It’s been another fun week for the Armstrong family. Finn had his first visit to the Dentist this week and he was a-w-e-s-o-m-e! We went to Haring Pediatric Dental (turns out Dr Haring is from Mansfield!) in Dublin. They recently moved in to their new office space and it is really cool. Their logo is a turtle and the entire office is themed with turtles and nautical things. They have the neatest “waiting room” for the kids. For the exam, Lynette, the Hygienist, gave Finn a pair of cool spider man sunglasses to wear. She explained each of the instruments before she used it and he got to choose his flavor of fluoride (watermelon, of course). She told him anytime he wanted a “drink” to let her know and she would give him one out of the water gun. Sure thing, he asked twice for water, ha! She assured me that we did not have what she considered a “normal” visit for a 2-year old as she kept praising how great of a patient he was. She asked if we had been practicing, which we hadn’t, other than a couple quick photos in the car right before hand. He checked out great, though he has two spots (one on each lower eye-tooth) where there was an interruption in the formation of the enamel and it appears as round spots on the front of his teeth near the gums. She said most likely it won’t be a problem, but can make cavities more likely there. At the end of his appointment he was watching her work on the computer and she asked if he wanted to help, so she put him right on her lap and told him what she was writing up. I told her his favorite part of the keyboard is to press the “zero”, but he didn’t ask her to do it!.
Friday evening was the Preschool’s Fall Fest at NPCA. There were hot dogs, ice cream, and many games for the kids to play. After completing each game they won a prize for their bag. Finn’s favorite was the whistle that he chose after tossed a ring around a pumpkin – which was the Guppy class (his pre-school class, hence the fish theme) activity for the night.
Saturday we had an afternoon adventure to Mansfield to pick apples with Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein. We went to Apple Hill Orchard and got to see roosters, a goat and sheep, we took a long wagon ride around the farm, and we picked lots of yummy apples. And while we finished picking apples, Kevin went across the street to their store and picked up a dozen WARM apple donuts and apple cider (the aroma of them fresh baking the donuts percolated through the entire apple field where we were picking, so of course we had to buy some before we left!). We picked Honeycrisp, Jonathan, a golden variety and an unknown (to us) red apple. They are delish. And Finn loves to be hoisted into the air to pick the highest apples possible. Kevin, Dad, and I all took turns – but daddy wins the prize for the highest!
In other things, I hadn’t checked in on the garden for any harvest lately and once I did – check this out! Our one ginormous zucchini. It is as tall as Finn’s waist!
And here is a favorite of mine from Saturday morning, Finn woke up after 9 am and was a super happy boy! He likes to be worn as a hat!
Tag Archives: apples
September 21, 2014
We’ve had a fun week in the Armstrong house! Tuesday was Griffin’s 18 month birthday! Wow. I can’t believe it. I thought it would be fun to do something to celebrate his half birthday so we made chocolate cupcakes together and then indulged in one before dinner 🙂 Finn taste tested the batter before baking, he approved with a “mmm”. Tractors are all the rage for Finn lately. He wakes up and first thing in the morning says “tak-tah” and wants to hold the one from his bookshelf (that isn’t a toy!). Kevin mowed the yard one evening and Finn just wanted to watch the entire time. He even went and retrieved his farm tractor with animals to have with him while he watched from the window.
Another of our family favorites is pizza, and this week was Slice of Columbus, held downtown at the Columbus Commons. It was a beautiful fall night to be outside and enjoy (way too much) pizza from many places around Columbus. The proceeds benefit Nationwide Children’s Hospital and this year there were TONS of people, though the lines moved fairly quickly all things considered! Finn also enjoyed dancing and riding the carousel.
Griffin’s 18 month checkup was on Friday, and he checked out great! He weights 23 pounds, 14.5 ounces (46th percentile), is 32.25″ tall (44th percentile), and his head circumference is 48 cm (68th percentile). His growth charts look super and he surpasses the targeted marks for development, walking, talking, and so on. He got one shot, which he watched, and didn’t even cry! To enjoy the day afterward, he and I headed to the Zoo for a brief visit. Of course, within an hour of the doctor mentioning the biggest area of concern for kids his age is safety (as they do everything more – run faster, climb higher, etc) Finn got a nice bruise/scrape on his face during our afternoon adventure. He slipped off the running board of the Jeep that the kids can climb on in the Heart of Africa, all while I was holding his hand and standing right behind him. Ugh! You’ll see he has a little shiner to show for it! But he’s a tough cookie and doesn’t seem bothered after the original incident. He is beginning to adventure away from us and into crowds of kids. He kind of watches and observes what is going on and then after a short bit looks around to find us and usually walks over to check in before heading back. It’s cute!
Saturday we headed to Lynd’s Fruit Farm for the second year to pick apples. Last year Kevin, Finn, and I headed out on a solo venture, this year we went with some friends in a play group. It was lots of fun, full of climbing on tall hills, riding the barrel train (twice for Finn, all by himself!), and a wagon ride around the apple farm. Then we picked more apples than we’ll know what to do with – I think it was a peck! I’m gonna be looking into making some applesauce I do believe!
Next up we headed to Enon, where we had tasty pizza and cake at Brett & Missy’s to celebrate Pat’s birthday! We spent time outside and in their screened porch, it was such a nice afternoon! Finn, in particular, loved playing in the sand he found in the backyard. And the yellow ball, of course, was his favorite of the three he was playing with. Everything is “wellow”.
Sunday was the Family Fun Day at the New Albany Classic. We enjoyed a few hours after church walking around, petting the horses, donkeys, llama’s, and bunnys and watching a pig race. We watched the horse jumping for a short bit too, Finn wasn’t too interested in sitting for long. The plants that decorate the jumps (on the grass) are rented from Millcreek for the event – so I’m always curious how everything will look! I love watching the horses, and petting them too. Such majestic animals.
On the remodeling front: our bathroom in nearing completion as Kevin hung the mirror and light fixture this week. We aren’t set on the light location or direction it is facing (we kind of like it facing downward better) so we are letting it ride to see how it wears on us. Brett did some fine detail work on the ceiling between the dining room and kitchen this week – it looks really great. This is our fix for having part of the downstairs with cabinet-colored trim and the remainder of the downstairs being oak trim. We’re thinking someday we may go to white/off-white woodwork rather than oak, but we aren’t ready to make that call just yet! The pull-out drawers for several of the cabinets came in this week too, as well as the final corner cabinet. It will all be finished soon. Our freezer for the pantry has arrived too, though it hasn’t been filled up just yet.
Here are a few other shots from the week: Finn continues to talk and play with the dogs (especially Lily because she follows us around) all the time. First thing in the morning, last thing at night, “yeh-yee, yeh-yee, yeh-yee”. And he’s sporting his airplane PJ’s from Gisle. And we finally brought our houseplants back indoors, and Finn has found the “dirt”. Maybe working on a fix for that soon! Yikes. And, since Sammy is potty training, Finn is sort of interested in the potty, so we sat him on it for the first time this week. No results, but he seemed to like trying and we’ve done it a couple of times since.
Finn ~ 29 weeks
Griffin continues to sleep really well at night – anywhere from 8-10 hours. We’ve been starting the night time routine of eating followed by bath time a bit earlier. He is typically in bed between 9:30 and 10 pm. For awhile now each night he migrates toward one end of his crib and most nights the “alarm” that is connected to a sensor under his mattress would go off. He had moved far enough that the sensor couldn’t sense his movement or breathing. I mentioned this to my sister the other day and she told me they had moved theirs to the area that Greta moves toward and I was like “duh!” why don’t we do that?! And it’s been great ever since! When he is awake he likes to be out and about moving around. He can get anywhere he wants, but isn’t yet full fledged “crawling” with his belly up off the floor just yet. However, he is always trying to pull himself up – like this!
Kevin’s “go live” date of October 1 came and went rather uneventfully! The weeks preceding he had spent some really LONG days (which more literally were days and nights) working to get things ready for the deadline. All in all the project is going quite well and we are all thankful for that. He has had a much less busy week this past week which has been great. He’s had a bit of time to rest and recover from the long days and we enjoy seeing him in the evenings! Since we’ve all been together for dinner we decided to give Griffin “real” food for the first time on Monday night – avacado! It’s a bit of a soft food, and just a wee bit messy, but that’s part of the fun, right?! He played with it a lot, smashed it and smeared it on the tray, put it to his mouth and licked it several times, and of course made some good funny faces. All in all hardly ate any – but had some fun in the process.
The President’s Cup festivities were happening this week in Dublin. Wednesday evening we headed over to Fore Fest in Old Dublin where they closed the streets and had a festival. It included 5 stages of live bands/music, food trucks, beer tents, and my personal favorite – a cupcake vendor that I learned about on Facebook, Little Star Cupcakes. They are delish! I had the pumpkin one, of course!
Griffin is talking and babbling alot more in the last week. Especially first thing in the morning or when he wakes from naps. Usually it is pretty quiet chatter but he can get loud when we feels like it!
Friday night was date night so we dropped Finn off at Chez Bethune and we headed to see Gravity in 3D at the Easton Dine-In Theaters.Saturday we had a fun family day. We started by going to pick apples and check out the market at Lynd’s Fruit farm. We picked Red and Golden Delicious apples. They are pretty tasty and were super plentiful so the actual picking only took about 5 minutes! We dodged rain drops in the car both before and after we picked. Then we spent some time at the market where they offer a huge selection of local produce, amish baked goods and cheeses, gourds, pumpkins, and pretty much anything you would think you might find at a farmer’s market.
While we were in the car feeding Finn we thought, hey, why not make a day of it and go to Young’s Jersey Dairy Farm in Yellow Springs to pick pumpkins and have some ice cream?! So we hit the road and called Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong, and Uncle Brett and Aunt Missy to let them know we were headed their direction. Everyone was able to meet us at Young’s where we spent a couple of hours taking in the farm happenings. All in all a really fun day!
Grandpa Armstrong drove an Oliver 88 growing up on the Armstrong farm just a few miles (farms) from the Young’s farm.