Wow, how can it be September already?! Fall is my favorite time of year, I just can’t believe it is already here. Good thing we hit the sprinkler park one last time!

We ended last week with Rowan’s 3rd birthday party and my dad took several really good pics of the kiddos and all the activity – so I wanted to share them, here they are!

We’ve had quite a fun (and tiring!) week around here. Debbie, Finn, and Sammy spent lots of time outdoors playing in the water and drawing on the driveway. I kicked off my four-day weekend by taking Finn to pick raspberry’s at a local farm.  He did really well and in the beginning he ate so many berries right off the plants! By the end he was really tired and ready for an early bedtime. He’s been teething this week (his upper molars have finally poked through) and he hasn’t been napping very well during the day. He is, however, sleeping really well at night.  I was able to take Friday off and go to a play date at Columbus Commons and the Fountains at the Scioto Mile. Debbie, Sammy, Finn and I packed up the car and headed downtown for an afternoon of fun. The boys had a great time. They didn’t venture very far into the sprinklers, but they had a blast! And the Commons had free carousel rides, kids activities, and the boys enjoyed a pizza and ice cream lunch with the whole group. When we arrived home, Kevin had a nice surprise for Finn in the backyard – a bounce house! Finn thought it was great (as he wasn’t big enough to go in the one downtown). Kevin surprised us all with the bounce house – it was to be the fun for the kiddos for our Labor Day cookout. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the cookout, as Finn picked up the Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease virus which reared itself for the over the weekend. I enjoyed some girls fun later Friday night – it was a fun day!  Saturday, we ventured off to the Richwood Independent Fair with the Ackerman’s. Chad is from the area and has family who farms and show animals. It’s a small, and cute, fair. One of Finn’s favorite words currently is “tractor” (tak ta) and he delighted in climbing all over them! It was a nice day filled with plants, animals, friends, and food! Since we were rather house-bound due to Finn’s virus, we worked tirelessly to unpack all of our kitchen belongings and settle in to our new digs! I can’t even count how many hours it took or how many bins we unpacked or how many dishwasher loads we ran through on the express wash (thank heaven for 30 minute cycles!). Finn happens to love our step stool and even more so he enjoys having his play yard back upstairs. He was so upset when Kevin kept going to the basement to put tools away or put things in storage – he cried every time because he wanted to go down and play!

BUT, we are loving our new kitchen! And we celebrated our first meal with mom and dad, who came down for dinner anyhow! We enjoyed a small-scale cookout and tested out both of the ovens – one for mom’s corn pudding and the other mom and I made the first batch of chocolate chip cookies.  Worked like a charm! We’re mostly unpacked in the kitchen and the pantry, though there are a few details that still need wrapped up: a couple of cabinets to install, crown molding at the ceiling, toe kicks in a few places, a couple of drawer pulls, floor trim, painting the walls, light fixtures, backsplash, close up the basement ceiling, and the list goes on – but we couldn’t be happier! We are excited to stick around home base this week and make some meals 🙂 Come on over anytime – we even have a fully functioning bathroom on the first floor – yippee! Please forgive the dark photos – it seems I only remember to take photos after the sun has gone down!