Category Archives: events

Finn ~ 25 weeks

We’ve had quite a week around here!

The weekend began with a visit from Kevin’s parents on Saturday. They came to visit and to go the Crew game with us as a part of Father’s day. So, here Finn took in his first soccer game!

On Sunday we had a nice dinner on the patio at Milestone 229, along the Scioto Mile. It is a nice stretch along the river in downtown Columbus that has really been revitalized in the last couple of years. There is a fun splash park that you can see and be a part of from the patio. It is open to the public and it is always full of kiddos on these warm days.

We had a delicious meal – complete with an amazing (and huge) piece of chocolate cake!! Delish.

After dinner we strolled along the river and around the downtown area where Kevin works. It was a pleasant evening for a walk.

Monday brought on a big milestone – Finn is on the move! He started scooting on our bed, doing an “army” crawl of sorts using his arms to pull himself forward. He doesn’t move constantly, but he can definitely get around!! Check out the video.

On Monday, yet another first for Finn, we went to the last home game of the season for the Columbus Clippers. It was a beautiful afternoon and we were lucky to have seats in the shade. He was quite pleasant for most of the game, and ended up taking about a half hour nap toward the end. He woke up just in time to run the bases with daddy, a tradition that the park does at the end of the season for kids and families.

Here Finn runs the bases with daddy, and touches every base then slides into home…

Friday was the annual Open House at Millcreek. We invite all of our customers to visit and tour the nursery and facilities and we cater a nice lunch for everyone. Kevin was able to make it with Finn early in the afternoon and he was adored by all…co workers as well as friends and customers. I had a blast showing him off to everyone and he was full of smiles and cuddles for everyone. 🙂

The dogs are loving life. Bear is doing really well right now, getting along just fine moving up and down the stairs at her regular slow pace but moving nonetheless. I captured her enjoying the yard on Saturday morning. She is so funny – as soon as she sees you anymore she stands up, so I shot these from inside the porch where she wouldn’t spot me. Then I went out on the patio and got some of the girls.

It is so fun to go in to get Finn in the morning once he is awake. He’s such a happy guy, he wakes up and talks and babbles and sings for a bit. Once he spots you he’s super excited, full of smiles, and starts kicking the mattress with excitement. And the last photo of him standing was totally staged….but super cute.

This is a newer pose, he often turns on one hip and sprawls his leg out to the side.

We geared him up this weekend in both OU Bobcat attire and OSU Buckeyes gear. Let the games begin!

Check out the video of Lily and Finn getting in some cuddle time.

The girls love to spend time in Finn’s room and be a part of any and all activities. Here they got their ball stuck under his bed.

And here he is enjoying a new toy that his daddy just loves. They spent some time playing together this weekend.

Here you can tell he is getting ready to propel himself forward!

And one last snuggle shot – daddy got in a power nap with Finn on Saturday. He wasn’t too interested in going down for his nap, so his daddy rocked him to sleep 🙂

Finn ~ 18 weeks

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Here we are again, another week gone by!

This week we had a couple of milestones: Finn’s 4 month birthday and his 4 month checkup! He is growing well. He is giving out a lot of smiles, blowing raspberries back at you, and turning over here and there. He often rolls to his side, right or left, when he sleeps. He continues to have great hand and eye coordination – putting everything in his mouth: toys, hands, feet, you name it. He now also removes his pacifier from his mouth and holds it in his hand and kind of waves it through the air. This is not such a good thing when he is tired and has his hands near his face! He often removes it and then gets fussy because he wants to have it in his mouth! We are working on letting him cry some, not a very fun thing for this momma or for his daddy. I know this is the window of opportunity for him to learn to sooth himself and develop good sleep habits, but it is hard for me to hear him sob and cry so hard sometimes. Ugh!

At his four month checkup the doctor said he looks excellent. He weighs 13 pounds, 10 ounces (12th percentile), is 25.5″ (63rd percentile) and his head is 42 cm (59th percentile). He is sleeping pretty well, but we are working on getting him on a more consistent pattern of sleep. He often sleeps 4, 5, 6, 7, or occasionally 8 hours at night but each night is a bit different. So I’m hoping that becomes a bit more regular. He takes fabulous naps during the day, usually a two hour nap first, followed by a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon. At his checkup he had one oral vaccine and two shot vaccines, one in each thigh. He handled it like a champ and only cried for a few minutes.

Saturday was “date night” where we babysat the Bethune’s. Here are some fun photos of the cousin’s from the evening. They even all four laid down together for a quick minute – and I didn’t even ask them to (the older ones anyway!).

On Sunday we hosted a cookout for my college friends from OU, along with their hubbies and kiddos. We are getting to be a bigger group each year – 8 adults and 7 (and a half!) kids. It was a great afternoon of fun. All of the kids are growing up so fast. They played lots of games outside and we had way too much food to eat 🙂 Kevin was quite the grill master – we had ribs, burgers, hot dogs, and bahama mamas and plenty of other tasty things. It was good to catch up with everyone – it’s always a good time and I miss seeing these girls!!

Finn ~ 10 weeks

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Finn turned 10 weeks old today! He makes the cutest faces and sometimes the loudest noises out of nowhere – he even shocks himself! He is drooling more and more and is really into putting his hands in his mouth a lot during the day. He has started trying to push his pacifier back in his mouth using the back of his hand. It’s really kind of amazing to watch him do it! He gets a fair bit of tummy time and he loves to grab at the animals in his jungle play yard. This week he really started using his legs more to kick at things too. A future soccer player, perhaps?

We decided to have a bit of fun this past weekend and complete a long overdue landscape project! We had some soil delivered via “Slinger Jones” on Thursday morning. Lily and Cameron weren’t too interested in all the noise – but I had them pose by the gate for a quick photo.

Mom and dad came down on Friday, mom to watch Finn while dad and I went to pick out some shrubs at a local nursery. We weren’t able to find everything we needed at our first stop so we came home and unloaded the first truckload and mom, dad, Finn and I headed to the Anderson’s where we purchased 10 large Arborvitae. Dad did all of the heavy lifting, and unfortunately, I didn’t take a single picture. Ugh! We wanted to create a nice screen along our driveway to provide a bit more privacy between our garage door and driveway and our neighbors garage door and driveway. In order to be able to plant everything we needed some assistance watching the little man so we called in Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong to watch Finn.

However, Grandpa thought it would be more fun to work on the outside projects. Kevin and his dad first tackled replacing our mailbox with a pretty new black one! Then they planted the arborvitae and I planted around the mailbox. Kevin’s mom, Pat, brought us some nice Sunpatiens! I’m excited to watch them grow and actually have something flowering around the mailbox instead of weeds this spring 🙂

Grandma was on duty watching Finn. It wasn’t too bad of a job seeing as he slept for 3 hours straight Saturday afternoon! That hardly EVER happens! So Pat was able to join us outside most of the afternoon too. Here are a couple of pics from their visit.

On Sunday Kevin and I planted the remaining shrubs out front in our garden near the street. We replaced some ugly and sparse gold spirea shrubs with gold lace junipers. And we added some blue star junipers as well. Unfortunately, a couple of our butterfly bushes didn’t make it through the winter so we replaced those with some blooming, fragrant, miss kim lilacs.

And here are a few shots of our front garden. So far this spring we have taken down the two large alberta spruce that flanked the front steps and we are in the process of ripping out some old, ugly groundcover from under the front living room windows. So this is a work in progress…but the walkway to the front door is looking pretty good!

Our Armstrong Family

Watch our family grow!

Category Archives: events

Finn ~ 25 weeks

Finn ~ 18 weeks

Finn ~ 10 weeks