May 14-June 4

A checkup was had.  Gretchen is 38 pounds and 40.75 inches.  Kaitlyn is 29.2 pounds and 34.5 inches.  Both are looking a little bit tall for about half the dresses they picked out during our basement shopping expedition, so I had to go downstairs and swap some out.

Olivia is finished with her kindergarten phonics book, which means she can read words with normal short vowels.  She's also about a month away from being done with the first grade book (and normal long vowels).  Good thing I picked up the second grade book at the last conference!  In other school news, she's progressing well through her math lessons, and I expect we'll be starting subtraction in the next week or two.

Gretchen wants to learn to read.  She's actually pretty interested in all of Olivia's school work, choosing to hang around and shout out answers while Olivia works rather than going to play.  Since she's showing such interest, I've been working on flashcards with Gretchen to improve her letter recognition.  She gets 20-23 letters right on the first try each day, but they're not always the same letters.  :-P

Kaitlyn likes to get out the dance recital tutus, put one on, and dance to my video recording of Sweet and Sassy.  She's actually not too bad.  Unrelated, she has a few phrases I wanted to get down: First, when something that's missing has been found, she says, "There she is!"  It doesn't matter if it's a person or an object, the pronoun is "she."  I assume this is from us playing peek-a-boo with her when she was smaller.  Second, when being buckled into her carseat, Kaitlyn complains that the straps are too tight, saying, "Too more!" or "Too good!"  Gretchen always prompts us to pull her straps tighter using the words "more" and "good," so that's probably where Kaitlyn got it.  Third, Kaitlyn would make an excellent Latina.  Her preposition of choice is "a," pronounced "ah."  She uses it mostly instead of "to," as in the following example: "Gretchen give blanket a Kaitlyn."  Other times it is just added into a sentence unnecessarily: "Gretchen hit a Kaitlyn head."

Murry offered to watch the girls over Memorial Day weekend, so Bryan and I had Friday afternoon until Monday afternoon without kids.  Jacob, Katya, and Zach came down for part of it, and Kara visited as well, so games were played (after everyone slept in sufficiently).  Katya and Kara helped me box up dad's "keep" books in the basement according to author, and then we organized tiny shoes onto a shelf so that the next sizes will be readily available.  Side note about the shoes: I have approximately twenty pairs of size 8 little girl shoes in my basement right now.

The garden is fully planted.  We mulched the strawberries so that there's less weeding to do.  I can't tell what baby broccolis (started from seed) look like, so we may be mulching that bed as well if they don't make it clear that they're not weeds soon.  Bryan has started building an enclosure to keep bunnies and birds out.  He has posts in the ground and now we just need to run clothesline and attach a net.

Upcoming activities: We have a wedding, water safety classes, and VBS in our future.  Also trips to Cleveland and Pittsburgh.  Oh, and a baby, although that will probably be sometime after the next update.  :)

Pictures and Videos:

April 9-May 14

This baby has kind of been given the name Bean.  When we first discussed what to call it, we were in the car and Bryan thought Arby's would be a good name because that's the first thing he saw when he looked out the window.  However.  The baby has been Bean in my head for a few months, and I'm the one writing the blog, so the name is Bean.  It should be noted, though, that this name is not used much at all, and is pretty much for convenience and tradition at this point.

Olivia can tie her shoes.  When she moved up to size 12, I decided it was time for tie shoes rather than slip ons.  Luckily, I had this conversation with her before we got to the store and realized that casual little girl slip ons are much harder to find after size 11.  That first day I spent 15 minutes with her talking her through tying her shoes.  I ended up tying them (no surprise), but she helped and at least knew the process now.  For the next two weeks, she whined about having to tie shoes.  She would try to slip out the door in boots.  She would convince Bryan that she had been trying for hours and he should just do it for her.  She would tell me that she would do one if I did the other one, but then she would suddenly forget how to work laces.  I made a deal with her that she should do the initial cross and then I would do the loops.  When she mastered that, I told her she had to make the first loop, and I would run the bunny around the tree.  Still she whined about the amount of effort I was making her expend.  Then one day, she made the first loop without complaint.  When it came time to tie the second shoe, I told her to make the loop and she threw her arms up in exasperation.  I turned around to make dinner, telling her to let me know when she was ready for my help.  Five seconds later she was scooting out the door with two tied shoes.  I exclaimed, "What?  You can tie your shoes?!" and she gave me a smirk before disappearing outside.  And now she ties her own shoes always.

Kaitlyn is in a big girl bed.  The day after Pascha Bryan and I decided that we were ready to fight the bed battle.  We put the crib in a different corner of the room and brought up the toddler bed.  Kaitlyn was very excited.  She's done remarkably well with the new freedom, although she will always visit at least one sister before falling asleep for the night.  She also likes to nap on Olivia's bed rather than her own.  But she doesn't yell and scream in the doorway like her two sisters did, and she always ends up in her own bed before falling asleep for the night.

Gretchen Bernice had a birthday.  She turned 4 on April 24 amid little fanfare.  There was more fanfare earlier, when we had a small party for her on April 20.  Then she spend the weekend with Grandma, receiving a present every day because that's how Grandma rolls.  On her actual birthday, we did make a cake and give her our present.  I asked what she wanted for dinner and she said, "Chips."  Anything else?  No, just chips.  I made chalupas and she ate them happily with her chips.

When the weather got warmer, I took the girls down to the basement to go shopping for new clothes.  We started by talking about money, and then I gave them each $7 (of play money) to spend.  I brought the cash register down to the green room, set up all the dress racks, and told them that dresses were $1 each.  They had to pick at least one church dress and the rest could be play dresses.  We held dresses up and looked at tags and put back ones that were too short.  Then they brought their purchases to me and paid for all of their new finery.

Pascha happened.  Jacque and Will came for the weekend, and Kara and Jacob joined us for lunch on Sunday.  Olivia and Gretchen slept through the whole midnight service, including the bells and the bright lights.  Kaitlyn was awake the entire time, and swung from cuddly to slap happy and back again.

We've been getting together with friends to do school activities.  While Olivia does phonics or math pretty much every day, the days with friends are dedicated to more crafty, hands-on activities.  Since there are younger siblings involved, our carefully planned hastily slapped together ideas usually devolve somewhat.  See the picture of cloud dough all over my floor below.  We may have taken all of the children outside and sprayed them with a hose afterwards.  The kids have fun, though, and we do get to do several things each time.

Olivia took a one woman stand against the English language the other day.  She was learning the words as, has, is, and his.  I told her as we started that sometimes s makes a z sound, but she declared that she doesn't like the z sound, so she wouldn't ruin s with it.  She stubbornly read the words as "hass" and "iss," and no amount of persuading or threatening would make her change her mind.  On that day, English was stupid and she was having no part of it.  She has since come around to saying the words properly, which is good because spelling and pronunciation only get worse from here.

Things change quickly around here.  Olivia's magic number is now 7 and Gretchen's is 100.

Any time someone calls to talk on the phone to one of the girls, Kaitlyn wants to "see the Oma."  Never mind that these are normal phone calls, not video calls.  Kaitlyn will follow the phone around saying "Kaitlyn want see the Oma."  After I explain that not only is it not a video call, but it's not even with Oma, Kaitlyn looks mildly confused and then demands to see the Oma.  At the end, though, when it's time to say goodbye, she says, "Oh, bye Keshia."

Gretchen learned that all of the helicopter seeds on our ground would grow into trees if they were in the ground, but would only die if left on the driveway.  She began a one woman campaign to save all the maple trees, picking seeds up off the driveway and carefully planting them in the grass.

Kaitlyn has a weird little end of word stutter.  It's the slowest stutter in the world, but seems pretty consistent.  If she has a question or sentence ending in a consonant (t and s are the worst offenders) that is not immediately answered, she just repeats the consonant several times quietly.  For example, "Kaitlyn lock it...t...t...t."  Only ever at the end of a sentence; individual words don't suffer from this problem.

The garden is doing pretty well.  I weeded a couple of beds (much to the consternation of my chiropractor, who can see our house from his practice) and Bryan weeded the rest.  One has strawberries, one has asparagus, one will have broccoli, one will have tomatoes, and one will be for the girls to plant wildflowers.  The last bed will probably get a weed mat and mulch so that we don't have to worry about it next spring.  The raspberries look great; there are dozens of little shoots coming up, which is very exciting.  Our trees look good, too.  Correction: six of our seven trees look good.  The last one looks dead, which is only a problem because it's either a pear or a plum and is therefore instrumental in pollinating one of the other trees.  Unfortunately, we can't tell which tree it is because we forgot to write it down.  Being 90% sure it's a plum, we have resigned ourselves to simply reordering both plum trees and simply having an excess of plums.  We did also buy a pear that could pollinate either of our existing varieties, just in case.  :)  Our dead tree does look like it's regenerating from the roots, but that doesn't change our plans much since we bought a dwarf tree, so the one that is growing now is most likely below the graft and therefore not the same variety at all.  Of course, we won't know anything for sure for a few years still, when fruit finally starts growing.

Last weekend I cashed in a Christmas present from Bryan and went to Fort Wayne for two days with my friends from church.  We stayed with Kara and Jacob, got dressed up for a fancy dinner, went shopping, and saw an illusionist, all with no children attached.

On Monday I was back in Fort Wayne to sell dad's books to unwary seminarians.  What didn't sell was donated, and there are many less books in my house than there used to be.  Hooray.  In order to make the trip, I moved all three girls into the back seat of the car and removed the middle seat.  Boxes were stacked two high and toddler mattresses were used as a protective barrier.  Now that we're home, I'm thinking I don't want to put the middle seat back in.

Jacque came to visit, ostensibly to help with makeup for the girls' dance recital, but mostly just to visit.  She and I took a trip to Fort Wayne (it seems I'm there a lot lately) to meet with hall directors.  We had lunch together and chatted about weddings and other things, which was lovely.  We also took a trip to JoAnn to browse patterns and fabrics, just in case.  :)

Today is the big  dance recital.  There are costumes and makeup and flowers in the hair.  The girls are very excited.  I will (maybe) provide more details next week the next time I write.

Look for a Baby Guesses Bonus Post on Wednesday.

Pictures and Video:

March 12-19

The girls have an interesting phrase that they use: "Me named ____."  They use it to tell me who's speaking ("No, it was me named Olivia.") and also when playing with dolls ("Me named Amber goes to bed."  "Me named Sofia goes out to play."  "Me named Cinderella says hello.")

We finally got the cat fixed.  We've been meaning to since we got her, but the Humane Society near us never had openings.  About three weeks ago, we had an excess of male cats hanging around again, to the point where it looked like we owned five cats rather than just one.  I looked more diligently into non-Humane Society options and found a low cost mobile spay/neuter clinic that was coming to Wapak this past week.  Close enough.  I made an appointment, and on Wednesday the girls and I packed the cat up in a pillow case and took her in for surgery.  She has since been living a warm and cushy life in the guest bathroom shower while she recovers.

I went to the chiropractor recently for the first time in seven years.  There was a pinched nerve in my back that bothered me enough to make and appointment.  Thankfully, the pain subsided before my appointment came around.  The chiropractor was sad that he couldn't take x-rays, but did as much as he could with a posture analysis and my memory of old chiropractic visits.  He declared that he doesn't like my left hip (the one that was broken) or the middle of my back (my viola muscles).  He also commented on the strength and tightness of my shoulders.  The viola muscles won out against his attempts to crack my upper spine.  His recommendation is to go get a massage and then come see him within a day while my muscles are still loose.  :-P

The girls have been very cultured lately, attending a symphony concert (two for Olivia) and a lunch matinee performance at a dinner theater.  

First I took all five girls to a children's concert by the Lima Youth Symphony in the middle of the week.  While they enjoyed the music, the chairs were more exciting.  It turns out that little legs aren't heavy enough to hold down a typical auditorium chair, so they spent the whole concert bouncing up and down with their feet.  Even more exciting than the chairs was the wind outside.  We had to walk about a block from our parking space to the civic center, and the wind was quite strong.  I held baby hands, three year olds were attached to those, and Olivia was tacked onto one end.  We started as one big line, but the wind blew us into a giant U-shape, and we ended as a stumbling drunken mass of tiny people, laughing hysterically the whole time.  The cars waiting for us to cross the street were very patient.

Next was the Lima Symphony's family concert (I mentioned it last week).  Only Olivia went to this one, although Gretchen probably would have liked it, too.  Our friends, the Hodges, were going and picked Olivia up on the way since I was playing.  Olivia loved the ballet dancers that performed Peter and the Wolf and she excitedly explained every detail to Gretchen and Bryan when she got home.

Then yesterday we went down to La Comedia for their annual children's show.  This one was The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  They served lunch and then we got to watch a musical adaptation of the story.  Kaitlyn stayed home with daddy.  :)  Both Olivia and Gretchen were very excited after the show and spent part of the long car ride home telling each other their favorite parts.

My babysitting stint is officially over.  The last day was supposed to be this past Thursday, but ended up being Tuesday by accident.  I'm looking forward to sleeping in a little more and not having to work my schedule around two extra children.

Kaitlyn does all sorts of things that I documented much better with the other two girls.  Sorry, Kaitlyn.  :/  So, for posterity: She's been weaned forever, since about 19 months.  Maybe 20, I can't remember.  She knows most of her body parts and a lot of animal noises.  She can sing half her alphabet and count kind of.  She runs and jumps and sings and dances and bosses.  She can follow simple directions if she wants to.  Her carseat is still facing backwards, but I anticipate that changing shortly after her second birthday.  We shall see.  She's starting to try to dress herself and has definite opinions about what she wears.  She's still in a crib because we don't trust her to stay out of her sisters' beds.  She climbs a lot.

Pictures and Video:

January 29-February 19

A strictly visual post this week.

Pictures and Videos:

November 13-December 4

Kaitlyn went to the doctor forever ago.  Actually, we all went, prompting the doctor to comment on the number of wiggly little girls in the room (5, because we had Sophia and Evalynn with us).  Only Kaitlyn had an appointment, though.  She was at the time 25 pounds and 33.5 inches tall.  She is undoubtedly bigger now.

We made "About Me" books in school and one of the pieces of information was weight.  Unfortunately for the books, we don't own a scale.  BUT, we did have (at the time) four five-pound bags of flour and some planks of wood!  I had the brilliant idea of making a balance scale and weighing Kaitlyn using sacks of flour, weighing Gretchen using Kaitlyn and flour, and weighing Olivia using Gretchen and flour.  Sadly, our planks of wood were not of the sturdy variety, and they bent rather than balancing, so our experiment was a bust.  :(  The next time we visited Grandma and Grandpa, we hopped on their actual scale.  Incidentally, Olivia is 40 pounds and Gretchen is 33.

New Kaitlyn words: See you in the morning, Grandma, Evalynn (Evah or Ella), dessert, candy, fork, I don't know, sorry, forgiven, see, yummy (nummy), pretty

Olivia has done some real, live math!  I had the girls count raisins into numbered circles and Olivia whizzed through with no trouble.  As I helped Gretchen and Sophia count recognize numbers and count raisins, I put Olivia to work using her raisins to add a page of problems that I'd written down.  She did great, and I was very excited.  :)  She's also beginning to read, when we remember to work on it.  The biggest problem is that she is very good at memorizing and/or guessing the words in the early readers, so she doesn't actually have to read to get the words right.  She sounds things out well, but still has trouble stringing the sounds together into a word that she recognizes.  And when I say she has trouble, I really mean that she can't do it at all yet.  She'll get better.

Gretchen likes to do "tricks" for us.  She holds onto the edge of the table and then stands on one foot.  She puts two hands and one foot on the ground and sticks the other foot in the air.  She braces herself between the couch and the end table, gets up on one tip-toe, and swings the other foot back and forth.  So much talent.  Her balance is getting better, especially since she started ballet.  And speaking of ballet, she also shows anyone who will watch her ballet moves that she's learned.

We hosted the midwest family thanksgiving at our house this year.  Tom, Donna, Kara, Jacob, Zach, Ted, Ruth, Carolyn, and Jacob all came.  Jacque and Will were thinking about coming, but ended up visiting Will's family instead.  I suppose that is acceptable.  I borrowed a roaster from church for the 21 pound turkey and we put both leaves in the dining room table.  The little girls had to sit at their kid-sized card table, which they did not mind at all.  We ate delicious food, played euchre and 7 Wonders, and enjoyed everyone's company.  Zach and Jacob stayed for a few more days, which was nice.

Bryan turned 30 recently.  He feels no different, although he did suffer an unfortunate losing streak in all games (quite unusual for him) for about a week.  Many jokes were made about his senility.  This does mean that my 30th birthday is quickly approaching.  My final 30 Before 30 post will go up on my birthday.

The church cookie walk happened yesterday.  We had two all-day baking days in November and several late nights this past week getting everything ready, but it's (mostly) over now.  A few more pounds of cookies are being baked to finish filling preorders, but then we're done for another year.

I volunteered to host campout in 2017, thinking when I volunteered two years ago that July 2017 was probably pretty safe, baby-wise.  Justine did some math, too, and decided she could help me.  As the time drew nearer and pregnancies failed to appear sufficiently early, we made jokes about being at camp, come babies or broken water.  It turns out that we will, indeed, be at camp come babies AND broken water.  Justine is due July 2 and I'm due July 12 (incidentally, my sister-in-law, Keshia, is due July 17).  Camp is July 25.  The good news is that camp this year is only half an hour from my house.  Also, now mom, dad, and James don't have to choose between coming to camp or to a baptism.  They can just come at the same time for both!  I'm trying to convince Justine that she wants to have her baby's baptism at the same time, and we'll kill 3 birds with one stone.  :)

Pictures and Videos:

October 2-23

A visual post today.

Pictures and Videos:

September 11-18

A bonus post happened this past week, so hop on over and look at that if you haven't seen it already.

Keshia and Rudy came to visit one afternoon, so we made sure we got a cousins picture.  Other than that it was same old same old at the Barhorst house this week.  Olivia (and Gretchen) are enjoying school so far.  Kaitlyn is enjoying getting into things while the older girls are working on them.  Really, there's not much to report.  Maybe this next week will be more interesting.  :)

I do have videos, though!

Pictures and Videos:

July 3-17

Some additions to last week's post's lists:

-Kaitlyn says shh, down, bad, dog, Archie, amen, open.

-Kaitlyn gives high fives.
-Gretchen has figured out that she can help Kaitlyn do things, so she's started being more attentive.  Sometimes it's really cute, sometimes it just makes Kaitlyn mad.

-Olivia likes to dance, so we signed her up for a dance class.  It's a ballet/tap/creative movement combo class that starts in September.

The priest at our church is on sabbatical this summer, so we will be spending more weekends with Bryan's parents in order to attend church in Dayton on the Sundays that we don't have a priest.

Bryan and I got to go to a kid-free wedding last week.  We enjoyed talking with adults and dancing without kids.  Murry enjoyed having the girls to herself for two days.  :)

I made a new skirt.  It's knit, matches several of my shirts, and has an irregular hem and pockets.  What more do I need?  Thus far it is looking like a strong contender for my favorite skirt, which means I can probably cross that off my 30 Before 30 list.

We took a family vacation (also on my list!) to Dayton last week.  We stayed in a hotel and ate at restaurants and visited a museum, a park, and a mall.  It wasn't a big event, but we had a good time.

Since I've made progress on my list recently, there will be a bonus post this Wednesday listing the updates.

I found out that the Indianapolis Symphony has two viola openings.  I have no hope of getting in, but I'm playing around with the idea of trying anyway.  I suddenly have the desire to practice huge amounts.  Related to these two things, I read a book a while ago that talked about how it takes 10,000 hours of good practice to master a skill (at "highest in the field" level).  I counted how many hours I've practiced viola, and I think I have 1500 that qualify.  If I start practicing an hour every day, I could be a master in 27 year.  :-P  If I practice two hours every day, I'll be fabulous by the time I'm 45.  Mom said that's about when my kids will be grown up and I'll be looking for a way to keep busy anyway.  :)

Pictures and Videos

May 22-29

We spent a few days in Michigan visiting my parents.  Dad left for the airport on Tuesday.  After he left, Justine and I put the backseat of my van into her van, packed up the six kids, and headed to Lima a bit ahead of the rush.  Bryan finished working in Jacob's computer room and then came down with James.  Mom and Joseph followed the next morning.

We bought Olivia and Gretchen bikes on Tuesday night and promptly removed the training wheels and pedals so that they wouldn't know that their bikes were supposed to have training wheels and pedals.  They picked out helmets on Wednesday but since then haven't been much interested in riding their new bikes.  All the little boys we've had visiting lately have enjoyed them, though, so at least they're getting used.

The cousins stayed to visit for a day and a half before leaving after lunch on Thursday.  We'll see them again at Aufdy camp in a few months.

Mom and James stayed until Saturday morning and plan to be back next week.  Before leaving, Mom made new construction paper crowns for Olivia and Gretchen.  The crowns were laminated in an attempt to give them a longer life than is typical for crowns in our house.  Olivia wears her crown constantly (including to bed).  Gretchen is less attached during the day, but has come out of her room two nights in a row looking for her Oma crown to take to bed with her.

Pictures (not in chronological order) and a video:

May 8-22

It seems I have a lot of Gretchen updates this week.  They will make up for the fact that I generally have little to report about our poor, neglected middle child.  To begin, she had a checkup recently so I know that she weighs 34 pounds and is 38 inches tall.  She was willing to follow all the doctor's directions and was relieved to learn that she would not be receiving a shot.

You know the part in The Little Mermaid where Ariel has to sing for Ursula as she trades her voice for legs?  Somehow that scene made such a big impression that the "wah wah wah" song is now background music for every change that Gretchen's dolls make.  Anna turns into Elsa, Sofia becomes a mermaid, Rapunzel changes her clothes...  Gretchen holds the character up in the air and sings "wah wah wah, wah wah wah, wah wah wah, wah wah wah..."  Judging from the amount of time she spends singing, we've decided that some changes are more difficult than others.  Gretchen's sense of pitch isn't particularly well developed yet, so the resulting incantation is quite exciting.  She does let her pitch rise somewhat incrementally, but when she hits the top of her range she just continues singing yelling a monotone "wah wah wah."

Gretchen cannot stand still.  She is constantly fidgeting, even walking in large circles around the living room while she and Olivia discuss who is going to play which part in their games.  She does moderately better at sitting still, but even then is prone to constant readjustments.

Gretchen has a method for choosing things: When asked to make a choice, she says, "um, whichever one I touch."  Then she wobbles back and forth between her decisions saying, "I touch...  I touch..." before finally picking something.

"Powers" are a physically visible thing in our house.  This is a result of two barbies that we have who came with accessories meant to represent their superpowers.  Elsa has an ice clump that shoots from her hand and a superhero has a splash of purple magic.  Now when Olivia and Gretchen play, they say things like "I take my powers off.  I give my powers to you."

Kaitlyn has a few things she says, but the most common ones recently are "no", "stop it", and "don't do that".  The last one is admittedly a stretch, but that's what her babbling sounds like and the meaning is clear.  This must be what it's like to grow up with two older sisters.  Sorry, Jacque.  :)

The biggest house news this week is our new driveway.  We had a company come out and cover our loose stones with asphalt.  Our driveway is now wonderfully paved and smooth so that the girls can ride bikes and cars won't get stuck in the winter.

My snapkins got mentioned in an online article recently, which was pretty exciting.

This weekend we are in Michigan to attend Jillian's graduation and visit with family.

Pictures and Videos

March 27-April 3

I have found recently that I have little time for blog updates.  Sorry about the lateness of, well, ALL of them.

This week's quick synopsis:
Kaitlyn turned one!  Sunday's weather was beautiful and warm, so we took the cake outside and she smashed daintily picked at it while a crowd of admirers looked on.  Bryan says the cake destroying is getting better with each subsequent child, but he thinks there is still plenty of room for improvement.  Kaitlyn did not have to worry about being able to blow out her own candle (she can't) because several of the gathered children blew it out before her cake got to her tray.

Kaitlyn's cake was entirely fast friendly.  I have a good vegan chocolate cake recipe if anyone wants or needs it.  WE need it, because I've just discovered that we only have one birthday that is not during a fasting period, and that one (Gretchen's) still falls during Lent about half the time.

Jillian, Jacque, and I went to a 2Cellos concert on Monday night.  It was a lot of fun, although noisier than I thought necessary.  I might be turning into an old fuddy duddy.

On Tuesday the girls and I took Jillian back to Michigan.  We ate lunch on Oma and Opa's old porch while Jillian sorted stuffed animals for the trip back to my house.  Then we dropped Jillian off at her current residence, visited the guys at Lube Cube (because the van needed an oil change), and were back on our way home.

On Wednesday we all traveled to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Bryan and I were attending the homeschooling conference in Cincinnati over the weekend.  Kaitlyn got Grandma all to herself for a few days and Olivia and Gretchen had a two day sleepover with the Kleins.

Pictures and Videos:

December 13-20

The rather large Kaitlyn update:
-She has another tooth.  This puts her at five and means that her teething cold is temporarily absent again.
-She can pull herself to standing.  She cannot be left unattended in this state because her balance and judgement are poor.
-Her coordination has improved enough that all small things go directly into her mouth.  No matter how often the floor is swept, she WILL find some tasty tidbit to sample.
-She babbles using many different syllables and tries to imitate words with absolutely no success.  :)
-She eats a wide variety of foods but favors squash and "whatever mom is eating."

I have less to report on Gretchen and Olivia.  They can trash a playroom with alarming alacrity, but cleaning up is like pulling teeth.  They play with each other all the time and only fight occasionally.  Oh, and they helped me fill a box: I told Olivia that there was a little girl that didn't have any toys so we were going to give her some of ours.  She responded by helping me fill a box with various toys, stuffed animals, and dress-up clothes for the little girl.  Her ready generosity shocked me and I reiterated several times that we were giving these away forever.  I tried not to veto any items, though, unless they were ones Gretchen played with all the time, and soon we had a full box.  Now I'm trying to find a little girl to deliver it to, because simply dropping it off at a local thrift store or shelter doesn't mean much to a four-year-old.

I baked a mountain of stollen and we drove around town to hand it out to people.  Of course, we picked the coldest, windiest day so far this winter, so few people were out and about.  :/

The girls and Bryan put up the Christmas tree and decorated it yesterday.  Olivia and Gretchen were very excited to put all the beautiful things on the tree.  Kaitlyn was excited to beat on the boxes.

Today we're headed to Sidney for a Christmas party and then we're spending the week with Bryan's family.  Actually, we're spending it with several members of my family, too: Josef, Jacob, and Jacque are coming with us.  :)  After Christmas we'll be back home and the Bossards will be joining us at our house.  Now if I could only get that Christmas letter written...

Pictures and Video:

November 22-December 6

Well, we've been to Florida and Sidney and now we're finally home in our own house again, at least until it's time to travel for Christmas.  :)  Here are lots of pictures and videos, and there are two bonus posts coming this week to make up for the fact that I haven't written anything for a few weeks now.  Next week I'll detail our adventures, I promise.  :)

Pictures and Videos:

November 15-22

This post is already late and I'm writing it on my phone, which is an obnoxiously slow process, so it's going to be brief.

Kaitlyn has a couple of new teeth.  One top tooth poked through early last week and the other followed quickly.  She's up to four now.

Gretchen loves to copy everything Olivia says and does.  I find myself regularly testing to see if our house actually has a previously unnoticed echo, but always come to the conclusion that the only echo we have sounds suspiciously like Olivia's every word proceeding forth from Gretchen's mouth.

Olivia had a check up on Tuesday.  She weighs 40.4 pounds and is 42 inches tall.  Stubbornly shy as always, she refused to show the doctor any tricks (walking on her tip toes, hopping on one foot, etc), even when asked.  She WAS the cutest little picture of bravery as she went with barely concealed trepidation into the hallway (alone with the nurse) to be weighed and measured.

After two days of driving, we are now spending the week in Florida with my grandparents and my dad's whole family.  Next week's post may also be late due to traveling back north to face the cold once more.

One Video:

November 8-15

Playtime around here has become very scripted.  Olivia is the writer, director, and producer of everything, and Gretchen is the aspiring actor.  Large chunks of playtime are dictated, and Gretchen does her best to accurately copy the words and emotions.  Bryan and I are less obliging, but that doesn't keep Olivia from trying to sneakily influence us by giving multiple options with slightly different wording.

We had to have a chat this week about how "if it's on the floor, it's Kaitlyn's toy."  One traumatic morning in the playroom seemed to be enough to drive this lesson home, and since then most of the big girl toys have been kept either in the cage or above crawling level and put away at the end of the day.  Perhaps we can keep the "put away" part going?  Happily for everyone, Kaitlyn's movement preceded her pincer grip, so she doesn't have the dexterity to either pick up or eat small objects she might find.  She gets close enough to cause the older girls to panic, though, so by the time her motor skills improve they should be properly trained in keeping small things out of reach.  In the meantime, I can leave her unattended in the playroom and she will happily amuse herself with baby toys for quite some time.

Earlier this fall, we bought some fruit trees to plant in our backyard.  They arrived on Friday and Bryan planted them yesterday.  We won't see any fruit for 3-5 years, but when that time comes we are excited to have pears, apricots, plums, and cherries.  :)

Pictures and Videos:

November 1-8

We had some excitement this week: our friends the Hodges had a new baby and we were a third of their babysitting plan.  The baby made her big arrival on Monday night, so Isaiah stayed with us Monday through Wednesday before going back to his house.  Due to juggling of schedules and babysitting duties, Isaiah was not the only spare child running around the house.  When everything started on Monday, Presbytera (who happens to be the grandmother of all the extra children) brought the (two) Creighton boys and a couple pans of lasagna over while she went to pick up the (three) Hodges boys.  All five boys (and Presbytera) stayed for dinner and then she took two Hodges to stay with the Weys.  The Creighton boys were picked up by their mother an hour or so later, and I put Isaiah and the girls to bed.  (Are you following all of this?)  The next morning, I was already supposed to be watching the (two) Wey boys, and the Weys were two-thirds of the aforementioned babysitting plan, meaning I was possibly getting four extra kids (in addition to Isaiah) for the morning.  Presbytera took the youngest, though, so I only got two Weys and one more Hodges.  Four hours later, Elesha (Wey) came and picked up ALL the children that didn't belong to me and took them to the hospital to see the baby.  The girls and I ran out and got flu shots and then came back in time to receive Isaiah again.  Wednesday there were no extra extras, and we did our normal errands with a spare child, but otherwise uneventfully.  Isaiah went home just before dinner, but then we picked up the Wey boys and their father so that they could eat with us before Seekers' Group that night.  After Seekers', everyone went home and our family was back to its normal size.  :)

A note about the flu shots that I mentioned in the previous paragraph: Kaitlyn got a shot.  Gretchen got a mist, about which she was immensely relieved.  There was a moment of panic when the receptionist told us that mists were only for those three and up, but the nurse said that two year olds with no asthma symptoms could also receive the mist.  Panic is probably not the best word to use there.  Olivia was gleefully pointing out (repeatedly) that Gretchen had to get a shot, and Gretchen was resolutely insisting that she only wanted a mist, thank you very much.  Olivia's disappointment when Gretchen did not have to suffer through a shot (the way Olivia had earlier) was almost palpable.

I had orchestra this week, so Bryan was in charge of putting the girls to bed most nights.  I'm always hopeful that a week of Daddy doing bedtime will get Kaitlyn is used to putting herself to sleep and result in her sleeping through the night.  Friday night was a success in that department, so we'll see if it sticks.

Bryan likes to pick up the girls and ask for a big kiss and a big hug.  Olivia almost always starts negotiating, "no, a little kiss and a little hug."  Once the terms have been agreed upon, exactly one kiss and one hug are imparted.  Gretchen, on the other hand, will give Bryan a kiss and then proceed to kiss every identifiable part of his face, usually while naming them out loud.  Eyes, eyebrows, nose, cheeks, ears, forehead, chin, beard (the last two are always separate but get kissed in the same spot).

Kaitlyn has two more talents that I haven't mentioned yet: clapping her feet and waving.  Neither of these is new this week, but I keep forgetting about them.  I'm not sure if the foot clapping is just a baby thing or if it's a result of me absentmindedly patting her feet together when she sits on my lap.  She's quite good at it, though, and practices frequently.  The waving she does less as a wave and more to mean "I want that."  My mom discovered this the day we visited.  Mom was eating a sandwich and Kaitlyn was opening and closing her hand.  When mom waved back, Kaitlyn stopped.  When mom held out the sandwich, Kaitlyn began waving again.  I've since noticed Kaitlyn waving at toys and at the dinner table.

A unique thing I forgot last week:
Olivia and Gretchen use the word "ask" to mean both "ask" and "tell."  I'm going to ask Daddy that I got a shot today.

Pictures and Videos:

October 4-11

Olivia and Gretchen have a barbie named "Bad Girl" (as in evil, not disobedient).  She's actually a beautiful collector's barbie dressed as a bride.  She does, however, have a pretty heavy layer of makeup on her face.  When I asked Olivia why she was called Bad Girl, she responded, "Look at her eyes!"

A remembered story that illustrates the difference between girls and boys: When we visited Boston, all of the children were playing happily in the living room.  Olivia and Gretchen began playing together while their cousins ignored them.  I believe Edward was playing with trucks and William was reading a book.  Olivia convinced Gretchen to play Cinderella with her, and they danced around for a little while before Olivia ran away saying, "I'm running away!  Chase me, prince!"  Gretchen complied, and they ran a lap around the room before starting over.  They repeated this a few more times before William noticed what was happening.  As soon as he did notice, however, he immediately dropped his book and jumped up.  With a gleeful "Chase Olivia!", he took off running around the corner and tackled her onto a chair.

Gretchen is officially diaper free.  She spent the whole week in Boston wearing a diaper only at bedtime.  While there, she noticed that potty-training William got to wear underwear to bed and asked if she could, too, but we didn't want to deal with the hassle.  Once we got home, though, she woke up dry several mornings and got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night once, so we gave her the option one night and she chose to do without the diaper.  So far, so good.

Kaitlyn has started sitting up.  She doesn't get a lot of practice because of things like hardwood floors and overly enthusiastic sisters, but she does a pretty good job when given the chance.  She's also been rocking on hands and knees with increasing regularity, which is tremendously exciting to Olivia especially.  I am curious to see how wonderful Olivia and Gretchen think Kaitlyn's crawling is once she starts going for their toys...

Kaitlyn has also started solid foods.  At lunch on Saturday, she sat on my lap (as she often does) and tried to grab my Chipotle burrito out of my hand.  She was quite irate when I wouldn't share, so I pacified her with grains of rice until Bryan could take her and I could finish my meal without losing it all over the table.  On Sunday I mentioned to a friend at church that I was going to have to make baby food and she gave me some leftover rice cereal and a few cubes of vegetable puree the her recently-graduated-to-table-food one-year-old wasn't going to eat.  We started with that and I picked up some vegetables on Monday night and spent a few days steaming and pureeing.  So far Kaitlyn has had squash, spinach, and applesauce and seems quite content.

Yesterday was the first orchestra concert of the season, which means that this last week I had rehearsals every night.  Bryan and Jacque put the girls to bed all week and Kaitlyn's new puree obsession meant that they didn't even have to worry about her too much.  What good timing.  :)  Orchestra was great, and I once again appreciated the fact that once a month I have a commitment that requires me to pick up and play my viola.

Jacque is living with us!  She came with us from Boston and is staying here until she moves to Chicago sometime in the nearish future.  We set up her queen bed (box spring and mattress only) in the middle of my workroom and squeezed her things in around the edges.  She was exceedingly helpful in the babysitting department last week when Bryan had to be in Springfield several days and I had orchestra.  Although I suspect she's still getting her fill of small children, the girls appear to have accepted her as one of the family and thus tend to ignore her rather than resorting to constant performance mode.

Did you know that you can check artwork out of libraries?  Our old library had this option and I always wondered what the point was.  While we were driving to and from Boston, however, I was listening to various podcasts and one talked about having artwork around for your kids to look at.  I had the brilliant idea of letting the girls check out masterpieces from the library and on Monday morning we all marched over to the little visited section of framed art.  Olivia and Gretchen happily picked out pictures (shown below; Olivia liked the princesses and Gretchen likes that there are three) and we hung them up in the playroom where they can admire them.  In two months, we'll take them back and get new ones.  :)  While we were picking out paintings, Jacque found a Renoir that she liked, so I went back on Friday and got that for her to hang in her bedroom.

Tuesday was a trip to the Fort Wayne zoo (because we have a membership!).  We conquered Australia and the Indiana farm before heading home.  The most exciting part was probably the peacock that joined us for lunch before we even got through the front gates, although we also enjoyed the sea lions, the stingrays, and the goats.  We were allowed to pet the goats and help brush them, and Olivia made sure to touch each one exactly once.  Aunt Jacque bought some stuffed animals at the zoo store on the way out, and the girls played happily with their new lion and tiger all the way home.

I've been reading chapter books out loud before quiet time, and we just finished another one.  We've now done Charlotte's Web, Winnie the Pooh, and Beezus and Ramona.  After we read Ramona the Pest, I think we're going to move on to a couple of the Little House books and then maybe Heidi. Secret Garden, or A Little Princess.  Any suggestions would be gladly accepted.  I'm looking at you, reader that is getting a master's in library science and has a job in the children's department of the library.  :)

Pictures and Videos:

September 27-October 4

Oh, Boston.  Where to begin?

After driving through the night last Friday, we arrived at Justine's house at 10:30 Saturday morning.  No one was there, but Justine had left the door unlocked for us.  We unpacked the car into the middle of the kitchen and settled down at the table for a late breakfast.  The Bossards popped in briefly before heading out again, leaving us to our own devices as we recovered from the drive.  By dinnertime we were all present and accounted for, including Jacque and Joseph's sister and her husband.

Sunday was Walter's baptism, which went swimmingly (no pun intended).  The usual priest was out sick, so a newly ordained priest got to perform his first baptism.  Afterwards, we all went back to the Bossard residence, making a brief pit stop at a Radio Shack so that Bryan could purchase a new power cord for his laptop since he'd forgotten his in Ohio.  Sarah and Luther left late Sunday night (after we all looked at the lunar eclipse), bringing the occupancy of the house down to five adults and six children.

Monday was library day, so Justine, Jacque, and I packed up the kids in strollers and wraps and wandered over to catch story time.  Luckily for us, there are two story times in a row, so we were on time for the 11:00 one (after aiming for 10:15).  I was impressed by their story time, which was much bigger, more elaborate, and better organized than any story time I've attended thus far.  The best part was definitely during the song "Shake Your Sillies Out" when twenty some toddlers jumped their jiggles out, briefly turning the room into a pint sized mosh pit.

On Tuesday we thought about going to Boston, but didn't ever make it out the door.  Sleep deprived adults and cranky toddlers decided to hang out at the house instead.  I did take an excursion to the park with my three kids and one nephew.  William made a beeline for the sandbox and Olivia and Gretchen happily followed him.  They did eventually move on to other playground equipment.  A little over one happy hour later, we wandered our way back home and I promptly dumped everyone in the bathtub to take care of the sand in their hair.

Wednesday was rainy, so we stayed in and planned for the next day's trip to actual Boston.  I'm not a big touristy type, but after driving 14.5 hours to the east coast, one feels a certain obligation to at least glimpse the major city.  The kids spent the day inside reading the fabulous book that Aunt Jacque gave William for his birthday.  Then they zoned out in front of a movie for quiet time.

Thursday was Boston day.  First we went to Music Together, which was a very exciting class of nonstop catchy songs.  Gretchen got into the music right away, while Olivia was more reserved and then decided to compensate by being wild.  The trip into Boston was awful and stressful.  Traffic was crowded and three separate emergency vehicles had to muscle their way through the congestion.  Rumor has it that Justine's passengers were quite excited about the close proximity of sirens and flashing lights.  Not so in my vehicle.  Jacque sat in my car and assured me that no one in Boston hated me when I (1) stopped in the middle of an intersection due to a red light three blocks away, (2) covered a crosswalk due to another red light, (3) drove in a bike lane to avoid the car forcing itself into my lane as a fire truck went by, or (4) deliberately ran a red light to make room for an ambulance.  I hated me a little, though, and this experience was enough to cure me of my desire to go to Boston.  As we were already there, we found a parking garage with claustrophobic little ramps that we had to take all the way to the roof to find parking spots (I definitely tried to push off the wall with my hand going around one corner, failing only because my window was in the way).  We got the kids out and walked to the public gardens to see the Make Way for Ducklings statues.  The kids thought those were great, and we took a few pictures before heading back.  We meant to drive to a harbor afterwards to watch boats and planes, but wrangling six children, two of whom are nursing and two of whom are potty training and five of whom still take a nap at least some of the time, is not nearly as painlessly quick and easy as it sounds.  So we skipped the harbor, threw snacks at the kids, and just drove home.  The return trip was considerably less eventful, to the relief of all.

On Friday we just stayed in and hung out together.  The kids got a movie while I ran out to buy new tail light bulbs for the van (side note: they were installed by a Steelers fan; he wanted to make sure my Browns fan husband was aware of that).  Somehow someone turned the movie off before it was done and when Bryan went down to turn it back on it was at the beginning again.  We let them watch the first half over while we made lunch.  After dinner on Friday, we got in the car and began the long drive home, this time with an extra driver.  We arrived back at our house at 9:45 on Saturday morning and spent the day unwinding.

And here ends our Boston saga.

Something of note: William is absolutely convinced that Gretchen's name is Gretchy-Gretch.  He never calls her anything else.

Pictures and Videos:

September 20-27

Kaitlyn's teeth finally came in on Monday.  She is now the proud owner of two tiny pokey things and seems much happier.  She still drools like crazy, though.

Gretchen's potty training continues to be an adventure.  She keeps undies dry about half the time now, which is often enough for Bryan to feel they're worth it, but not for me to bother putting new ones on her once the first pair gets wet.  :/  She has graduated to using the big potty all the time now, which is exciting.

Last Saturday the Kleins came over and Steph and I made lots of applesauce.  I was still working from my big basket of free, albeit sadly wormy and misshapen (but free!), apples.  I confess I was pretty jealous of Steph's big, beautiful orchard apples.  We cut and strained and boiled and canned, and finished the day much richer in applesauce than we began it.  Also, my basket is now empty.  :)  I got three more quarts of applesauce, plus two pints each of strawberry applesauce and blueberry applesauce.  The flavored applesauce is a big hit in my house; I'll have to make that more often.

Mom came down Saturday night with a truck full of furniture and things for our basement as they prepare for their move across the country.  Siblings: If you want things, you have until we decide to fully finish the basement to claim them.  Don't worry, I'll give you some warning.

On Sunday we took mom back to Michigan in time for church and then stayed to visit for the day.  I got some more raspberries, despite this not being the season for transplants, and put them in a newly raised bed located atop the watery grave of the old patch.  Mom said I can have another batch every time a vehicle goes from her house to my house and we're hoping that at least a few from each group survive.

On Friday Bryan and I celebrated our wooden anniversary by packing all the children into the van and beginning the long drive to Boston to visit Justine and company.  Driving through the night went better than last time, although Gretchen woke up multiple times to complain that she wanted to be in a bed.  Kaitlyn did a fantastic job, and everyone was in a great mood after a very morale boosting gas station stop at 4:30 in the morning.  We made it to Justine's house by 10:30, clocking the drive at 14 and a half hours.  An amusing anecdote from the gas station: While Bryan pumped gas, I took Olivia in to go to the bathroom and then we stopped to buy a couple of snacks.  Then I took Gretchen in, and then Bryan went in to buy himself a snack.  Finally I took Kaitlyn in for a new diaper and bought myself an iced tea.  On this fourth purchase in the same location, I got an email from Chase making sure our credit card had not been stolen.  Never mind the three previous purchases (one of which was for gas), the danger was clearly the $1.89 spent on the iced tea.

Now we're in Boston for the week, planning to leave Friday sometime to begin the trek back home to people who know how to pronounce the letter "r."

Pictures and Videos:

September 13-20

Kaitlyn...
...loves her sisters.  Anytime she hears them playing she will look around until she spots them and then smile at their game.
...is beginning to be ticklish.  She has to be in the right mood, though.
...grabs things quite well now.  Beware those with long hair, beards, glasses, necklaces, and/or noses.  Once she was trying to grab a toy on the bed but couldn't because she'd captured the grabbing hand's thumb with her other hand.
...will eat anything, even a door.  If she can pick it up, it's food.  If she can reach it with her mouth, it's also food.  She has sampled every toy she's been given, the hair of the unwary who stray too close, and, yes, a door.  She was quite upset that the door did not fit in her mouth.
...rolls everywhere.  Hence the ability to taste the door.  Having mastered rolling from front to back (either direction) and back to front (either direction) in addition to turning in circles on the floor, Kaitlyn is quite mobile.  She hasn't figured out how to get exactly where she wants, though, so watching her get places is kind of like watching a chess match played with nothing but knights.

Gretchen...
...can drink from a regular cup now.  It took an unreasonably long amount of time for her to master this trick since she always stuck her tongue inside the cup to lap at the water like a cat, but she's got it now.
...knows her colors.  This was kind of a gradual thing, but we didn't work on it much, so it surprised me when I realized that she could do it.
...stays in bed at night.  We haven't put the gate up for some time now, and Gretchen does just fine.  She only gets out of bed if she needs someone to refill her water cup.  This is, needless to say, quite terrifying in the middle of the night when I wake up with her face right in mine as she patiently waits for me to become aware of her presence.  Once I fill her cup, though, she turns around and walks right back to bed.
...can twirl spaghetti on her fork.  I discovered this at dinner on Friday and was very impressed.  Unfortunately, she suffers the same fate as most spaghetti twirlers: all of her spaghetti twirled up into one hugely unmanageable bite.
...opens doors.  This also took longer than usual, but through no fault of Gretchen's.  Our door handles are unusually high in this house, so she couldn't reach them until recently.  Now that she can reach them, however, no room is safe.

Olivia...
...learned to spell her name.  We've been practicing with letters on the fridge as well as spelling out loud.  She seems to have a good handle on it, but I'm not sure she would be able to tell OLIVIA from OSTRICH just yet.
...likes to play her new violin.  My mom brought a 1/8 size violin with her last week (complements of Aunt Jan, via Donna) and Olivia has played it several times.  Mercifully, the e string broke as it was being tuned, so we're only hearing the lower notes.  She is impatiently waiting for the day when I teach her to put fingers down on the strings.
...wants to be the oldest, but not necessarily the most grown up.  She likes being in charge, but becomes helpless when it suits her.  For instance, when HER water cup is empty in the middle of the night, she sits in her bed and wails.

Our car had brake problems when Bryan was driving from Springfield back to his parents' house last week, so we had to abandon it at Steve and Murry's, shoehorn three carseats into the backseat of their Jeep, and borrow their vehicle for a few days.  Everything worked out, though, and our van is once again in our possession and working as well as it ever has.  An unexpected bonus: somehow when they fixed the brakes they also stopped the power steering whine.

Labor day was our fun run, and we had quite a good turn out.  Friends from church came, as well as Matt and Tricia (Bryan's cousin and his wife) and Rianne and Titus (my cousin and her husband).  My parents and some siblings came down as well, and Bryan's family made an appearance at the cookout afterwards.  The big improvement to the fun run this year came in the form of a semi-marked course: I tied yarn on sticks.  Unfortunately, the sticks and yarn were difficult to see and our front runner was color blind and therefore unable to decipher whether he should turn right or left.  Next year I will use large ties of patterned cloth.  :)

Alison and Jacob came down for the weekend before the fun run.  We hung out, Bryan got Jacob addicted to a new video game, and Alison and I tried our hand at cheddar cheese.  We're not tremendously hopeful as to the outcome, but won't know the extent of our failure or success for several months since cheddar takes 4-6 months to age.  The most exciting part of the combined visit came after church on Sunday morning, when Father pointedly asked, "so, do you have any news to share with us?" while staring at Alison's hand.  Keep in mind that Jake and Joe look similar, Alison and Joe were together for all their previous visits, and Alison is now Orthodox, which is always a hopeful sign.  Anyway, Alison looked mildly uncomfortable and then said, "Well, I saved a lot of money on car insurance by switching to Geico."

You may remember from last week's pictures that I made feta cheese after everyone left.  This batch looked much more promising than the cheddar and feta only takes 2 days to cure.  The verdict on the finished product is that I left it in the saturated brine (homemade seawater) too long.  It looks and feels like feta, but is incredibly salty.  Bryan says store feta is sharper also, so that is something that I will have to work on.  I have a couple of ideas to try next time.  If I can perfect this, though, I made a pound of feta for less than $3.50, which is well worth it.

This past Monday, Kaitlyn and I drove up to Albion to visit Jacob.  He had picked up some bulk food from the (kind of local to him) store for me and in exchange I was giving swing dance lessons to his residents.  The turnout was only about 9 people, but I thought it went well.  The one male that came (other than Jacob) said afterwards that he'd be interested in learning the steps to some other dances, too, so I may be going back.

Pictures and Videos: