We have our first harvest! Finn and I picked our first 4 cucumbers on Saturday. I think we’re going to be in over our heads with cucumbers and likely giving them away to any and all of you who read this blog!
It’s been a pretty low-key week around here this week, other than breaking my phone! Seems as though it didn’t appreciate being dropped from a floor above. The screen cracked very badly and it is totally unusable unless I’m in my car and can use the phone via the bluetooth connection. Kevin did some research and found a means of ordering a brand new replacement directly from Motorola, for free! Yay! It will just take a bit for it to arrive as we were able to customize it so it has to be built and then shipped. So I’ve been off the grid, since Wednesday evening. I must say, it’s not really all that bad.
Each afternoon when I get home we head out to the patio to take a peek at what is happening in our veggie garden. It’s pretty cool to see just how fast they go from being small to ready to pick! In addition to the cucumbers, we will have zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers fairly soon. Further down the road the baby watermelon, butternut squash (which is probably the most plentiful of everything!) and hopefully someday cantaloupe (I’ve yet to see one yet!) and sweet peas. 
Debbie took Finn to the splash park, zoo (where he loves the carousel and throws a fit when it’s time to get off), and the nearby adventure park this week, where Finn discovered sand and a tunnel! I headed back to the park with Finn on Saturday where he loved just hanging out in the tunnel more than anything. And who can blame him, it was pretty hot! He also did some fun finger painting and drawing on the chalk board with Debbie 🙂
Bananas, bananas, bananas. This boy just wants to eat “nanas” all the time! He eats an entire one so fast, and then just says “more”. It’s crazy. We hadn’t had bananas for awhile, and now that they are back, they are in high demand! Rice and beans are other current favorites, as well as peas (“pee, pee, pee, pee” until you get him one, once he sees them). His appetite has been huge lately. One morning he ate two and a half sausage links, amongst the other items he was having! I don’t know where it all goes!
He continues to amaze us with his words. A couple of weeks ago I asked Debbie to write down a list of all the words he says throughout the day, as I noticed that while he uses many words regularly, she also hears him say certain words that we don’t hear him say, and vice versa. Between the two of us, we’ve compiled a list, which has over 50 words! I’m listing them here to look back on one day, but perhaps you will enjoy reading through it!
more, two, duck, mama, dada, papa, debbie, happy (babby), dance (des), bottle (baba), water (wa wa), doggy, pillow (pilwo), elmo (melmo), park, slide (swide), swing, bumble bee (bumba bee), butterfly (bu werfly), grass (gas), baby, girl (gwirl), rice, banana (nana), lily, purple, white, car, truck (truh), dirty, no, paci (boppy), off, on, choo choo, outside (side), bye bye, hi, up, rock (rah), flower (fower), giraffe (raffe), elephant (ephant), monkey (mummy), flamingo (mingo), zoo, finn, sammy (nammy), sorry (sorsy), please (pease), thank you (tank oo), ball, I love you (wove oo), bug, sky (ki), airplane (a-pwane), lap, book.
We’ve also begun asking him if he needs a new diaper, and typically when he does he will nod his head in an up and down motion and say yes. However, he’s also very finicky lately and doesn’t like having his diaper changed – so he sometimes says “no” (with a very cute inflection in his voice) even when he does. He understands things really well and he loves to help clean the floor with the dust mop. When he is tired or frustrated or mad that he didn’t get his way, he often resorts to biting or hitting his head on the floor, both of which really bother me. When I asked the pediatrician about him hitting his head, he recommended just making sure he was in a safe place and then ignoring it. With all-wood floors I’m a bit nervous about it. And the biting thing, he often bites me or scratches at my face if he gets mad when I correct him for something. He is learning about “time out’s” on occasion. He does say sorry (“sorsy”) and give a nice hug to apologize. So we are working on that. 
I finally got around to planting *most* of the plants this weekend from the Friends & Family Sale at Millcreek a couple of weeks ago. It doesn’t look like much here, but I ripped out some ugly Yarrow that got big and floppy and replaced it with some more tidy and long-blooming plants like coreopsis and penstemon. I put in some helianthemum (sun rose), dianthus (carnation-like garden pinks), and a nice colony forming geranium. I also planted some miniature solomon’s seal from mom and dad near the front steps. This area is now mostly complete, though I’ve got to finish the area to the south of the walkway that connects to the oak tree. Hopefully that will happen this week. 
On the remodeling front Brett is making good progress on the flooring. He finished the family room, part of the hall to the front foyer, the walkway to the dining room, and both of the pantries this week. It is looking quite pretty! Kevin also re-hung the trim and door to the laundry room after he did some major work on it to make it look new again. The laundry room is now back in action (super yay!) and the wainscoting is up. Hopefully this week it will get caulked, painted, and the trim put on so we can call it *mostly* complete. We still need to paint the cabinets that were moved from the kitchen at some point too and pick hardware for all of the cabinets. Kevin and his dad also installed a new exhaust fan in the first floor bathroom. The old one was so loud and had so many years of dust and dirt built up. Ick. The new one looks great and is much quieter too!
Now that the washer and dryer are back in action I washed Cammie and Lily’s bed, which had been on the porch all this time, and put it in the family room. They love laying on the new floor, so long as the air compressor isn’t going off! Then they much rather prefer being on the porch or upstairs as far away as possible. And here are a few other photos of Finn from the week. I brought in his infant carrier and base to take upstairs and put away and he thought it would be fun to sit in his “seat” (another one of his favorite words ). If you tell him we are going somewhere and that he needs to get in his “seat”, he puts that word on repeat about 10 times!
We’ve had an adventurous week this week filled with lots of time outside, including picking many cucumbers and zucchini and playing with Lily. We went to the zoo three times too and saw so many fun animals. We explored several parts of the zoo we hadn’t previously been through and of course we got in a couple rides on the carousel. Finn absolutely loves to have the dogs around all the time. He climbs all over Lily and talks to both of the dogs all the time. When they walk into a room he often does a little dance. 
Finn continues to love to climb and test the waters with what he should and shouldn’t be doing. One evening in the kitchen he pulled a box off the chair along with his to go bag and proceeded to step on the box while carrying his bag. He certainly is able to multi-task! He also loves to climb on his toy car in his room and stand on the seat and get things off his dresser, in this case, a bunch of homeless socks!
Thursday we were able to host a family gathering at our place as Kevin’s brother Sean along with Chris and their kids Max and Charlotte are visiting from New Mexico. Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong and Brett were here as well. Finn enjoyed meeting his cousins for the first time and the kiddos played together for awhile in the basement and outside. Unfortunately, rather sad circumstances led to their trip to Ohio as they are here to attend two unrelated funerals. So while Sean and Chris traveled on Saturday, Grandma, Grandpa, Max, Charlotte, Brett, Missy, Kevin, Finn and myself spent the day together at the zoo. Though the day started of rainy it actually turned out to be a perfectly pleasant overcast day!
After the zoo the kids had a quick run through the yard. Finn was only wearing his socks, and left cute little trails all over the driveway. 
The highlight of this trip to the zoo for Finn was riding the camels (mamals)! He was super excited (though it doesn’t look like it here) and wouldn’t stop saying “mamals, mamals, mamals!”. 
Several areas of progress this week on the remodeling. On Monday Kevin and Brett prepped and framed the bay window area for new windows (installed on Tuesday) and added new cedar siding. After the windows were installed (by Lowe’s) Brett finished the details. The new windows are shorter than the previous windows since the kitchen sink and counters will be along the wall. Kevin primed the wood with tinted primer, so from the outside you can’t even tell anything was done. These guys are professionals 🙂 Our new refrigerator arrived on Thursday and Brett also finished up the food pantry with all of the shelving and framing for various items that will be installed (a drawer freezer and either the wine fridge or ice maker). Kevin filled the nail holes and then sanded everything so now all that remains is for the shelves to be painted and the counter to be installed. Things are moving right along!
