It’s that time of year again where Kevin finds us fun costumes to wear to our friends Halloween Party! This year we were players from the movie Dodge Ball. Claire and Eric hosted another great party this year. We went over together with our neighbors Brian and Lisa – and Wyndbend Blvd took home some awards! We won for “Funniest Costume” and Brian and Lisa won “Scariest Costume”. It’s always a fun night. 
Griffin tagged along with me to the mall for a second time within a week. He’s always excited to play in the play space, wanting me to watch his every move as he happily jumps off the animals and runs at high speeds. Today we also brought home Tracker, his new Beany Boo. 
Griffin was so excited that he received the accessories from our Dodgeball uniform outfits. He’s loving the sweatbands for his wrists and head as well as the dodgeball itself. 
Hannah did some cute artwork with Reid this week while Finn was at school. So cute!
Cole and Cooper will not be with Brian and Lisa for Trick or Treat, and since our tradition is to walk around the neighborhood together we weren’t going to be able to do that. Brian and Lisa invited us over to their house for some pre Trick-or-Treat fun of dinner and decorating cookies. The kids exchanged some candy and had fun playing together. 
On Saturday Griffin went to another birthday party for his friend Jonas, who goes to Tyler Run but is in a different class. They play together on the playground and also were classmates at Locker Soccer for soccer lessons. His mom, Laura, sent me the cutest picture from the party which was at Jonas’ house, a small gathering of friends. He had a great time!
We celebrated Lily’s 10th birthday on Sunday. Our girl is definitely aging, she has a constant limp from the arthritis she has in many of her joints (elbows, knees, shoulders, ankles). But She’s a tough cookie. And when she’s excited about something or someone arrives home she jumps right up and darts to the door like a young pup, and a loud obnoxious one too! Her alert barking is still very much on point. And she is the best tattle-tale, often barking a signature bark when she is alerting us that Brutus is getting in to something or has something that he shouldn’t. She’s a smart and sassy one. She loves to be cuddled and finds peaces in the smallest and quietest spaces. Happy Birthday sweet Lils!
October 28, 2018
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I enjoyed a fun day at home this week with the boys. As everyone knows, I’m not gifted with art, but I do love how much fun the kids have with it. So I broke out a bunch of paints and some paper and the kids went to town. Griffin is really creative and likes making many different pieces of art. We also ended with a fun bath, which was quite necessary by the end!
We completed another puzzle this week – it was another one that gave us some challenges! Those tree branches are much harder than they appear at first glance!
The Bethune’s invited us to the Dublin Spooktakular this week where the kids enjoyed dressing up in their costumes and filling their bags full of crazy amounts of candy! Reid was Mr. Independent and wanted to walk (or really wander) everywhere. Kevin had to work late so he wasn’t able to join us this year. But we did enjoy some pizza dinner before we headed home. 
Griffin was treated to a spontaneous Daddy date on Friday when Kevin was home early from work. They had a late afternoon lunch at Corner Bakery, followed by fun at Dave and Buster’s.
Reid and Griffin play pretty well together most of the time. Reid definitely lets you know if he doesn’t want to be doing something – he will scream loud and clear. He is very observant and regularly mocks behaviors that he sees. 
We made our annual trip to Young’s Jersey Dairy this weekend to go pumpkin picking. We rode the trailer out to the fields where we walked all around to find our perfect pumpkins. It was a blue-sky day with pretty clouds, though it was a bit windy!
We are building 5 new greenhouses at Millcreek in the I-pad and have had a new well drilled in that area also (that’s the white stub). So we’ve been clearing some trees and getting the area ready to start construction. It’s been several years since we’ve put up new huts!
Here the boys are a couple months ago in their Santa hats being silly playing together in the loft. Next they both suited up in their super hero outfits, which we ended up having Reid wear as his Trick or Treat outfit since it was the perfect fit. 
Griffin and Cole play together after school every Monday and Tuesday (when the boys are at Brian and Lisa’s house). Brian sent me this cute pic of the boys in their unplanned matching Batman shirts.
The boys and I took in some nice weather this week. I also had an eye appointment and for the first time ever took both boys with me as tag-a-longs. Thankfully, Dr. Bryan is pretty laid back and engages the kids in conversation. 
Griffin has been doing really well with his sight word booklets. This week he earned two stickers in his pink booklet. He is not very fond of practicing at home with me. When I bring it up he usually sighs and and rolls his eyes and says he doesn’t want to do them. His personality is such that he doesn’t want to be incorrect or fail at anything, so he’d rather not try to do it. I certainly get the perfection thing, but I’m sad that at such a young age Griffin already is prone to not wanting to be wrong. So we’re working on that! Once we go through the words and work through any that he doesn’t know I usually get a big smile (and his signature lip lick) once he goes through them all. He does enjoy reading to his brother!
It was also Fire week at school so the Liberty Township firefighters came to Tyler Run to talk about Fire Safety. The kids got to go outside and check out the firetruck and see the firefighters in all of their gear. 
Daddy was able to come to soccer this week and watch Griffin in his 3 on 3 play. Griffin seems to enjoy playing the 3v3 rather than the “lessons”. 
I had some special visitors at Millcreek this week! Dad and Bob Solberg came for a tour. Bob hasn’t been to Millcreek before and he wanted to see our operation and learn a bit about how we grow, starting with how we propagate. We had fun walking around :). 
Griffin enjoys going in to Reid’s room in the morning when we wakes up. It’s fun to get on the video camera and listen to what he says to Reid and to see the two of them interact when we’re not around. Another fun fact: Griffin loves to get in his bed with him and talk and play! I caught him climbing out and also reading some books to his brother. 
It was a busy weekend with Fall Fest at NPC and a birthday party for Griffin’s classmate, Ethan, on the same afternoon. I was able to break away from church setup for a bit to take Finn to the party. He had fun running around outside at Emily Traphagen Park. Then we headed back to NPC and finished decorating and setting up. Kevin and I took on a smaller role this year with Fall Fest. It was both good and frustrating. The event definitely had a lot of people (despite the poor sign up numbers online) and by the end of the night every pot of chili was empty!
