November 17-24

Gretchen has top teeth.  They're super tiny and barely poked through, but they're both there.

Something rather big I forgot to mention last week: our freezer is broken.  I went to get Gretchen some breakfast from the stash of ice cube purees, and discovered ice cream melting all over everything.  I put the veggies and broth in the cooler, moved the meat to the upstairs freezer, tossed two soup bones and a roast in crockpots in desperation, and put everything else in the fridge.  Monday night we ate the hamburgers that were in the fridge, Tuesday for lunch we had a ridiculously tender roast (because it had been in a crockpot for over 24 hours), Tuesday night we had friends over to help us eat the sirloin steaks that had been defrosting in the fridge, and Wednesday night we had soup with the broth I'd gotten from the soup bones.  Steph and her kids came over and took my cooler full of veggies to their house to live in their deep freezer until we replace ours.

Josef and Alison came to visit last weekend.  When we were at Mass on Sunday morning, a woman stopped Bryan and asked if Josef was his brother.  She was impressed by their matching "biblical look."  We assume she meant their beards.  Unless dress pants and dress shirts are biblical.  Alison and I about died laughing and spent the rest of the day teasing the boys about their biblical fashion sense.

Olivia had 3.5 accident free days in a row.  Thursday morning, I got brave and took her to church in undies (she had been wearing a diaper anytime we left the house).  That went fine, but then she peed all over the kitchen floor later that evening.  Friday she wore undies for her nap (another new thing), but had another accident in the evening.  Still, 2 accidents in the whole week isn't bad.

Pictures and Videos:
Vimeo Videos (password BarhorstBrewed):
Where's Mommy? (Gretchen)
Chasing the Camera (Olivia)

I started teaching Olivia how to put the pieces together in Carcassonne:

Then she taught her babies:

Gretchen was appalled by Olivia's strategy:

And then stopped worrying about it:

Pictures Josef took when we visited my family:

 

A picture Alison took while visiting us:

Gretchen loves zweiback.  So does Olivia.  And Bryan, actually.

Bryan was sad with the consistency of the milk in his cereal.  Confession: I freeze milk sometimes.

I made towel elephants.  Immediately after I took this picture, Olivia accidentally decapitated the small one.