They say as you get older time seems to pass more quickly and I certainly feel that way these days. How can it already be February? The boys are both a lot of fun and also can be challenging from time to time. Griffin has been rather temperamental lately and it has been trying on my patience and my response. He acts cranky and gives off attitude, talks back, or simply is not happy with any option or choice for a period of time. “You never let me eat that”, “if you don’t let me watch tv I’m not going to go to bed”, “I’m never going to listen”. “I’m not going to eat that. It’s too chewy. I don’t like pepper anymore. I only like crunchy bacon”. “I don’t like cucumbers” (um, what?). He’s been going to bed at a good hour and getting good rest, he just seems to be going through a phase and it is wearing me out! There have been several nights where he’s lost part of his bedtime routine, sometimes from events during the day with Debbie too. Hoping this stage passes soon!
Despite the crankiness, we’ve also had some fun this week. Kevin continues to work long and crazy hours. He’s working hard and his projects are pretty stressful right now as they are encountering some pretty significant hiccups. He’s pretty exhausted as he’s been working 75 or so hours a week and some calls/emails on weekends too. We miss having Daddy around. So we were super excited that he was able to join us at Dewey’s in Worthington to celebrate our neighbor, Cole’s birthday on Monday night! The restaurant was not very full and the kids enjoyed going back and forth from the table to watching the pizza guys. For dessert there was a Graeter’s ice cream cake (yum!) and we enjoyed hanging with Brian, Lisa, Alex, Bernie, and all of the kids.
The boys had fun making valentine artwork this week and Griffin also made some purple sparkle slime. 
I love when I get to see pictures from the day in the app we use. And it is so fun that Griffin takes some of the photos! This one is great, even Lily is being sassy. 
And speaking of Lils, look at this girl and Mom from Christmas Day in 2009!
I feel like so many pictures are taking in our bedroom! First thing in the morning has often been the only time we’re all together for the day. And Reid goes to bed within an hour of me getting home from work so that time is filled with feeding and getting ready for bed! On Saturday, we did enjoy some play in the loft. When Griffin was younger he absolutely loved standing up all the time. Reid stands some, but isn’t always as interested. We’ve been working with him on pulling himself up. In these pics I stood him up next to his music stand. He stays there, but hasn’t yet figured out to move his legs to re-balance himself yet!
He gets up on his knees and hands and rocks back and forth alot, though he still “army” crawls using his forearms and knees. He’s pretty fast and can get anywhere he wants. He often goes to the door in his room and if it’s cracked open he will open it all the way and start crawling down the hallway. 
And this boy is such an attention seeker. Have I mentioned his love of tissues? He is the sneakiest and if you leave a tissue anywhere, say on my nightstand, the minute you get up and walk away he sneaks right over and tries to snatch it off the table. I mean any and all paper products he wants to eat. I don’t get it, but it reminds me of weimaraners and sometimes I think he’s got to be part weimaraner. He is really gentle with Reid and constantly wants to lick him to give him affection. He lays his head as close as he can (or even on) any toy that Reid is playing with. 
Griffin doesn’t nap anymore, but some days he falls asleep when we’re out and about in the car. This day it was probably only 1 in the afternoon but he was out like a light. 
Since Reid goes to be around 6 or so each night we don’t venture out much in the evenings anymore. But on Saturday we headed to Roosters after running a bunch of errands. There was a pretty decent wait so we hung out in the car 🙂 
This week we had a fun outing to make a surprise gift for Grandma Beilstein’s 70th birthday! Finn and I met up with the Bethune’s and made a hand print platter. Each of the cousins picked their own flower color and the stems each have the number of leaves that represents each kids age. Then on the back they each did a thumbprint animal and wrote their own names. 
Griffin was given his class Tony the Tiger for the weekend too. We had a far more relaxing time with Tony compared to his visit in the fall. We adventured to Costco and had lots of snuggles at home. Oh, and we made sure we kept him away from Brutus!
One day I snapped some house photos complete with the dogs as props. Finn was having fun putting party hats on Lily and Brutus. Lily still wasn’t feeling very well yet, she hasn’t yet gotten her full appetite back yet and her eyes just don’t look like her normal self. She was getting in some snuggles with me on the couch and didn’t really care much for partying 🙁
In getting ready for our upcoming trip to Florida we brought up a couple of air mattresses from our basement and blew them up to make sure they were good to go. Finn liked testing them out. 
Griffin really enjoys artwork both at home during the day with Debbie or at school. He makes some really creative projects!
And here we are with a pre-Valentine’s treat at Starbucks. A tasty chocolate cake-pop. 
The next phase of our bedroom move-arounds happened this weekend when Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong came to pickup the king bed out of our guest room, which we are converting to Chestnut’s nursery. It was a lot of moving heavy stuffs and Finn got in to help where he could, going around and getting his appropriate tools!
It’s still pretty much all things puppy around here. We are all having fun with Brutus. I took this photo to document Brutus’ growth as he is definitely getting taller and longer!
After Finn took some photos he then wanted to be in some. I wanted to get one of the dogs’ feet together and he wanted to put his paw in too. You can also see his black eye here is healing and turning a bit yellow. He’s unbothered!
Griffin took this one of me and sharkie and Brutus and the one of Brutus in the kitchen below. . Turned out great, eh?
This is the typical scene for nap or bedtime. Reading Finn stories and the dogs cuddling on the floor!
Brutus is a pretty photogenic pup and is also fairly good at listening when you ask him to sit. Especially if you have a treat to share!
Nap or bed time starts like this.
And ends like this!
Brutus is chewing all sorts of toys and bones – and unfortuately a few human things too – like the zippers to both dog beds!! Ugh, he chews them at the only end you can start the zipper essentially ruining the zipping ability. This mammoth bed that we’ve had forever is now in need of a repair person to put in a new zipper so we can put it back together. In the mean time they are laying on the floor instead!!
Griffin is really enjoying being creative lately. He likes to play in his room with his legos and build all kinds of creations. He also really enjoys when you tell him a story or when he creates one to tell you. He has a really fun and creative imagination and we love hearing his stories!
Debbie brought some fun markers this week that could be used on the windows. It was a nice and sunny day outside too so Finn colored some spring time images on the windows. 
Art or creativity hasn’t ever been a gift of mine so we are thankful that Debbie loves to do art projects almost every day. Here they made stuffable mittens that they filled with letters and animals 🙂
Finn enjoys are projects at preschool too! Seems hard to believe it is time for next year’s preschool registration, but the time has arrived. We signed Griffin up for his last year of preschool (!!) in the Monkey class for 2017-2018. He will be going 4 days a week next year!
On Saturday we celebrated Andy’s birthday with a nice dinner out followed by tasty carrot cake and ice cream at their house. Yummers! 
On Sunday at the end of church we were talking with friends and one of them, Chris, asked us if we wanted to go to the OSU basketball game at 1:30. Woah, that sounded like a fun time! So we booked it out of church and went home to feed the dogs. Then we put it in high gear to get to the game where we got to our seats just prior to tip off. And the seats were GREAT! We are thankful for the fun afternoon and the generosity of Chris!
Later that day Finn and I were in his room and Lily laid down behind the chair, a common place for her to be. Finn though Lily would enjoy being covered up by his stuffed animals so he “hid” her so she could sleep. Can you find her? And of course Brutus isn’t ever far away, so he crashed the party. Then Finn wanted to be in the photo too – pretending to sleep of course!
