Yet another milestone for Reid, his first cereal! He has been really interested in food for several weeks. Whenever I’m holding him and eating he often grabs for whatever I have or opens his mouth and his head turns and follows the food all the way to my mouth (how mean!) or he talks to the spoon or fork full of food! So with a plenty full weekend we decided why not pack one more thing into it and give Reid his first taste of rice cereal. Check out how messy he got. We brought up the high chair from our basement and he did pretty well sitting in it. Although he does lean to a side and then stays propped up from the side of the chair for now. He was so grabby that we went through 2 spoons since he grabbed one out of my hands and threw it on the floor. And another time he grabbed the bowl of cereal while I was holding it and spilled it all over everything! He is quite fast. But he seemed to enjoy the process. He was a bit tired so after the photo op and trying out the spoon many times we opted to mix a bit more and put it in a bottle for him to eat more easily.
Earlier in the week I was able to take the morning off work in order to take Griffin to a party for one of his Monkey friends, Julia, at her home. It was a “get to know our friends” party given by her parents. There was a balloon/facepainting artist there and the kiddos were able to make their own ice cream sundaes (a great mid morning treat in the eyes of Griffin!).
Griffin loves to take my phone and snap photos of various things. Sometimes I don’t even realize he’s done it since he knows how to take the pictures without unlocking my phone. I found this one from this week. He is very good about having independent play time in the loft where he colors or plays dominoes or other games on his own. He really likes lining up these piece :).
Griffin also got to make some tasty apple crisp this week with Debbie. It was delicioso!
This fall has been a pretty busy one. The weekdays and weekends seem to fly by. I’ve been swamped at work and when I get home I feel like I’m often working from behind there too. So the mornings we have to just be still and laze around are so nice!
Kevin was able to go to Griffin’s field trip to Leeds Farm this year with his preschool class. They had a good time on a brisk fall morning feeding the goats, riding karts, taking a wagon ride to pick gourds and such. I was bummed to miss, but am thankful that Kevin got to go and enjoy the time with Griffin. I was spending the days at Millcreek as we had a two-day visit with consultants in town from Florida/Montana to assist us with some process assessment and potential changes. It was a great two days of brainstorming, walking around the property, talking new and different processes for increasing efficiency, and picking the brains of the two gentlemen who have clients in every industry including over 120 clients in the green industry, many of whom are our vendors. There client list and efficiency gain statistics are impressive!
On Saturday, we had another progressive dinner with our neighbors. This time we went with an italian theme and began at our house with appetizers and drinks. We also decided it would be fun for the kids (and adults, lol) to carve pumpkins. The Buckeye-vs-Iowa game was on also and it ended up being a pretty intense evening! Nate and AJ are moving the first week of November so this was our last dinner before they depart. 
And if that wasn’t enough for a Saturday, it was also Lily’s 9th birthday! These aren’t the best pictures as I actually took them when I was upstairs feeding Reid during dinner with our friends! I didn’t break out the party hat this year :(. Seems hard to believe our girl is 9 years old. I remember when Kevin and I had just begun dating and she was still a bundle full of energy. She has arthritis is her wrists and shoulders and knees and hips and even with her daily medications she still has a slight limp which is better some days and worse on others. She and Brutus play pretty hard from time to time and she puts up with a lot from Griffin too. She’s as sweet as ever. She definitely does not like loud noises, shouting, amazon air bubble packaging (she leaves the room when we open boxes!), and she and Brutus have had more than a few battles when a new bag of food is being opened. And though I don’t get much these days, she still loves to cuddle on the couch, to hide and relax in small and tight spaces, and to be given any kind of people food that isn’t fruit. 
On Sunday we headed to Mom and Dad’s after church to get the Hostaworks website and seed shoppe up for business for the 2017 seed sale. We figured it would be best to be together in person to get it all right. We enjoyed our visit and got most everything done though we ran in to a bit of a snag at the end! Nothing that can’t be fixed with a bit of time though. 
One tidbit from the consultants is the idea of progressive work. It’s something I’ve seen many times before but we haven’t implemented yet at Millcreek. Here our crew is trying out progressive sticking, where each person sticks cuttings into a portion of the tray and then passes the tray along to the next person. Our team did a few sample trays and in doing so, even their first attempts, they cut their rates down from 10 minutes a tray to 6 minutes a tray – even in a less than ideal atypical setup using our production line as a table. We will likely be making this simple change in our propagation area. 
After more research, we also ended up purchasing another Jeep on Saturday. The Jeep Commander was in need of more repairs and we’ve decided it’s not best for us to keep putting money into an 11 year old vehicle. Kevin’s parents are going to keep it and get it repaired. So we have a 2018 Jeep Cherokee, a small SUV for me to take drive during the week for work and such. I love it and am thankful that I didn’t have to be a part of the car-buying process at all thanks to Kevin’s research and negotiating skills! They even drove it to our house to deliver it since Kevin drove to the dealership by himself :).
My last week at home included some fun family times over a long holiday weekend. On Friday we began our weekend by heading to Pins Mechanical. Kevin had been car shopping and Griffin and I were at the zoo for a quick visit before the weather began to turn. Griffin has been wanting to go to Pins for awhile but they have strange hours that have been difficult for us to arrange a time to go! We finally made it happen and we had a great time. The weather was yucky outside, cool and rainy, so fortunately for us that meant the crowds were much smaller than normal on a Friday evening. When we arrived we had a short wait so Griffin played pinball and we all enjoyed a drink. Finn’s cool Cucumber drink (with cucumber, lime, and soda) was so yummy! Being the cucumber head that he is he liked it and it came in the keepsake duckpin ball cup. I really enjoyed it too and I plan to get one when we go back next time! Reid slept through most of it (we put ear plugs in both boys as it’s a pretty noisy place) but awoke toward the end. He was my lucky charm as he bowled with me and I got a few spares 🙂 
On Saturday morning we headed to Mansfield for a holiday cookout at Mom and Dad’s. We decided to make a last minute trip to Apple Hill where we picked Honeycrisp apples and enjoyed tasty and warm apple donuts! From there we headed to Kingwood Center to enjoy Ribbit the Exhibit, a cute traveling exhibit of frogs. We walked around the grounds for a short bit before they closed for a large wedding event. 
This made me laugh – Brutus didn’t want to be on the outside of the crate on the way to or from Mansfield so he slid himself through a tight space in order to get in and lay down with Lily. 
While Reid appears to have an old man hair do in most pics (bald on the top and sides) he actually has a lot of hair! It’s coming in a lighter color and is hard to see but it’s soft and fuzzy!
And here are a few more of our week, including Griffin’s “meet the teacher” day at pre-school. He did a treasure hunt around his classroom finding various items his teacher put on the hunt. It was a fun way for him to get familiarized with parts of his classroom. And he chose a yellow hand print for himself for this year’s class canvas. 
Griffin loves to help dress Reid after he chooses his outfit for him. 
Brutus loves to be where we are at all times. Matter of fact if you leave him inside and not in his crate he often scratches at the doors (which has added yet more to my “to do” list of projects, now I get to repair the door frames!). He is getting to be a big boy, not just in height, but he is really filling out. His tail remains a strong weapon. Here he’s watching Grandpa, Finn, and Kevin play hockey in the driveway. 
Amy and I met at the new IKEA this week with the kiddos. It was a pretty busy place and I was able to get the bins to organize our new loft playspace. 
Friday when Kevin got home from work we decided to call my parents to see if they were up for visitors. It’s their annual hosta sale which we normally try to be there for so we quickly packed up our things (one small suitcase for the four of us!) and the dogs and headed north. We picked up pizza for ourselves (which I ordered from the incorrect location, ugh!) and then later Finn, Mom, Reid and I went to Whit’s for some frozen custard. Finn got the “dirty worm” kids sundae and I had the grasshopper (mint swirls and chocolate pieces in vanilla custard) and mom got her traditional half and half.
Sunday after church we picked blueberries at Blueberry Valley. We got about 5 and a half pounds in not too much time. I forgot to pack the baby carrier so I ended up holding Reid and not really helping pick too much, oops! But we all had a good time (other than when Finn got upset that I took his bucket without asking him and he gave me the rolled eyes look and a bit of sass). He even found a toad and picked it up. 
We are so proud of Finn for having the courage to walk from our car to the farm stand at the blueberry farm all by himself and purchase a half dozen ears of sweet corn! He and Kevin had already gotten peaches and blackberries when we decided we wanted sweet corn too. So Kevin gave him money and he had to go talk with the lady and take care of the whole transaction. He did great and was really proud of himself on the walk back to our car.
Later on Sunday evening we joined the Bethune’s and met up with the Eilerman’s for our first Sunday on the Scioto concert of this summer. We enjoyed our regular Jimmy John’s on a picnic blanket and also took our fresh blueberries to share 🙂
This weeks Brutus destruction includes Lily’s collar which he chewed through WHILE she was wearing it! Ugh, this boy! 
And we were treated to batches of cookies this week compliments of Debbie and Griffin. Chocolate chip and peanut butter batches were made on a rainy indoor kind of day! It’s kind of dangerous for me to be home with all these sweet treats, quite honestly. I’ve lost all self control!
