Tag Archives: fall fest

September 23, 2018

We had a fun-filled family week around here. Uncle Todd was here through Wednesday so he was able to take in our morning getting ready for school on Tuesday and hang with the kids and watch Griffin get on the bus. Finn completed section 3 of his first book of sight words, and I was able to volunteer on Wednesday morning at Dads and Donuts on the playground before school began. It was super busy – we handed out 80 dozen donuts, the very last one gone right at 8:59 am! We also went through 4 percolators of coffee and 13.5 (out of 14) gallons of chocolate milk! Those kiddos were enjoying sweet treats and hanging with their dads (or other guest). Griffin was so excited when he saw me and came up to the table to get a donut and he had a lot of fun hanging with Kevin and putting tickets in the raffle baskets.  Hannah took the boys to Glacier Ridge Metro Park this week where they climbed all around, enjoyed the sunshine, and collected nature.   On Wednesday, we invited Jim and Pat up for dinner to celebrate her 70th birthday. We did good at keeping the surprise of Todd being in town. We kept him off to the side while they arrived and then he surprised her in the kitchen :). Todd, Kevin, and I had planned out a mexican dinner to enjoy at our house. It was great – Todd and Kevin went shopping, and Todd made the meal! I picked up a special German Chocolate cake at Sweettooth Cottage along with some cake balls and sugar cookies. We had quite the spread! After dinner and dessert we were hanging out on the patio and through the back yard appeared Sean! His flight arrived later in the evening so we had planned for him to arrive after dinner while we were hanging out.  Though it is technically Fall, it has been really warm out! Hannah and the boys did some fun painting this week of fall leaves and trees. We’re hoping the cooler weather and fall colors arrive soon!  I love this season for many reasons, but one of my favorite is the flexibility I have in my work schedule. I’ve been going in after Griffin gets on the bus on the days he has school. Or going in late to go to meetings at school. I was able to take Friday off to enjoy the festivities at Tyler Run for their Fall Festival. They have a school wide assembly, followed by a 1-mile fun walk through the neighborhood of the school (The Lakes of Powell, my old neighborhood). Parents, pups, and siblings are invited to join in so it’s quite a fun time. I was super excited to participate and then wouldn’t you know it in the morning as Griffin was getting on the bus I started to jog into the garage to get Reid and something popped in my left calf. Ugh, felt terrible and I couldn’t extend my leg all the way. But I was determined to still go – so I did, and I think the walking was better than sitting down. After the fun walk I had planned to help out at all of the lunch periods. The kids are able to buy raffle tickets and some of them buy so many or are slower at writing their names/room numbers on the tickets so they have adult volunteers there to help the kids. So I did that for a few hours before heading home. Later that night we headed to the school for the evening Fall Festival. Unfortunately, it had to be moved inside this year due to the pending storms, but it was still lots of fun. Inflatables, lots of games, food trucks, a cake walk (always my fave), face painting, and seeing friends.  On Saturday we packed up our crew and headed to Enon for a birthday gathering at Jim and Pat’s that included family and friends. Lily and Brutus enjoyed the excursion too.  https://youtu.be/yc4LKn7QVMk

And here are a few of our growing little boy Reid. I remember the night I took this photo, when he was still sleeping in the co-sleeper next to our bed. He still does this to this day – when he is tired, he will grab your hand and pull it to his face and have you cradle his face. He just loves it. Big boy is riding our blue pony, he is so proud and happy that he can get on and off all by himself. And just one of him gazing out the front windows with the sun shining on his face :). 

October 15, 2017 ~ 21 weeks

This guy just keeps getting bigger and bigger. He’s growing up too fast and this week he’s reached another milestone where he turned over from back to front! So, it’s the end of swaddling around here and I was able to capture Reid having a cozy nap one of the last times he was snug as a bug in his swaddle. To this point he’s slept really well on his back and taken good naps as his arms are on lock down in his swaddle. We’ll see what the future holds! He also “holds” his bottle some from time to time :). Big bro likes to play sports ALL.THE.TIME.  He pretends that his spider man gardening gloves are football gloves and he runs around throwing the football to himself and continuously play calling while he’s running around. If I’m not in the room when he’s playing he will regularly come find me to tell me the score for the Buckeyes versus Penn State (or whomever today’s opponent may be). He likes to call out plays using J.T. Barrett’s name (sometimes pronounced J. Teen Bar-ret, lol). Check out that baby bird hair! It’s coming in more and more and after a shower he’s like a baby bird with fluffy and fuzzy hair.  He’s adorbs. And he’s a mama’s boy for the time being. When I arrive home from work it’s time for him to eat so he pretty quickly gets fussy once he sees me and hears my voice. As much as I try to have others hold him, he also seems to prefer having me hold him if I’m around. So, we’re gonna have to work on his flexibility! For now though, he’s surely my sidekick.  We had a TON of rain this week. One morning I went to leave for work and I opened the door to the Jeep, which we park outside in our driveway, and the entire driver side floor was flooded thanks to a leaky windshield/seal. Yikes. What a pain. I left anyway thinking I could just dry it up at the gas station while I filled up. Boy was I wrong.  I soaked up the floor and rung out a full size bath towel three times before I decided to head back home. 🙁   So of course I arrived at work about 45 minutes late, which seems to be the story of my life anymore. Despite all efforts and no matter what time I get up I can’t seem to arrive at work before 8 am. I literally texted George and told him my car floor was flooded – I felt so silly, like seriously, I’m not one of our seasonals making up some story that the dog swallowed my car key – this flooded floor business is real life. He got a good chuckle out of that when I arrived at work and described my morning.  Thankfully he’s as flexible and forgiving as a boss can be and it was no big deal.  Finn and Daddy had some together time the other day where they stopped at Chuck E. Cheese and Oakland Nursery. Kevin sent me these pics of Griffin next to a ginormous pumpkin and having some fun playing games.  Our friend Nicole gave us a huge bag of clothes that her son Jake has outgrown. They won’t fit for a few years, but this rob fits perfectly now and Finn thinks it is so cool. Not to mention super soft and fuzzy fleece!I take pictures of most of Griffin’s worksheets and art work from preschool and what he does at home with Debbie. I’m excited to see how well he does writing his name and numbers and will be happy to have these to be able to compare the beginning of the year to the end of the year! He’s growing up so quickly, he’s able to do almost anything on his own and we encourage him to be independent and self sufficient! He really enjoys doing things independently and is typically very proud when you’ve asked him to do something or go fetch something and he returns or completes whatever he’s been asked to do. He’s got a cute grin. Debbie and the boys baked some tasty fall cookies this week too using miniature cookie cutters. It’s so nice to come home to lovely baked goods (though not good for my health, lol) and the mini size were perfect. Though let’s be honest here, we all eat many each time – not just one! Even Reid “participated”.  We’ve enrolled Griffin in his second season of soccer. He’s really enjoying it and loves all of the exercise he gets during the 40 minute class. He’s definitely come out of his shell since he first began and he really likes Coach Aaron. It is a fun program and I love that it is so close to home.  This week I was the “mystery reader” for Finn’s preschool class on Thursday. I arrived about 15 minutes before the end of their day and brought two of Finn’s current favorites to read to his class. “Kid Amazing and the Blob” from the library and “Mousetranaut” from home. He was so excited for me to be there. He did his excited face and jumped up and down and sat in my lap after I finished reading. It was a sweet thing to participate in and I enjoyed getting to see him dance for a game in glass and interact with his friends.  This big boy is so funny. Most days when I’m getting ready for work he follows me around like he’s my shadow and when I sit down to put my shoes on he instantly bulldozes himself into me! So we play and wrestle for a few minutes and then he sits down and lays his entire body all across my legs like he’s just a little lap dog. He’s a sweet boy, even though he’s huge and clumsy with his feet. He regularly brings things in his mouth to me, like toys or things he knows he shouldn’t have, just to get attention.  I’m so far behind on blog post I forget so many things from the weeks, but I think this pic was from a date night that Kevin and I had when Debbie watched the boys. And this was bedtime! As if life wasn’t busy enough, Kevin and I agreed earlier to again head up our church’s Fall Fest, which was held this past Sunday. In the moment we always enjoy it, though this year I was beyond stressed and frustrated even during the event. Help isn’t always as plentiful as needed and this year I’ve had little to no time to work on planning since I’m back to work full time. When I get home I had high hopes of planning and organizing and list-making to organize volunteers and activities, but in the end I ran out of time. My frustration is with myself, as when I commit to doing something I want it to be done well (read that as I’m a perfectionist) and this year in my eyes it was so far from that. I was irritable and annoyed and frustrated and kept thinking to myself, I can’t wait for this to be over and I’m never doing it again. Just ask Kevin, there were many times I wasn’t very kind to him as I expressed my frustrations about everything. But in the end it turned out to be a very well attended event, the rain held off, the flag football games were able to be played (and Kevin got awesome trophies for the winning team this year), the chili cook off was great (we had 26 entries), and we were given numerous compliments and good feedback from the staff who interacted with many newcomers. So in the end, all was good, but I have a long mental list of improvements should we take it on again! Neither Kevin nor myself are very good about asking for help, hence we baked all 20 dozen cookies ourselves! It was simply throw them in the oven as we bought frozen ready-to-bake cookies from GFS, but that was a lot of rotations. So, note to self for next year, add this to the sign ups! Duh! And I at the very last minute asked Andy to seek donations to give to the chili-cook-off  category winners. He rocked that task out in a matter of a few hours and got awesome donations from Nothing Bundt Cakes, BW 3’s, Piada, and First Watch!

October 16, 2016

img_9890This week just kind of flew on by! I didn’t snap too many photos this week as I was fairly busy doing some prep-work for the NPC Fall Fest at church. A few weeks back my friend Paul asked if I would be willing to help with the Fall Fest activities. There wasn’t any designated organizer of the event, basically all of the staff was taking on additional pieces of the event to make it work, and he felt it was lacking some cohesiveness and someone to piece together all of the details. Kevin and I helped last year with the Chili Cook Off and he remembered we had some suggestions – so he asked if I could help. I guess that’s what happens when you open your mouth, eh? So, I took on the challenge and enrolled the help of Kevin and Amy too! Didn’t seem to daunting of a task, but man, there are just a ton of details to make something like that work. In the end it turned out to be a beautiful day. There were kids craft activities (pumpkin decorating, tattoos, leaf drawing), a balloon artist, bounce houses, a flag football tournament (complete with medals this year!), a chili cook off (with trophies for the winners!), and a bonfire with s’mores. Thankfully with the help of Kevin, Amy’s decorating skills and ideas, Sarah and Tricia’s help in the kitchen, and numerous other volunteers – it was a great day.  Kevin conducted a double-blind contest for the chili using 4 judges. This year ended a 9-year losing streak for Pastor Dave as he finally won! But man, was it a busy day! We started the day in the nursery during church, and then stayed after to setup and then cleanup after the event. We didn’t get home until nearly 9 pm! And we were BEAT! Next year I’ll remember to take the next day off work! Sadly I didn’t snap too many photos but here are a few including the flower arrangements I made (cut at Millcreek, of course).img_9926img_9905 img_9923 img_9916 img_9917 img_9918 img_9922 img_9924And here are a few others from our week. When Kevin got home one night he got his bike out of his car (his brother borrowed it while in town) and Finn wanted to ride, of course. Lily enjoyed being outside with us too. And some of Finn’s artwork and mess making creative skills. img_9886 img_9890 img_9892 img_9895 img_9884 img_9914 img_9907