-The girls and I went to the Good Friday service and Olivia broke the solemn silence at the very end by saying, "Are we done now?" quite clearly. 5 bonus points to anyone in the church who didn't have to stifle a laugh. Dad finished taking off his vestments and then came to find Olivia and inform her that yes, we were done now.
-I helped Mom cook all sorts of delicious things for after Easter. We also dyed eggs. Still no luck on getting nice red ones. Apparently onion skins are supposed to be good for getting red? Mom, we should try this next year (there are two links).
-The vigil started at 9, so the girls went in pajamas. We brought Olivia's pillow and blanket, so she immediately set up a bed on the chairs and fell asleep. Gretchen, not so much. She played in the back, looking progressively more drunk as the service progressed. Getting braver while simultaneously getting less coordinated leads to a lot of bumped heads. Bryan finally wrestled Gretchen to sleep around 11, I think. Luckily, both girls transferred to their beds after the service without too much trouble. Church did look a little bit like a crime scene, though, with all the small bodies strewn about.
-Bryan wanted to bring sandwiches for after the service, because every Christmas and Easter we just fill up on a lot of sweet stuff in the middle of the night. This was a fantastically well-received idea, and we should make a point to get a couple of party subs from Subway every year.
-After the Easter morning service, we went out to see Uncle Ted and Aunt Ruth. The food was good, the company was fun, and the egg hunt was warm and suitably easy for the girls and hard for the big kids. The chocolate chips did melt in the eggs, though.
-Gretchen did a practice cake-smash at Ted and Ruth's. After we gave her a bite of cake, she happily picked it up and managed to stay pretty clean. Then she put it down and whined a bit about the frosting all over her hand. ...Until she noticed that there was FROSTING ALL OVER HER HAND!!! She licked the frosting off, getting it all over her nose and cheek in the process. Jacob took pictures, which I will steal and put up someday. Probably.
-Rachel and Gretchen share the same birthday, so we made Rachel smash a piece of cake, too. She obliged the crowds by lifting her plate and plastering the cake against her face. A bit of a waste of a piece of cake, but the pictures should be great and the reaction was priceless.
-We left Ted and Ruth's and stopped at Bryan's parents' house for an hour or so on our way home. As we left, Olivia told my mom that she was going to "go to Grandma's house and lie down on the couch and watch Scooby Doo." She wasn't wrong. We did also convince her to sit outside in the beautiful weather for a little bit.
On Sunday (the most recent one, now), Gretchen got to do another cake smash. She was a little warier this time, needing to be coaxed into picking up the cake. She did pick it up enough to get her hand messy, but then noticed that there were enough potentially sympathetic faces around for whining to have a chance. Sure enough, as soon as she started whining pitifully, several people stepped forward to assist by feeding her the rest of the piece.
Jacque came to visit us overnight before I took her to the airport the next day. Funny story: Keshia and Tyler, Steve, and Jacque were all flying from Dayton to Chicago on Monday afternoon. In fact, Steve and Jacque were originally on the same flight. Anyway. Bryan and I brought out the game Jacque had given us for Christmas, and the three of us enjoyed several rounds of Scribbo, which is essentially Bingo meets Scrabble. Bryan and I have played Scribbo almost every day since Jacque left. On Monday afternoon, I dropped Jacque off at the airport with her bags and some apple butter (since she loved the jar I sent so much) and then turned around to head home. Halfway home, I talked to her on the phone: the security agents confiscated her (sealed!) apple butter and tossed it in the trash. Sad day. :( Mom thinks maybe somebody rescued it later to have a tasty treat to take home. Jacque, I will make more apple butter this summer and you can take home as much as you can carry.
Gretchen had an appointment Monday morning. She is 20 lbs, 12 oz, and 30 inches long. It would appear that she is actually 30 inches this time (as opposed to at her last appointment, when they said she was 30 but she was really only about 28). This was the one-year appointment, so she had to get 4 shots and a blood draw. In an unfortunate development for Gretchen, she seems to have inherited my difficult veins, so they had to poke around for quite some time during the blood draw before the needle would go in. One is a terrible age. Luckily, she'll never be one again (she will be five someday, though, and that will be similarly awful).
Gretchen made our wall! We went for her one-year-old pictures on Wednesday and I had the difficult decision of narrowing down which one to order. I chose one, but was hoping I could show Bryan (and my faithful readers, of course!) some of the other ones when we got home. Two days later, having still not received the link that they usually send, I called to find out what had happened. It turns out that they changed their policy, and in order to get a link to their product ordering page you now have to buy a package that contains a CD. Fine. The one I picked is great anyway. :)
Pictures and Videos:
These videos are all from a couple of months ago, but I just got around to hooking up the camera. You can see the new ones through these links, or you can click on the video link in the right sidebar to be taken straight to the album that contains all the family videos I've uploaded. Vimeo Videos (password BarhorstBrewed):
Get That Mommy!
Gretchen's Favorite Game
Gretchen Plays Peek-a-Boo
Daddy Comes Home
Gretchen wants to ride the bike:
Gretchen (and Olivia) standing:
Gretchen's picture for the wall:
I really like Gretchen's picture. It looks like she's up to something. :)
ReplyDeleteJust for clarification - I believe the body count at church was 8, everyone under the age of 9 including one of the altar servers, James, who was sleeping sitting up with his hands piously folded in his lap.
I get 9, I think, counting Gretchen (who was technically in another room).
DeleteYou are right. I forgot Ian.
Delete