Merry Christmas!
Bryan had the whole week off work, so we spent our time visiting friends and family. Last Saturday we decorated our Christmas tree while Olivia napped and then headed to Bryan's parents' house. Olivia was excited to see the tree and said "uh-oh" every time we tried to turn off the lights.
We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Barhorst until Tuesday and then headed up to see my parents on Tuesday night. Oma and Opa and all the aunts and uncles were excited to see us; Olivia reserved judgement until she re-remembered who everyone was. She decided she's okay with everyone except Oma. For some reason, Oma is not a person to be acknowledged.
Wednesday we met some friends from school and caught up over a quick lunch. Then it was back to my parents' for the rest of the week. The Bossards came to visit, too, and Olivia had a good time policing Justine's treatment of William.
Saturday we left to catch dinner with Bryan's family before finally making it back home to sleep in our own beds again. Some more friends came to stay Saturday night, and tonight we'll have even more since it's our annual Eve of New Year's Eve party.
I have no pictures right now since I'm typing this post on a borrowed computer, but when I get back to my own computer and have some time I will put up the pictures that I took, as well as any I can get from my family.
Pictures:
30 December 2012
23 December 2012
December 16-23
Last weekend we were at Bryan's parents' house. On Saturday I participated in a cookie walk while Olivia stayed with Grandma. I'm told they made Christmas cookies and had a blast doing so. :) There's picture proof below. Apparently they also went roller skating that afternoon. Bryan skated around, pushing Olivia in her umbrella stroller. No one thought to get a picture of that, though.
Olivia is generally more cooperative when asked to do something. If she's whining to be picked up, I can ask her to carry a piece of paper (to the recycling bin) or a spice (from the cabinet to the counter) or a spoon (to the table for breakfast) and she'll immediately reach out her hand and head off in the appropriate direction with a cheerful "okay!" It doesn't ALWAYS work, but I'd probably put the success rate at about 92%.
I don't remember if I mentioned that Olivia can find her belly. Only if she pulls up her shirt, though. This week, she was also able to find her head, ear, and nose. Her first response upon being asked to find her nose is to start sniffing and snorting, as if to demonstrate what her nose can do, and then she usually reaches up and squeezes it closed (which impedes her sniffing and snorting just a bit). Sometimes she'll open and close her mouth repeatedly when asked where it is, but other times she ignores that question.
This weekend we began our holiday travels, starting with Bryan's family. We'll move on to my family late Christmas day and be there the rest of the week before returning home on Saturday.
More Pictures:
16 December 2012
December 9-16
I noticed something this week: Olivia reads books right side up. She's reached a point where she will look at the pictures in her books without requiring me to be reading them to her. It used to not matter which way the book faced, but she has recently (or perhaps not so recently, and I just noticed now) begun turning her books so that the pictures are appropriately oriented. Along similar lines, when she puts her flash cards away in their bucket, she often takes care to position them with the picture facing her in whichever way she has deemed to be upright (the seal, for instance, is always upside down; it makes sense if you look at it).
My sewing machine is dying a slow and painful death. It will be sewing along just fine and then all of a sudden... not. The top thread is loose on the underside of the material. Changing the tension doesn't help. The best I can do is rethread both needle and bobbin and hope it fixes itself. :(
I read once that taste buds change over the course of about 7 years. This study is obviously not done on toddlers. Olivia no longer has any interest in pickles, Cheerios are only so-so, cottage cheese is not only edible but delicious, and this whole week she chose lentil soup over pears and plums. Lentil soup. Full of veggies. Over a fruit puree. Two months ago we had to trick vegetable purees into her mouth and she'd spit out any whole veggies she could. This week, though, it was lentil soup all the way. I'm hoping this lasts until the end of Advent, as I have a couple more lentil dishes planned still.
And speaking of Advent meals, I decided to try something this year. We are attempting to go all of Advent without repeating a single meal. I've been wanting to try some new vegetarian recipes anyway, so this works out well. In fact, when I sat down and wrote out my MONTH-LONG MENU (!!!), I didn't even get to put some of our more common vegetarian meals on it. I listed them down the side in case we needed to turn to an old standby. We did have hot tuna casserole already (for my birthday, of course) and this week did spaghetti for when Bryan's guys came over for man night, so that's two easy meals down. But we've also tried three new recipes and look strong going into the second half of the month. :)
Jacob's gift arrived in the mail on Wednesday. It came all the way from China but did not have any Chinese stamps on the package. :( It DID, however, have the little customs slip that has to be filled out when things are shipped overseas. I saved that to give to Jacob. I'm also posting a picture here so you can see it. I'd be worried about Jacob finding out what his gift is, but I think the only accurate information on the whole thing is our address. Sorry, Jacob, you are not getting a 0.01 kg household lamp from us.
I introduced Olivia to the wonders of sitting on the heating grate and now she sits on it all the time (even when it's not blowing warm air). It reminds me of when we used to sit on the radiators in the Zion house. There are two downsides to her new perch: one, it has holes, so sometimes she drops things in it. It does come up, but only if we move the television, so retrieving things is a bit of a pain. Two, I can no longer stand over the grate because Olivia is busy sitting on it. Luckily for me, we have other grates. :)
One of the churches we attend semi-regularly (the Orthodox one we go to when we stay with Bryan's parents) is having a cookie walk on Saturday. I decided to contribute some spritz cookies. I used one of my half days off to get the kitchen to myself while Bryan and Olivia had a daddy-daughter day out. This was necessary so that Olivia didn't eat all my batter before it became cookies. ...Or all my cookies after they became cookies. Anyway. In the course of making 22 dozen cookies (that's one batch of chocolate and one of vanilla), I learned some things about spritz cookies. Someone remind me that this list exists next December when I do this again.
-Cooking spray is NOT your friend. I always figure it can't hurt to spray the pan. With spritz cookies, it turns out that it CAN hurt. If the cookies don't stick a little bit, they don't come cleanly off the press. There's enough butter in the batter to ensure that they don't stick after baking.
-The square is impossible. I tried and failed at about 5 cookies before giving up on the square shape and moving on to other choices.
-The ugly three-pointed shape is the easiest. It's ugly, but works well and comes off cleanly almost every time.
-The ugly three-pointed shape is significantly less ugly in green. I decided to make some green Christmas trees with the end of my vanilla batter. After I got tired of fighting with the trees, I used the ugly shape to finish. I had to fight with that one, too, but in green they look kind of like holly leaves, so they're not so ugly.
-Food coloring is exciting, but does strange things to the batter. I don't think the 4 green drops I used should have changed the consistency of the batter, but suddenly the cookies no longer came off the press without a LOT of coaxing. Even the ugly ones.
-Vanilla works better than chocolate. It's also tastier. At least this year.
-The press works better if you get most of the air bubbles out of the batter. That's probably why the chocolate recipe suggests rolling the batter into a log before putting it in the press. I shoved it in with a spoon, which worked just fine (especially when I started leaving the presser part most of the way down to start and slowly using batter to force it back up the tube), but I did feel a little like the boys in October Sky as they try to add rocket fuel without introducing air pockets. Unfortunately, I can't find a youtube clip that shows that part of the movie.
More pictures:
My sewing machine is dying a slow and painful death. It will be sewing along just fine and then all of a sudden... not. The top thread is loose on the underside of the material. Changing the tension doesn't help. The best I can do is rethread both needle and bobbin and hope it fixes itself. :(
I read once that taste buds change over the course of about 7 years. This study is obviously not done on toddlers. Olivia no longer has any interest in pickles, Cheerios are only so-so, cottage cheese is not only edible but delicious, and this whole week she chose lentil soup over pears and plums. Lentil soup. Full of veggies. Over a fruit puree. Two months ago we had to trick vegetable purees into her mouth and she'd spit out any whole veggies she could. This week, though, it was lentil soup all the way. I'm hoping this lasts until the end of Advent, as I have a couple more lentil dishes planned still.
And speaking of Advent meals, I decided to try something this year. We are attempting to go all of Advent without repeating a single meal. I've been wanting to try some new vegetarian recipes anyway, so this works out well. In fact, when I sat down and wrote out my MONTH-LONG MENU (!!!), I didn't even get to put some of our more common vegetarian meals on it. I listed them down the side in case we needed to turn to an old standby. We did have hot tuna casserole already (for my birthday, of course) and this week did spaghetti for when Bryan's guys came over for man night, so that's two easy meals down. But we've also tried three new recipes and look strong going into the second half of the month. :)
Jacob's gift arrived in the mail on Wednesday. It came all the way from China but did not have any Chinese stamps on the package. :( It DID, however, have the little customs slip that has to be filled out when things are shipped overseas. I saved that to give to Jacob. I'm also posting a picture here so you can see it. I'd be worried about Jacob finding out what his gift is, but I think the only accurate information on the whole thing is our address. Sorry, Jacob, you are not getting a 0.01 kg household lamp from us.I introduced Olivia to the wonders of sitting on the heating grate and now she sits on it all the time (even when it's not blowing warm air). It reminds me of when we used to sit on the radiators in the Zion house. There are two downsides to her new perch: one, it has holes, so sometimes she drops things in it. It does come up, but only if we move the television, so retrieving things is a bit of a pain. Two, I can no longer stand over the grate because Olivia is busy sitting on it. Luckily for me, we have other grates. :)
One of the churches we attend semi-regularly (the Orthodox one we go to when we stay with Bryan's parents) is having a cookie walk on Saturday. I decided to contribute some spritz cookies. I used one of my half days off to get the kitchen to myself while Bryan and Olivia had a daddy-daughter day out. This was necessary so that Olivia didn't eat all my batter before it became cookies. ...Or all my cookies after they became cookies. Anyway. In the course of making 22 dozen cookies (that's one batch of chocolate and one of vanilla), I learned some things about spritz cookies. Someone remind me that this list exists next December when I do this again.
-Cooking spray is NOT your friend. I always figure it can't hurt to spray the pan. With spritz cookies, it turns out that it CAN hurt. If the cookies don't stick a little bit, they don't come cleanly off the press. There's enough butter in the batter to ensure that they don't stick after baking.
-The square is impossible. I tried and failed at about 5 cookies before giving up on the square shape and moving on to other choices.
-The ugly three-pointed shape is the easiest. It's ugly, but works well and comes off cleanly almost every time.
-The ugly three-pointed shape is significantly less ugly in green. I decided to make some green Christmas trees with the end of my vanilla batter. After I got tired of fighting with the trees, I used the ugly shape to finish. I had to fight with that one, too, but in green they look kind of like holly leaves, so they're not so ugly.
-Food coloring is exciting, but does strange things to the batter. I don't think the 4 green drops I used should have changed the consistency of the batter, but suddenly the cookies no longer came off the press without a LOT of coaxing. Even the ugly ones.
-Vanilla works better than chocolate. It's also tastier. At least this year.
-The press works better if you get most of the air bubbles out of the batter. That's probably why the chocolate recipe suggests rolling the batter into a log before putting it in the press. I shoved it in with a spoon, which worked just fine (especially when I started leaving the presser part most of the way down to start and slowly using batter to force it back up the tube), but I did feel a little like the boys in October Sky as they try to add rocket fuel without introducing air pockets. Unfortunately, I can't find a youtube clip that shows that part of the movie.
More pictures:
09 December 2012
December 2-9
Last weekend we visited my parents. Olivia is more pleasant every time we visit, which could mean she's remembering my family and has resigned herself to the fact that she's related to these people and will thus see them approximately once a month. Or it could mean that she's getting better at ignoring the chaos of constantly having at least five people sitting around her watching her every move and imitating her every sound. Just the usual paparazzi, no big deal.
Remember the doll we gave Olivia for her birthday? The one she used to make me hold while she played? This doll is now one of her favorite belongings. In the past week and a half, Olivia has decided she must have her baby (one of her semi-distinct words) whenever she remembers that said baby exists. It came with us to drop Bryan off at work, it's been to Wal-Mart at least once, she occasionally holds it during meals, and she took it to bed one night. She looked quite adorable as she insisted on holding her doll even as she lay in her crib at bedtime. Of course, she sleeps on her stomach, which makes it harder to hold a baby, so when we went to check on her later that night we discovered (after a significant amount of searching for the apparently missing baby) that she fixed this problem by sleeping on top of her doll. I can't imagine that having the hard plastic head digging into her chest was particularly comfortable, but she seemed fine with it. One can only hope that she will think of a better method of sleeping with a baby before she accidentally smothers an actual child.
Olivia has two more distinct (to everyone, not just me!) words: "uh-oh" and "okay". I think it's especially cute when I hand her something and ask her to hold it for me and hear her little voice respond, "okay!"
Along similar lines, the pediatrician asked us at Olivia's 15-month appointment if Olivia was removing clothes by herself yet. (The pediatrician also wanted to know if Olivia had about 6 understandable words yet; that's why this paragraph is along similar lines.) At the time, Olivia was only removing socks by herself. Now, however, she has moved on to shirts. She doesn't do it often, but every now and again I'll walk into her room after her nap and she'll be missing her shirt. Uh-oh.
Continuing the list of newly discovered talents, Olivia has developed a penguin walk. For what reason, we know not, but she does a little side to side strut quite deliberately. I make fun of her for it and then imitate it long enough for her to start again.
A couple of weeks ago, Bryan looked at me and said, "I love you. And I love Olivia. And I love Reginald."
...
...
...
"Who's Reginald?" I asked. His response: "That's what I decided to call him."
So, although we will NOT be naming this baby Reginald, no matter the gender, it is currently being referred to as Reginald and/or Reggie.
And speaking of Reggie, the 20 week ultrasound was on Tuesday. Everything looks good, the gender was not accidentally revealed to us, and there are a few more pictures below. Bryan took the ultrasound print of Reggie flexing his/her muscles to work and I have a profile on my planner.
Due to baby-sitter issues, Justine and William came to visit in time to watch Olivia during Reggie's ultrasound. Yes, it's a long drive just to baby-sit. They stayed for a few days, though, and we had fun hanging out. Olivia handled William just fine, although she was very concerned about Justine's suitability as a mother. What kind of mother just puts her baby on the floor under an arch and leaves him there?! Every time Justine put William down, Olivia would start pointing and saying, "uh-oh!", as if to remind Justine that, "Hey, lady, you dropped your baby!"
I added a few new pictures to the July 29-August 5 post.
More pictures:
Remember the doll we gave Olivia for her birthday? The one she used to make me hold while she played? This doll is now one of her favorite belongings. In the past week and a half, Olivia has decided she must have her baby (one of her semi-distinct words) whenever she remembers that said baby exists. It came with us to drop Bryan off at work, it's been to Wal-Mart at least once, she occasionally holds it during meals, and she took it to bed one night. She looked quite adorable as she insisted on holding her doll even as she lay in her crib at bedtime. Of course, she sleeps on her stomach, which makes it harder to hold a baby, so when we went to check on her later that night we discovered (after a significant amount of searching for the apparently missing baby) that she fixed this problem by sleeping on top of her doll. I can't imagine that having the hard plastic head digging into her chest was particularly comfortable, but she seemed fine with it. One can only hope that she will think of a better method of sleeping with a baby before she accidentally smothers an actual child.Olivia has two more distinct (to everyone, not just me!) words: "uh-oh" and "okay". I think it's especially cute when I hand her something and ask her to hold it for me and hear her little voice respond, "okay!"
Along similar lines, the pediatrician asked us at Olivia's 15-month appointment if Olivia was removing clothes by herself yet. (The pediatrician also wanted to know if Olivia had about 6 understandable words yet; that's why this paragraph is along similar lines.) At the time, Olivia was only removing socks by herself. Now, however, she has moved on to shirts. She doesn't do it often, but every now and again I'll walk into her room after her nap and she'll be missing her shirt. Uh-oh.
Continuing the list of newly discovered talents, Olivia has developed a penguin walk. For what reason, we know not, but she does a little side to side strut quite deliberately. I make fun of her for it and then imitate it long enough for her to start again.
A couple of weeks ago, Bryan looked at me and said, "I love you. And I love Olivia. And I love Reginald."
...
...
...
"Who's Reginald?" I asked. His response: "That's what I decided to call him."
So, although we will NOT be naming this baby Reginald, no matter the gender, it is currently being referred to as Reginald and/or Reggie.
And speaking of Reggie, the 20 week ultrasound was on Tuesday. Everything looks good, the gender was not accidentally revealed to us, and there are a few more pictures below. Bryan took the ultrasound print of Reggie flexing his/her muscles to work and I have a profile on my planner.Due to baby-sitter issues, Justine and William came to visit in time to watch Olivia during Reggie's ultrasound. Yes, it's a long drive just to baby-sit. They stayed for a few days, though, and we had fun hanging out. Olivia handled William just fine, although she was very concerned about Justine's suitability as a mother. What kind of mother just puts her baby on the floor under an arch and leaves him there?! Every time Justine put William down, Olivia would start pointing and saying, "uh-oh!", as if to remind Justine that, "Hey, lady, you dropped your baby!"
I added a few new pictures to the July 29-August 5 post.
More pictures:
02 December 2012
November 25-December 2
"Spot of tea, anyone?" (Bryan demanded this edit while lamenting his lack of monocle.)
Olivia is beginning to try to put shapes back into her shapes ball (instead of haphazardly scattering said shapes about the house). She's pretty good at circle, octagon, and pentagon so far. Less round shapes are more difficult since the corners get stuck, and there's just no hope for the scalene triangle. ...I should note that she doesn't find the holes herself yet. She can put shapes in if I rotate the ball to the correct hole and (for the harder shapes) orient the hole to match the way she's holding her shape.
I have an actual helper when cooking now. I used to have a helper who would hold onto my legs and taste my batter, but did nothing else. Now, though, Olivia will carry ingredients for me and has mastered turning a full measuring cup (or spoon) over to put ingredients into the batter. Her aim isn't great yet, so I have to make sure I hand her the cup well over the center of the bowl. Also, if I don't get out of the way quickly enough, I end up with a full cup of flour on my sleeve. :)
A week or so ago, Olivia jumped. By herself. Without falling over. Exactly once. She was mad at me, and did it without even realizing that something had happened. I noticed, though, and was impressed at her exasperation-inspired balance.
Bryan's days off used to roll over from year to year, but this year that changed. He has to use all his days off by the end of December or else they expire into thin air. This would not be a problem, except that he gave some of his days off to me and I've been hoarding them. In mid-October, his boss mentioned to the department that they'd really like to have the rest of the days off for the year scheduled, so that they could plan big projects around who would be gone when. I began looking for opportunities to use my days off, and even had one scheduled for Halloween before it got hijacked. Then Bryan's department was reorganizing, so he needed to be there every day for the first three weeks of November while the transition took place. Then Thanksgiving happened, and he already had a couple days off that week. And Bryan had also already taken off the last week of December for Christmas vacation. So there I was looking at my calendar, trying to find 3.5 days off that didn't conflict with Bryan's work schedule, Olivia's doctor appointments, my doctor appointments, or previously scheduled vacation days. Since I like my days off spread out and spaced over several days, I decided to take mostly half days off, on Tuesdays and Thursdays in December. The upshot of all of this? Bryan didn't/doesn't have to work a full week from November 18 through the end of the year.
I recently rediscovered Demetri Martin's Jokes With a Guitar, which led me to remember Rob Paravonian's Pachelbel Rant. Go ahead and watch (or rewatch) those two links; the blog will still be here when you finish. :)
Okay, now that you're back... I noticed one common thing about the above links: Both comedians are playing the guitar. This caused me to hypothesize... Maybe I prefer comedy that has a guitar element? Bryan decided to test this theory by having me listen to another comedian who plays guitar. I can't remember his name, and his stuff wasn't really my thing, but I have to admit that it WAS better than it would have been if it had been presented without the guitar. So my very scientific conclusion is as follows: All jokes are funnier when set to guitar.
More Pictures:
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