Category Archives: milestone

January 2021

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2021 has arrived! Both boys made it past midnight in to the New Year. Though the party quickly ended and we all headed to bed. On New Years Day we had the traditional pork and sauerkraut while the boys enjoyed primarily mac and cheese and strawberries.

 

I’ve been finding hidden treasures, partially eaten or just the wrappers around lately, typically in the pantry.  I just gives me a good laugh, really. I can just imagine the faces I would see had they been busted in action.  The boys and I made Buckeyes to start off the New Year. They both had fun rolling and dipping them in chocolate, and sampling of course.

Are you noticing a trend in the photos I’ve been sharing? This is the latest installment in the series entitled “where we find Reid sleeping”.  This kiddo really needs an afternoon nap (it’s pretty obvious?) but refuses to take one in a formal way. Instead, we find him asleep in random places around the house!

I really love to see the kids playing together outdoors. If Covid has been good for anything, I love that the kids have had to enjoy each other’s company outside which means no shows, screens, or electronics. Just good old fashioned play. They play long and hard and almost always some sport or game is involved.

Reid is the biggest snuggler of all time. Anytime he sits with you he wants to take your arm and wrap it around him or take your hand and put it across him or next to him. It’s too cute, if you move your hand he will move it back where he wants it :).  And Griffin loves to snuggle and watch a show or sport at the drop of a hat

 

Being on screens so much between school and using them as a “babysitter” from time to time while Kevin is working, Santa gave them the blue-light blocker glasses for Christmas. They like to wear them and I think they both look cute. They don’t even know they are for blocking the blue light, they just think they’re fun to wear. Hopefully it lasts.

We moved Reid up to a full-sized Big Boy bed from his toddler bed this month! It makes me sad to think he’s growing up, but happy at the same time. He is young at heart for sure and loves to be a baby.  But he was ready for his big boy bed! I took him to Target and he picked out the sheets and comforter (with just a wee bit of help from me, lol). We rearranged his room some and got him all set up. He was all smiles.

Reid loves to play and unfortunately through Covid has missed out on being in preschool and laying with same-aged friends. He plays with Griffin or the older kids in the neighborhood but he’s really mostly doing independent play even when they are all together. He loves barbies, babies, and the color pink.

We went to visit Haya, Mo, and baby Summer at their place. Summer is getting so big and the boys loved holding her and sitting with her. Throughout Covid and the quarantine, Kevin began giving the boys and himself hair cuts. They sit through them really pretty well and Kevin has gotten pretty good at it, doing them every month or so.

As a fundraiser for the PTO at Griffin’s school, Beehive, the local Powell bakery had pizza-making kits (amongst other things) that you could buy. So we made our own pizza from scratch one evening and it turned out great.

I love the quiet of the mornings and my routine of getting up early before anyone else, feeding Brutus, and sitting down to have my coffee before our morning walk. Brutus knows after I finish my coffee and get up that it’s time to get his collar on and head out the door. We have a good system down. And then once we’re out we often get to see cool things, like the full moon or a fresh snowfall.

Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein sent a valentine’s package to the boys before they headed out of town for Florida. Once it arrived there wasn’t any keeping it taped up! They were both excited to have lovies with their names on them and in their favorite colors (buckeye for Finn and pink/red for Reid).

We remodeled our first floor and kitchen area in 2014 and painted everything on the entire first floor and loft at that time in a color called Collonade Gray. Kevin and I both dislike how dark our house is, so in an attempt to lighten it up we decided to paint our family room and kitchen walls white and also update the baseboards from the cabinet/cream color to white in the kitchen and from the oak color to white in the family room. We also took down the ceiling trim piece in the kitchen along the long wall since we didn’t think painting that white would look great abutting the kitchen cabinets above the fridge. At the same time, I began to paint the unfinished trim around the new windows that we’ve now had for two (!) years. Yikes. Never thought it would be that long to start painting any of them but here we are. It’s not a fast process and as it turns out after doing part of it and then spring picking up at Millcreek the finishing is on hold!

The boys of the house are the shovelers of the driveway after each snowfall. Griffin and Reid like to suit up and shovel for a bit and then move on to playing in the snow and building a snowman if the conditions are right for it.

Griffin’s teacher, Miss Peacock, entered her class into a contest and won a Tonie Box for each kid in her class! I don’t even recall if I posted about that, but in any case Griffin really loves it and loves the different characters that you can put on the top to listen to stories or music.  So after a while we decided to get one for Reid so that when we put him in bed at night he can listen to a story or song to help him get to sleep. We got him the Frozen character, which is his most favorite song at the moment and also Cars, Toy Story, and a Fox with Nursery Rhymes.

Mom and Dad sent us this selfie from the beginnings of their road trip to warmer weather in Florida for the month of February. I’m glad they decided to go and get out of Ohio for awhile and enjoy the sandy beaches of Siesta Key!

The Millcreek construction is moving along with the first floor framing, electrical, and networking cabling has been run and the HVAC is installed. The insulation is in and the drywall has been hung, the door trim installed and stained.  The second floor will house our IT room – we will finally have all computer and networking equipment in one place rather than three!

Our H2A workers are scheduled to arrive and begin work on February 6th. So Fred, Shaina, and I went to Ikea and loaded up on furnishings for the three apartments that they will be living in.  Dressers, night stands, lights, kitchen supplies, bath towels, you name it we filled up our carts.  It was hilarious. Fred was done after an hour, lol. But we got so much done and off our list of needs. It was a great trip. Afterwards I took home all of the towels and washed them all. Fun fun! We will be ready for these guys soon!

Kevin’s 50th birthday! 12/12/20

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H-a-p-p-y  50th  B-i-r-t-h-d-a-y   K-e-v-i-n!

Kevin hit the half-century mark on December 12th, 2020 amid the Covid-times. It wasn’t the way we had planned to celebrate his birthday, but hopefully it was a fun one anyhow.

I stayed up late the night before to surprise Kevin in the morning with the downstairs all decorated for when we woke up and came downstairs. Flowers, balloons, confetti (including toilet paper confetti to mark the times, lol). It was a fun way to begin the day.

It was a warm day for December so we ventured off on a family bike ride around our neighborhood and a few others nearby. Later, Mom and Dad stopped by to deliver Kevin’s birthday gifts and for a short visit! And later that evening Chris and Sarah Manning hosted a small outdoor gathering of friends on their patio.  It was cold! But we used radiant heaters and bundled up and everyone had a great time. Sarah and Chris had quite the spread from Condado’s as well as Sharecuterie to fill everyone’s tummies. Chris and Chad lit “50 Roman Candles” in celebration of Kevin turning 50.  It was a fun evening spending time with great friends!

Happy 5-0 Kevin!

We took the boys to Ella’s birthday party, held at the Chiller, for a bit of skating mid-day. A good workout for Mom too.


February 1-15, 2020 ~ We have a Pinewood Derby champion!

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Griffin and Kevin worked on preparing Griffin’s first ever pinewood derby car over the last couple of weeks. Griffin decided he wanted a Buckeye car and he chose the thin shape for the car. They went to the hardware store and had it cut down and then got to work sanding and painting and assembling. They made a trip to Buckeye corner to purchase some OSU things and Kevin purchased weights and other items online. The night before the weigh in the troop sent out some info and in it suggested that nothing on the underside of the car not be flush with the underside! Arrgghh! The weights they built into the car were not flush on the bottom. So they went to work modifying the car and adding the weight to the top – the shiny silver oval which is where the “driver” now sits.

Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong had been in town helping care for the kids so early the morning of the Derby Kevin, Jim, and Griffin headed over. Not long after Kevin texted to say I better make my way there as Griffin’s heat was happening soon. I took Reid (not the best decision, but didn’t want him to miss out) and we arrived just a short bit before Griffin’s heat. Reid wondered around the gym and made friends with older kids and inserted himself with the big boys playing cars in the corner. This kid, he knows no stranger. Griffin’s car did super-great. He set a new track record, followed by another track record (as in he beat himself, lol). In the end, he competed against 3 other kids in the troop for the championship. It was a super-tight race – and he ended up winning the overall champion! The final calculations took some time as it was down to hundreds of a second I believe. We had one super happy (yet shy) champ!

 

Later that evening we celebrated at Finn’s chosen dinner spot: Roosters. Only a few short days later Griffin woke up with a mild fever. I gave him some Tylenol and it went away and never returned that day. On Friday, when I got home from work I felt his head and he felt warm and sure enough his fever was back. Since it was the start of the weekend, Kevin took him to the Children’s urgent care where the result of the swab was Influenza B.  Ugh.  We had plans to go to a Magic Show with several neighbor families. We ended up quarantining Griffin in his room starting Friday evening! He hung out in there, we delivered food and drink and medicine. He had the tablet on which we installed the Spectrum app so he could watch the Blue Jackets. Really, he had it made! Luckily his symptoms weren’t too bad though he did have issues on Saturday night where he threw up in his room and then had potty problems. I think went from not drinking enough to drinking too much hence the puking.  But after that he was fine the remainder of the weekend.  No fever, no meds.  Then on Sunday evening he felt a bit warm and darnit – his fever was back!  Ugh, no school on Monday for him either. But luckily, the fever never returned after one dose of medicine and he was back to his normal self.

This was Griffin’s excited face when he was finally allowed out of his room for a snack and a bit of outdoor fresh air with a short bike ride.

Kevin and Reid went on a date to the Magic Show with dinner first at the Spaghetti Warehouse!

Being home while Griffin was sick gave me some time to finally get Reid’s car seat flipped around in the van. Wahoo!

Next up, Reid wasn’t feeling well and had an on/off fever with no real other symptoms other than he wasn’t sleeping well. The last time he didn’t sleep well he had an ear infection, so I decided to take him in to get looked at. Sure enough, his ear infection from December was still around despite two different antibiotics. Next step: injection antibiotics for back to back days! Ugh, because of the dose they split it up into two shots (one in each leg). His first dose was Monday. On Tuesday’s recheck it was looking much better so we only had to have the second set of injections (thankfully not a third on Wednesday) and a follow up with an ENT at Children’s. He was a tough boy but he was NOT happy during and immediately after the shots. Poor boy!

This year I took the easy route and bought the kids Valentine boxes at Target for $5. Ones that they can easily assemble and customize. The Taco one is perfect for Griffin and the Monster is great for Reid. They decorated them with Haya during the day and each took them to school for their parties. We did make our own valentine cards though – Reid’s a school of fish (his preschool class is the Guppy class) and Griffin’s was an awesome word puzzle greeting where his classmates could find each of the words “Happy Valentine’s Day Your Friend Griffin Armstrong Heart Candy February Flowers Treat Hugs Card Chocolate”. Kevin put it together and it was awesome!

 

Thanks for the Valentine’s cookies Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein!

On actual Valentine’s Day Haya made the boys an everything “heart/pink” breakfast!

Reid had his first dental checkup – and somehow – he was cavity free! He and Griffin loved playing in the playspace before hand. Griffin was a champ and went first to show Reid the way. His teeth were in great shape too – no cavities. When it was finally Reid’s turn he was really reluctant. I ended up sitting with him in the chair and the hygienist was able to get through the entire teeth cleaning. Dr. Bob was able to check out all of Reid’s teeth and get lots of giggles out of Reid in the process. Overall it was a great trip!

Reid’s specialist ENT appointment at Dublin Children’s showed that he still had some fluid in his ears, which isn’t abnormal after an infection. At this point it is what happens to the fluid – if the infection comes back, which the doctor thought we just need to give it some more time. If the infection reappears, we may then consider tubes. For now it is wait and see.

When playing with his neighborhood buddy Miles recently they each designed their own CBJ jersey’s to wear while playing hockey! And here are a few of Griffin and Reid from awhile back to now – they’re both growing up quickly! And another from google of 10 years ago (yikes!) when Mom and Dad helped me move into my house. Crazy it has been 10 years.

Kevin also got a message from Rafael that Base22 had met and was able to officially extend an offer to Kevin! They had been in discussions for some time, but this was the official vote needed to extend Kevin an offer.  Yippeeee!