The boys have had a fun summer with Jenn and though it seems hard to believe – this is her last week with us before she heads back to college in South Carolina! It was a blessing to find her so quickly in May and feel comfortable with her from the beginning, especially given her background in nursing! She cared for the boys really well and certainly has a gift of organizing. She regularly went through the boys clothes and sorted/organized them by size and made stacks of the ones they no longer fit in to – and she labeled everything! She re-organized the pantry, fridge, chest freezer, and so many other things – she was super helpful! Each day this week she had a fun activity for the boys including a Lollipops concert in Powell, a trip to the zoo, baking chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and believe or not – she was able to capture Reid walking on his own for the first time! She sent me the sweetest videos on Wednesday, 8/8, of him walking through the kitchen and up in the loft. We didn’t see it ourselves for a day or two as by the evening he was tuckered out and didn’t want to perform. So we’re thankful to have the videos from Jenn! 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.

Is there anything better than playing in the rain? Not for Griffin! First some bike riding, then puddle jumping, then fielding balls off the backboard (pretty smart idea, eh?).

I’ve been bitten by the shrub-trimming bug recently. We had a few shrubs that were so overgrown it was making mowing the lawn challenging for Kevin. So I started by trimming the dogwood by the driveway and it just went from there! Major shrub trimming such that we had someone come haul away all of the brush – which filled the back of the 1-800-got-junk dump truck about 3/4 full! We really thinned out the front (below) giving much more light to the evergreens there as well as our new Maple. We also trimmed the forsythia and lonicera on the east side of the house and the lilac and spicebush on the west side near the screened in porch.  So.much.brush.  One of my favorite things to do outside! 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.