Happy Father’s Day 2016! Finn painted a super cute canvas that included a heart formed from Finn’s fingerprints (thanks to Debbie for her creative spirit!). And he made a card too. It’s so sweet to see how proud he is when he makes something, and how excited he is to show it to us. I’m very thankful that Debbie is so great with arts and crafts as that is definitely not my gift!
We’re enjoying a fun summer around here with trips to Zoombeezi Bay (on my days off or in the evenings since I’m now done with work at 4). trips to the zoo, playing in the backyard, gardening and growing our fruits and veggies, and outdoor summer concerts at Leatherlips park in Dublin (where we yet again ran into Kim and her family :))
This is Cooper’s baseball diamond slip-n-slide that the kiddos played on one day together. It was the sweetest thing at the end of their play time together Cooper ran over to give Finn a hug saying “Griffin – you won, you won!”. He’s such a sweet boy.
And Finn loves be Daddy’s helper – with anything, but this day it was to change the brakes on the van.
Tag Archives: father’s day
June 21, 2015
This silly boy loves to run through the house with his broom singing Frosty the Snowman – even in June! He absolutely loves to “help” clean the floor. When we use our floor duster he likes to use his broom. Such a big helper. And did I mention he likes to do most all things by him “self” too?
It has been a week filled with sadness in our home, but also a time that has filled our heart with warmth at the family and friends who are a part of our lives and surround us in the good times and the bad. The Manning’s brought a delicious dinner to us on Friday and we enjoyed their company. Finn loved having fun and playing with all of the girls and at the end we decided to head to Graeter’s for more ice cream. Finn has developed a bit of a shyness and it was so fun to see him just go off with the girls and head into the grass to catch fireflies. He even talked to two other young girls he’d never met before who put fireflies on his arm and hands.
Part of our night time routine is singing songs before bed. We usually sing 3 or 4, including Frosty the Snowman, Mr. Moon (a song I made up on the way home once when Finn was screaming and screaming, and it has become a regular now), Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Jesus Loves Me. Finn knows many of the words to several of the songs. We often hear him singing in the morning when he wakes up. Here he is with a part of Jesus Loves me:
Last Fall in October Kevin heard about the Buckeye Country Superfest concerts that were going to take place at the ‘shoe (Ohio Stadium). It was a two-day fest, with big names in country music playing from 6-11pm both Saturday and Sunday nights. He bought tickets and also a sweet parking pass which allowed us to park right outside of Ohio Stadium. Jim and Pat had recently purchased an RV and they graciously offered it to us to use so we could hang out in the lot prior to the concerts each day. Given the week we had, I wasn’t sure either of us were up for going as we really just wanted to be home together with Finn. But at Kevin’s urging, we decided to force ourselves to get out and have some fun. The weather was great for both concerts despite the days filled with rain leading up to them. We had a fun time together enjoying some food, beverages, and listening to so many artists including David Nail, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton, Rascal Flatts, Kenny Chesney, Cole Swindell, Lee Brice, and Tyler Farr. We missed Cassadee Pope and Parmalee as we were hanging out in the parking lot during these openers, but we were ok with that ;). Oh, and did I mention that during the Rascal Flatts performance (they are from OH) Urban Meyer came on stage with National Championship trophy. That was pretty cool to see. It was a really well organized event.
Kevin was gracious enough to go to the marathon concert on Father’s Day! We started the day with church and then home to open Father’s day gifts. Finn made his daddy a picture frame that he painted (with the help of Debbie, of course!) and filled it with a favorite picture of he and his dad.
While we were all home together this week Finn and daddy made special pancakes one morning. He is quite the helper in the kitchen and particularly likes dumping and mixing. We also enjoyed lots of snuggles watching Sesame Street, Dino Train, and playing with puzzles. Finn is really good at putting his 2-piece dinosaur puzzles together all by himself.
June 21, 2014
This week was rather a blur and I realized I didn’t really snap too many photos this week of Finn or the construction! Kevin, however, was in the backyard dribbling the soccer ball with Finn and got a cute video.
On Tuesday, Finn had his 15 month checkup and he is doing outstanding! He weighed in at 22 pounds, 9 ounces (47th percentile), 31″ tall (43rd percentile), and head circumference of 47.4 cm (67th percentile). His motor skill development is great. He is able to walk, almost run, climb, pick up the tiniest speck of something with his pincer grasp. He says so many words, including Mama, Dada, dog dog, night night, more, nu nu (for naked baby!), book, dirty, no, walk, bite, paci (more like boppy), thank you, please, yes, and he makes the sounds of many animals when he sees them in books. Albeit not all of the words are enunciated perfectly, but he definitely says the same thing over and over, for instance when he wants to read a book (buh). And he continues to be a good sleeper, sleeping 10-11 hours at night and taking two naps (around 2 1/2 hours each) a day.
The garden is finally taking off a bit more. This week seeds of cantaloupe germinated and several of the other plants are getting much larger. I planted some free plants from work, including red romaine lettuce and curly endive as well as green beans. We’ve harvested the smallest handful of ripe baby strawberries, which Finn instantly devoured. Seems as though the blossoms on the butternut squash are aborting. It’s so weird, at first I was blaming bunnnies, but after looking closer at a couple of flowers that looked wilted they just fall right off. Hmm, not sure what to make of that. In any case, looking forward to using some fresh veggies once our kitchen is complete!
Finn had another fun week with Debbie heading out to many adventures including the zoo and the splash park. It was a less noisy week of construction, but the house remains largely off limits on the first floor for little boys who pick up everything they see!
Saturday evening we had a nice date night and kept things local by heading to downtown Powell to “Celebrate Powell”. It included many shops staying open late to celebrate the re-opening of Powell Rd at 315. We stumbled upon a new shop, Elm and Iron, which had a lovely antique truck serving beer and wine (from the Powell Village Winery) and cookies from Sweet Tooth Cottage (in Powell, where we got Finn’s birthday cookies). It is a home-decor shop that had an Open House. There was also a photographer there doing Tintype photographs, so we thought it would be fun to have ours taken. I learned that Kevin has always loved that type of photograph so he was very excited! You’ll see a photo of our photo below (sorry about the shadows).
On Sunday we celebrated Dad’s birthday and Father’s day with a trip to Mansfield. You can see, the hosta’s are larger than Finn in some cases! Dad is changing over some hosta beds in their garden, so we are excited to be planting some of his named varieties as well as some other large clumps of hostas at the southern branch of HostaWorks in Powell.
On the remodeling front, this week was mostly drywall finishing – taping and mudding. Jim and Kevin installed a few more can lights in the kitchen ceiling, and the refrigerator now has the water line connected again for ice and water, which is great! Most of the tile has been removed and only some small areas of the under-layment remains in the laundry room and close to the front staircase. After the tile had been removed from the eating area of the kitchen, Kevin discovered that the floor seemed a bit bowed. Brett came up again mid-week and after investigating they determined the floor was uneven because a joist was too high (bowed up). You can see in the pics below the blue string line which Brett cut down with a saw. Then we replaced the old plywood with new in that area.
Finn still loves to cuddle in the morning and continues to be mesmerized by Sesame Street. We are weaning him off the bottle, but it’s really kind of cute, in the mornings when you go in after he is awake he says “ba ba” and if you ask him to (and sometimes without even prompting him) he will put his pacifier on the ledge of his crib. He isn’t really completely hooked on his pacifier other than when he sleeps, so we’ve been having him leave it in his room when he wakes up and then he gets it again at nap time. It’s working really well and he doesn’t even fuss when he puts it down!
Have a good week!