Wow, I’d really like to hit the pause button! Time is just flying by and our little man is already 4 weeks old. He is changing all the time and as you can see from the first picture is continuing to show us new expressions all the time.
Brutus slithered under our bed from one side to the other one morning, despite his large size he managed to do it! I thought it would be cute to snap his photo and before I knew it Griffin was asking if he could get in it too. 
After all that I asked Finn to go pick out an outfit for Reid and he returned with a onesie that perfectly matched Griffin’s outfit. Go Bucks! And the picture of Finn’s white pants and feet, well, he took that. He’s really taking a liking to be able to take photos on my phone and after he takes one if he happens to like it he wants to show me and then has the cutest smirk. 
I’ve never been a great cook as it isn’t something I really enjoy doing. I think if I had more time once I got home from work or perhaps if I planned better I would enjoy it more. But I am trying to be more intentional about making meals and eating at home on a more regular basis. It’s kind of hard since we don’t have a regular schedule where Kevin is home at the same time each day so sometimes all of us are here for dinner and sometimes not. I snapped this pic to send to Kevin to let him know he’d have dinner waiting when he got home one night. I must say I was pretty proud of myself, having both kids and managing to make a pretty decent dinner at an early hour 🙂
We have started doing tummy time as the doctor mentioned he should be doing it 3-4 times a day for as long as he will tolerate it. I’ve noticed Reid tends to cock his head one direction when he holds his head up so I kind of re position him to get him to arch his head and neck the other direction. So far he’s usually looking to the left or the right and not much straight ahead. His little wrinkled old-man forehead cracks me up!
Our backyard adventurer wanted to climb some trees one night this week. Griffin really enjoys being outside with Brutus, typically in the back corner of the yard where there is sometimes a muddy area. He and Brutus can always be found nearby one another it seems both because of Brutus’ curiosity of what Finn is doing and because Finn loves to climb and snuggle all over Brutus. He really is a giant baby, though his bark would have you believe he is a vicious guard dog!
These pictures are all from the backseat of the van in the Target parking lot! I was running some errands and Reid needed to eat. And afterward he has the happiest expressions, well, mostly 🙂
This week was a pretty emotional one for me as it was the second anniversary of Nathan’s birth and death on June 15th. It was a date I’d thought about endlessly as it approached and also having a newborn this year I find myself thinking so many different things and how this year has been so different from last year and the year he was born. I spent the day at home with Reid and Griffin, though Debbie took Finn on an adventure for part of the day while Reid and I ran a couple of errands. I found myself full of tears many times throughout the day, especially when I arrived home to a thoughtful flower arrangement from Mom and Dad. One yellow rose for Kevin, me, Griffin, and Reid and one white rose for Nathan. After Kevin was home from work we went to the cemetery. Griffin knows he has another brother, Nathan, and he asks questions especially today when we explained where we were going. Trying to get a four year old to understand that his brother isn’t at the cemetery (though his body is) but that he is in heaven with Jesus is a hard thing. Griffin found a white flower in the grass and wanted to put it on Nathan’s grave. We don’t yet have a head stone for Nathan or our family plot so it was difficult for him to understand Nathan’s grave compared to the others there which do have head stones. I feel terrible that we don’t have his head stone yet but it is one of the things highest in our budget for the coming months. We hope to have one before winter. 
As I’ve said many times before, Griffin loves to snuggle, particularly with me. He can’t seem to go to bed unless we’ve snuggled a bit. And first thing in the morning he comes into our room and cozies right up next to me. This morning he was so cute, he just wanted to wrap his legs through mine. 
I have a to list that I’ve been adding to while I’ve been home from work. It’s my goal to mark something off my list each day. Reid’s closet has been quite the undertaking. It turns out it’s not too easy to paint without long stretches of time! On this day I had tried to put Reid down for a nap and he wasn’t really having it. So I ended up putting him in his car seat, out in the garage, and even then he’d wake up fussing. So Griffin would rock him in his car seat so I could keep painting. This went on for awhile and I had many boards and the drawer unit Kevin built that needed painted. But in the end I got it done and even Finn helped me put on the final touches. 
Here is Reid with his snuggly bear that we received as a gift this week from my cousin and her family. I love that his name and birthday are embroidered on it. 
I took both boys out for our first solo adventure this week to the zoo. It was a warm and sunny day and we were able to see and feed the giraffe’s (Finn fed Logan), get a great view of the cheetah’s, and watch the polar bear baby!
We had a long afternoon at the zoo so we rushed home to get ready for our Friday evening dinner at Cap City to celebrate Father’s Day. It was the perfect night – a delicious dinner, which Reid slept through until the end, and tasty desserts all while having fun and celebrating Kevin and the joys of being a Dad. 
Yes, Kevin dunked Finn’s face into the giant chocolate cake 🙂
Another Saturday morning spent at Finn’s t-ball game. I love watching Kevin coach the kids, especially Griffin!
After his game we headed to Enon for a couple of hours where Finn enjoyed the outdoors as he played soccer with Grandpa and Daddy. He came inside a bit of a sweaty mess!
Griffin picked out a fitting batman Father’s Day card and a bag of Reese cups because he says “his favorite dessert is Reese cups!” as we were walking through Target. He also wanted to get him a shirt and “shoits”, which he learned to pronounce shorts as shoits from Grandpa Beilstein. 
On Father’s Day we were home since we’d been to Enon on Saturday and Dad was out of town on a hosta trip. Chad Ackerman hosted a cookout at his place so we enjoyed a long dinner with good friends. The Howard’s gave Finn and Reid some awesome OU apparel and Chad and Nicole gave Finn and Reid some great OSU apparel and gear (baseball/bat/chair for Finn!) so it was a cute rivalry of the OU-OSU that we regularly have in our house already! The baseball and bat were used the entire night by all the kids playing together. 
And here are a few from this week of Finn’s adventure to Library park to play baseball with Debbie. He’s got a great swing! They also found a baby bird in our backyard and made colorful glitter slime this week. 
Here’s a throwback to a Clippers game in 2014 that we went to for Father’s Day. Look at how little Finn is and that long blonde hair! 
Those cheeks! We’ve all been saying that since he was born. He’s maintaining his chubby cheeks quite well. I always remember how we didn’t give Griffin his first bath at home until he was 10 days old and thought that was such a long time without a bath. Well, what is that they say happens with your second child – you become more relaxed, document less things, take less pictures and so on. Well, same thing here with the bath – as Reid was 17 days old when he had his first bath at home. Yikes! I’d planned in my head on so many different evenings that I would give him a bath that night but it just didn’t seem to happen. I wanted Kevin to be home for it and he’s been really busy with his work projects, some nights getting home at 8, 9 or after and after our regular bedtime routine with Griffin and Reid’s night feeding I was too beat to do it after all that. So, after much ado we finally were all together at a decent hour and we gave Reid his first bath. Griffin loved helping and Reid didn’t mind it in the beginning. By the end, well, that’s another story. We learned that next time we should make the water a bit warmer :). And wow, did we forget how fuzzy his hair actually is (which also makes it seem a lighter color of brown) when the oils are washed away!
This collage was put together by Google. I love the perfect circle cowlick that Reid has on the back of his head. And this is pretty much how we begin every day. I’m in my room either asleep, feeding Reid, or lounging a bit when Griffin wakes up and comes in. And he likes to begin his day with snuggles. In fact, when he doesn’t get any it starts the day off on a sour note! Griffin loves to hold Reid for short periods of time and he really loves to pinch his cheeks and hold his hands. 
After really long days at work, Kevin really enjoys coming home and relaxing. And one of the things he loves most about relaxing is having Reid fall asleep on him 🙂
I’ve gone in to work a couple of times for short stints for one reason or another. Each time I’ve taken Reid and he’s been quite the good baby. He sleeps in his car seat until he’s hungry and then after he’s eaten he typically goes right back to sleep. It’s been great to be able to get things done while having him with me.
We are grateful for the chair that Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong gave us for Griffin’s room. It arrived on Tuesday and fits perfectly in Griffin’s room. It is going to be great!
The Manning girls came over one night this week and brought a tasty dinner from Mellow Mushroom pizzeria. Each of the girls held Reid and it was fun for Finn to play with them for the evening too. 
On Friday morning Amy and the kids came over for our neighborhood garage sale. They arrived with a delicious box of Tim Horton’s donuts and Timbits that we all very much enjoyed. It was a warm day for the sale and we each had some large items we were hoping to get rid of. 
Griffin was able to get in some t-ball with Debbie and Sam, his cousins, and Cooper and Cole. He lived outside most of the day other than the lunch break. 
When Reid was born he was given a hearing screening at Riverside. They told us at the initial screening that he didn’t pass in his right ear, but that he was pretty irritable (he’d just had his circumcision and he needed to eat!). They said that can be common and they would re-test the following morning. So that next morning they retested and he still didn’t pass in his right ear. We were referred to Children’s for follow up test. We went to the Children’s Dublin location and met with an audiologist who did three test. He had a total of 3 tests, the first two took about 5 minutes total. Next she told us the last test checks each of he different frequencies that relate to speech and language development. When I booked the test the said the whole thing should take about 45 minutes. Well, we sat in this silent room only listening to the clicking of the physicians mouse for nearly an hour – just for this third test. So I was convinced she’d found a problem and was working to determine the severity of it. Kevin and I were giving each other looks across the room like “what is going on?”, “how much longer will this be”, “what is she doing?”. Finally, after about an hour, she stopped clicking her mouse and said something along the lines of “ok, I’m all done and everything is fine”. What??!! Did I just hear that correctly?? Whew, what a huge relief. We were so very thankful and both just kept signing with relief for the next several minutes while we made our way out of there. Thankfully it was a great start to our weekend as it was about 4 pm on Friday!
After the garage sale ended on Saturday afternoon Finn took a nap and then we headed down to the Columbus Arts Festival in downtown Columbus along the river. Amazingly we met up with Cole and Cooper, Brian, and his parents who were there as well. We both knew each other were going but we just so happened to be at the same food truck area when we ran in to one another. So we all walked around and enjoyed the evening for awhile. 
And here are a few other odds and ends of our week. Lots of sleeping and snuggling. 
Another week in the books here. Time seems to be moving quickly though this week we were able to enjoy the long Memorial Day weekend. Kevin was home and we did our traditional trip to downtown Powell to watch the parade. We always meetup with my friend Kim and her family and this year we spontaneously went to their house after for a cookout. It was quite nice to catch up and for her to meet Reid. We had to wake Griffin up to go to the parade!
Griffin is really liking taking photos lately. He took some with the big camera and others with my phone. He even knows how to take a photo on my phone without having to unlock it!
Reid slept through almost the entire parade, until the very end when he piped up and wanted to eat. Here he is beginning to realize he’s hungry!
Our annual parade-day family photos. 
We headed to Macy’s to shop for a chair for Griffin’s room. Kevin’s parents were very kind to gift a chair to us for his room so we can move the leather recliner to Reid’s room. Here these two are trying out the chair we ended up choosing. It’s perfect for his room as it’s a durable almost denim-like fabric in gray and wide enough to fit 2 or three people (depending on who they are, ha!). 
We had a lovely dinner of BBQ beef sandwiches, pasta salad, jello and chocolates brought to us this week by the Pilgrim’s. It was delish. We’ve been very well cared for by our friends and family!
Griffin had many fun adventures this week. We’ve been keeping his routine pretty normal. Debbie has been coming around 9:30 in the morning and he starts the day with breakfast followed by art projects, learning games, play or adventures. 
On Friday Kevin, Griffin, Reid and I went to the “Celebrate Spring is Over” Millcreek party at Plain City Lanes Bowling Alley. Kevin and Finn bowled and we enjoyed pizza and other tasty treats. We were there far longer than I had anticipated, nearly 3 hours! Reid once again slept through almost all of it until the end when he was hungry. My fellow Millcreekers enjoyed seeing him and remarked at how cute and small he is. I think he is so big! 
This boy always loves to lay out his clothes and see his “choices”. He’s most often prefers to color coordinate his tops, bottoms, and socks. 
On Saturday we headed up to Mansfield for Graham’s birthday party at the Infield and Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein’s. It was our first road trip as a family of 4+2 and it wasn’t the best of starts! We needed to take a crate for Brutus (as he destroys at least one thing a day currently by chewing!). Needless to say that is pretty large. With all of our gear, people, gifts, dog accouterments, and so on we were loaded to the max. And on top of that Brutus either didn’t want to get in the back or wouldn’t fit, so he rode on the floor of the back seat. Or, as it turns out he sat up and partially on my lap at times. Yikes. This dog cracks me up. He is a giant yet such a baby. He really needs a lot of attention. He regularly picks up things he knows he shouldn’t have and brings them right to me – just to say, “hey, look at me”. He literally wanted to get in my lap in the car. It made me realize it had been many weeks since he’d been in a car for any length of time and even on the trips we’ve taken him on we’d been putting him in the back seat where he would sit on the floor. Guess that’s what he’s gotten used to and the fact that two kids and an adult and a bunch of things were there this time didn’t seem to faze his wanting to be there too!
Once we unloaded the car and crated Brutus we all headed to the Infield for an afternoon of Go Karts and mini golf. It was HOT outside and I was wearing Reid in the Ergo baby carrier for the first time. He slept just fine, but man, I was sweaty hot and so was he when we got him out to cool us both off (hence his smile, perhaps?).
This time Griffin was tall enough to drive the kiddie go karts. He was either tired or unsure of things in the beginning as he didn’t quite get how to work the car. But he got the swing of it after a bit. 
We celebrated Graham’s 7th birthday and Dad’s 71st birthday with cake, ice cream, and presents. Afterward I walked around the yard with Dad and checked out his seedlings. Things are looking great and very colorful! 
Our first photo as a family of 11!
Reid’s first piece of mail arrived this week – his social security card!
And here are some others from our week. 
I took this picture on the morning of May 31st and later that day Reid’s umbilical cord fell off. 11 days – it was a thick cord!
Griffin asks regularly to hold Reid. He’s super sweet about it and likes holding him for about a minute. Then he asks you to take him off – he’s heavy!
He is wearing 3 month clothing already and it fits really well! Yowzaa. 
This is Brutus’ regular spot in our bedroom, especially if he’s being disciplined (read that as yelled at) for doing something bad 🙁 Griffin also loves to cuddle with Brutus and Lily. Brutus is getting pretty big and Griffin just loves laying on him, literally, on him. We ask him not to lay on him directly but to cuddle next to him but he just loves to do it. 
Here is a picture of Griffin when he was about 9 or 10 weeks old. This is at the Memorial Tournament with the Manning girls. He looks about the size that Reid is now! And you can see how they look different – different noses, eyes, and chins for sure. 