December 8-23, 2019

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Well, here i am  two months after our annual Candy Making Party putting together a blog post about it along with the rest of our fun-filled December. Whew. I just can’t seem to keep on top of our blog but I’ll do my best to go back in time and recall our shenanigans.

 

Griffin was diagnosed with the flu yesterday evening (February 7). We had tickets to go see Miracles and Magic along with dinner before hand at the Spaghetti Warehouse with four other families in our neighborhood but since Griffin isn’t well he and I are at home (he’s been napping for awhile) and Kevin and Reid are have some fun time together at the show. Since I’ve already cleaned every bathroom, door knob, and light switch with bleach, and am almost done with laundry (lots of loads of sanitizing coats, towels, clothes, sheets, etc) I figure I should put together this post in the calm of the early evening.

 

So….let’s get back to December and talk about our annual candy making and cookie decorating gathering at our house. We had a good crowd this year and as per usual we made buckeyes, decorated sugar cookies, and made hard tack candy (lemon, cinnamon, root beer, and peppermint). We also attempted to make chocolate covered pretzels.  They turned out ok but certainly not like the photos on Pinterest, lol. We enjoyed a nice lunch of chili, hot dogs, salad, and pulled pork (I think?).  It’s crazy when I look back at the years of photos from this time together each year and how big all of the kids are getting, the Manning girls especially! Mom brought some cute crafts that the kids enjoyed too. Bracelets seemed to be quite popular.

Each year Mom is generous with her time and talent and brings a birthday cake for Kevin! This year it was quite the feat and took extra time but her from-scratch chocolate cake was super yummy. Mom and Dad, the Bethune’s and Audrey and Samantha enjoyed another round of food and capped it off with the chocolate cake and some ice cream.

 

On Kevin’s actual birthday we went out for his favorite, pizza, at Shorty’s Pizza and Growl in Powell. Then it was home for presents and apple pie! Griffin crafted Kevin a nice handmade card.

Our annual winter time OU girls gathering was at our house mid-December. Rather than making cookies this year we just enjoyed a nice brunch of cinnamon rolls, fruit, quiche, and mimosas! It was nice to sit around the table and catch up. We didn’t have an agenda, a timeline, or anything – just hours of conversation! They were quite excited about the sign greeting 🙂

 

It had been a couple of years since we’ve visited the Zoo during Wildlights but it was on our December bucket list and we spent a few hours checking out many of the lights, several animals, a quick 4D movie, and enjoyed yummy hot cocoa while we explored. 

 

Can you spot everyone in this photo?

I’ve come to really enjoy the time I spend with Brutus on our walks. That’s not to be confused with loving getting out of bed every day just after 6 so I can get dressed for work, feed the dogs, take him on a walk, pack the kids lunches (and mine!), make my coffee and head out the door at 7:30. But I’ve learned that it is difficult to do it in the evening. Kevin often work until later and three weeknights the boys have activities. Once those are over and Kevin is home I’m ready for bed! And since Reid has been getting out of bed after we put him down I don’t want to leave the house when they should be sleeping to take Brutus before Kevin is home. So, early morning it is.  It’s kind of fun to be out and about in the dark and quiet and notice the different feels of the neighborhoods around. Brutus has good listening days and other frustrating days. For instance when we pass by another dog in a yard he tends to zone out and just want to get to the dog. Or he barks at someone putting out their trash in the dark, lol. He does get a bit spooked here and there which is understandable since it’s dark out! But we have fun and hang and get our steps in. Then when we get home to the yard I usually let him go nuts in the front yard. He really loves that. I was able to get some pictures in the light when I took him on a walk in daylight on the weekends :).

Our online shopping was almost crazy it seems this year {insert laughing emoji here}. For awhile there it seemed like multiple times per day we were getting deliveries. I’d seen this nice idea online of putting out snacks and drinks so I decided we should do that as a way of thanking our delivery people! I wasn’t sure if people would take things or not. Surprisingly most took one or two snacks but no one took any water!

Reid has been having trouble sleeping through the night. We have been hearing noises or hear our door opening and it is has been Reid! More than a couple times I open our door to find him sleeping in the hallway. Sometimes he’s gone back to his room but sleeps with the light on. Hoping it’s just a phase!

Reid’s Guppy class at NPCA did not participate in the Christmas Program with the other classes as they’re pretty young. Instead, their class had a lunch and the parents were invited. It was fun to show up and see him in his class, eating at the table, and amongst the other kids. It was a pajama day so he wore his Christmas jammies :).

Reid is our climber and oftentimes we find him in the pantry, up on the counter, which he got to by climbing up the shelves. I used to have a stool in there (which I now keep on the counter) but he has creatively found ways to get up on his own. He loves “bars” (fig bars) and “pire boody” (pirate booty). I may need to look into getting a lock on the door!

These two are a handful sometimes.  They go from giggle together to screaming at each other in nothing flat. But they can also be really cute together and help each other and talk nicely to one another. Griffin often tries to help Reid; sometimes he likes it and other times he wants to “do it myself”.  Our weeks are busy with Gymnastics, Soccer, and Swimming. Then Flag Football on Sunday’s. Griffin is doing well in school and has earned more Pawsome notes from his teacher. His reading and math are excellent; one area he’s working on improving is his writing (like putting more obvious spaces between words and spelling words with proper vowels/sounding them out).

Griffin and I took some photos of one of our silly times together. He enjoys capturing different expressions that we make at the same time :).

Before Christmas break the boys gave Haya a happy vacation gift. I loved the picture Kevin sent me that morning of Reid wearing the necklace we gave her, lol.

I got a late afternoon call from a transportation company who wanted to pickup the MGTD within approximately 3 hours. What? This was on a Thursday afternoon in December, literally it had been the coldest night of the year the night before. Griffin had swim lessons at 5:30 and the trucking company couldn’t drive directly to our house for pickup as he had an open-air 18 wheeler, which wouldn’t be able to navigate Jewett Road.  Soooo…..thankfully Jim and Pat were here watching the kids and Kevin and his Dad were able to jump the MG to get it started. We arranged to meet at the Target parking lot on Sawmill Parkway. Once the trucking company arrived there was some uncertainty if the car would fit on the trailer.  Again, what?? Don’t you know what you’re picking up and the specifications of the car?  Thank the Lord even though the car was narrow, it did fit on the ramps and he was able to take it. It made for a memorable experience!

A couple days before Christmas we headed to Mansfield to spend time with Mom, Dad, and the Bethunes. Amy, Andy, and the kiddos gifted Kevin a nice Hockey Sweater ala Clark Griswold. Kevin loved it and lived in it most of our time there. All eleven of us ventured to Kingwood Center for their winter lights. Parking was crazy and it was a super popular event in town. The kids enjoyed seeing the lights and trees, walking around outside, touring the Kingwood Mansion, and as a bonus they got to see Santa together.

The office/break room/men’s and women’s restroom building project began at Millcreek. They had it framed in a day! Whew, moving right along!

And here are a couple videos: one of Kevin driving the MGTD to Target and another of Brutus demonstrating good obedience at the end of a walk.

 

November 24 – December 7, 2019

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Yay Griffin! He was nominated by his teacher as one of two classroom recipients of the 1st Quarter Teamwork Award! We were in Tennessee during the school wide assembly, but Mrs. Hale offered to present it to him in front of the class once we were back. It worked out perfectly where I was volunteering the Monday we returned so I was able to see him receive his award – he was surprised!

The video is here:

I stayed after to work with the kids on word lists. Griffin is doing really well learning more and more words all the time. He crushed his November goal – he learned 60 new words and the goal was 15!

We headed to Mansfield for Thanksgiving festivities on Tuesday evening after swim lessons. Mom had plenty of fun for the kids to enjoy while we were there including a placemat making activity and folders of worksheets and activity sheets – one for each kid! The various activities kept them occupied and having fun for quite some time while Amy and Andy were packaging seed orders. The weather was SUPER windy but at one point I looked out and it seemed calm so we decided to give covering the greenhouse a go while there seemed to be a lull in the wind. We got super lucky and were able to get it done (I didn’t think there was going to be anyway with nearly 30 mph winds!). Sadly, I didn’t take any photos of our work though I did get one of Kevin being silly in the woods.

 

 

On Thanksgiving morning we got up, I took Brutus on an early walk, and then we all packed up and headed to the Turkey Trot / Kids fun run which all the cousins participated in. It was a chilly morning and Reid refused to run, but Graham, Greta, Rowan, and Griffin got in a quick race. We headed back home and got ready to head to Enon for the Armstrong Thanksgiving while Mom and Dad watched the Bethune kids while Amy and Andy ran the 5k.

We enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving meal at lunchtime at Dave and Gayle’s home. We were able to spend time with everyone, Griffin played some football with his cousins, and we ventured out to feed the horses some carrots. Reid was so funny, he kept saying “he bit me, HAHAHAHA”. He did really well feeding them out of his own hand. He would giggle every time. And Griffin liked feeding and petting them too. They are nice and pretty horses.

We drove back to Mansfield where we had round 2 and a tasty Thanksgiving dinner at Mom and Dads. After a little relaxation we headed to bed and then it was up and at ’em for breakfast at Bob Evans to begin our annual Black Friday Shopping tradition. After gobbling up our breakfast we headed to Polaris, then to Easton where we got some items purchased off our list. We ended up at Bon Vie for our traditional dinner in the private circle room – it’s such a nice space! The kids put together their lego toys while we waited on dinner. After dinner we continued shopping some and got several more things accomplished – it was a successful outing!

On Saturday morning everyone woke up early so we decided to gun it and head to get our tree. It was originally forecasted to be a yucky rainy day but since it wasn’t raining and we had a noon OSU-Michigan game time we kicked it in to high gear. We arrived at Cackler Farms and made our way to the fields looking for a tall Canaan or Fraser Fir. There weren’t nearly as many options this year, but we found one and began cutting it down within 20 minutes of arriving! Kevin cut it down with no troubles and he hauled it to the barn. Whew, it’s a 12 1/2 foot Canaan fir! While Kevin was checking out, I headed to the playspace where the kids played in the cornbox and rode the slide. We always enjoy our visit there, though we’re thinking we may need to find a new place next year that has more options for larger trees!

Once we were home we were in full-on Buckeyes mode (notice the O-H,,,,,,, I-O below, which was Griffin’s idea).

Griffin continues to love all of his lovies. He regularly sorts them or organizes them by animal species, or puts them all down for a rest as he did here.

Reid is our mr. sassy pants. He is sweet yet sassy. He’s our firecracker. Goofy and short tempered. And we love him so!

One night I washed Brutus’ dog bed cover and didn’t get it back on before bedtime. When I awoke in the middle of the night I looked over and Lily had somehow made her way on the portion that was leaning against the wall! These dogs, they are spoiled and love their soft beds that’s for sure.

On December 1st, Kevin and I had a nice date night and went to the Amy Grant & Michael W Smith concert at Nationwide. It’s always a fun way to get in the spirit of Christmas and I love hearing the songs by both of them that bring back so many memories of Christmas for me growing up. Christmas wouldn’t be the same without them!



We decorated our tree on a weeknight which was great, except it took forever and Griffin went to bed at almost midnight. Kevin had been exhausted from work and not sleeping well, Reid was having a great time but was nearing his bedtime and so Kevin put Reid to bed and went to bed himself. So Griffin and I enjoyed Christmas music and put up so-many-ornaments! He loves it so much and he quietly sings Christmas songs as he puts up the ornaments. He’ll occasionally say “mom, I remember this one from last year!!” with so much excitement in his voice. He had been begging to decorate the tree for several nights before we were able to make it happen. As we got everything finished and cleaned up he proclaimed “mom, we forgot to have hot cocoa!!!”. At the hour of 11:30 we weren’t going there, so we rather enjoyed a sweet ice cream treat and then hit the hay very quickly. Bad mom award for such a late bedtime that night, but memories we made were fun so it doesn’t really bother me :).

The next evening there was a family Pottery night and book fair at Tyler Run. I helped setup the fair (as I’m helping with the large school book fair put on by the PTO in February). We ended up being super busy and the pottery painting was really successful also. It was the first time our school had done it. Griffin painted me a “surprise” mug and they each painted ornaments.

Here’s our Lily girl taking in some sunshine at the front door followed by a selfie I found on my phone of Finn 🙂

November 15-24, 2019 ~ Tennessee Vacation!

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We headed out for our Tennessee vacation on Friday morning. Before we left I took Brutus on a nice mile-long walk. It was a pretty quiet morning and not many distractions so toward the end I put the leash up on his back and had him heel alongside me for a stretch. He did really well. I took video of it which is below if you feel like watching. Some of these things I just post for me to easily find later 🙂



Before leaving we turned Reid’s car seat forward facing. Though he hasn’t reached the “limits” of the manufacturer for rear facing we felt it was time. He seems to like being able to watch everything and it certainly makes interacting with him much easier, not to mention putting him in the actual seat.

We didn’t leave Columbus until 11:30 by the time we got the seats rearranged, packed the car, and stopped at Walmart to pickup Kevin’s prescription. One of our later starts, but still a good trip down. Once we arrived we quickly unloaded our car and unpacked some things while the boys explored the bunk beds in the basement. Our cabin this year had 4 bedrooms, so we took over the basement floor which had the bunks, a room for Reid, a room for us, a bathroom, foosball and arcade game, and a tv area with a couch. It was a great layout.  It was about 7:45 and we packed back into the car and headed in to Gatlinburg for dinner at Smoky Mountain Brewery, our yearly first night stop for dinner.

Our cabin this year, Aspen’s Envy, had a great view of the mountains. Here is the sunrise our first morning there. We woke up on Saturday, our anniversary, and opened some gifts. Then we proceeded to lounge and rest a majority of the day and then decided to head in to Gatlinburg for dinner at Ole Red, Blake Shelton’s restaurant which features live music.

We enjoyed dips in the hot tub, playing on the beds, arcade games, Reid’s favorite was the balls that come in the foosball table. They were the perfect size for him to carry around everywhere he went.

On Sunday, Mom and Dad arrived midafternoon. It was a nice and sunny day and we figured they’d want to stretch their legs after 7 hours in the car, so we headed to Dollywood. We visited Santa, Griffin and Reid wrote their letters to Santa, we rode the coal train, met Abominable, Clarice, Rudolph, and explored various parts of the park. We had dinner at Aunt Granny’s (which I later learned is Dolly’s nickname, lol) at Dollywood and

On Monday it was another nice, warm, and sunshine filled day. We headed into Gatlinburg to walk around and explore the shops at the Villages. We had lunch at Ole Red and then we ventured up to Anakeesta, which you reach via a chairlift (aka Chondola, lol). The have open lifts or closed cabins – we waited for the closed cabins, ha! Griffin and I rode the mountainside coaster together and Kevin rode separately. We walked through the sky walk bridges (they are high up there and after the first two I got a bit nervous for Reid to walk alone, so I made him hold my hand!!). They have a nice garden and play area and it’s a nice high elevation where you can take in some nice views.

We stopped quickly at the cabin and then moved on to Dolly Parton’s Stampede (formerly the Dixie Stampede) dinner show. It’s always a nice Christmas show and tons of food to eat. This year both Griffin and Reid were selected to chase chickens. It was super cute and completely predictable. Griffin was excited and eager to do it; Reid a bit apprehensive and stubborn – at least at first. Then he came around and participated and seemed to have fun. They are in front of a crowd of a thousand people, literally, with lights shining on the arena – it is intimidating! I video’d the whole thing and this year Kevin got some arena-level photos too.

 

On Tuesday we drove to Cade’s Cove and did the driving loop of the park, getting out at a couple of places for exploring and traditional photos. This year the park was conducting controlled burns within the cove, so that made it rather interesting! Griffin got some practice driving the loop and Reid was all proud of himself for buckling into a big kid seat.

We went home and had lunch and then Dad, Mom, Griffin and I headed out to the outlet malls for a bit of shopping. Check out Griffin showing his trick riding skills that he learned the night before at the Stampede. Reid was home resting up for our big dinner at Paula Deen’s restaurant. This year we had the fried chicken, pot roast hash, pork chops, salad, broccoli casserole, corn casserole, and sweet potatoes. It was a big and tasty spread. We got dessert to go, lol!

The next morning Mom and Dad headed back to Ohio. Reid was being a bit stubborn during our goodbye photo. Later that afternoon we headed back to Dollywood to ride some coasters and other rides. They don’t open until 2 pm! Reid rode his first big kid ride that leaves the ground – the Flying Acorns. Throughout our visits to Dollywood he would at first want to ride a ride, but once on it would start fussing and crying and sometimes screaming. So we got off more than a couple times. He is a boy who stands up for how he feels.

The Glass blowing shop was doing a demonstration so we watched a snowman being made. We’d been eyeing these guys for a few years and this year after looking at those in the shop decided to ask if it would be possible to buy the one we saw being made – and we could! So we bought it that night and picked it up the next day. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but the hat and scarf are red/white but different patterns. We love it!

The next day it was another sunny one so we headed to the Island to explore the rides, pretend to play in the Arcade, and have some cookies for a snack. Reid loved riding the train (we probably rode 3 or so times), the carousel, and he bungy jumped and the ropes course this year too.  He worked up his bravery as the first time he backed out of it, refusing to get on the scale to be weighed with a blatant “NO”, lol. But after watching Griffin do it and after some time passed he was actually excited to do it and the scowling turned to smiles and excitement as he got strapped up. We also rode the ferris wheel (our annual tradition) and visited Build-a-Bear where the boys made Pikachu and Pichu.  Then we moved on to Dollywood (gotta make the most of those season passes!) for more coasters. Griffin and Kevin explored Wildwood Grove coasters and rides while I watched Reid explore an indoor kids gym area.

The next couple of days were mostly chilling with a bit of exploring. We took in the Pirates Voyage Christmas Show this year and that was an entertaining dinner show. See if in the pictures below you can see the labradors mid-air jumping off the platform to retrieve a stick from the water! They get crazy air!

This vacation was a pretty busy one with bits of rest here and there. Lots of brotherly love and wrestling. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but it was filled with many memories and traditions and we’re grateful for the time away.  As we were driving away today Griffin said “It’s so hard to leave, I love being at the cabin”.  “Bye Dixie – until next year!”.

And here are the professional photos from Dollywood – enjoy!