January 25 - February 1

Church was virtual last week. I heard traffic on Allentown and sent Bryan out to check. He shoveled a trench to the end of our driveway, noticed that Stevick looked the same as our driveway, and came back. Also, given the depth of the trench, our van did not look like it was going to make it out. As we decided that we probably wouldn't make it, the Sheriff upped the winter roadway advisory from a 1 to a 2. We gathered the children in the oratory and cosplayed Sunday during early Covid.

I tried to bribe the kids into shoveling the driveway. Matthias went out for a little while and, bless his heart, shoveled snow into the garage. ... Bryan did a much better job with the length of the driveway on Sunday afternoon, and I took care of about half the back portion on Monday morning. We have a snowblower, but it doesn't think it knows how to turn on. It makes a lot of noise but never catches, which as you can imagine is very useful for a snowblower.

It was our week to bring food to coffee hour, so when church was canceled we were left with enough Sloppy Joes to feed the whole block. Bryan promised to have parking spots available if our friends the Miroglios and Misiakiewiczes came to visit. We sent all the kids outside to play and then let them take turns in the hot tub to warm back up. It turns out that I am no longer as prepared for outdoor winter play as I once was. Theodore has boots. Matthias and Kaitlyn share a pair of boots. Olivia and Gretchen share MY boots. Snowpants are a similar story, although I think we're only one pair short on those. Luckily the Misiakiewiczes brought a spare pair that Kaitlyn could borrow. I am very prepared in the glove department, so we had enough gloves for everyone to wear two pairs plus a waterproof pair over the top. And when the under pairs got wet we were able to swap them out.

School was, of course, canceled on Monday. We even reached a level 3 roadway advisory sometime Sunday evening. My favorite part of school being canceled might be that after school activities tend to be canceled as well. School was also canceled on Tuesday. And on Wednesday. On Thursday we had a two hour delay, and then, finally, on Friday, we had to go to school for the whole day. The monsters. It was actually a sad week for the kids to miss school because it was Catholic Schools Week and there were a lot of fun activities planned. Olivia was legitimately disappointed when Tuesday was canceled because that was student appreciation day -- pajamas, popcorn and a movie, and no homework. She recovered well. The days at home were pleasantly relaxing. We read books and played games and the kids built with Legos.

On Friday there was the annual Staff vs 8th Grade volleyball game. It took 3 matches, but 8th grade eked out a narrow win. Olivia was happy because 8th grade won. I was happy because I acquitted myself well. Matthias was unhappy because the gym was incredibly noisy, so he spent the better part of an hour looking miserable with his fingers stuffed in his ears.

My running this week has been frigid. I have a treadmill in the basement, but if I run outside then I only have to be mentally strong for a few crucial turns rather than for 40 whole minutes. I have enough layers, a lighted vest, and yaktrax, which are basically snow chains for my shoes. The runs themselves have been pleasant enough, and I have learned that the feeling of frozen eyelashes is a strange, but not altogether unpleasant, sensation. 

Last week Bryan decided we were making Raw Apple Cake. It was a bit of a tag team effort, and when it came out of the oven something tasted off to me. I went through the recipe and between the two of us we were sure we'd put in all the right ingredients. Then I thought maybe my recipe was wrong, so I hunted through my loose recipe papers for the one from mom. It was the same. Maybe I just don't know what raw apple cake is supposed to taste like? A few days later, I had an epiphany. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of warm coffee. I asked Bryan what kind of coffee he used. It was cherry coffee. Word to the wise, cherry coffee make the raw apple cake taste different. :)

At Olivia's request, I am reposting the snack houses. Useless points shall be awarded for correct guesses. 3 points for being the first comment to correctly guess each house, 2 for the second comment, 1 for the the third comment. Each house is on its own point system.

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 71

From October 2024:

Theodore is confused about how we measure bigness. Matthias is "two heights" older than him. Which means he's "two pounds" bigger. He wants to know how old he will be when Matthias is "the first height of grown up."

From June 2025:

Olivia I had a question but I don't remember what it was. Oh wait, I just wanted to talk.

Olivia: I can't figure out the answer to this question. Why are they talking about wildfire?
Me: That says wildlife.

Me: Do you want to see an M O V I E?
Olivia: What's an M O V I -- Oh, wait.

Olivia: Mom, you look like someone I know.

Theo says "tiny tin bit" instead of "tiny" and "hugeamungous" to mean something large.

From August 2025:

Me: Matthias, those are not your pants. You have got to notice when your pants don't even come to your ankles. Those are Theodore's pants. 

Me: *checks tag*

Me: And they're on backwards. You're wearing Theodore's pants backwards.

Theo: Easily peasily lemon squeezily.

From October 2025:

Theodore: Hey! The Browns are actually winning!

From January 2026:

Theodore: Mom, can you get me cereal? 

Me: Can you get your own bowl out of the dishwasher and get out the cereal? 

Theo: No.

Me: Why not? 

Theo: Because I don't want to do any work, I just want to eat.

January 18-25

Olivia and I went to La Comedia on Sunday night. A Christmas present for the last three years for each kid has been an individual thing with Bryan and and individual thing with me. Olivia and I have been going to La Comedia, and being creatures of habit we saw no reason to mix it up this year. We decided to see Murder on the Orient Express, which is based on an Agatha Christie book, so of course we read the book first. The play did take a few liberties, which Olivia disliked greatly. She took notes. She decided on the way home that the play was good, but it has to be good on its own because it is NOT the book (which was also good). Classic Olivia. We did learn that there are two movie adaptations (and a TV show?) and we have plans to watch those at some point.

Since reading Murder on the Orient Express, Olivia has decided she likes Agatha Christie and is now working her way through those books. I believe she's on number three, although that's more a collection of shorter mysteries, so she might have skipped ahead to four. Murder on the Orient Express is number ten. So far she has not managed to deduce the murderer before being told. It's a good thing Hercule Poirot is on the case as well. Olivia has been trying to convince her sisters to read with her, giving them enticing but spoiler free synopses of the books she's finished. The main take-away from this as I understand it is that Alfred clearly ate all the cookies, and if Olivia were a better detective she would have noticed that.

Monday was a school holiday and a waste of a perfectly good snow day. Olivia and I went to school midday so that she could play pickleball with some classmates and I could do relatively distraction free lesson planning. Gretchen did NOT have basketball practice, despite a schedule sent out earlier in the month stating that she did. Communications got crossed somewhere, so she and I sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes waiting to see if anyone else would show up before her coach confirmed that she had the day off. Gretchen was decidedly not devastated. While we waited I showed her the This is a Coat song by Holderness Family, and now she sings it when she's in the car. She has also seen the error of her ways and started wearing a coat (but also sometimes just carrying it while she sings in the freezing weather).

On Tuesday our furnace was fixed and on Wednesday it started blowing cold air instead of hot, so on Thursday the furnace guy came back yet again. It turns out there was a sensor that was misaligned and now our furnace both turns on consistently and blows hot air. Luckily for us, the day it was struggling was the warmest one this week. Getting out of bed on Thursday was chilly, but it could have been worse.

Friday night was a Winter Gathering for teachers. Bryan and I told the kids to feed themselves dinner and went bowling with my colleagues. Dinner for the kids was an adventure because we combined it with a "Snack House" activity. They built not-gingerbread houses out of all of the fun supplies that Bryan had purchased, took pictures, and then ate the houses. So dinner was probably mostly crackers and candy, although we did tell them that eating the broccoli was mandatory whether or not their houses had trees. When we arrived home just after nine the house was quiet and three kids were asleep, which was pretty magical.

By Saturday the temperature had dropped enough that I went to the Y for my long run and completed 86 laps around the track -- if my counting was correct. Not my preferred long run venue, but my friend Jill was there so at least I had company. Also on Saturday was a low-key puzzle competition where my team won by completing a 300 piece puzzle in 17:40. This was the first time the organizer had hosted a competition and she was worried that 1.5 hours might not be enough. We did another 300 piece puzzle afterwards for fun before heading home.

Saturday was also the day I decided we needed to tackle the problem that is our house. We have three main rooms and seven people, so we divided and conquered. An hour later all three rooms were cleaned, organized, and swept, plus a little bonus invisible clutter removal in the rooms Bryan and I did. We tried to do time lapse videos, but the first one I accidentally swiped to slow motion as I pressed play. The other might be good, but it is on Kaitlyn's camera so I haven't seen it yet.

This morning we had a fair amount of snow on the ground and it is still falling. Roads are not plowed, at least not in our area, and St Stephen's cancelled all services. We're thinking about trying to make it to St Charles for their later service. I will have to let you know next week if we succeed or if we end up at virtual church. On the plus side, I have given some much needed attention to the oratory in anticipation of virtual church. It's not perfect, but it is better.

Bryan discovered a new game that he bought for our switch: Duck Game. Up to four people can play at once and you just run around (as ducks) and try to kill the other ducks in entertaining ways. It's very quick and very silly, although Theo can only play in small doses because he gets mad when he dies. Bryan's favorite weapon is the net gun, which traps a duck just long enough that if you're quick you can pick them up and toss them over the edge. Matthias's favorite is the mind control gun. He also enjoys the powerful magnet that can attach to armor and muscle a duck over to the side. My preferred (note: preferred, but not recommended) tactic is to panic throw my weapons because I forget which button to use. I am Theodore's favorite opponent.

I tried some new things with my blog these last few weeks. I was attaching captions directly to pictures so that I would have more options when integrating into printed books. Blogger made that a bit of a pain, so this week I played around with Word Press. I thought I had everything figured out, but then Word Press stopped connecting to my Google Photos. So in a fit of pique I moved back to Blogger. And I decided that the individual captions weren't worth the frustration. I will find a book that can print them how I want them when it's time. That sounds like next year Johannah's problem.

Pictures:

January 11-18

Bryan and I are both trying to spend less time on our phones. He put a large 100 sided die in his pocket to get in the way every time he reaches for his phone. It gives him a moment to remember that he doesn't actually need his phone, he's just reaching out of habit. He reports that it is working as planned thus far. I finally activated the tiny smart phone that I purchased a couple of years ago for this purpose. It can do everything a normal sized smart phone can do, but the size makes it quite inconvenient to use for non-essential things. Importantly, I didn't install chrome, which has made a huge difference as well.

We had a snow day on Thursday, much to the delight of the children. It was a very laid back day. Kaitlyn and Matthias played video games together without fighting for several hours while Theo watched them. Olivia, Gretchen, and I played Eye Found It, a Disney I spy game for 5 year olds, and had a grand time. We then promptly packed it back up and put it on the donate pile because we are unlikely to play it again. I also pulled out Taboo to show them. Kaitlyn organized a recital that she recorded on her new camcorder. I'll have to see about getting the video put up somewhere.

Yesterday we went on a family adventure (from a scratch off book that we got for Christmas 2024) to the bowling alley. We have several of these books, and Bryan decided that if we were going to have any chance of completing them before Olivia leaves for college then we need to get moving. So we scratched something off and put it on the calendar for yesterday. We had to try to bowl the lowest score, but also each person got to dictate how to bowl for one frame. It was silly and fun, until I accidentally bowled a spare for Theo (Bryan's rule was that everyone had to pick a different person to bowl for them to try to drive up the score) and he immediately followed it with an accidental 9. Theo still managed to get third place after Bryan and our big winner, Matthias. We had some time left to bowl 7/10 of a real game in which Bryan wiped the floor with the rest of us.

It was also Matthias's unbirthday yesterday. He's a bit of a chore to cater to because he has a lot of specific requests, but we had "homemade pizza" (read: cardboard pizza -- this hurts my soul), bagel bites, and donuts. He originally asked for fried onion chicken as well, but then decided he didn't really want that. At least he picks things that I can just buy from the store and toss in the oven, unlike his father who wants things like Thai green curry and entremets. 

Gretchen discovered a mermaid tail blanket from several years ago and dressed up fabulously. She wanted to make sure her fashion statement was documented for posterity. Pictures below.

Bryan got a giant soft blanket for Christmas from his sister. His first question was, "Are you sure this is for me and not for Johannah?" She replied that she got it because he complained that I always stole his blanket and this way he would have one to use. It is a fabulous blanket and, while I do leave it for Bryan to use at night, I love it more than he does.

Theodore has a way of playing with his matchbox cars where he bonks them into each other by flinging them together forcefully. If one turns around on its belly, it is dead and gets eliminated. He repeats this process over and over until he is left with one champion. This game gets played pretty much every day right now. He also wants you to know that he likes building car tracks and using boosters to make the cars drive fast.

Olivia had a high school placement test that worried her mightily but went well. She's very comfortable at the high school since she's been taking Spanish there this year, so she was at least not worried about finding her way around the location. She and Bryan and I also had to go in for a meet and greet with teachers/administrators so that they could impart important information and we could ask pressing questions. Two more things checked off the high school application list. I think all that's left is turning in financial aid paperwork, although sometimes they add steps to the checklist without telling me and I discover them later.

Our furnace has been doing this fun thing where it doesn't heat reliably. It hasn't dropped below 63 yet, but it does struggle to go much higher than that during the day. Until it doesn't, and then it's fine for a while. This was a problem near the end of last winter as well, so we nursed it through with the occasional percussive maintenance. At the beginning of this winter, I called someone. Unfortunately, the furnace was on its best behavior and the problem was not observed. Since then, it's been a game. Can I catch it not working when I also have time to be home to meet a technician? And will it stay not working long enough for him to drive to my house? This week I finally caught it. A faulty pressure switch was diagnosed and repaired. The furnace worked. But then a couple of hours later it did not work again. The tech came back. The fan in a can was the immediate next suspect, but was exonerated. He's thinking the control board, which of course is hard to find because the furnace is 20 years old, so maybe we should just get a new furnace. Bryan and I pretty much decided to continue on as we had been (after all, the basement has its own furnace if we end up needing to escape the cold) when the technician called with news that he had found a control board. So we're getting that fixed in the next week or two and hopefully our furnace will limp along with fewer diagnostic thwacks for a few more years.

Pictures:

Bowling, but only Olivia
was paying attention.

Bowling, take 2.

I was at bowling as well!

Gretchen's post bowling strut was fun.

Milling around getting ready.

Four kids playing Heave Ho,
one watching happily.

Kaitlyn's hamster, Li'l Lilly.

Me enjoying Bryan's blanket.

Kids enjoying video games.

Theodore and his car game.

This is Gretchen.

January 4-11

Gretchen's aggression in basketball leaves much to be desired, but her enthusiasm is there. This week she got a steal during a game AND successfully passed the ball to a teammate. I don't ever watch her play and wouldn't understand what was happening if I did, but judging from her excitement and Bryan's congratulations, this was a big deal for her. In yesterday's game she touched the ball at least twice. :)

Matthias is also playing basketball and Bryan went to that game while I was at Gretchen's. They won, and Matthias says they are undefeated this season.

I forgot to mention last week that I managed to lose my voice for a few days. On Sunday I could sing only my lowest 4 notes, and by Sunday night I was alternating honking and whispering, much to Bryan's amusement. On Monday I woke up with only a whisper that mostly served to make all the children in the house (ours and the Smiths) seem exceptionally loud and uncouth. Jacque and Will sat nearby  and whispered back to me during conversations, which made the whole experience very secretive. By the time the Bossards arrived just after lunch, my voice was speaking again, albeit quietly. Over the course of the week it slowly regained strength and each day I managed a few more sung notes. I was still not at full strength yet this week, which made teaching music classes a little more exciting.

I also neglected to mention that our priest, Father Joshua, has been moved to a new parish. December 28 was his last Sunday with us and we were sad to see him go. The Archbishop is hoping to have a new priest at St Stephen by mid-summer, but until then we're back to the constant parade of visiting priests. We do have a freshly minted Deacon at our church now, so on the in between weeks we will have communion within the shorter typica service. Our typicas were getting rusty anyway.

Bryan took an overnight trip to Chicago to see our new Deacon (Josh Hodges) get ordained on January 6. He stayed with Jacque and returned a small box of things that the Smiths had accidentally forgotten in our house.

Friday was the spelling bee at St Charles. Olivia and Gretchen both participated. I missed seeing it because I was teaching, but Gretchen ended up getting 3rd place! Olivia was eliminated on the word "winsome" after she debated internally a little too long about whether or not to add the e. Gretchen was eliminated in the same round as second place (but she spelled first) on the word "riveted," which remains a disappointment to her because she knows how to spell that word.

Also on Friday was my Music Together class, which normally would be so routine as to avoid mention, but this week was the start of a new session and I had a FULL CLASS! 12 kids is the cap -- a cap I've never had to worry about before because I've never had more than 7 (in a summer session... 5 in a school year session). But somehow between November and January seven new families discovered my class and signed up and now my class is maxed out. It was delightful. This is my dream.

Related, I got an email from Lima, Peru, asking me in Spanish about my classes. I had to tell a parent than although their 10 month old was the perfect age, I am a little far away. I am assuming that my newfound popularity is due to my actual website (I upgraded from Wix at the end of August). Turns out that matters more than I want it to.

Theodore thought of a story he wants immortalized in the books: Remember when we had a big box and one kid would get in it and then we would close it up and tell mom and dad they had a package? And then they would open it and the package was us! That was so much fun!

Bryan claims I steal the blankets.
I claim he shoves them on me.
This is the bed in the morning when he hasn't slept in it.

3rd place in the spelling bee!

December 28-January 4

I'm just going to pretend I didn't take a two (five) year hiatus...

The kids love the blog books and want to keep reading about themselves even as they get bigger. If you want to leave a comment, saying something on the actual post rather than on the discord server is preferred because when I do eventually turn these into blog books I like to print the comments as well. If that is prohibitively inconvenient to you, discord commentary is acceptable.

We had a lot of visitors this week. Josef and family came in last Friday, Jillian arrived late Friday/early Saturday, Jacque et al joined the party mid afternoon on Saturday, and the Bossards rolled in just after lunch on Monday. Josef and Angelina actually had to leave on Sunday (before the Bossards arrived), but it was nice to get to see everyone in little groups. Smiths and Bossards stayed until the 1st and our family spent the rest of that day decompressing.

All the cousins seemed to get along well. Jacque's kids are becoming more comfortable here, so Julian and Samuel jumped right in and Lenore spent some time near the end happily existing in not-the-same-room as her parents. William and Olivia were the Lenore whisperers, displaying enough calm patience and persistence to win her affection. Gretchen managed to accidentally invent a game where Lenore would happily high five Olivia, but then equally happily NOT high five Gretchen. The girls wanted to get it on video, but I don't think they managed that feat. Margaret and Lenore were good buddies and amused us with their adorable two-year-old antics.

Many games were played at our dining room table, many meals were eaten in our sunroom and living room (because our table was full of games). A package of shrinky dinks was opened, decorated, and shrunk. Living room workouts were de rigueur. Video games were enjoyed, the hot tub was used, bread was baked, cookies were consumed. The kitchen was closed to all between-meal requests, but we did provide vegetables -- Justine and I are not total despots. We did go through 7 pounds of carrots in one day after discovering on a previous day that carrots were the most popular vegetable by far (followed, in order, by peppers, mushrooms, and finally broccoli). We took two cousin line-ups, one with the Barhorst, Smiths, and Fentons, and the second with the Barhorsts, Bossards, and Smiths. If I recall correctly, the latter is less of a line-up and more of a mix-up, much to the chagrin of some of the more orderly older children.

New Year's Eve was an event, with several different countdowns. Bossards and Smiths were here, and our friends the Miroglios joined us, as well as Bryan's brother, Brad, and his family. We counted down and celebrated at 7 pm (midnight by Greenwich Mean Time, which felt exceedingly appropriate). But we forgot the kid champagne, so we counted down again at 8 pm and the kids clinked glasses. Adults thought we might make it to midnight -- hah -- but then gave up and had our champagne at... 9:31. We were aiming for 9:30 because Justine said someone was celebrating then. I don't remember which country, and we missed anyway because we were too slow with the champagne. I went to bed right after that. Bryan committed to staying up, as did Olivia, Gretchen, Kaitlyn, and Matthias. Bryan's brother and sister-in-law, Brad and Shantelle, were here and made it to midnight as well. Welcoming the New Year with the most joy and alertness was Brad and Shanelle's 17-month-old, Lincoln.

These last couple of days have been calm and lazy. We are not ready for school and activities to start back up tomorrow. Gretchen had a basketball game on Saturday. Matthias went to Fort Wayne to play laser tag with some friends. Kaitlyn, Olivia, and Theo entertained themselves around the house. I went for a run and finished my grades and decided that this is the year I resurrect the blog. Fingers crossed.

Pictures:

Cousin line-up. Barhorst, Smiths, Fentons.

Cousin mix-up. Barhorst, Bossards, Smiths.

     

Box hats. Olivia, Sam, Margaret.

Living room workout class.

We're I'm an adult! Matthias and Walter.

Matthias and Theodore, all snuggled up.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 70

Kaitlyn: These are very hairy strawberries.
Me: You're a very hairy strawberry.

Kaitlyn: Hey, I'm not hairy!

Matthias: Yeah, I'm harrier than you are. Look at my muscles!

Theodore: Well, you don't have hair on your back. I have hair on my back, so I'm taller than you!

Matthias: I need new shoes.

Me: Are yours too small?

Matthias: No, but my shoe laces are wrinkly.

Theodore: Mom! You have to open the car door for me!

Me, opening the door with a bow and a flourish: Your Highness.

Theodore: Haha, now I'm your highness for real.

Theodore: Maybe this remote works on everything. *points it at the basement stairs* Beep boop boop. Now the bugs are singing!

Matthias: Do you have to dress kind of nice for a baby shower?

Me: Yes.

Matthias: So you shouldn't have blood on your shirt?

Theodore: Why do we even have foreheads?

Olivia: I am interested in cartoonish art. I have no care in the world for how to build buildings.

Theodore: When I'm taller than Grandma then Grandma will be old and weak.

Matthias thinks tsunamis are called "salamis."

Theodore: Is it cheese pizza? I don't like macaroni pizza.

Playing the alphabet game...

Gretchen: Maybe the clouds will make a Q.

Theodore: Yeah, like a word storm?

Theodore: Mom, you aren't in dark language. You don't have green eyes. But I can see in the dark, so it's like I have green eyes.

In December (reminder that Theo's birthday is in August)...

Me: Go to bed and don't bother Matthias.

Theodore: Okay, but he is NOT invited to my birthday party. He will have to stay in his room and not eat any food.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 69

Theo: If I was a pet, I'd want my name to be "Clumsy."

Theo: If bees eat honey, then do they give it to people?

Me: I guess you could say that.

Theo: Well, that's really nice of them.

Theo: There's a train, but it's not moving.

Me: Sometimes trains just sit.

Theo: Because the people eat ice cream!

Me: ... Of course.

Matthias: It's not winter yet!

Theodore: Actually, it's breakfast.

Theodore, at 3:15 in the morning: Mom! When I die, will I go to California right away?

Me: Will you what?

Theodore: Will I go to California right away?

Me: ... No. You'll go to heaven.

Theodore: Yeah, that place. Will I go right away?

Me: Yes. When are you going to die?

Theodore: Not until I'm bigger than dad. Goodnight.

Kaitlyn: I found our oven!

Gretchen: Good. Put it on top of the microwave and under the sink.

Theodore: I don't close my eyes when I sleep because when I close my eyes I get dreams.

Me: What's wrong with your dreams?

Theodore: They are pee dreams and they trick me.

Theodore uses "none" to mean "zero," which seems like an okay idea until he says, "Mom, I have none pants in my drawer!"

Theodore also uses "humans" instead of "people" as in, "I'm just watching all the other humans do their bowling balls." He sounds a bit like an alien trying to blend in.

Theodore: That's why Matthias and me are the king of burping AND *ba ba bum* pizza!

Theodore: I know why rockets are faster than cars. It's because they have lava on their back and that speed limits them.

Theodore, eating a mystery flavor dum dum: This tastes like bananas and watermelon, but they mixed them together to make honey.

Notes from 2023 (Fleshing out the Christmas Letter)

Some of this may be repeat news from the posts that I have put up for this year. Things were written at different times, so this is where we see how consistent I am with my stories.

Gretchen played basketball in January. She learned a lot, but decided that basketball was not the sport for her. She tried volleyball in the fall and liked that better. I'm not sure if she liked it enough to try again next year or not.

Fifth grade offers lots of opportunities for students, and Gretchen is interested in all of them. She is in band and now lugs around a percussion kit as big as she is. They only used the xylophones for the Christmas concert, but I believe she should be starting snare drum this upcoming semester. She also signed up to be a cantor at Mass and to play in the bell choir. As far as I know she is doing both of those things and enjoying them, but I haven't actually witnessed either.

Kaitlyn played kickball this summer and enjoyed it. It was a coed 3rd to 8th grade team, very reminiscent of all my sports experiences in grade school. :) She was intimidated by the bigger kids, but improved nicely over the course of the season. She liked it enough that she will probably play again this next summer, and Olivia is talking about joining her. Kaitlyn started 3rd grade in the fall and seems to have had no trouble adjusting to real grades and more work. She is doing after school bowling once a week with her friends and has a blast. Fall soccer season went well, but halfway through Kaitlyn decided she didn't care about soccer anymore. I think this is a yearly thing that happens with soccer, so she might play again next year still.

Third grade is the year that we have our kids pick an instrument to study in private lessons. Kaitlyn, who rarely commits to anything for more than a month or so, had been telling us resolutely for about a year that she wanted her instrument to be drums. I finally gave in and started looking for a drum teacher. When I mentioned that to her, I casually asked if she was sure about drums, and she replied, "I really only want to do drums so that when I'm angry I can hit something." ... We had a longer discussion and she decided maybe voice was the way to go. So I started a new search and after several false starts I finally located a voice teacher with openings and we had a preliminary lesson to meet her and get regular lessons set up. Those start January 8.

One of my Music Together mothers this past summer is an assistant junior high cross country coach. She asked if Olivia was interested in running and Olivia gave it some consideration and decided that every day practices were a deal breaker. Unfortunately for Olivia, the older you get, the more likely you are to have every day practices. After running the Healthy Kids series this fall, she is more open to the idea, and I have been reminding her that no matter what sport she chooses she will have to practice every day. We'll see.

Matthias is jealous of everyone else's activities and wants to have his symbol on the calendar. He did a basketball skills thing in the late fall and is hoping to join basketball in January. He'd also like to do soccer and bowling and baseball. Pretty much if it's offered, he's in.

Speaking of the calendar, we have a new calendar system. I loved the giant calendar with magnets, but I wasn't keeping up with it anymore. We would go entire months without a visible calendar, and Bryan did not approve of me just putting whatever weeks were coming up next on the calendar whenever I got around to it (half of February with half of March did not go over well). I looked into options and reluctantly switched my own paper planner over to Google calendar for the express purpose of being able to automatically cast our activities to a device. I found a TV on Facebook marketplace, obtained an Amazon fire stick, and set up a system using a website called dakboard. Everyone picked an emoji to represent them on the calendar and now it's been several months and we're all used to it. The biggest downside is that there are no pictures for Theodore, so he isn't able to follow along as well as the other kids could when they were younger. Everyone else can read, so it's great. I put things into my phone, they show up on the screen, and all our calendars are synced.

I've taken up a new hobby: jigsaw puzzles. It all started in February when Keshia found a puzzle competition being put on by her chamber of commerce. She invited me to come compete with her, because this is something that she's always wanted to do and because everyone knows (somehow?) that I'm the puzzle person in the Barhorst family. I didn't think I was especially puzzle-y at the time, but it's definitely part of my personality now. Anyway, we recruited Angelina and one of Keshia's friends, went the the local competition, and won! We beat the second place team by less than a minute. Of course then we started wondering how good we really were. Turns out, we're pretty average. But this event started a whole cascade of research and websites and videos and, well, now we do puzzles. There was a virtual speed run puzzle competition through the United States Jigsaw Puzzle Association that involved doing the same puzzle over and over for progressively better times. Entries were submitted with a time lapse video. I decided to enter that, ended up having to buy a second copy of the same puzzle because I wore the first one out, and improved my time to 29:18, which was 4th overall. Then, because I was obviously following the USAJPA facebook page, we found out that there was an in person competition in Columbus during the Board Game Fair. So Keshia, Angelina, Shantelle, and I signed up for that and finished at the 50% point. Angelina and I finished similarly in pairs later in the day.

Since I made so many time lapse videos to upload, I have them available here to watch if you care: https://youtu.be/KERII050QEM Definitely don't feel obligated to care. :)

December

Highlights:

The lockers I acquired at the end of November have been cause for rearranging furniture. They went where the coat rack used to be and the coat rack moved to the back of the lockers where there once were bookshelves. The bookshelves migrated to Olivia and Kaitlyn's room to divide it in half, but then Kaitlyn missed being able to see Olivia, so one bookshelf is along the wall instead. The other two went to the boys' room and to our room. The small appliance shelf that used to be directly across from the entrance is now by the coat rack and is a baby toy shelf (side note, our baby toys are pared down to a few tasteful buckets!). The small appliances needed a shelf still, so I took one that was in our bedroom (since we had a new bookshelf now) and moved that to the kitchen. At the same time that all this was happening, Bryan decided Theodore needed a bigger dresser, so the little dresser he had been using is now a pantry dresser. Bryan is resigned to the changes and will even admit that the lockers are working beautifully, although in public he likes to complain about how his wife put lockers in the kitchen.

Somewhat related, Gretchen has her own room now. I don't remember exactly when that happened. Recently. Kaitlyn had asked for the middle room over the summer, and we cleared out the toys and set up a full size bed (one of her requests). She made it almost until we were done putting kids to bed before she bailed because she missed her sisters. Bryan and the kids had a meeting when I was gone one night and decided that people would take turns sleeping in there, but it turns out most of our kids don't like being alone. We had a couple of awful weeks where we were constantly negotiating whose turn it was to sleep in there and who would get it tomorrow and where the other boy would sleep when he was lonely because his brother was gone. Once the novelty wore off, the bed just stayed, but no one really used it. Then the middle room spent some time as an inconvenient craft room due to the bed. Finally, Gretchen asked if she could have the room. She wanted her bunk bed, though, so I moved the full size mattress to the boys' room to be their bottom bunk since they always sleep together anyway. We got Gretchen's bunk bed moved in and she's happily taken over. We still needed a smallish craft space, so Gretchen has 2/3 of the room and the closet and there are thin fabric dividers blocking her space off from the craft space.

My midlife crisis (1/3 life crisis?) is turning out to be colored hair. I have a bleached streak that I change periodically, but decided this month to go to a hair place for the first time in my life to get some more color done. It's very subtle since my hair is so dark, but now I have blue and purple hiding under the top layer of my hair.

The middle kids had a Christmas play and band concert. Matthias was a donkey, Kaitlyn was Shepherd #12, and Gretchen played xylophone (she still plays guitar, but there aren't guitars in band, so she's trying her hand at percussion). I told Bryan he's lucky because I have some sort of weird appreciation for beginning music events, so he never has to go. It's not even "That's my Barney!" appreciation. I just sit there and cheer for the tiny successes while I giggle at the fails.

We had Barhorst Family Christmas, aka Grandma's Christmas, on December 9. There was a train theme, so the kids got train conductor hats and there were boxes arranged like a train to hold the presents. After the presents were opened, the boxes held the kids. :)

Barhorst Family Christmas is not to be confused with regular old Barhorst Christmas, which is when we get together with Bryan's dad's side of the family for a big Sunday afternoon party. It's crowded and crazy (15 siblings, 49 grandchildren, and an ever growing number of great grand children will do that) and we only go sometimes. We went this year and took some photos in the cutouts.

Bryan said we should start a new tradition this year, which is an idea that I obviously did not appreciate. He decided on a hot chocolate charcuterie board, claiming I had been inspired after last Christmas and that he was just reminding me of my goals. Regardless of whose idea it was, we pulled together a hot chocolate charcuterie board this year on Christmas afternoon and it was the fanciest thing I've ever served. It was also quite delicious. I guess this tradition can stay.

My family started arriving the day after Christmas. We saw the Bossards, the Smiths, and the Columbus Fentons. When we built our basement we considered guests, but somehow we only considered one family at a time, which is not generally our reality. The Bossards took the suite, the Fentons took the music together room, and the Smiths snuggled in upstairs, 3 in Gretchen's room, 2 in the boys' room, and Gretchen in with her sisters.

Pictures:

Furniture changes:

Hair:

Enjoying the photo board:

There was Thanksgiving on the other side:

Christmas play:

Family pictures:

Hot chocolate is the best kind of charcuterie board:

Josef hides from Mia:

A very satisfying puzzle:

Kaitlyn and Lenore:

 Theodore digs dinosaurs out of eggs:

Vivian, Juliana, and Kaitlyn at church:

Elaine and Olivia at school:

Grandma's Christmas: