The highlight of our week was Reid’s baptism on Sunday! It was a special time and we were glad to have family join us. Mom and Dad came down the evening before and the Bethune’s joined us also for a tasty steak dinner. Reid’s morning schedule on Sunday morning was rather wonky as he only took about a 30 minute nap. Church typically falls right during his second morning nap so I thought for sure he would be cranky and make a scene. Boy was I wrong! His baptism was early in the service and he was a happy guy the entire time, only on the third splash of water did he wrinkle his face! But he didn’t cry and when Pastor Nate walked him up the aisle while everyone sang Jesus Loves Me he just looked around and took it all in! We headed to Matt the Millers for a nice brunch following the service. What a fun and joyful morning.
Brutus has such a need for attention. He is basically a huge baby himself as he regularly inserts himself in every situation just begging for some love. He loves to get right up close to Reid if you happen to be on the floor giving Reid some fun interactive play. And he regularly just comes up and rests his head: on me, on the bedside, on Griffin, on a toy that is being played with. He can certainly be overbearing when he’s energetic but when he’s tired or calm he’s just like a big lovey!
Here Brutus is pouting because Kevin and Finn got all suited up to go play in the snow. He wanted to get in the car so bad that after they left he just went and sat like a statue like this for the next several minutes and just gave me this pitiful look.
Griffin is great at playing independently. He often asks to go outside in the back yard to play whether it is with sticks or balls or hockey or just to go adventuring. This day he got all suited up to play in the snow. He loves to eat snow and he even threw snowballs at the window to try to get me inside :).
I went around and took some before photos of our trees as we’ve hired a company to come and give some major love to our mature trees. We have many low-hanging limbs that are pretty sizable and our front oak and maple in particular have grown together pretty heavily. We are looking forward to having a less obscured view from our bedroom window and to have more light in the house once the leaves are back on the trees. They are going to come in and do some crown thinning and raise up the bottoms. I’m pretty stoked. I would love to do it all myself but realize in this day that it just isn’t in the cards at this stage of life! Plus, what to do with all the wood after! They are going to crown thin and raise up probably 10-12 of our mature trees, remove two dead spruce trees, and remove a dead ash behind our fence that is covered in poison ivy – like super mature poison ivy that is about 2″ diameter branches growing 10-15′ up the tree. Ick – be gone yucky stuff!
On New Year’s Day we headed over to the Bethune’s for a tasty spread of carnitas. Reid enjoyed a carrot – that’s the only real pic I took apparently! We’ve also been enjoying some chill family time together.
We’ve always loved the hat that Griffin has worn for the last couple of years. We wanted to get a similar one for Reid and while shopping online Kevin found a coordinating one for himself :).
This kid is growing up fast. He seems to really enjoy school though honestly some days I can’t even get him to answer any questions about his day! I do miss being able to take him and pick him up. I feel really disconnected from the classroom happenings and seeing other parents but I do appreciate being able to keep up with things via the weekly email update from his teacher. His handwriting is getting really good and he is picking up on words as we drive around in the car and he’s regularly signing cards and writing his name on all of his papers both at home and school.
As much as I wish I was, I’m just not super interested or talented when it comes to making meals. Don’t confuse that with eating meals, lol, I’m plenty happy to do that! But as we begin to introduce more foods to Reid I’m realizing we need to eat more cleanly, particularly less processed foods which he shouldn’t have. I usually get home from work around 5 and Reid eats shortly thereafter and heads to bed around 6. So on a normal night after I get him down I make dinner of some sort. Kevin has been working late hours so it’s usually just Finn and me so we’ve been keeping it pretty simple. Pinterest for the win on this one.
This is the typical scene when Reid has food. Brutus and Lily nearby – hopeful to catch any scrap they can.
This picture isn’t even close to how great this sunrise was in person. I was on my way in to work and caught the sun rising just before I turned on the road headed to Millcreek.
Tag Archives: reid
October 29, 2017 ~ 23 weeks
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 :).
September 17, 2017 ~ 17 weeks
The many faces of Reid! Our little man has so many expressions and simply the most heart-warming smile. He lights up the room and can make anyone smile when he turns his on. He’s been eating his hands a lot and drooling on the regular. This weekend Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong came for a visit and Grandpa and Kevin put in new lights in Reid’s room. Four recessed lights along with a ceiling fan and light combo. It is SO nice to have light in there now! Grandma enjoyed playing with Reid and Griffin and I was able to get all kinds of things done which was an awesome feeling! We are thankful for their help. Reid even spent some time in the “walker”, which we use as a stationary play set for him. He makes the cutest faces as he concentrates and reaches for the noisemakers.
Reid is really in to grabbing any and everything. He’s getting pretty close to outgrowing the baby bassinet that we use on the countertops as he can grab the sun visor!
I enjoy seeing the fun the boys have during the day. Reid has been enjoying having books read to him by Debbie and Griffin.
Here is Reid’s ceiling before any lights followed by a pic from after they were almost finished. What a huge difference! The recessed lights are LED too. Kevin also put a new LED light in his closet too.
And here you can check out Griffin showing off his little bro’s room. This particular evening he had me laughing so hard I was crying. He wanted me to record him so I took several videos, one of which I’ve posted here. He was so excited and being so silly. I’m happy to have it on video.
This. It just kind of worries me and perplexes me at the same time. Reid almost always falls asleep with his right eye cracked open! Sometimes it’s both of his eyes but always his right eye open more than his left. I plan to ask the pediatrician about it at his 4 month well check and I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about but it’s kind of freaky to me!
Debbie was unexpectedly sick this week so I ended up going in to work late on day and taking Reid with me. Thankfully he is an easy baby and slept or was happy while we were there long enough for me to get some things taken care of. The following day Jim and Pat came up which was a great help!
Griffin continues to enjoy playing with our neighbors Cole and Cooper. They go back and forth playing at each of our houses, inside, outside, it just depends on the day and the weather! We love that he has kiddos to play with in our neighborhood.
And here he is eating his favorite choice: fish and chips! Although this night he was able to tell the fish wasn’t “cod” and he wasn’t as big of a fan as he typically is. This kid cracks me up.