An Allen Family Christmas

Christmas with my family this year may have been the best yet. It was so fun to be with them and Finley, who is becoming such a (hilarious) little person. Let's go through the photo first, then I'll give you an update on what else Finley is up to these days.

Rolling Around with Aunt Jessica

A Christmas Eve Tradition: Reading "The Night Before Christmas"

Christmas Morning- Dennison Family Photo

My Parents and Maddie

My Sister Jessica and Husband Brett

Finley Eating Wrapping Paper

My Parents' New Paintings from Hong Kong

All Natural "Chicken Poop" Lip Balm from our Stockings

Nate's Fancy New Tennis Duds

Finley and Brett Hard at Work on a New Puzzle

New Photos and Frames for my Parents

My Mom's Out of Control (and Delicious) Coffee Cake

Christmas Morning Brunch

Finley Shouting "Hi!!" at Everyone from the Stairs

Barnette/Allen/Dennison/Crisp Family Photo

Peek-a-boo with Granny

Being Silly with Papa

Jumping on Grandmommy

Sweet Cuddles

It is always amazing to us how much Finley grows and changes when we come back to the States. I don't know if it is from taking him out of his comfort zone, all the attention he gets from family, or what. He's been learning so many new words everyday that we can't even keep up with it, and he's been combining two words much more frequently. Here are some highlights of our time in the States (so far) besides the language explosion:

• Finley's hilarious pretending to talk and laugh on the phone. He was so into Nate's grandma's phone we could hardly get him to give it back to her when we had to leave her house!
• Watching Finley play and interact with his grandparents and other family.
• Playing with my parents' dog, Maddie, who he calls "Mannie". He misses Maddie so much that he still talks about her all the time and cries out for her when he's upset!
• Finley's serious love of baths, which includes him laying on his belly and blowing bubbles in the water until absolutely all of the water has drained from the tub and we drag him kicking and screaming onto dry land.
• Finley's love of cars, which causes him to feel the need to go out and look at cars, tell them bye, and talk about them frequently. He was particularly interested in my parents' white car for some reason. (I will admit, it's a nice car.)

One thing that's not been so great this trip is sleep. Finley usually gets over jet lag in about a week, but his sleep has been pretty bad ever since we got here. He was up for a while each night when we were in NC, and then it started getting better before we left. But when we got to MI it got worse again, and now it seems to be getting increasingly worse instead of better. Now he's throwing terrible tantrums before bed, won't drink his milk, bit the crud out of me last night, and takes forever to be rocked to sleep. Then he wakes up multiple times in the middle of night, wants milk, and takes hours to get back to sleep. We don't know if it's a phase he's going through, extended jet lag, being scared of ever-changing surroundings, or a combination of them...but we sure pray it gets better soon!

More pictures of Christmas is MI coming soon...