Category Archives: holiday

December 2021

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!

And we are closing out 2021 in a very relaxing fashion. We are on movie number 3!

Here’s to a great 2022!

 

And here are this months videos.  So….many….videos!  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 2021

November arrived pretty quickly this year! We kept counting down the weeks until our patio project was going to begin and then before we knew it the crew was moving quickly. We decided not to go to Tennessee this year so that we could be home during the construction of the patio. As we thought could be the case, we made several changes and decisions as the days went by so it was good that we were here. Kevin worked from home and was able to get daily progress pictures. Sadly though, we missed our many traditions in the Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge area of Tennessee. Google kindly reminded me of years past with many pictures throughout the weeks of November!  In early November we also headed to Roosters after we went voting as a family. We’ve been taking the boys to the polls since they were born!

 

November also began our ‘hot cocoa’ season! Both Griffin and Reid love to use their own mugs and have hot cocoa, especially in the mornings with me when they are up before I go to work. I have coffee and they have hot cocoa.

On Veterans Day (11/11/21) Griffin was able to receive his first pediatric Covid-19 vaccine! We went to Powell pharmacy and had a great experience there. At the same time Reid got his flu shot, Kevin got his flu shot, and I got my flu shot and Covid booster.  Whew – that was a lot all at once but it was very smooth. Reid did really well and Griffin did too. Griffin powered through his fear and anxiety of getting a shot – he was quite nervous and tearful initially. But afterward he was just fine and grateful he was able to get the vaccine. He immediately asked if this means he can play inside his friends houses again. It made me pretty sad, actually, that it’s been so long since the kids have really played inside their friends houses.  But the time will come!  So, after shots and in the yucky pouring rain we headed to our favorite family place – Roosters – to celebrate all the good things.

Griffin’s Cub Scout Pack cleans up the leaves at Liberty Presbyterian Church each fall. So Kevin and Griffin had a fun couple of hours using rakes and mom and dad’s backpack blower that we thankfully inherited!

Reid and I got to go on a fun daytime date where we headed to Bob Evans for a yummy breakfast. He loved the bacon and hot cocoa!

Brutus is such a good boy and does really well when he is outside with us. On different occasions when the weather has nice and I’ve been working in the gardens I take him out there with me and he just sun bathes in the gardens or grass. When people or dogs walk by he just sits there, sometimes he will go from lying down to sitting up. But he loves his freedom and taking in the rays.

On the 16th Kevin and I celebrated our 9th anniversary! Thanks to a visit from Jim and Pat, we were able to enjoy a nice evening dinner while they entertained the boys (or is it the other way around?!) at home. We had dinner at Lindey’s, a dessert sampler at Barcelona, and then topped it off with drinks at Nocterra in Powell. We were still home by 10:30, hahaha.

Both Griffin and Reid’s rooms are always cold in the winter time, especially Griffin’s as his room has the access to the attic. This year Kevin decided he was going to lay down insulation above their rooms, so he ordered about 30 rolls of R30 insulation. We carried it all to Griffin’s room, then tossed them up into the attic and Kevin put down two rolls before we ran out of time. It’s unfinished as of yet, but thankfully we’re having above average warm days for November!

Reid, this boy has his own style that is for sure! Each day he wakes and dresses himself before coming downstairs. Typically, he’s wearing OSU shirts and shorts, 1 day out of 30 will he come down in pants. We’ve been trying to tell him it’s getting colder and for school he’s going to want to wear pants (not shorts). On this particular day he wore a thermal, with a shark button down shirt, and grey jeans. He was pumped with his choices.

Sometimes there are just pictures that make you laugh – and this is one of those for me. I don’t even recall why, but for some reason Reid came downstairs “nu nu” and while he was with me in the kitchen wanted a piggy back ride. Somehow Kevin captured this pic. Silly Reid. This picture makes me laugh as it reminds me of the way he was cutely giggling the entire time.

Reid has Miss Laura and Miss Michelle this year in the Monkey class. Here are his class and portrait pics – notice he’s wearing OSU gear. As I said, he wears OSU 9 days out of 10, and I thought it was great to do pictures in an outfit that shows his style and personality.

Check out these cute little hands and feet turkeys that Reid and Lilly did together. I love them!

Even though we didn’t go to Tennessee, I had scheduled the week off from work months ago. So instead I did fun things throughout the week with the kids and other fun things like going to Mansfield and helped Mom and Dad cover the greenhouse! We lucked out with a great weather day and got it covered with just the three of us very easily. We put the mule to bed for the winter and also blew some leaves and covered up some raised beds back in the playpen area. We got a lot done!

Another fun Boy Scout meeting was one with a U.S. Marshall who brought his service dog, a 4 year old yellow lab. I attended this meeting with Griffin and it was really cool to see all of the demonstrations of the dog detecting explosives! I really love watching dogs who have been trained execute their commands. It’s really cool.  And I appreciate it so much since we’ve had Brutus trained too. It creates a great bond.

For Thanksgiving Reidy helped me bake the pecan pie this year! We went to Mom and Dad’s house for Thanksgiving along with the Bethune’s. We enjoyed a huge feast!

This marks the second year that we haven’t ventured out as a family for Black Friday shopping. Last year I did not go at all, but this year I went out to Costco, Polaris Mall and Kohl’s. It wasn’t too crowded when I began mid-morning, but by the time I checked out at Kohls late afternoon I waited in a line wrapped to the back of the store for a half an hour! Later that evening we still did gather for dinner as is tradition. This year we went to Kitchen Social at Polaris with Mom and Dad, Amy, Andy, Graham, Rowan, and Greta. We had great seats to watch the action of the kitchen!

I love seeing pictures of Reid’s days through the HomeRoom app that his teachers use. Here are a few.

Reid made it on the Locker Soccer Instagram story too. He is definitely a silly Cone Head.

Can you spy somethings that do not belong? Daddy gave these chameleons a fun ride.

Since we now have an artificial tree, we can put it up anytime. And this year we put it up on November 28th and had our fun decorating night on Tuesday the 30th – whoa! These boys absolutely love decorating the tree. They have such genuine joy when they see their ornaments and we talk about the memory each one has. It takes us hours to decorate the tree as we put up all my childhood ornaments, all of our family ornaments and the boys have already begun ornament collections – we have so many fun ones! This year we broke three while hanging them this year, but thankfully they were just generic decoration ones and nothing personalized, whew!

Our tradition includes wearing our matching family jammies, listening to Christmas tunes, and lots of trips up and down the ladder! At some point we break for hot cocoa and then wrap it up with peppermint (or cotton candy) ice cream!

The City of Powell has a mailbox for Santa and you can download a template letter to send to Santa as well from their website. Griffin completed the boys letters (in cursive a bit!) and one afternoon I dropped them off. They are eager to see if Santa writes them back!

 

Here are some videos! I always want to remember the childlike voice of Reid so we’ve tried to capture some lately before he begins to sound older! We did the same thing with Griffin and it is so crazy to go back now and listen to them!

 

October 2021

Reid. He is uniquely Reid. I mean, I guess we are each uniquely ourselves, but this kid has his own spunk, sass, style and personality that he brings to every situation.

Griffin’s team played in a few tournaments throughout the season. This one, in Newark, was a great one for them and the ended as finalists (2nd place). They lost in the final championship game to a team that was really quite excellent. But these boys have fun and are improving and playing like a team, passing better and better with each game. Reid loves these kids and the feeling is mutual. They call him the team mascot.

We were able to return from Day 1 of the soccer tourney to attend the Fall Festival at Tyler Run. It poured down rain shortly before we went so everything was soaking wet! The boys had a great time playing games and Griffin got to hang with a couple of friends for a bit.

On the 2nd day of the tournament Kevin went solo as I had a girls day with my college friends planned. Griffin’s team did well and the ended up in the finals and I didn’t want to miss, so I ended up heading to Newark just in time to arrive after the start of the game. It was a rough one, they were shut-out. But the fun in receiving medals and celebrating having a great tournament was a good time.

Reid has a lot of fun at NPCA, including visits from fire fighters! He and Lilly have fun on his afternoons at home and on Tuesday’s when he doesn’t have school.

I took the day off to attend Reid’s field trip to the Maze. Full of fun-fall-adventures including a wagon ride, picking a pumpkin and two gourds, feeding goats, and doing fun games.

More t-ball where Reid’s personality continues to shine. From fits and tantrums for not getting “every” ball, to playing with sand or talking with friends, every game is an adventure.

From Little Reidy to big Reidy.

We went away for a weekend to Hocking Hills to celebrate our neighbor Brian’s 40th birthday. The Craig’s, Dennie’s, and us had a nice time in a cabin that had a fun basement and hot tub. We were able to go hiking at hocking hills, eat a lot of good fun, and just hang out and chat. We woke up early Saturday morning, came back to Columbus for Reid’s tball and Griffin’s soccer game, and then headed back. Kind of crazy – but Griffin only had 3 games left and they only have 3 subs when every player is there! He didn’t want to miss (and honestly I didn’t want to myself!).

Funny thing – a few days after we returned, Mom and Dad went to hocking hills with the Dewald’s and also hiked Old Man’s Cave!

We attended the season opener for the Columbus Blue Jackets with the Bethune’s and Mom and Dad. We had great seats in the Scotts Terrace and the Blue Jackets came away with a great victory.

Third grade pictures are in! Just look at this kid growing up. If I was only able to pause time I would do it in an instant. He and I went on a fun date to the Columbus zoon one day and had fun feeding the giraffes amongst other things.

More soccer……! Griffins team placed 2nd in their age group at a tournament in Hilliard at Spindler Park. It was a fun tourney as cousin Rowan was also playing there so we were able to catch him playing as well. Lilly came to watch and Mom and Dad bounced between fields!

Poor decision, as I had already rescheduled our tickets one time, but we had tickets to attend the Pumpkins Aglow at the Franklin Park Conservatory – which ended up being the evening after the soccer tournament (second day) and everyone would have rather stayed home and lounged. Both boys fell asleep on the way to the conservatory! Thankfully the rain was finished and though wet grounds, we didn’t have to walk around in the rain itself. It was a neat exhibit.

As is neighborhood tradition, we gathered in our driveway for pizza and social time prior to heading out for trick or treat. This year the adults decided to get inflatable costumes too as a surprise to the kids. Unfortunately, mine wouldn’t inflate so I didn’t partake in the fun. But several neighbors enjoyed the adult costumes as much as the kids. Mom and Dad visited with us and stayed behind to pass out candy while we explored the neighborhood. It was a great night of weather for trick or treating.


Here are several videos from this month’s soccer games 🙂