The Wyndbend crew at the bus stop! Brian texted me this picture and I thought it was a great one. It was one of the coldest mornings yet waiting for the bus! This week Griffin’s school had their Holiday Sing-a-long concert. It was on a Thursday, and Griffin doesn’t go to school that day, but I took him so he could participate with his Kindergarten teacher and the “blue” class. I was surprised, only one of his classmates from his “yellow” class came! The kiddos sang through numerous songs which highlighted many different winter holidays and Griffin’s favorite, “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas”.
Even though it is a super busy time of year for Santa, he was able to quickly write a reply to both Griffin and Reid. Their letters arrived this week and they both made it on the nice list 🙂
In preparation for Christmas all the boys needed to get their hair cut. We decided to all go together to Sport Clips. This was only Reid’s second hair cut, his first was at Cookie Cutters which is a place for kids. He did really well watching a “show” on Kevin’s phone (other than when he hit the buttons and turned off the screen numerous times!). It wasn’t the best cut of all times, but we were happy he did so well :). Griffin got the deluxe treatment this time with a heated towel and head massage. Kevin declined a photo op, lol. 
Griffin’s class party was this Friday, the last day of school before winter break. I arrived home early from work, picked up Reid, and headed to Tyler Run. The kids had a great day – it was Pajama Day where they each wore jammies to school, they watched the Polar Express and had popcorn, and then their class party! All of Griffin’s buddies absolutely love playing with Reid and following him around the classroom. It was a very fun last day of school. 
After school I took the boys to Kohls for some Christmas shopping before we headed north to Mansfield. Prior to leaving Kevin and the boys gave my my Christmas gift early, a new iPhone XS. Yay, so excited to have a better phone with more memory and better cameras! Kevin stayed behind to do some secret elf work while the dogs and kids and I shoved off to Mansfield. We purchased an air hockey table for the boys for Christmas and he hired someone to come take our pool table apart Saturday morning and move and store it in our storage area. They helped Kevin assemble the Air Hockey table also such that it was ready to go for Christmas morning! The Bethune’s arrived on Saturday and Griffin was excited to play with his cousins. Greta and Graham love following Reid around and playing with him. On Saturday evening we went to Linden Road to watch Mom perform with the choir in the Cantata. Somehow I didn’t take any pictures, but Kevin did snap a cute one of Reid downstairs at the church while they were off exploring in order to keep Reid entertained :).
The earth moving at Millcreek is moving along at a great pace. They will be moving the drains and filling in a bit more of the northwest corner of the pond, but it is otherwise pretty close. 
Reid is really beginning to chatter a lot more. He’s starting to say more and more words. This particular night in Target he was being silly so I wanted to snag a video of him saying “car”.
Happy Birthday Daddy! Kevin’s birthday was on Wednesday this week so enjoyed a midweek visit from Jim and Pat (Brett wasn’t feeling well) to celebrate Jim, Brett, and Kevin’s birthdays.
Thursday I was scheduled to be off work though I ended up going in for a short bit. We are giving the Millcreek website a makeover and as a part of that we’re featuring video on our homepage. As it turns out, the best day to shoot the video was Thursday (a very last minute plan!) so I wanted to be sure things went off ok. It turned out to be a fun visit as the weather was nice and the construction workers were also doing a lot of earth moving and our team was busy with hut construction. 
This group of succulents are from the millions of babies I brought back from Mom and Dads patio planter. The plant is appropriately named Mother of Thousands, or something like that! These suckers grow quick!
The weather was unusually warm this week and we had been wanting to go to Wildlights at the zoo so we made a last-minute decision to head there after work on a weeknight. We got to see Bumble, ride camels, ride the train, and see tons of pretty lights!
Next up, forming all the buckeyes and then after a bit of chilling we had a dipping party. 
Cabin week 2018 was filled with a lot of lounging and a few days of adventure. What isn’t pictured here is the 3.5 days straight of rain! On those days we enjoyed a lot of lounging at our cabin, relaxing, and hanging out. Some of us got some good naps 🙂 Later in the afternoon on two of the rainy days we headed to Dollywood, which turned out to be a great choice as there were very few visitors at the park. We were the only ones in the building to see Santa! There were no lines at any of the rides and it was just barely misting so the weather was actually very manageable. Visiting with Santa was our first stop. Reid wasn’t really very enthused to sit with Santa, so Kevin held him (and crouched out of the picture, lol). Griffin enjoyed sharing what he wanted for Christmas (which we really hadn’t even discussed much before our walk to see him). 
This year in the Santa workshop they had a silhouette artist who used scissors and paper to cut out silhouettes! It was fascinating to ask her questions and watch her do one for each Griffin and Reid. She cut two at a time so you get a mirror image. All in all it took her just a few minutes to do each one. I’m going to put one of each of them in their baby books and the other in their new keepsake bins Mom gave me for Christmas. Can you tell which is which?
We enjoyed our traditional visit with Clarice and Abominable. Reid warmed up to them just enough that he didn’t cry. 
We were able to go for a ride on the coal train again this year too. It was a cold ride, but a fun one!
This is one of my favorite pictures of the boys from our trip this year. It’s right upon our arrival at Dollywood :0)
It was actually quite nice to spend some down time on a rainy day on the deck in the hot tub. This was my view for about an hour while I enjoyed the sound of the raindrops in the trees. We took a puzzle with us and Griffin and I were able to get it done in just a few hours! That was a good thing as we had limited counter space! 
I love to get one of these photos each year of Kevin on the couch with the boys. They had some nice snuggles and watched lots of shows. I got snuggles too while I enjoyed my morning coffee and the slow pace of no where to rush out the door to in the morning!
We hit up The Island again and enjoyed lunch and dinner (don’t worry, it was two different days) at Paula Deens Restaurant. It is so yummy! Griffin enjoyed riding some of the rides and doing the adventure course. Reid walked around and also rode in his stroller to take in the sights.
This boy. He does not sit in his chair at the table for longer than 5 minutes without somehow figuring a way to get out. Even when he is clicked in with the straps he somehow manages to be able to stand up. I just don’t get it. He’s a funny one, our Reid. Still not talking a ton, but is awesome at imitating behaviors and is extremely observant. 
Here’s the outside of our Cabin, Almost Heaven. Each year I try to go back and find the name of our cabin and some years I’ve not been good about putting it in the blog – so here you go, Almost Heaven. Several mornings Griffin loved going up into our room to be able to talk to Reid. On more than one occasion we found him in there reading him books and just chatting away.
This year we went to a new adventure, Dolly’s Lumberjack Feud. Griffin enjoyed it and Reid actually sat on my lap and was well entertained. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go so I’m happy it turned out well. We also went to the Dixie Stampede where Griffin was selected to go “chase chickens” again this year. He is one fortunate little boy. He was much more into chasing them this year and actually he and his teammates chased them so well that the chickens were first to cross the line, which resulted in our North Pole winning our first medal of the night. Woohoo!
Here are a few other keepsakes: delicious breakfast at Crockett’s Breakfast Camp, a leaf as big as Griffin’s head, artwork from Griffin’s class at school, and some videos from various things. Enjoy. 
