Happy Birthday Daddy! Kevin’s birthday was on Wednesday this week so enjoyed a midweek visit from Jim and Pat (Brett wasn’t feeling well) to celebrate Jim, Brett, and Kevin’s birthdays.
Thursday I was scheduled to be off work though I ended up going in for a short bit. We are giving the Millcreek website a makeover and as a part of that we’re featuring video on our homepage. As it turns out, the best day to shoot the video was Thursday (a very last minute plan!) so I wanted to be sure things went off ok. It turned out to be a fun visit as the weather was nice and the construction workers were also doing a lot of earth moving and our team was busy with hut construction. 
This group of succulents are from the millions of babies I brought back from Mom and Dads patio planter. The plant is appropriately named Mother of Thousands, or something like that! These suckers grow quick!
The weather was unusually warm this week and we had been wanting to go to Wildlights at the zoo so we made a last-minute decision to head there after work on a weeknight. We got to see Bumble, ride camels, ride the train, and see tons of pretty lights!
In preparation for Sunday’s annual Candy Making Party, we woke up on Saturday morning and started getting ready. A little lounging first, then some cleaning, and then our pre-party buckeye-dough making festivities began. Griffin loves helping (and sampling, of course) and Reid joined us this year too.
Sunday afternoon we hosted the Bethunes, Mannings, Kesslers, and Mom and Dad for our annual Candy Making Party. We intentionally kept the crowd smaller this year and we all had a lot of fun. More time to talk to everyone and a little less craziness! Amy and the kids pre-made all of the cut-out sugar cookies so after everyone had lunch (baked potatoes, pulled pork, salad, etc) our first bit of fun was decorating sugar cookies. All 9 of the kiddos fit around the island at the same time and made quick work of decorating the cookies. They are quite creative with their designs!
Next up, forming all the buckeyes and then after a bit of chilling we had a dipping party. 
Amid all the activity I found Rowan over talking to sweet Lily, who had found quiet laying on her bed in the family room. They were just having a cute conversation together :). Charlotte was an amazing help this year with Reid. He slept for the first couple of hours but once he was up he was on the go! She watched him upstairs, downstairs, and everywhere!
Every year the kids dump in the flavorings of the hard tack candy. This year we made root beer, butterscotch, peppermint, and cinnamon. We’ve done it enough to know that cinnamon is always last and everyone holds there breath for the flavoring and pouring of the candy onto the slab! We cut the candy a few different ways this year and in the end decided that the pizza rocker cutter is the way to go. KK made some awesomely symmetrical green candies!
Mom made a deliciously sweet birthday cake for Kevin full of Kit Kat bars and M & Ms. After our friends departed we sat down all worn out and had dinner and cake and ice cream. As Mom and Dad were about to leave I realized we never took an entire group photo and while too late for that, I figured we’d try to take a quick one of us. Reid wasn’t really that interested 🙂 
Here are a couple of things of Griffin’s from school. I love the picture card he created for me! He is doing really well in school with math. He loves counting and adding and subtracting. 
And here is a video google put together. I thought it was a nice summary of the week!
Family Christmas Card photo 2018! Many thanks to Amy for taking our pictures again this year. It was cold and drizzly and windy, but she was able to get some great ones. We’ve made a mental note to put our family photo session on the calendar in October next year!
The City of Powell collects letters to Santa each year and this year Griffin filled out his own letter! We helped Reid with his and one afternoon Hannah took the boys to the municipal building to drop the letters in the box. We are eagerly awaiting our replies from Santa!
We’re gearing up for the month of December around here, which is looking to be a pretty busy one. With swim one night and soccer another during the week, the weeknights seem to be shorter than ever. I’m trying to be a better meal planner and eating more at home, rather than our typical grab-on-the-go. Reid insists on having everything that everyone else at the table does. The cup, plate, utensils, all the different foods (even though he doesn’t eat half of them!) he fusses until you figure out what it is he wants! He continues to love all things carbohydrate: bread, rolls, cereal, sometimes pasta, any kind of cracker. He also loves cheese, yogurt, and applesauce. Not currently a fan of any real meat items. He loves to dip everything in anything, but favorites include barbecue sauce and ketchup.
On Saturday the OU gang gathered for fun times. We hadn’t seen each other in awhile so we enjoyed a fun day of baking cookies, talking, being silly, and catching up. There’s never enough time in the day and as always the day went really fast. We made peanut-butter kiss, molasses, sugar cookie cutouts, oatmeal, and chocolate chip cookies. We had lunch, some drinks, and lots of laughs. 
One of my favorite spots to take the boys for a quick dinner is Corner Bakery. They have healthy options for kids (and adults!) and it’s pretty quick. Conveniently there is one near Costco 🙂