Peace out to April, we’re going back to the past to wrap up this post! Griffin loves to give various signs when posing for pictures these days. He sure is growing up both literally and figuratively. Here they are showing off their Ninja gingerbread men that they decorated during the day with Mara.

With Coronavirus and quarantine, we’ve pretty much been at home together other than when Megan at Millcreek. That means we’ve gotten to spend a lot of time outside enjoying the (periodic) nice weather and burning some good energy. The boys love to run in the driveway and with me when we go on walks together. Or ride bikes, scooters, etc. We’ve had Brutus out front with us on several occasions and he does really well with the kids playing and the passers by.

I got a text one afternoon from our neighbors that they’d dropped something off in our mailbox.  Turns out they left brownies (aka Brown E’s, lol).  A fun little joke!

Both Griffin and Reid have adapted fairly well to school from home. Reid has been enjoying the free ABC Mouse subscription made available through his preschool. He enjoys his tablet time for sure. Griffin has had weekly zoom meetings (or more often) with his teacher and classmates. And I registered the kids for a Zoo session with the Columbus zoo that took place via Zoom too.

After a driveway gathering with our neighbors Kevin came inside for a phone call/meeting and brought Reid inside too as it was a bit chilly outside. After a few minutes Kevin looked over and saw Reid like this in the office char – sound asleep!

One pro of the whole Corona thing is the boys have had so much time to be together. They are really learning to play well together (Kevin reiterates this as I’m at work all the time!). They enjoy playing in the tub together, being outside, playing legos, bad guys, chase, and so on. Griffin looked outside one afternoon from the loft window and saw Cole and Cooper playing together and asked if he could join. I told him for now, he could not, and he got so upset he started crying. This whole social distancing is hard for young kids! He pleaded and begged and said he would stay far away, etc. Instead, I proposed we make Easter Egg rice krispies and we could take some to his friends.  He was so happy and lit up like a light! So we proceeded to make pink (strawberry flavored) easter eggs out of rice krispies. Yes, they do look like meatballs if you just take a quick glance! Both Cole and Cooper were quite happy to receive their own baggies of Pink Egg Krispies and Griffin was so glad to get outside and talk to his friends even if not for a long time.

Easter was a bit different this year with no family gatherings on either the Beilstein or Armstrong sides. The boys had loaded Easter baskets complete with bubbles, monster trucks, and loads of sweet treats, some of which we bought from Marie’s Candies, a local company owned and run by our friend Rebecca.  They make the best candies if you ever need anything and it arrived packaged very neatly in pink crinkle stuffing!  Reid is our early bird – typically rising at the same time each morning right around, say, 6:08 am.  His is like an alarm clock.

After making their way through their Easter baskets we made a nice and tasty breakfast and used the mini pancake/waffle maker that Haya gave me for Mother’s Day. It makes the cutest little treats! And of course, a little whip cream straight from the can never hurts anyone!

Not entirely sure how we filled our day and that it went to quickly, but just before dinner we fit in our egg hunt and some family photos. Brutus came out with us, but Lily was inside, so we have some family photos from each! I’m sad to have missed our traditional Easter Egg Hunt on the Powell Village Green this year, cancelled due to Coronavirus. But the boys had a great time in our front yard and found the golden eggs! We had  a pretty elaborate

We have wanted to replace our office furniture for quite some time and the working from home situation moved that along! Kevin found a desk and filing cabinet online and once it arrived we got it moved in, Kevin took the old desk and filing cabinet out to the driveway and the next day someone picked it up, yay! The office changeover has been a slow process and we still have a ways to go but it is nice to have more storage in the desk and not have a hutch for all the things! We’ve also moved a lot to our cabinets and plan to do more organizing and rearranging as time allows.

There was a lot of uncertainty with my work surrounding the Coronavirus situation. Would we be able to ship with all of the stay at home orders in Ohio and the surrounding states? Would our customers be able to operate? In the beginnings we had many management meetings discussing all the potential situations as well as what to do in regards to our team of employees. We did end up shaving some production numbers for herbs and perennials, which would impact our availability beginning week 17, which is typically one of our busiest weeks of the year. We kept every staff member and after a two week hiring pause and no-overtime rule, our orders began to increase and we hired another round of seasonal staff. After a week or two of production cuts, as we didn’t want to have a lot of inventory that we aren’t able to move or maintain, we kept our plans on target and business picked up. Despite the weird and cold and then hot and then cold April weather we began regularly shipping. We’re thankful for that! I took Brutus with me to work the first Saturday in April as my office buddy. He chills out and sleeps on the floor after initially sniffing the entire place and being weirded out by the noises of the copier. Mid-April Dad and Mom came down to Millcreek to plant up some hosta seedlings that we’re going to grow at Millcreek for a short time. We planted up about three racks worth over 2 or 3 weekends. It was fun! They are growing in our new shipping facility, which is a huge greenhouse.

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We hired the landscapers who are doing our neighborhood common areas this year to do our mulching, edging, and take out a bunch of shrubbery. We had them clear out the end of the front garden, removing the invasive honeysuckle shrubs and half dead yellow shrubs (not the ones we planted 7 years ago). We also had them remove all the shrubs from the East side of the house, other than a hydrangea.  Bye bye forsythia and more honeysuckle! And from the west side near the garage they took out the alberta spruce, lilac, and other untidy things. It looks so much nicer and cleaner! And hoping our purple maple will take off now that there is less competition out front.

Look at our tiny Rising Sun redbud from 3 years ago (after one winter). It is really nice and beautiful now! Though this year half the flowers got zapped by a later frost. 

Haya sent me these pictures one day, which I thought were perfect pictures of Reid’s personality :).

 

There’s that peace sign again……and the boys in their matching jammies. They are really in to matching lately  and each night try to have on matching jams. Lots of days they also like to have matching outfits, or at least the same color or theme. We’ve been talking to Reid about his pacifier and how on his third birthday we’ll give it away to the babies who need it. He’s decided he’s going to give his to his friend Abbie, up the street. She’s 15 months old and just his favorite friend. He loves baby Abbie. He’s bitten his paci so much that we’ve had to cut it down to get rid of the possibility of him biting it off and choking on it. So there really isn’t much left! But he still loves to hold it when he sleeps.

Here Reid made his bird feeder that was one of the activities his teachers dropped off from school. They’ve done a great job dropping off packets of worksheets, activities, and so on during the whole home-learning thing.

The boys and I have been going on a lot of walks, usually with Brutus along too. I’ve been taking him off the leash and he does really well. And we got some nice shots of Lily out front during one of our driveway gatherings with friends. She just loves to come outside and go up to everyone and then just lay down and bathe in the sunshine.

We skipped planting seeds indoors this year and went straight for the outdoor garden! Reid helped me plant the cilantro seeds. We also planted a couple basil plants, chives, garlic, and a purple lettuce (Cavendish) to start.  Griffin also planted the flower seeds in his planter that he painted (from Grandma and Grandpa Beilstein). There will be marigolds, cosmos, and zinnias!

One morning Griffin woke up in a total crankster mood. Kevin later texted me this picture and said perhaps this was why – he had stayed up super late in his room “organizing and sorting” his Pokemon cards by color.  Woah – this boy has a knack! I’ve also been having the boys help me prep some food, primarily fruit. They love to help and I find they are much more excited to eat whatever it is they helped with!

Keeping pics of these for the memory books – our Corona home-school progress charts for the week!

This is a regular occurrence each night when we ask the boys to say their prayer, lol. They face-plant on the floor, hands on faces, and say their prayers. I have no idea why they started doing this.

A local distillery, Watershed, has begun making hand sanitizer. Since everyone is wanting it and it’s hard to find in any store, Kevin decided to head to Watershed on a Saturday morning. He ended up waiting and hour and a forty-five minutes in their well-organized drive-thru system. He got a gallon jug and 4 hand-pumps. I took some to work and we have some at home. I’ve been trying to stock-pile cleaning supplies since we’ve implemented daily cleanings of all buildings and are requiring frequent hand washing and hand sanitizing.

During one of our neighbor driveway gathering I mentioned making peanut butter cookies. Brian texted me a recipe his mom makes and Lisa, Alex, and I each made a batch later that day. Griffin helped me make the fork marks.

Look at this handsome fella! He snapped a photo to use for some casual work purposes. I think it’s a great one!

Look at this double rainbow that appeared one night as I was about to leave Millcreek.  It was so awesome and the colors were so vivid. The picture doesn’t capture it all very well, but I tried! And here are a couple other photos of me and Brutes, and some memories from years past.  Look at how little those kiddos are! We need to have another filet progressive dinner when the corona ends!

 

And here are a couple of recent videos. Raise a Hallelujah is our nighttime song that each of the boys love to sing with me before they go to bed. Like, they won’t go to bed without signing it and if we don’t sing it long enough they come out of their rooms for more (which, let’s be honest, they come out every night anyhow!).