Monthly Archives: November 2014
November 9, 2014
I’m looking forward to a few days of doing just what Finn is doing here, ha! We’ve had such a crazy busy week this week that I hardly snapped any photos. And while some of these photos are a bit fuzzy they capture Finn’s personality pretty well. He is calm and sweet, followed by fun and spunky, and sometimes he’ll mix in a little sass here and there. He NEVER sits down unless he is eating or we play Sesame Street. He is always busy investigating, watching, playing, observing, exploring, running, jumping, dancing, you name it! Every night when I put him to bed and say “I love you”, he replies “wuv you mama” “night night” “wuv you”, “wuv you”, “wuv you”, even after I’ve closed the door. Gives my heart tingles – he’s so sweet. He is speaking a ton, often times 3 or 4 words together (yewwow truck mama, pease choc choc milk, bye bye dada, tank you dada (or mama, or Debbie), pease takta mama). He usually puts the “please” before whatever he would like and then adds mama or dada to the end. And he is so polite, if you give him something he has asked for he almost always says “tank you mama” without any prompting.
Now that we’ve partially painted the basement (tv area) and Kevin put everything back in it’s place we’ve been spending time together downstairs. One night Griffin kept saying “out, out, out” so I went to see what he had gotten himself in to and found this, including the pouty/sassy lip:
And it made me think of how small he used to be when we kept this rocker upstairs in our bathroom and would plop him in it while we were showering or getting ready and wanted to keep him in one place. Such a little boy – this is from August 31, 2013:
We spent some time preparing our house and completing a lot of smaller details to get everything presentable in order to host the 40th birthday party for my fabulous friend Sarah. I began to think we were a bit crazy trying to tackle so many things, but it was great to have a deadline to get things wrapped up. We painted the basement ceiling now that it is complete. Brett created a really pretty wood ceiling with can lights that was based on a design Kevin found. Then we painted the walls white (rather than the yucky almondy-yellow color, blech) and Kevin put it all the furniture and various things back together. Kevin and his dad installed several light fixtures. We put up curtain rods and curtains. We purchased a couple of area rugs and accessories. Everything is really coming together and looking quite nice! There are only a few images here, more to come in the near future.
Around 30 of Sarah’s family and friends were able to join us to celebrate her 40th, and sadly I didn’t snap any photos that were good enough to share. They were all un-posed and not quite flattering as people were eating and talking. I forgot to take any of the setup and food except for the desserts (duh!) – but we had quite a tasty meal of ham & cheese sammie appetizers, grilled chicken, grilled peppercorn pork tenderloin, garlic mashed potatoes, pumpkin-sausage soup, mixed fruit, green salad, and a quinoa and rice salad. For dessert we had a super tasty carrot cake (from Whole Foods – it was so pretty), and yummy macarons from Pistacia Vera in German Village and delish sugar cookies from Sweet Tooth Cottage in Powell that perfectly matched the invites. Sweet Tooth does an amazing job – I highly recommend them if you ever want personalized or unique cookies for events!
November 2, 2014
Trick or Treat! Get ready to see a lot of Cookie Monster here. We’ve had a busy couple of weeks and I’m behind getting this post put together! Our Little Cookie Monster had quite a fun week and I enjoyed being home from work using some of my time off. Our week began on Sunday with some shopping to wrap up our renovations. Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong came up to watch Finn for the afternoon so we could have a productive afternoon and Finn could have a nap! It was a beautiful afternoon and they played some outside.
Lily’s 6th birthday was on the 28th. As we normally do, we celebrated with Party hats, toys, and cupcakes though this year I didn’t get many photos. The best part was watching Finn and Lily play several good games of tug-of-war with her new toy. Both Finn and Sammy liked putting the party hats on Cam and Lily, the girls however, didn’t much care to wear them. Mom and dad came down one day too for shopping fun at Easton. Amy and the kiddos, and Debbie and Sammy joined joined us for lunch at North Star Cafe where we were able to site outside on the patio for lunch. Afterwards we did a bit more shopping and Finn went home for a nap. The Bethune’s toughed it out for some shoe shopping, where they were each given a balloon!
Debbie, Sammy, and Finn carved pumpkins too. I was shocked that Finn really didn’t care for the seeds and goo of the inside of the pumpkin, like, really didn’t care for it! He warmed up to it a slight bit, but enjoyed playing with the “lid” more than anything! The boys wore their costumes one morning too. Sammy loves Lily so much he wanted to dress like her for Halloween!
We had a fun evening of pizza and trick-or-treating with friends in Dublin on Thursday. It was a really nice fall night, perfect for a good walk. Finn filled his pumpkin pretty good!
However, for the second year in a row, Trick or Treat night in Powell was super cold and rainy. Boo! We had fun nonetheless. Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong came to see Finn for Trick or Treat and they manned our house while we took Finn out during a break in the weather. He absolutely loved it. He and Kevin would ring the doorbell and then he was really good with the “treat” part of “trick or treat” and then he followed up with a nice “tank too”. We only had 11 trick-or-treaters so between Finn’s amazing haul and our leftovers we have a crazy amount of candy here! Kevin and his dad also spent time putting up some new light fixtures that evening – the best of which is the amazing new light in our family room, yay! Kevin had the biggest smile on his face once it was on. That room has always been so dark and never had an overhead light – it is SO MUCH BETTER now! Yay for a talented husband, father-in-law, and brother-in-law who figured out how to do it 🙂
And the weekend included a fun night out with friends to celebrate Sarah’s big 40th birthday with dinner, a lovely cake decorated by Laura, and line-dancing complete with lessons! Clearly, Sarah and I I need to find cow-girl hats!