December | 2021 | Our Armstrong Family

December arrived in beautiful colors this year – these pictures are from my morning walk on December 1st, about 7 am. The pictures don’t even capture the colors like they appeared in real life!

December 1 also begins our tradition of daily readings of the Christmas Story from our Advent calendar. We also ventured out to get a true live tree for our front entry. We went to Home Depot (ugh, I know) and got a 6′ Balsam Fir which is actually quite beautiful!

Saturday December 4th was the Frosty’s Gift Shop and Scholastic Book Fair at Tyler Run. Griffin also played in a 4v4 indoor soccer tournament that day, in which his team placed 2nd. I wasn’t able to go to the tourney as I was helping with the book fair during the same time. Fortunately, the tourney was early morning and Griffin was still able to come to school and shop at Frosty’s. He was so excited he was able to do that! We ended up selling just over $3,000 in books at the fair – we were busy!

As if the day wasn’t busy enough, in the afternoon we headed back to Powell Pharmacy for Griffin’s second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. This time Griffin was so brave and confident and it was a breeze!

Look at our little Reidy from 4 years ago! Ugh, I miss that baby stage and all those paci’s! Reid is all about Brutus snuggles.

In preparation for our annual candy making day on Sunday, I had some help making the buckeye dough from Reid. And Kevin assisted me with the sugar cookie cut outs!

Prior to the candy making starting, Reid and Griffin attended Ella’s surprise birthday party at KSM Fitness. Griffin absolutely loved this space as it was all athletics and games the entire time! Touch football, obstacle courses, and such. Reid struggled from time to time but finally found his happy place in the donut.

Candy Making was a success! This year we were joined by the Bethunes (Amy, Rowan, and Graham came and were later joined by Andy and Greta after her dance rehearsal), Mom and Dad, the Manning family, and a short visit from the Vertuccis. We made buckeyes, rolo/pretzel bites, iced sugar cookies and hard tack candy in flavors of lemon, peppermint, and cinnamon. We feasted on chili, hot dogs, fruit, and chips for lunch/dinner.

Lilly crafted this fun family of me, Kevin, Griffin, and Reid – isn’t it super cute!

Griffin brought home some art work before winter break including paintings and also a ceramic donut! I’m proud of his creativity and the fun he has at school. They also created gingerbread traps in his class at school (see the instagram shot).

Kevin had an in person and virtual work party with offices joining from Mexico and Columbus as well as people who were in Brazil, Arizona, and Cleveland! It was a fun concept with messages from their leaders (Joe, Kevin, and Rafael) via live video and also raffle drawings. It was a fun time in person as we wore ugly sweaters, hahaha. There were about 13 of us in attendance at the office in Columbus, all vaccinated and boosted!

We got a start with wrapping by wrapping Kevin’s birthday gifts and Lilly’s Christmas gifts at the same time. These kiddos love some wrapping. For Kevin’s birthday we ventured to Greta’s Nutty Nutcracker dance performance, Rowan’s Select hockey game (he played our neighbor Cooper’s team), and then on to Mom and Dad’s where we enjoyed pizza and a delicious chocolate brownie cake my mom made. It was rich and delicious.

Poor Reidy came down with a little bug in the middle of the month. He had a runny nose and a slight cough, so we decided to take him to Nationwide Children’s on a Monday morning and and get tested for Covid. The results took about 6 hours – and I was checking the app all the time waiting for them!! Thankfully, it was negative. Then Tuesday (a day he doesn’t have school), when I arrived home from work he was asleep on the barstools and I knew that wasn’t a good sign! I picked him up and he felt warm and turns out he had a mild fever of 100. He sat on my lap a few minutes and then got down and said “I’m going to bed” and sure enough he walked upstairs at just after 6 pm and put himself to bed for the night. Sadly, that was the day before his Christmas Program at school, so we weren’t able to go this year. I was so super bummed as I had taken that day off work months ago in anticipation of the cuteness of 4 year olds trying to sing songs on a stage. Ugh. Even worse, he seemed to remain the same for a few days so sadly he and I also stayed home from the For King and Country concert, Little Drummer Boy, which we’d planned to go to as a family months ago! But Kevin and Griffin went, and even met up with Amy, Andy, Graham, Rowan, and Greta before hand at Local Cantina for a quick dinner. They enjoyed the show very much.

Griffin arrived home on the last day of school with treats from his class party and a book from his teacher’s mom! Miss Robinson has her pen pals and her mom each year give books to a kid in the class, like secret Santa. Griffin was lucky to receive Captain Underpants.

On December 15, George closed on 17 acres of land from the neighboring farmer to the north. This is the same farmer we purchased the land where the I-huts and our Shipping Facility sit. On the 16th, George, Fred, Doug, and I walked the perimeter of the new property together. This will almost double our acreage (we currently sit at 20 acres on 2 parcels). Now the fun begins in how to develop it!

While Daddy and Griffin were at the For King and Country concert, Reidy and I made some sugar cookie dough and frosting for my OU girlfriends gathering that was happening the next day. Reidy wore a mask the whole time but he was in good spirits and loved being a helper. We turned our night in into a fun mom and Reid night, complete with Roosters carryout – at the request of Reidy. Aaaannndddd, they finally had the mac-and-cheese bites available. He was so happy 🙂

On Saturday, the 18th, my friends Jaime, Kim, and Amy came over for a fun day of brunch and making cookies and catching up. I made a couple of quiches, cinnamon rolls, and bacon and we had mimosas. Then we got to work on making peanut butter kisses, sugar cookies, and gluten-free oatmeal cookies. We had so much fun!

Remember when I said before that I dropped off the letters to Santa? Well, Santa wrote both Griffin and Reid back! They were so excited to get these letters in the mail!

Over winter break the boys have been having fun making forts in the basement using the air hockey table. Griffin even spent the night down there one night!

Check out the moon on the morning of December 21, the winter solstice!

One of our family traditions is to put on Christmas jammies, load up in the car with hot cocoa, and drive around looking at Christmas lights. This year we headed to Glen Ross neighborhood as well as Lucy Depp Park. They were both really neat.

With our new up lights in the front Kevin used some lighting film and turned them red and green for the holidays 🙂

Lilly drew us the most awesome family picture as our Christmas gift! Even Brutie is on there! We love it.

A few random December images….

Griffin discovered this on the passenger door handle of our van when we were leaving, none other than Roosters, one evening. What a wonderful surprise! We brought it home and passed it along – Griffin delivered it to one of our neighbors in stealth mode not to be seen.

We’ve signed Griffin up for the Columbus Blue Jackets Learn to Play program starting in January. For first time enrollees, they provide all of the equipment – from skates, stick, jersey, all the pads, helmut – so much equipment! It arrived and all fits great. He is eager for January!

We went to the 5 pm service at NPC on Christmas Eve, which was a service of carols and readings. It concluded with candle light for everyone. After church we went to Mom and Dads and enjoyed sloppy joes followed by dessert of meringues, ice cream, and fudge sauce. Then our traditional PJ’s and this year a couple of Christmas stories read by Grandpa.

We returned home (quite late!) to put out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. Then those kiddos were off to bed. Griffin had hopes of getting up at 5 am, but it was 8:10 before I heard any pitter patters in the house! The boys came downstairs and were excited but not overly energetic, surprisingly! They methodically went through their gifts and stockings. It was a nice and rather slow morning.

I totally forgot to give Brutus his stocking until we had been opening gifts for about an hour! He was so excited when he realized he got two new toys. He pranced all around and played with them for hours! He and I went on a walk – a very soaking one – in the neighborhood. It was a soggy Christmas.

Early afternoon we headed to Mom and Dad’s for gifts and Christmas dinner. Each of the kiddos took turns passing out gifts to everyone. A fun time was had by everyone followed by a delicious dinner of beef tenderloin, gruyere potatoes, wedge salads, green beans, and figgy pudding with foamy sauce for dessert.

On Boxing Day we went to the Bethune’s where everyone played a game of street hockey on the courts. Then back to their house for lunch! Pretty nice weather for December!

Later that afternoon we were joined by Jim and Pat to keep the Christmas celebrations going! We had a lasagne dinner (no one fell ill, lol) and pecan pie and cookies for dessert (and some whip cream, ha!). Then we had a nice time opening gifts.

Monday after Christmas Haya and Summer came over for brunch and to visit for a little bit. Big news, baby Summer is going to be a big sister! Haya is due in late August! Griffin was excited to put on all his new gear to show her.

The boys and Kevin headed to Top Golf with some neighbors for a couple of hours of golf fun. It was the first time for all three of them and they loved it. Both Griffin and Reid declared they want to have their birthday’s there this year.

We gathered on the Bolans patio to do our neighborhood kids gift exchange. Crazily, the kids are sitting almost in age order in this pic without setting them up this way! Other than little Abbie and Dewey!

With the warmer weather we’ve been getting outside. Griffin and Reid came on my Brutie walk too. With Griffin’s new watch that has a step counter he is all about getting in a lot of steps (or rolls in this case).

The boys had a sleepover at Mom and Dad’s on Thursday. This was the only photo Mom took – Reid was wiped out on the couch before dinner! So Reid. They had really fun time of pizza dinner, sports watching, and a big breakfast!