We rang in 2019 next door with our neighbors with a low-key pizza party. Everyone, even the kids other than Reid (who was home sleeping) made it to midnight and beyond. We had champagne, hats, glasses, and party horns.
We’ve been making some updates around the house including our loft. While we really love our year-old couch downstairs in the family room it sure is easier to hang out with (and contain) the kids playing in the loft. Plus, the carpet makes it a nicer play area and I feel a bit better about any potential falls on the softer surface. Kevin had been hunting for sofas and narrowed it down to one particular one he liked at Macys. Then, however, he went to Costco and stumbled upon a nice sectional with recliners and decided with a much cheaper price tag we would go for it. Four trips to Costco and back in the van, he and Griffin picked it up. It should have been 3 trips, but Costco gave them 2 of the same box (!!) so we didn’t have all the correct pieces. Once we had them all home Kevin and I hauled them up the stairs together. We aren’t quite done yet with the arrangement, but for now it’s functional and Kevin and Griffin installed the new TV. We’re excited to have a cozy and contained family play space!
On New Year’s Day we headed to the Bethune’s home for our annual New Years Day pork dinner. The Buckeyes also played in the Rose Bowl so we were all suited up to cheer on the team. 
Later that week we hosted the Bethune’s for our monthly family dinner. Graham likely enjoyed dinner of lasagne, salad, and breadsticks the best as he relayed to me that “Iggy, dinner is delicious!”. 
Reid is always on the go and especially wanting to have what everyone else does. Here he is walking around in Griffin’s shoes. He regularly tries on mine too which is a sight to see.
I’ve been trying to be better about meal planning and eating at home. Life is such that eating out is “easier” but I’m wanting to eat “better” and be home more for the kids to get to bed earlier. Griffin has been demonstrating pretty sassy behavior over the last few months and I’m reaching my end point. Hoping that more sleep will be a good starting place for a more pleasant attitude. I asked Amy for good recipes of chicken/soup that I could make to take George dinner after Lynda’s passing. I went with Chicken Taco Soup which turned out delish. I’ve already made it twice since – it’s easy and tasty!
Hannah’s last day with us was Friday, January 4th. It’s been a real challenge to find someone new and it’s taking a toll on my mental state. I’ve found this time to be more challenging than ever to find qualified people who have experience and the right personality. Thankfully, Jim and Pat have come to our rescue yet again and have been up several times to watch the kids. We did hire a girl who came for one day, but it just didn’t feel right so I let her go on the second morning. So our search continues……
Kevin and I were able to go out for a late date night one evening during Jim and Pat’s stay. Kevin was sweet and gave me a card and flowers when I came home to pick him up :). 
My new phone has an awesome Portrait mode which takes really nice photos. While I sometimes look at our pictures and think they are crappy quality, I am thankful to have the pictures to capture the memories! Life on the move doesn’t always make for sharp and perfect pictures.
Reid REALLY does not enjoy getting his teeth brushed. He’s better when he brushes them himself, but he typically does it for about 8 seconds and then says “dah” for done. So I then try to brush his teeth for real and a scream fest ensues. The hygienist recommended I bring Reid along to Griffin’s visits in advance of when it is his time so he can observe and get adjusted to them playing in his mouth. Reid went this week for Finn’s (perfect) check up and was quite curious the entire time. Dr. Bob was great and playfully checked our Reid’s teeth while he was in the extra chair. He got a good couple of chuckles out of him. I decided since Griffin had no cavities, what better way to celebrate than to go get ice cream at Kilwin’s in Dublin. 
Griffin continues to make good progress on his sign words and fluency phrases. He’s gotten sticker number 2!
Griffin has been loving playing with Grandpa while they’ve been caring for Griffin and Reid. Lots of soccer and outdoor play time when the weather permits. Finn loves going out and shoveling or even playing by himself in the cold and snow. We ordered new undies for Griffin and Reid (both Paw Patrol) and when I unpacked them all Reid wanted to do was try them on. Below he has Griffin’s undies on over his pjs. He was pretty proud, even if two legs were in one hole!
To get ready for our new nanny (who didn’t work out) I went on a major house cleaning and tidying spree. I dusted every room including all the boys dresser shelves – that is lots of work as it involves moving all kinds of things. In the end, I put all of Griffin’s current lego creations on his dresser. He has quite a collection of his own creative cars and structures.
We finally got one good snowfall so Kevin and Griffin headed outside and shoveled our driveway. Toward the end I took Reid out, all suited up in his snow gear for the first time, and Kevin pulled them around in the sled. After a couple minutes Reid changed out his snow hat for Griffin’s bike helmut, which, honestly was a better choice given the slippery condition of the driveway. 
Can you spot the cardinal – we regularly have a few cardinal visitors in our backyard trees. 
This picture is my most favorite recent photo of Finn. He had been outside playing and wanted to have hot cocoa when he came in (and it’s one of the only ways to get him to drink milk). He chose a chocolate chip cookie to go along with it and quickly showed me how the professionals rest their cookie on their cup. 
The construction continues at Millcreek as the cold has finally hit. They needed some more earth, so they moved their original piles and the related topsoil to be able to get to the clay beneath. They also flattened and rearranged the 41 year old compost area – it has a whole new look!
As we’ve been looking for a new caregiver for the boys we’ve been enlisting the help of Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong and also Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein for the last few weeks. We’re super thankful they are able to come and care the for kids and the boys really have fun while they’re here. 
It’s so fun to watch Reid’s personality continue to grow and to watch him change before our eyes. He is babbling and talking up a storm – almost always repeating what you say or just babbling jibberish from time to time like he is telling us something – we just aren’t sure what it is. Around 18 months he was saying about 5 words and I was beginning to get concerned. Once he started talking so much I began documenting the words and here is just a sampling – as now he is basically repeating any word you say! Up, down (dah), done (duh), Dada (also DAH!), Mama (also MAH!), Bar (for snack bar), snack, more, uh uh (for no), no, light (ight), on, off, in, out (aught), doggy (dagah), ball, apple, book, all done (ah duh), choo choo (when he hears the train in our house), buckle (boble), cracker (cacka), wawa (water), milk, snow, cold, hot, warm, car, dog food, paci (he says it the same every time but I don’t know how to document it!), mine (as he hugs something, lol),
The last few days of January have had exceedingly low temperatures with nighttime lows in the negatives (-7) and daytime highs of 0. Yikes! With that, school was cancelled on Wednesday 1/30, Thursday 1/31, and Friday 2/1 (due to lots of snow and cold on Friday). Griffin was scheduled for school Wednesday of this week and they were to make their gingerbread houses (and I was to be the Mystery reader!) so all of that got moved to Friday – and school was cancelled again. Boo! But as it turned out, I got a bad cold that arrived on Wednesday and felt pretty terrible Thursday and Friday. With no school on Friday and with the help of Jim and Pat staying home with Reid, Griffin and I were able to head to Tyler Run to setup for the upcoming book fair this week. It was awesome, we arrived at school and were the second people in the parking lot which hadn’t been plowed! There was about 6″ of snow – which made it lots of fun to drive in!
These boys have been really goofy together lately and it’s a lot of fun to watch them play and be silly together. They love playing in the loft and bath time has been lots of fun!
Griffin has now brought home a few narrative pieces from school. I love seeing his creativity and drawing. I sometimes have difficulty making out his sentences (!) but love the story once he reads it to me!
In this story: We go to school. We are at the hotel. We are going to the pool at the hotel. In this story he was referencing our recent trip to Tennessee. 
Griffin’s class celebrated the 100th day of school on January 30th. Each kid was asked to fill a water bottle with 100 of anything of their choosing – the only parameter was that it was 100 of one item. Griffin chose Q-tips!
And here is one from the archives – this pic showed up in my memories – it is of Finn when he was about Reid’s age now. Kevin and I both remember this day, he was laying on our bed watching Sesame Street. He has longer hair, similar to Reid’s, and look at his chubby cheeks! He’s been so lean for so long now it’s hard to recall his chubbiness!
Lily is doing well and this week went in to have her Mast Cell Tumor removed. Everything went well and we will hear in a week or less the grade of the tumor (our hope is a low-grade tumor meaning it is localized and hasn’t spread). She has to wear the cone of shame for another two weeks. Thankfully this girl is a rock star with her cone. She is gentle with it (not blasting into things) and doesn’t mind wearing it. Sometimes I let her get comfy in her crate and then put it on her as it can be a bit difficult to turn around inside her crate with it on! Her incision was pretty large as they have to remove a large area around the tumor to ensure they get all of the tumor by taking the good skin around it as well. 
After we picked Lily up on Saturday morning we quickly went home to drop her off and then headed to the fun annual Powell Easter Egg Hunt at Village Green Park. It was a beautiful and sunny morning and there were TONS of eggs so Griffin took home quite a bit of candy!
This has been a week filled with memories to last forever!
We also ventured out on Griffin’s first field trip for school to Leed’s Farm. It was a super beautiful day, actually quite warm, to explore the outdoors and see a lot of animals. He loved feeding the goats and going down the huge slide. We also went on a lengthy wagon ride which ended up in the pumpkin patch where we picked pumpkins and gourds to take home. His Tiger class and several other classes from NPCA were there at the same time so we were able to hang with familiar faces and friends. 
Leed’s is about 5 minutes from Millcreek so we make a quick pit stop there and of course, Finn wanted to drive the tractors. 
Next up: OSU vs Indiana football game on Saturday! As it turns out, the OSU-IU game was what Kevin and I went to 5 years ago for our “first date”. We had met the night before at a pre-arranged happy hour and he asked me to go to the OSU game the next day, and I said yes. We thought it would be so neat to take Finn to his first ever OSU football game nearly 5 years after his dad and I met, attending the first game we ever saw together. We wanted to make it really fun, so Kevin got up at 4:30 am to drive to Enon to borrow George (the camper) from his parents! He arrived back in Columbus at Campus around 6:15 am to secure an awesome tailgating spot for us! I woke up early too (not nearly as early as Kevin!) to start making our food and getting all the necessary supplies together. Once Finn woke up (which was actually really late, like after 9 am) we got in the car and headed to a pit stop at the grocery on our way to the tailgate. As it turned out, I pulled in and I knew ahead of time the lot was full but the gentlemen let me park temporarily at the entrance to unload all of our things. Then, just as Kevin jumped in the car to move it I noticed someone was leaving the lot. Kevin went and asked the gentlemen if he could take their spot and they let us in – free! That was a super nice treat and made it so awesome that we were in the same lot, just cars away! Kevin had a great spot with a large lawn area where we setup a tent, table, and all of our food as well as cornhole and lawn chairs. We spent a few hours hanging out along with our friends, The Vertuccis, who came down too. We made such last minute plans to go to the game that not too many friends were able to join us, but we’re glad they came as Finn had a great time playing with them!
Next up we headed to the game. It was a gorgeous and sunny afternoon game, 3:30 pm kickoff. Once we had made the decision to go to the game Kevin bought our tickets – and man – they were awesome! They were in almost the exact same spot we sat in 5 years ago, A deck, first row, at the 12 yard line near the open end of the ‘shoe. It is right where the teams come out! We had such a fun time and it was so great to see the amazement on Finn’s face. He was just taking it all in. He was really in to the game too and loved the half time break to go get some snacks. 
Perhaps the most memorable portion of the day was getting to meet Brutus! He ran by our section many times and this particular time we had just gotten back from grabbing our half time treats. Our hands were full, but we flagged him down and Finn got to smack his hand but we didn’t have any time to get our phones out to snag a pic. Thankfully, our seat-neighbors yelled for Brutus to come back – and he did – and this time he jumped up onto the railing, gave Finn a fuzzy on his head, and posed for several photos. It was so great! People all around us were so excited and cheering and snapping photos. The first photo of this post was actually taken by the lady sitting next to us! And that was a great end to our week!
