmases!  Can you believe it?!  The first was spent with Me’mere and Pe’pere in Hood River.  We got to watch Emma and Fiona hiss at each other through the door, eat really good rolls and I got to hang out in my favorite sled.  I got cool trucks and some awesome mittens from Auntie Jill which she made with her own two hands for my two hands!  We went up to the snow and I got to ride around while being chauffeured around all wrapped up in so many layers of clothing it was ridiculous.  After a while I was glad that I was though because I came to realize that snow is cold.  Not like luke warm bath cold, but like freeze the snot on my face cold!  I’m glad that I live in a house and not in some kind of snow cave because that would be miserable.  Anyway, above are some shots from Christmas pt. 1 as well as a quick growth comparison between me in my stocking last year vs me in my stocking this year…  Thank you Me’mere, Pe’pere and Uncle Blaine for putting up with my on going sleep issues, and to mom and Me’mere, I’m glad that you got to watch Russell Crow take his shirt off for Maid Marion, don’t think I have forgotten it and will fully expect some payback when I want to watch some random Sesame Street video for the hundredth time in the future.  I may also cash this in on dad’s behalf when he wants to watch a Blazer game at some future family function (he’s promised me he would make sure I was properly compensated if and when I take one for the team.  I might ask him for a pony, or a monkey, or a monkey riding a pony.  I’m not entirely sure yet.)

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and here’s to an awesome and exciting 2011!

Love,

Finn