This week we had a fun outing to make a surprise gift for Grandma Beilstein’s 70th birthday! Finn and I met up with the Bethune’s and made a hand print platter. Each of the cousins picked their own flower color and the stems each have the number of leaves that represents each kids age. Then on the back they each did a thumbprint animal and wrote their own names. 
Griffin was given his class Tony the Tiger for the weekend too. We had a far more relaxing time with Tony compared to his visit in the fall. We adventured to Costco and had lots of snuggles at home. Oh, and we made sure we kept him away from Brutus!
One day I snapped some house photos complete with the dogs as props. Finn was having fun putting party hats on Lily and Brutus. Lily still wasn’t feeling very well yet, she hasn’t yet gotten her full appetite back yet and her eyes just don’t look like her normal self. She was getting in some snuggles with me on the couch and didn’t really care much for partying 🙁
In getting ready for our upcoming trip to Florida we brought up a couple of air mattresses from our basement and blew them up to make sure they were good to go. Finn liked testing them out. 
Griffin really enjoys artwork both at home during the day with Debbie or at school. He makes some really creative projects!
And here we are with a pre-Valentine’s treat at Starbucks. A tasty chocolate cake-pop. 
The next phase of our bedroom move-arounds happened this weekend when Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong came to pickup the king bed out of our guest room, which we are converting to Chestnut’s nursery. It was a lot of moving heavy stuffs and Finn got in to help where he could, going around and getting his appropriate tools!
February 12, 2017
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Well, another week with a lot of doggy snuggles around here. This week Brutus had another checkup at the Vet. At his “booster” shot appointment a week or so previous the veterinarian thought his colon seemed bumpy so he was on a broad spectrum medication for parasites, even though none were found in his stool sample. He took the meds for three days with his dinner (which he ate so s-l-o-w-l-y) and then at his re-check she thought he seemed better. He seems fine to us with his normal spunky behavior, but I was concerned nonetheless! So they have said just to watch for abnormal bowel movements but otherwise they will check it again when he is neutered around 6 months.
The Generosity Initiative at church had our first evening “dessert” information session on February 1st at 7 pm. We setup a nice spread of desserts, coffee, and waters. The attendance was pretty low, unfortunately, but we did record the message so that it can be posted online. 
Finn is getting more and more practice writing his name, typically Finn rather than Griffin. And he loved coloring a rainbow while sitting through the Generosity message at church. 
Fun stuff this week for Finn included making dirt pudding for the first time, complete with gummy worms. He was so excited to tell me about it and he was so sweet that he told Debbie he wanted to save one for me and Chestnut so she made a cute little note for me. 🙂
On Friday Finn had to come with me to work for a little bit as Sam had strep and Debbie stayed home with him. He was an excellent work-mate and loved modeling our new “gifts” for our mentoring program for new hires. 
On Friday Finn, Kevin and I ended the night with a sweet treat at Graeter’s. Yummers. 
Well, we’ve had a busy week around here this week. Kevin has been working l-o-n-g days, often times leaving at 6:30 or 7 in the emorning and getting home after 7 or 8 at night. We’ve been up a lot at night here and there as we’ve been letting Brutus sleep on the floor in our room, not in his crate. He does awesome, but if one of us hears him up walking around we’ll take him out. So that’s occasionally been around 2 am. For the last couple of weeks Griffin has been waking up at 4 am and coming into our room to “snuggle”. He’s wide awake but after he lays with me for a minute I take him to his room, rock him, and he goes right back to sleep in his bed in a couple of minutes. We aren’t really sure why he’s waking – he’s not scared of anything and he can go right back to sleep. But I feel like I’ve been up multiple nights in a row at 12 am (to potty of course), 2, 4, 6, and finally getting up around 7 am. Sheesh!
Lately I have been feeling like getting some house projects done as when I look at the calendar after the next couple of weeks we will be gone for two weekends and when we return we’re busy with Finn’s party and then it is already the middle of March! Part of me is quite nervous to start Chestnut’s nursery but I’m doing my best to think good thoughts and move forward. We will soon be moving all kinds of beds around starting with getting Griffin a full-size bed for his room. His crib frame converts into a full size bed – so that is step one. Then the current queen bed in his room will go to our now one and only smaller guest room. And the full that is in that bed we will be giving away along with the king bed that is in Chestnut’s room currently. Lots of musical beds it seems! So this weekend we decided to do our painting project in Chestnut’s room. We already have all the supplies as we decided to go with plain white (bye bye almond), which we have leftover from our basement project. I cleaned the walls, patched the holes, and we were off! I must say it was a late night by the time I got two coats of trim work done throughout the room. Brutus was with me for part of it – literally napping on my leg! Kevin rolled the room on Sunday and Finn helped each of us with some brush work and rolling. He is so excited to be able to help and keeps talking about how he can tell Chestnut that he helped paint his room! Oh, and Kevin insisted I wear a respirator – which is a great idea – though I did got in my way at times I couldn’t smell a thing! First project, complete! I have found some cool ideas on Pinterest for converting the closet into a closet/changing table so Kevin plans to do that sometime before May!
Finn went on an excursion to Franklin Park Conservatory this week and had a blast running around and seeing all of the greenery and flowers! He’s also been working a lot on his letters and sounds – often sounding out a word when you talk to him. He is able to tell you what letter the word starts with. He’s always said Lily like “Yily” but now he is saying “la, la, la, Lily” and “la la la Liquid” for L words :). 
