January 5-12

Olivia got a toy kitchen for Christmas.  It sits over by our attic door and holds some pots and pans she got last year, a basket of plastic Easter eggs, assorted empty spice jars, and some plastic fruits and vegetables.  She enjoys pulling out the fruits and veggies and passing them around for people to eat.  Her favorite thing to do in her kitchen, though, is bake cookies.  That's all she bakes, in fact, and she makes them all the time.  She'll bring a pot of cookies and a spatula over to everyone else and pass out cookies until she decrees that they're all gone.  Then she goes back and bakes some more.  :)

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but Olivia can sing her ABCs.  She can also identify most (if not all) of the letters, her numbers up to 10, and even numbers up to 18.  She counts to 10 very well, but after that becomes more sporadic, usually hitting 11, 13 or 14 (I have trouble telling which it is), and 16 before jumping straight to 20.

Gretchen has decided that she'd rather do most things standing up.  The only problem with this is that Gretchen's standing skills are terrible at best.  She has no balance (probably because she stands on her toes), her feet slide out from under her, and she always looks worried about falling over.  Recently I've been able to use a fun looking toy to convince her to sit for a while.

If you'd asked me two weeks ago about the girls' developmental milestones, I'd have told you that Olivia was potty trained and Gretchen was sleeping through the night.  In fact, I've made both those statements in previous posts.  A month seems a long enough trial period to celebrate success.  If you'd asked me the same question one week ago, I'd be lamenting the fact that Olivia pees on the floor and Gretchen wakes up for no apparent reason and refuses to go back to sleep.  We're back to timers and rewards (stickers this time) for Olivia.  Gretchen refuses to be comforted, and holding her keeps her awake, so she just cries herself back to sleep.  Both girls improved over the course of this week, but they're not where they were two weeks ago yet.  :(

Pictures and Videos:
Videos (password BarhorstBrewed):
Gretchen's Forward Motion
Olivia Feeds Gretchen

We decorated our tree before we left for our travels, but I forgot about the pictures until now:

One more of Gretchen's snow day:

There were Christmas pictures on Bryan's phone:

Olivia feeds Gretchen cheerios:

Olivia has a new game when she thinks about smiling.  She gives as straight a face as she can manage, says, "Where's the girl's smile?", and then deliberately puts a little, tiny smile on her face: