Category Archives: events

December 14, 2014

DSC_0469Wow, I’m finding myself constantly behind these days. But our days have been loaded with activities and we’ve been having a lot of fun!

I was able to take Friday, Kevin’s birthday, off work and I figured it would be fun to have a cookie decorating party in the morning with Finn and Sam. I made the cookies and frosting the night before in hopes of having everything ready to go.  Wow, what a fun and messy time we had as evidenced by the photos 🙂 Finn had lots of taste testing of all the cookie decorations. DSC_0427 DSC_0428 DSC_0430 DSC_0432 DSC_0435 DSC_0437 DSC_0438 DSC_0439 DSC_0451 DSC_0452 DSC_0458 DSC_0460 DSC_0465 DSC_0471 DSC_0473 DSC_0478 DSC_0485 DSC_0486 DSC_0480Later that evening we gathered with family and friends and had a pizza party to celebrate Kevin’s birthday. Unfortunately, I realized after that I didn’t snap a photo of the more than 12 different pizza’s we had from 6 different shops. It was a tasty night, for sure. You’ll just have to believe me. I did get a couple cell phone pics of Kevin blowing out the candles on his devil’s food cake made by yours truly. I’ve been having a lot of fun spending time in our new kitchen testing out lots of new recipes.  The cake wasn’t super impressive, but the frosting was delish!IMG_20141212_202930770_HDR IMG_20141212_202942581 IMG_20141212_202948500 IMG_20141212_201537460_HDR IMG_20141212_201415427 IMG_20141212_200549672IMG_9755 IMG_20141212_200515656 IMG_20141212_200508673 IMG_20141212_200411815_HDR IMG_20141212_203731047_HDR IMG_20141212_203757534 IMG_20141212_203948293And here Finn shows his new skills of racing along the floor on his back. It was actually really cute, he laid down next to Uncle Andy and then realized how he could scoot using his heels – and he was super fast. It was pretty hysterical. IMG_20141212_205112418 IMG_20141212_205122593Our sweet girl Cameron also celebrated her birthday on Friday too. Yep, she and Kevin have the same birthday. Here is our 13 year old girl in her party gear. DSC_0497Saturday we made a surprise visit to see Grandma and Grandpa in Mansfield to visit their churches inaugural Nativity Open House. I believe they had over 160 nativity scenes to view, many from their own collection. Finn quickly found the kids Veggie Tales set! We enjoyed dinner out and some play time at Grandma and Grandpa’s too before heading home to gear up for Sunday’s festivities. IMG_20141213_153958547 IMG_20141213_154653454IMG_20141213_154517046IMG_20141213_201249054 IMG_0951We ended the week with a bang on Sunday with our inaugural Candy Making festivities. I remember from my childhood when my parents hosted other families for a candy making day to make hard-tack candy and buckeyes. All of the kids would come too and help a bit with candy-making and also made some crafts.  Earlier this fall my dad suggested that our newly renovated kitchen would be the perfect place to revive the tradition – and I thought it was a fabulous idea! And here you go – images from the day (sorry for those out of focus!) Unfortunately Amy was sick and wasn’t able to come. It was a long afternoon, turned into night, but we had a great time and all of the kids really enjoyed helping.  I made some notes of things to tweak for next year, and we will be scheduling the date far earlier so we can have it on a Saturday!  We ended up making 6 flavors (6 double-batches) including cherry, lemon, black licorice, buttered rum, sassafras, and cinnamon. Mom and dad had made peppermint a couple days before as the trial run. We also made fudge (which was an interesting experiment and needs some perfecting for next year!) and buckeyes.  And mom prepared several crafts for the kiddos, including reindeer ornaments, jingle bell bracelets, and foam ornaments. Everyone had a lot of fun!IMG_20141214_145247542_HDR IMG_20141214_145305810_HDR DSC_0506 DSC_0511 DSC_0509 DSC_0514 DSC_0524 DSC_0519 DSC_0521 DSC_0525IMG_9827 DSC_0540 DSC_0541 DSC_0546 DSC_0549 DSC_0554 DSC_0556 DSC_0557 DSC_0560 DSC_0562 DSC_0543 DSC_0563 DSC_0564 DSC_0565 DSC_0569 DSC_0571 DSC_0574 DSC_0575 DSC_0577 DSC_0580 DSC_0582 DSC_0583DSC_0499 DSC_0585 DSC_0588 DSC_0590 DSC_0592 DSC_0594 DSC_0604 DSC_0600 DSC_0606 DSC_0608 DSC_0614 DSC_0526 DSC_0527 DSC_0529 DSC_0531 DSC_0533 DSC_053420141220_10553320141220_10544420141220_105618

November 9, 2014

20141108_093940I’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. IMG_20141108_112030082_HDR IMG_20141108_112103749_HDR IMG_20141104_174811790 DSC_0735 IMG_20141109_202910236 IMG_20141109_091750164 DSC_0743 DSC_0737Now 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:IMG_20141109_200753346And 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:august_31_2013-2We 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. DSC_0709 DSC_0713 DSC_0715Around 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! DSC_0729 DSC_0726 DSC_0724 DSC_0727 DSC_5707-2