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December 23, 2018

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The Wyndbend crew at the bus stop! Brian texted me this picture and I thought it was a great one. It was one of the coldest mornings yet waiting for the bus! This week Griffin’s school had their Holiday Sing-a-long concert. It was on a Thursday, and Griffin doesn’t go to school that day, but I took him so he could participate with his Kindergarten teacher and the “blue” class. I was surprised, only one of his classmates from his “yellow” class came! The kiddos sang through numerous songs which highlighted many different winter holidays and Griffin’s favorite, “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas”.

Even though it is a super busy time of year for Santa, he was able to quickly write a reply to both Griffin and Reid. Their letters arrived this week and they both made it on the nice list 🙂

In preparation for Christmas all the boys needed to get their hair cut. We decided to all go together to Sport Clips. This was only Reid’s second hair cut, his first was at Cookie Cutters which is a place for kids. He did really well watching a “show” on Kevin’s phone (other than when he hit the buttons and turned off the screen numerous times!). It wasn’t the best cut of all times, but we were happy he did so well :).  Griffin got the deluxe treatment this time with a heated towel and head massage. Kevin declined a photo op, lol. 

Griffin’s class party was this Friday, the last day of school before winter break. I arrived home early from work, picked up Reid, and headed to Tyler Run. The kids had a great day – it was Pajama Day where they each wore jammies to school, they watched the Polar Express and had popcorn, and then their class party! All of Griffin’s buddies absolutely love playing with Reid and following him around the classroom. It was a very fun last day of school. 

After school I took the boys to Kohls for some Christmas shopping before we headed north to Mansfield. Prior to leaving Kevin and the boys gave my my Christmas gift early, a new iPhone XS. Yay, so excited to have a better phone with more memory and better cameras! Kevin stayed behind to do some secret elf work while the dogs and kids and I shoved off to Mansfield. We purchased an air hockey table for the boys for Christmas and he hired someone to come take our pool table apart Saturday morning and move and store it in our storage area. They helped Kevin assemble the Air Hockey table also such that it was ready to go for Christmas morning!  The Bethune’s arrived on Saturday and Griffin was excited to play with his cousins. Greta and Graham love following Reid around and playing with him. On Saturday evening we went to Linden Road to watch Mom perform with the choir in the Cantata. Somehow I didn’t take any pictures, but Kevin did snap a cute one of Reid downstairs at the church while they were off exploring in order to keep Reid entertained :).

The earth moving at Millcreek is moving along at a great pace. They will be moving the drains and filling in a bit more of the northwest corner of the pond, but it is otherwise pretty close. 

Reid is really beginning to chatter a lot more. He’s starting to say more and more words. This particular night in Target he was being silly so I wanted to snag a video of him saying “car”.

December 16, 2018

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Happy Birthday Daddy! Kevin’s birthday was on Wednesday this week so enjoyed a midweek visit from Jim and Pat (Brett wasn’t feeling well) to celebrate Jim, Brett, and Kevin’s birthdays.
Thursday I was scheduled to be off work though I ended up going in for a short bit. We are giving the Millcreek website a makeover and as a part of that we’re featuring video on our homepage. As it turns out, the best day to shoot the video was Thursday (a very last minute plan!) so I wanted to be sure things went off ok. It turned out to be a fun visit as the weather was nice and the construction workers were also doing a lot of earth moving and our team was busy with hut construction.  This group of succulents are from the millions of babies I brought back from Mom and Dads patio planter. The plant is appropriately named Mother of Thousands, or something like that! These suckers grow quick! The weather was unusually warm this week and we had been wanting to go to Wildlights at the zoo so we made a last-minute decision to head there after work on a weeknight. We got to see Bumble, ride camels, ride the train, and see tons of pretty lights!

In preparation for Sunday’s annual Candy Making Party, we woke up on Saturday morning and started getting ready. A little lounging first, then some cleaning, and then our pre-party buckeye-dough making festivities began. Griffin loves helping (and sampling, of course) and Reid joined us this year too.

Sunday afternoon we hosted the Bethunes, Mannings, Kesslers, and Mom and Dad for our annual Candy Making Party. We intentionally kept the crowd smaller this year and we all had a lot of fun. More time to talk to everyone and a little less craziness! Amy and the kids pre-made all of the cut-out sugar cookies so after everyone had lunch (baked potatoes, pulled pork, salad, etc) our first bit of fun was decorating sugar cookies. All 9 of the kiddos fit around the island at the same time and made quick work of decorating the cookies. They are quite creative with their designs!
Next up, forming all the buckeyes and then after a bit of chilling we had a dipping party. 

Amid all the activity I found Rowan over talking to sweet Lily, who had found quiet laying on her bed in the family room. They were just having a cute conversation together :). Charlotte was an amazing help this year with Reid. He slept for the first couple of hours but once he was up he was on the go! She watched him upstairs, downstairs, and everywhere!

Every year the kids dump in the flavorings of the hard tack candy. This year we made root beer, butterscotch, peppermint, and cinnamon. We’ve done it enough to know that cinnamon is always last and everyone holds there breath for the flavoring and pouring of the candy onto the slab! We cut the candy a few different ways this year and in the end decided that the pizza rocker cutter is the way to go. KK made some awesomely symmetrical green candies!

Mom made a deliciously sweet birthday cake for Kevin full of Kit Kat bars and M & Ms. After our friends departed we sat down all worn out and had dinner and cake and ice cream. As Mom and Dad were about to leave I realized we never took an entire group photo and while too late for that, I figured we’d try to take a quick one of us. Reid wasn’t really that interested 🙂 

Here are a couple of things of Griffin’s from school. I love the picture card he created for me! He is doing really well in school with math. He loves counting and adding and subtracting. 

And here is a video google put together. I thought it was a nice summary of the week!

December 9, 2018

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Family Christmas Card photo 2018! Many thanks to Amy for taking our pictures again this year. It was cold and drizzly and windy, but she was able to get some great ones. We’ve made a mental note to put our family photo session on the calendar in October next year! The City of Powell collects letters to Santa each year and this year Griffin filled out his own letter! We helped Reid with his and one afternoon Hannah took the boys to the municipal building to drop the letters in the box. We are eagerly awaiting our replies from Santa!

On Monday I took Griffin to the doctor to get checked out from his hives. In the end he thinks it was the tail end of a virus and Griffin’s reaction to it was the hives. He really didn’t exhibit any symptoms of being sick so we’re thankful for that and I’m super relieved that it’s not a food allergy!

On Monday and Tuesday’s when Cole and Cooper are home with Brian and Lisa, Griffin and Cole are inseparable. They go from our house to Brian’s and back again. Sometimes they end of up eating dinner together. They’re fun and cute. And slowly, Cole is warming up to Brutus. Reid loves to be a big boy and have all the same food and utensils that the big kids do. I’ve been trying to capture Reid’s personality in pictures as much as I can. He makes the most expressive faces and loves to just babble as he takes things in and out – his most favorite thing to do at this stage. Brutus, as per usual, loves to insert himself in all the activity and just be there to partake in the fun. Reid is extremely observant and loves to mimic behaviors that he sees. Lately, he really loves to help feed the dogs. In fact, if you don’t let him help carry the cup of food (or carry by himself) he turns in to a screaming mess. This boy, he definitely knows what he wants, lol.

Growing up Amy and I had signs on the doors to our room that are still there to this day! This week Griffin painted a canvas sign for himself and his brother that he wants to put on the door to his room. They both turned out so great!

After the church musical on Sunday we headed across the street for a last minute dinner at Dewey’s Pizza. The Manning’s called us and came over and joined us and we enjoyed a last minute dinner with friends. I snapped this quick pic on the way out the door of everyone watching the pizza dough being made. 

In other fun this week, Griffin burned off some serious energy at his classmate Kaho’s birthday party at Buckeye Bounce. I enjoyed meeting and talking to other moms from school. After a long time of Kevin and I talking about how we should get together more often with the Bethune’s we threw out the idea of having monthly family dinners – and this week was our first one! We were treated to a nice mexican spread of food and the kiddos enjoyed sitting at the kiddie table and playing before and after dinner. 

For Kevin’s birthday, I planned a date night out to see For King and Country’s Christmas Tour, Little Drummer Boy. We made a quick stop at Hot Chicken Takeover for dinner and snagged a pedi-cab to take us super fast to the Schott in the frigit temps as we parked really far away! We had great seats and loved the concert. While we were out, Griffin decorated his Gingerbread house with Mara. He was so excited to show us the next morning.

Since I’m writing this post several weeks late, I don’t even recall why I was at the vet with Brutus! I think he had an ear infection, but in any case, I snapped his pic as he awaited the vet. For the first time ever they put a muzzle on him while they worked on him. He had growled at the tech and kind of barked/jumped as she put her hand out to be friendly. He really isn’t a fan of that! Anyhow, I totally understood why they wanted to do it and I actually put it on for them. He wasn’t being aggressive or anything, but at 112 pounds and with him being nervous the tech felt more comfortable handling him for the exam. He was fine with it and ended up doing great. 

Groundwork has begun at Millcreek as we are preparing to build a new Shipping and Growing Facility. The first step is draining the pond as we will be filling in part of it in order to move the structure further to the east. The 5 new houses in the I-pad are also beginning to take shape.