It’s that time of year again! We had a lovely week filled with two Thanksgiving feasts, black Friday shopping, and Christmas tree hunting. This week of the year always seems to be here so quickly once the Fall season arrives. And it’s filled with so much activity it passes so fast! We really enjoyed spending time with family this year.
Griffin continues to really enjoy being creative in his room. He’s kept his “library” up for quite some time and he really likes making pillow fort puzzles. He even takes all of his lovies and organizes them into different arrangements. I love listening to him when he’s in there by himself playing independently. He as quite the conversation with his toys :). Can you find Griffin in the second picture?
I always enjoy the artwork at Thanksgiving. This year Finn brought home a colorful handprint. Hannah has taken the boys to the new Hilliard Library a few times, including this week. From what I hear they have a nice donut and coffee shop, amongst other things in the nice new facility. 
Tuesday after work I headed to Mansfield with the boys and the dogs. Kevin stayed home as he was working part of Wednesday. In the end, we always seem to need two cars anyhow with the dogs, kids, and all our stuff! Griffin was SO excited that there was snow on Wednesday morning. He kept wanting to go outside to see it and touch it. Grandma watched Reid and Finn, while Andy, Dad, and I covered the greenhouse with plastic. It ended up being perfect weather with little to no wind and a nice temperature. We got it covered really easily this year 🙂
The kiddos happened to all be wearing matching black jammies when they came down on Thanksgiving morning! I had them line up for this photo all in their Heat 32 Costco jams, lol. 
On Thanksgiving Day we headed to Enon mid-morning for the Armstrong family lunch held at Dave and Gayle’s. We all gathered for a posed family photo this year, which turned out great! Reid enjoyed being a big boy sitting at the table in a big kid chair and entertaining Jason and Lisa. We hung out with everyone for a few hours before piling in the car and heading to Mansfield for Thanksgiving Dinner. Nothing like two big meals in one day! I actually enjoy it as each meal has different items so we end up getting an awesome assortment of foods!
While I didn’t snap any family photos in Mansfield, I did manage to get on of Brutus, ha! We woke up Friday morning and headed to Bob Evans for our traditional fuel-up before heading down to Columbus for shopping at Polaris and Easton. We had a very successful shopping day this year – making tons of headway on our shopping lists! The traffic was rather crazy, but the lines really weren’t too bad anywhere. So many stores offer good deals online that I think just as many people are home shopping as are in the stores! Reid did really well being in his stroller so much of the day. I love the pic of him snuggling Finn. We enjoyed a tasty dinner at Bon Vie where we once again had the private room. It is awesome as it can be closed off with a curtain so it’s nice and cozy and quiet! Mom and Dad brought a mini-lego kit for each of the kids to work on while we waited for our dinner. They had them put together really quickly. 
On Saturday morning we met up with the Bethune’s to have our family picture taken and also get some of the cousins together. It was cold and wet and yucky, but in the end Amy got some really great shots. Even a really good out-take of Reid having a meltdown!
We went to church on Sunday and afterward headed to Cackler Farm to pick out our Christmas tree. It was a wonderfully warm (for November) and sunny day, perfect for tree hunting. I was afraid it might we muddy and yucky but it turned out to be just right. The boys trekked through the field and each rode in the sled. We found a tall canaan fir, about 12 1/2′ tall, really pretty quickly! We took turns hauling it this year up to the barn (as we were also corralling Reid!). While Kevin got the tree bundled up and checked out the boys and I hung out inside the play area, which is a greenhouse structure. With the sun and clear plastic it was warm in there! Another ear of tree hunting in the books!
Cabin week 2018 was filled with a lot of lounging and a few days of adventure. What isn’t pictured here is the 3.5 days straight of rain! On those days we enjoyed a lot of lounging at our cabin, relaxing, and hanging out. Some of us got some good naps 🙂 Later in the afternoon on two of the rainy days we headed to Dollywood, which turned out to be a great choice as there were very few visitors at the park. We were the only ones in the building to see Santa! There were no lines at any of the rides and it was just barely misting so the weather was actually very manageable. Visiting with Santa was our first stop. Reid wasn’t really very enthused to sit with Santa, so Kevin held him (and crouched out of the picture, lol). Griffin enjoyed sharing what he wanted for Christmas (which we really hadn’t even discussed much before our walk to see him). 
This year in the Santa workshop they had a silhouette artist who used scissors and paper to cut out silhouettes! It was fascinating to ask her questions and watch her do one for each Griffin and Reid. She cut two at a time so you get a mirror image. All in all it took her just a few minutes to do each one. I’m going to put one of each of them in their baby books and the other in their new keepsake bins Mom gave me for Christmas. Can you tell which is which?
We enjoyed our traditional visit with Clarice and Abominable. Reid warmed up to them just enough that he didn’t cry. 
We were able to go for a ride on the coal train again this year too. It was a cold ride, but a fun one!
This is one of my favorite pictures of the boys from our trip this year. It’s right upon our arrival at Dollywood :0)
It was actually quite nice to spend some down time on a rainy day on the deck in the hot tub. This was my view for about an hour while I enjoyed the sound of the raindrops in the trees. We took a puzzle with us and Griffin and I were able to get it done in just a few hours! That was a good thing as we had limited counter space! 
I love to get one of these photos each year of Kevin on the couch with the boys. They had some nice snuggles and watched lots of shows. I got snuggles too while I enjoyed my morning coffee and the slow pace of no where to rush out the door to in the morning!
We hit up The Island again and enjoyed lunch and dinner (don’t worry, it was two different days) at Paula Deens Restaurant. It is so yummy! Griffin enjoyed riding some of the rides and doing the adventure course. Reid walked around and also rode in his stroller to take in the sights.
This boy. He does not sit in his chair at the table for longer than 5 minutes without somehow figuring a way to get out. Even when he is clicked in with the straps he somehow manages to be able to stand up. I just don’t get it. He’s a funny one, our Reid. Still not talking a ton, but is awesome at imitating behaviors and is extremely observant. 
Here’s the outside of our Cabin, Almost Heaven. Each year I try to go back and find the name of our cabin and some years I’ve not been good about putting it in the blog – so here you go, Almost Heaven. Several mornings Griffin loved going up into our room to be able to talk to Reid. On more than one occasion we found him in there reading him books and just chatting away.
This year we went to a new adventure, Dolly’s Lumberjack Feud. Griffin enjoyed it and Reid actually sat on my lap and was well entertained. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go so I’m happy it turned out well. We also went to the Dixie Stampede where Griffin was selected to go “chase chickens” again this year. He is one fortunate little boy. He was much more into chasing them this year and actually he and his teammates chased them so well that the chickens were first to cross the line, which resulted in our North Pole winning our first medal of the night. Woohoo!
Here are a few other keepsakes: delicious breakfast at Crockett’s Breakfast Camp, a leaf as big as Griffin’s head, artwork from Griffin’s class at school, and some videos from various things. Enjoy. 
We look forward to this week every year! Yay! It’s our trip to the cabin in Tennessee! But first, a few things to wrap up before we headed out. Griffin and I went out to Bobby E’s after his appointment for his flu shot. Even though the day previous he was diagnosed with Croup, they said he was still fine to receive his flu shot. We enjoyed a yummy breakfast to start the day and then I headed in to work late. That evening I took him to 3 vs 3 soccer that he had been doing this session. We ended up leaving a bit early as his chest was hurting. Probably not the best idea to take him after he’d been diagnosed with Croup; however, he hadn’t had a fever the whole time and seemed to feel up for it. That night he went to bed ok, but the next morning he came in to our room at 6 am and felt SO warm to me. I took his temp and it was 104! Yikes. We promptly put a cool washcloth on his head, gave him a Popsicle, some medicine, and he fell back asleep in our bed. We kept up with the meds every 4 hours and I called in to the doctors office to chat with the nurse. I was concerned giving him the flu vaccine when he was already slightly compromised wasn’t the best idea in hindsight. But as always, our boy is one tough cookie. I stayed home for part of the morning, long enough to feel ok with leaving him with Hannah. His fever hadn’t returned and we kept up with the medicine rotation. Poor kid, had to miss school that day and will be gone all week next week while we’re on vacation! But, his fever did not return and he felt better pretty fast so he was able to go to school on Wednesday. We also got his school pictures this week and his grade card. Though it is hard to read here, I wanted to have it in digital form. He did really well across the board. He has met year-end goals for math and is doing well with sounds and reading though he has a few vowel sounds to work on. We’re proud of our Kindergartner!
The weather was nice this week so Hannah and the boys got in a nice outdoor walk through the neighborhood. Finn rode his bike and Reid enjoyed the ride in his stroller. The bath photo isn’t the best but it captures the fun they have when they take a bubble bath. Clearly, they don’t get them enough – when Griffin asked me if he could have one and I agreed he thanked me profusely and told me how much he loved them. This boy usually gets showers! And yes, I edited out the portion of the video where Reid went under – yikes!
Our first couple nights this year we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express that had a fun pool area with a few waterslides. We all enjoyed a lot of time in the water and also some nap time before we headed out for dinner at our traditional first stop to Smoky Mountain Brewery for pizza and brew.
On Sunday we decided to head to Cade’s Cove at Smoky Mountain National Park. We typically go during the week so it is less crowded, but the weather was a sunny and warm day so we decided to take our chances and go on Sunday. There was definitely a lot of people there but we had a great time and snapped some of our traditional pics of the boys in the open field with the mountains in the back. We always let Griffin help drive through the park and this year Reid was able to as well. They loved it. 
We love this trip for many reasons, one of which is we go with no agenda other than to relax and hit up some of our usual spots and perhaps find something new too. We spend lots of time together lounging and being silly. Check out Finn wearing my pj’s! We eat out for some meals and stay at the cabin and made dinners and lunches at home too. It’s a nice combination 🙂
