These boys. Though the last few months have been somewhat challenging and stressful finding childcare it’s pictures like these that warm my heart. There have been many a days where I just want to throw in the work towel and just be home with both of them. And if I’m being honest, even when I have great child care at home I still want to do the same. Then there are other days when I feel like I’m a terrible Mom and it’s better for them to not be around me all day every day. Part of what I love about in-home care is that the days are flexible and full of adventure. The boys headed to the zoo this week with Hannah a couple of times and afterwards one day they went to the newer Duck Donuts for a sweet treat. Who would say no to that? 
Since we are new to Tyler Run this year I’m doing my best to learn about the school and get to know people and things about it. I decided I would go to the first PTO meeting of the year, despite my tendency to dislike situations where I may not know anyone and feel like the out of place new person. But I went, and my friend Claire was there as well as my neighbor Alex. And it was nice to learn about the PTO, what it does, and start making connections. I didn’t even know that Alex heads up Dads and Donuts, so I’m going to help her with that in a week or so and Clair and I may takeover the book fair as co-leaders. Yikes – I may be in over my head with that one. Me, leading a book fair? I can hear everyone now “she doesn’t even like to read”. Yes, I know, the irony. The upside of going to the meeting was being able to stop in to see Finn at lunch!
Finn passed his next level in his sight word book this week! Go Finn! He brings home lots of papers each day as they are working their way through the alphabet and numbers. I’m not sure what is normal and what isn’t in regards to getting all the numbers and letters correct at this age. He seems to struggle with 3’s and 5’s so we’re going to work on that. I know I gravitate toward pointing out mistakes and flaws, and I’m really working on pointing out the positives so we’ve been focusing on how well he is doing with so many numbers and letters.
Another selfie by Finn. I enjoy finding these in my photos since he’s learned how to take pictures without having to unlock my phone :). He also took a picture of his magnet creation. Baby gates are good for more than just safety!
Reid babbles a lot but still doesn’t have any words. It’s something I tend to be worried about since he’s 16 months only now. We’ve started putting Sesame Street on in the morning for the boys to watch. Griffin always loved it (and still does actually) and Reid will sit through it for 5-10 minutes before getting up and moving on to something else. He’s like me in many ways, he doesn’t seem to care much about tv in general whereas Finn will become glued to it if you put it on.
For Patriot Day, 9/11, the kids were asked to wear red, white, and blue to school and since I headed to work early that day, Hannah snapped this photo for me while they were waiting for the bus. Reid and Griffin have such different features, Kevin was trying to capture a good profile pic of Reid this morning. Everything about their faces is so different other than their eye color – they both have the clearest blue eyes, perhaps Reid’s are a shade darker than Finn’s. 
And I love this picture of Reid, kind of his half smile. This was at 6:30 in the morning when he was happy as can be to just be up walking around, screeching happily walking in our room and bathroom. 
Griffin frequently likes to empty out his “save, spend, give” bank and sort his money. I’m not sure why he does, but on this particular day he made this long design with his coins. It’s difficult to tell here, but each coin is neatly laid on top of the previous one – all in the exact same pattern. Kind of like dominoes. He’s big on observing and making patterns!
Saturday night Griffin and I were hanging at Brian and Lisa’s watching the Buckeye Game. Reid was home asleep and Kevin was out watching the game with friends. We have a new camera that allows us to get alerts when there is motion in Reid’s room and we can see video stream anywhere, so I had the app open on my phone watching him the entire time we were there. He slept like an angel and Griffin enjoyed playing laser tag in the dark with his buds. Then you’ll see, again, Lily laying on the fluffy pillows when possible. 
On Sunday, Todd flew in from LA to surprise Pat later this week for her 70th birthday. The original plan was for Kevin to pick him up at the airport and Brett to come up and take him to Enon. So we all hung out for a bit and the plans evolved and Todd ended up staying here a few days so the surprise would be bigger – as Sean was arriving Wednesday. Griffin was so happy to have uncle Todd here. He followed him everywhere and wanted to play with him constantly. I mean all-the-time. They spent plenty of time throwing the football and shooting some hoops in the driveway. Uncle Todd brought him a really cool hat, too!
Seems hard to believe this year is moving along at such a fast pace and it is already leading up to Labor Day weekend. We had a pretty normal week with work, school, swimming and soccer. On Thursday evening Kevin and I were sitting in the loft talking about weekend plans and he threw out a last minute plan to go to Chicago for the weekend. I was instantly like, “that’s a terrible idea!”. I mean it was like 9 pm Thursday night! We didn’t talk much more about it but I gave it more thought and when I woke up Friday morning I asked Kevin if he’d thought about the dogs and what we would do with them! Oopsy, we didn’t have a plan for that if we were to make a spontaneous trip. I talked with Hannah and she was working over the weekend at Starbucks and she wasn’t able to. During the day I got a text from Kevin that he thought he found someone – the daughter of one of his team members. I was a bit uneasy leaving Friday and not having a chance to be there for her to meet Brutus and Lily and be sure she was up for it – so we decided to have her over Friday night after she was finished working so that she could see our house, meet the dogs, and we could let her know about their routine. So Lori and her daughter Sarah came over and met Brutus and Lily. As predicted, Brutus was a jumping bean of energy, racing around the house and then laying on the floor and wanting all the attention. Thankfully Sarah loves dogs and was happy to watch them for a couple days.
Griffin took a few selfies in the car on the way to Chi-town :). 
Kevin had researched family-friendly things to do in the city and learned about Maggie Daley Park, which is really close to Millenium Park. I think it was built in 2013 or thereabouts, so it wasn’t there the last time we were in Chicago (2013 when Finn was 3 months old) or at least we didn’t have a kid old enough to enjoy it! It is a HUGE park, filled with tons of different areas of activities. There are climbing walls, scooter areas, mini-golf, tons of playsets (that are huge), small areas for kids (that are labeled with signs that indicate age-appropriate kids). We were really impressed and spent a lot of time playing there. It was a 10-12 minute walk from our hotel so we had an easy trip there and back. 
On Sunday morning we woke up and had breakfast in our room – complete with Stan’s donuts and Starbucks coffee that Kevin and Finn had ventured out for first thing. Afterwards we drove to Navy Pier (it would have been a 30 min walk, so we drove instead) and got rock star parking and then explored the Pier before things even opened up. We were early in line to ride the Ferris Wheel (a tradition of sorts) and Griffin drove the boats around for a short bit. We then headed to Ohio Street beach for a few hours of fun. Griffin played football with us in the water, the boys played in the sand, Reid got in a short nap, and we enjoyed a perfect warm and sunny day. Next up, we headed to the Fountains to have more fun (and rinse off the sand, ha!) before we had a tasty lunch at Giordano’s Pizza. Yummers. 
On Monday morning we woke up and headed back to Maggie Daley Park for a few more hours of fun before heading home. We walked through Millenium Park and stopped at the Bean on our way. Griffin had won “3 free rounds” of Mini Golf the day before, so Griffin and Kevin played mini-golf one more time and then we rented scooters for them and they rode around the track.
Google put this together for me and I thought it was cute. Finn three years ago and then this weekend in Chicago. 
And here are a couple others from our week. Lindsay started Nannying for us this week (I was incorrect in the previous blog post – guess that’s what happens when you’re so far behind in writing them!) and we ventured to Library Park and a few other places to show her some of our favorite play spots in Powell. 
This boy. He is all sports all the time. Football is probably his favorite all time if you ask him. He is always throwing the ball to himself and catching it, play calling the entire time. Teams are playing each other and he gives us regular updates on what the score is, who the teams are, and who is winning (or won). He’s imaginative and energetic. And he sweats. A lot. His red face is after soccer one night. It was a warm one and they were doing tons of running and speed work/races for fun. There is a video below you can watch. I took several but only posted one. Griffin was on fire this day. He came in first nearly every time. At the end of practice we go out onto the “field” and Reid runs around and kicks the ball. His coach, Steve, who is also the owner and former Ivy League Coach told me that Griffin has great athleticism. He was very kind in giving many compliments about Finn and said to just continue letting him have fun and not worry about competition and skill work at this age. He said with his athletic ability he is going to do great and just keep it fun for now. That’s what I love about Locker Soccer, they have a great philosophy about kids. 
And we’re still working on puzzles here. Finn has put this one together and taken it apart numerous times and he’s also done the doggy one that he’s had for years but never really played with until now. 
At school Griffin is learning about “Lips the Fish” which helps remind the kids to look at the pictures and use your LIPS (and tongue) to help pronounce the words. This week they used water colors to do some painting at school. 
This week was our first school function at Tyler Run with Meet the Teacher night on the playground. We met Mrs. Menary, picked up a kindergarten info packet, and met a few friends on the playground. It was a warm one that night too – but Griffin had so much fun checking out the playground!
We tried our best to get Reid to walk before Jenn left on Friday, but he wasn’t having it!
Here are a couple video’s from Jenn and the last one we captured later on Friday evening – it was the sweetest moment of Reid walking to Finn and giving him a great hug.
After the weather cleared we headed to the zoo for a brief evening trip where, amongst other things, we rode the dinosaur boat ride and the carousel. 
After church on Sunday we had lunch with the Mannings. Totally unplanned and last minute and it was the best time! We talked about many things, but the main thing was small group and how ours will no longer be. The Mannings and Conrads both are stepping back from leading C-group as they are investing their time in other ways at church right now (Kara heading Stillwater in the interim until we find a new youth pastor and Sarah helping with Middle School stillwater). While I find it sad that we no longer have our group, we’re also in a stage of life that seems so busy it may be nice to have less on our plate. Time will tell. While we were at the Mannings Reid took a nap on Kevin, which is super rare, and Kevin really loved the snuggles.
And here are some succulent babies that we picked up at Mom and Dad’s (after the Corso’s trip we stopped there to visit their gardens and pick up vacation stuffs) and took back to Millcreek to propagate. They are growing like gangbusters. 