We’re just moving on from on birthday to the next as our highlight this week was having my parents in town on my Dad’s birthday! Perhaps not the birthday he’d envisioned? I requested their help to watch the boys on Thursday or Friday this week as we knew when we hired Jenn she wasn’t available on these days. Turns out they chose Thursday which is my Dad’s birthday so he spent his day watching the kiddos AND making a delicious dinner of cheese and mushroom stuffed chicken breasts, steamed cauliflower with a homemade cheese sauce, and a tasty salad. Poor guy didn’t get a break on his birthday! And the peace sign actually indicates a “2”, as in 72, hahahaha.
You aren’t going to believe this, but on Friday I took the day off to be home with the boys. In the early afternoon we decided to head to the zoo for a brief visit and walkabout. We no sooner arrived in the parking lot and it started to downpour. As in torrential downpour. We waited 10-15 minutes in the car and after looking at the radar decided to bail and head home to start packing for our weekend adventure to Mansfield to celebrate Dad’s birthday with the rest of my family. So, we stopped at Graeter’s on our way home to pack up. Ugh. All of these posts is making me realize I’ve got a problem with Graeter’s. But at least I got some pics of the crazy rain.
I pulled the van in to begin loading up and as I was walking to put some things in the back I nearly wiped out on the floor. I’d seen a puddle pooling on the floor and in my head just through it was water from the air conditioning system. As it turns out, the van is leaking oil, which led to a complete change of plans. Griffin thought it was so neat that his bike wheels were making rainbows in the driveway :(. Kevin was working as this was a huge weekend for his work project so I texted him and he said I shouldn’t drive it and needed to take the Jeep. Hmmm..well that was an interesting feat to pack two dogs, tons of baby gear including the stroller, suitcases, two kids, and me into the little mini-jeep. Whew. I made it work but it was not easy, and probably not the safest, as Brutus is so big he could easily decide to just hop into the back seat from the back of the car. Thankfully after we got going they laid down together in the back for most of the trip. They did, however, completely remove the blanket I’d laid down so my black back is now Lily-white. 🙁
We arrived at Mom and Dad’s and not long after the Bethune’s arrived too and all of the kids began having all sorts of fun. They built a car that they all rode in together.
On Saturday we ventured to Kingwood, we thought we’d beat the rain but as it turns out we didn’t! But we still enjoyed walking all around and looking at the Big Bug exhibit and feeding the ducks. After a brief rest at home we then headed to the Infield in Lexington for Dad’s birthday shenanigans including racing in the go-karts and a round of putt-putt. We had a tasty pizza dinner along with cake and presents too. It was a great weekend!
Each of the older kiddos also gave a concert on the piano. It was quite entertaining to listen to each of their styles. Well, I guess Brutus might have thought otherwise.
On Sunday the crew went to Bob Evans for a tasty lunch. To speed things along we sat at two separate tables. For some entertainment Amy was showing me how to use the filters in Instagram and I happened to get a couple of cute pics of Finn and Reid.
And one night at home Finn put all of his animals on his bed (they are normally hidden behind his chair where they are safe from Brutus) and it seems he’s got quite the collection these days!
And thanks to Aunt Amy for capturing some awesome photos of Finn, Reid, and all of the cousins! She took these on Sunday morning, right inside our parents front door with her background setup. It was about 100 degrees and 90% humidity and we were all sweaty in about the first minute. I was doing jumping jacks, leg kicks, screaming giggling, flailing, pretty much anything you can think of to get Reid to look at the camera and remain still for more than 2 seconds. It was quite the challenge but as always Amy captured so many great ones! I’m thankful to have these awesome photos! And these are just the highlights. I need to get the rest and add them here in the near future. One of my favorites is Finn’s fierce football face – so you’ll have to re-visit the blog at some point to see more.
Tag Archives: cousins
June 3, 2018
Well, now that Summer is here we’re in fun-mode and gearing up for our summer trip to Florida by getting some life jackets at Costco, of course! On Monday morning we headed to downtown Powell for our traditional trip to watch the Memorial Day Parade. This year we were joined by our neighbors too so Griffin enjoyed gathering up all of the candy with Abbie.
After the parade we headed home and had family, friends, and neighbors over for a backyard cookout and party for Reid’s 1st birthday! We had plenty of scrumptious food grilled by Kevin and numerous sweet treat options including Reid’s smash cake and a cute fox cake and sugar cookies from a local bakery. The cake was lemon and was so delish! Reid enjoyed smashing his cake – or rather eating all the frosting! He learns that naturally from his brother. Thanks to Amy for many of these great pics!
And here are a few others from our week. Can you believe I took the boys to Graeter’s again? It may be a habit.
The boys sure love when Grandma and Grandpa visit!
Griffin has started swim lessons at Aqua Tots in Powell in preparation for our trip to the beach. He’s going to be going twice a week which I think will be really helpful as he’s pretty timid in the water right now. This pic is from his first lesson where he was NOT excited to get his face in the water and he held on pretty tight to his teacher.
I helped Jane and Kathy from our neighborhood plant our entryway on Saturday morning. We planted 50 Lantana and 48 Sedum pretty quickly and they look quite nice!
And here are a couple videos 🙂
April 1, 2018 ~ 45 weeks
I’m going to attempt to catch up from a couple of months of blog posts that I haven’t had the time or taken the time to complete. Each year once spring starts to arrive it seems most things get put on hold! I constantly tell myself I’m going to get caught up and stay up to date with the blog but then at the end of the day I’m beat and don’t have the energy or mental frame of mind to spend more time on a computer!
Though Reid doesn’t look super happy here – he regularly gets held by his big brother and most times he likes it. There are certainly times he wants nothing to do with Griffin holding him, but other times Griffin takes him and walks around with him and he just giggles. It’s sweet to watch and Griffin adores being able to pick him up and love on him.
This week was Griffin’s spring break from NPCA and I was rather bummed that I was working all week. But as fate would have it, Debbie called off sick one day so I decided to stay home and have a fun day with the boys and I’m super glad I did. Finn and I went to the store for baking supplies and white eggs (as we always have brown) so we could dye easter eggs and making frosted sugar cookies. He had a great time getting his hands all colored and taste-testing the batter and frosting 🙂 And I enjoyed having a fun play time with him and having some coffee from my new bunny mug that Finn picked out for me.
Griffin is really in to feeding Reid. Pretty much anything to do with Reid. Some of it is so that he can get attention too, but, honestly he just loves to help and do things for Reid.
The beginnings of Finn’s basketball hoop were installed this week and a few days later the rest was set up. This boy is going to spend a ton of time (as if it could get more?) outside. He’s pretty stoked to be able to shoot hoops at any time and to be able to raise and lower the hoop by himself. We’ve been having fun playing 2 on 1 (typically boys against momma). We have a lot of fun and spend lots of time giggling.
Griffin and Reid had an adventure day this week with Debbie to COSI where they explored a lot of exhibits, painted, played with colors and enjoyed a nice lunch.
The end of the week Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong came to help watch the boys for a couple of days on Thursday and Friday while Debbie helped her mom recover after back surgery. They had lots of fun showing Grandma and Grandpa all their new tricks and skills.
Griffin has still been enjoying several of his new birthday toys and gifts, including these dinosaur eggs that soak in water and then he digs for the dinosaur fossil located inside.
We headed up to Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein’s for Easter which included an Easter-egg hunt with the cousins, some time on the mule, and a quick stint at covering the greenhouse. Sadly we never got it done in early winter so are doing things in reverse order this year and are covering in spring!
Amy took some great Easter photos after church on Sunday. Thankful to have these, she got some good ones!
And here are a couple videos of Reid showcasing his drumming skills and Finn shooting hoops.