June 22-29

Olivia has definitely reached the "look at me" stage.  Everything she does requires and audience, preferably an attentive one.  The whole day is filled with exclamations to "look at this!" or "see what I am doing!"  It's like living with the cat in the hat.

The swingset in our backyard has been a wonderful thing so far this summer.  Once we conquered Olivia's short attention span it became much more enjoyable.  Now the girls will sit and swing happily for a long time before Olivia decides to do something else.  She is big enough to use the glider alone, so she'll amuse herself with that for a while and then move on to the slide.  Olivia can also do the slide by herself, but she always needs Gretchen to come take turns with her.  Gretchen isn't too bad at the slide, either: put her at the top and she'll wiggle her way forward and slide into your waiting arms (hopefully you were fast enough to get there in time).  The only problem with the swingset is that it's hard for me to be productive while I'm pushing swings.  :)

Next week's post will be delayed since we will be in Florida this whole week.

Pictures and Videos:

Fun Friday - June 27

Previous answer: P.A.I. - Processed Apple Institute



Last week's person: Susanna Bokoyni

1.  A Russian figure skater who won Olympic bronze sometime long ago.

2.  Hungarian dwarf who was the oldest in history, living to 105.

3.  A female who flew across the ocean.

4.  The female voice for all the Fisher Price toys.

5.  Scientist, most famous for discovering five new scientific uses for the rinds of citrus fruit.




This week's category is dates.  I'll give you a date and you tell me what event (minor or major) happened on that day.

This week's date: January 9, 1975

*NOTE* Due to a family vacation, you will have two weeks to complete this category.  Get your votes and answers in by 7 pm on Wednesday, July 9, and check back on July 11 for more Fun Friday.

June 15-22

It didn't feel right to lump Casey into a regular weekly update, so I published a special post that went up just before this one did.

Two Saturdays ago we went to the parish picnic and Bryan's old parish.  The girls played games and won junk.  :/  They also got to ride ponies and bounce in a bounce house.  The prizes of the night were two giant inflatable crayons, which the girls proudly hugged the whole walk back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

On Tuesday afternoon, Bryan and I went to Lima to look at houses.  We discovered that we want incompatible things in a house.  I like defined rooms with specific purposes (think a floor plan from the 1900s).  Bryan likes defined rooms, too, but not as much as he likes the idea of a house built in the last 15 years.  Unfortunately, newer houses have something called an open floor plan, which essentially means they are one big room.  The living room runs into the eat-in kitchen which overlaps the family room and dining rooms (and walls, apparently) are a thing of the past.  Judging from the houses we saw, this shift began gradually in the '60s or '70s and continued steadfastly until at least 2006 (the newest house we saw).  Anything new enough to make Bryan happy is also new enough to be missing, at the very least, a dining room.  :(

Olivia's favorite thing right now is numbers.  She counts everything and points out all the numbers she sees on signs.  She's also been composing songs about numbers lately, which inspired me to start singing number solfege to her.  I prefer do-re-mi to 1-2-3, but she's singing numbers, so I used 1-2-3.  Her favorite song right now is typed out below.

On Saturday, Steph and I participated in a craft fair.  Shortly after our Etsy site went live, we got an invitation to apply to be vendors at a semi-local craft fair.  We decided to give it a try.  The turnout was lighter than we'd expected, but we didn't feel out of our league and we did make enough to still make a small profit above and beyond covering the cost of the table space.  We also got news about another craft fair later in the year, so we're going to work on building (and expanding) our inventory so that we can go there as well.

Bedtime is going better.  Every night we "break" Olivia's light, removing the light bulb so that she can't flip the light on and wake Gretchen up.  As a compromise, we leave the hall light on.  The last three nights, Gretchen has been asleep when Olivia goes in to go to bed, which cuts down on over-tired talking/whining as they keep each other awake.  Olivia is pretty lousy at being quiet.  She doesn't yell, but she makes a lot of unnecessary nonsense noises to see what she can get away with.  We're working on that.  One night Gretchen woke up while Olivia was jabbering.  I'm hoping it was a turning point (and not just a fluke) that caused Gretchen to put her head down and go back to sleep, even after Olivia had been chastising her for being awake.

Olivia's favorite song (substitute "do, re, mi..." for "1, 2, 3..." and you have the tune):

1

1 2 1

1 2 3 2 1

1 2 3 4 3 2 1

1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 5 4 3 2 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Pictures:

June 17 - Casey Frances Barhorst

On Tuesday morning, we lost our third child, Casey Frances Barhorst, to a miscarriage.  I had been worried for a few days, but Bryan was completely surprised when I told him the news.  Tuesday passed in a daze, although we did keep a previous appointment to look at houses.  The distraction was nice.  On Tuesday night, I ordered some charms for my bracelet so that Casey is represented next to Olivia and Gretchen.

Wednesday was supposed to be my first appointment for this pregnancy, and the doctor's office told me to come in anyway.  They did an ultrasound, just to make sure, and the good news was that the miscarriage was complete.  I didn't need surgery.  We spread the news to friends and family, and my phone spent most of the day on silent so that I could control the doses of sadness.  To say that Wednesday was rough and unproductive would be an understatement.

Fr. Mark from the Orthodox church in Lima drove down Wednesday night to say prayers with us.  His wife came with him and we talked and prayed and talked some more.  The short service for Casey was held in our chapel and attended by Bryan, Fr. Mark, Presbytera Donna, and myself.  It felt right.

The kids and I had a playdate at the Kleins' on Thursday, and I decided to keep it.  I had learned that I cope much better when I'm busy.  Consequently, Thursday was a much better day emotionally.  I held up well until I told Bryan that I had made up a song for Casey (both girls have one that I made up when they were first born).  I'll write it down someday when I get around to writing the other two down.  I learned that evenings (after the girls go to bed) do not contain very much distraction.

On Friday, I ordered St. Frances and St. Francis icons for our chapel.  I'm also going to frame the lyrics of "Children of the Heavenly Father" to put in our chapel.

All in all, we're doing as well as can be expected.  Bryan phrased it very well when talking to a friend: It's not going to stop hurting today or tomorrow or ever, but we're both ready to get on living with it.

We've had an outpouring of love and support from friends and family, for which we are very grateful.  Thank you, everyone, for the prayers.

Fun Friday - June 20

Previous answer: Aglet - A small plastic or metal sheath typically used on each end of a shoelace, cord, or drawstring.



Last week's initials: P.A.I.

Vote for one of these answers:

1.  Pianist Accompaniment Institution

2.  People's Association of Integration

3.  Processed Apple Institute

4.  Pie And Icecream

5.  People Against Ignorance

6.  Punxsutawney Art Institute



This week's category is people.  I'll give you the name of a person, and you decide who they are and what they did.

This week's person: Susanna Bokoyni

June 8-15

I have somehow forgotten to mention Gretchen's progress towards walking these last few weeks.  Since I don't want anyone reading my blog years from now to assume that Gretchen never learned to walk simply because I didn't ever mention it, here we go:  Gretchen takes steps frequently.  I don't know exactly when her first steps were, but they've happened.  Her most impressive achievement to date was when she took 7 steps, fell down, and then stood back up to take 7 more steps.  In the later portions of this week, she's been going out of her way to stand up and walk a few steps before crawling the rest of the way to her destination.  Beyond that, though, she seems largely uninterested in the process of walking.  Or perhaps more accurately, she's decided that walking a a fun hobby, but certainly no way to live one's life permanently.  :-P

Bryan and I have officially begun the process of looking for homes in Lima.  We have two years before Olivia starts school, which is when we want to be settled, so we're not in a huge rush.  Ideally, this means that we will be able to hold out until the perfect house comes along, even if that means we only look and don't buy anything for another year or so.  We'll see.  :/  There will be a bonus post about our house search saga... sometime.  :)

Justine discovered that you can search a blog for specific things.  In the upper left corner, right next to the Blogger "B," is a little search box.  You can put in a word and the blog will pull up all the posts containing that word.  I'm very excited about this feature.

Olivia's favorite phrase lately is "Um, I don't know."  My question asking has gotten both more creative and more repetitive.

We've noticed that Olivia's playtime has turned a corner.  She does a lot of quiet playing by herself (which is not really new), but now she narrates what she's doing.  She makes up stories for the toys she's playing with and moves them around as they act things out.  Olivia has also discovered that puzzles are quite a fun activity, and she will work on one patiently for a while before asking for help.  Whatever isn't done when she does ask for help isn't getting done by her, though.  "Can you help me with this?" means "Will you do this for me?", and any attempts to enlist Olivia's aid in finishing her own puzzle are met with, "Um, I don't know."

No pictures this week since I'm writing this from Steve and Murry's house.  That just means you get extra pictures next week!

Fun Friday - June 13

Official Beyond Balderdash rules, for those seeking clarification.

Last week's word: AGLET

Following are the answers I received.  Your comment should include a number (for whichever answer you vote to be the correct answer) and a submission for next week (see below).

1. The degree conferred upon someone who writes about farming.

2. A baby eagle, prematurely born.  Example: That aglet looks like it's in bad shape.  We should keep it under watch until it has matured a little.

3. A young child going into farming.

4. A small plastic or metal sheath typically used on each end of a shoelace, cord, or drawstring.

5. A baby pig from the poorer section of London.


I think that Beyond Balderdash is more fun than regular Balderdash, because it has 5 categories instead of just definitions.  This week we'll be doing one of the new categories: Initials.  I'll give you a set of initials and you submit your best idea of what they stand for.  Initials are always for an organization, group, business, etc, not for a person or a phrase.

This week's initials: P.A.I.

Bonus Post: 30 Before 30 Update

A record of my 30 Before 30 progress thus far.

1. Genuinely surprise Bryan at least once. February 15, 2014
2. Record the psalms.
3. Run a sub-2:00 half marathon. April 6, 2014.  1:54:30
4. Sell at least one thing I've made (at the Farmer's Market or on Etsy).  --May 17, 2014.  Steph and I set up an Etsy account and my first order was for the matching squares that I made William for Christmas.
5. Learn Spanish. --I listen to Spanish CDs while I run on the treadmill, so I'm making progress here.
6. Record all 6 cello suites.
7. Sew Christmas and/or Easter dresses for the girls. --I have patterns! I'm waiting until the girls are bigger to make them.
8. Minimize (eliminate?) the need for disposable products in our house.
9. Have a compost pile.  --We have a bucket that we've begun collecting scraps in and the pile is growing.
10. Play with at least 2 professional orchestras.
11. Go 7 days in a row without letting my temper get the better of me. February 14-21, 2014 I'd gotten 6 days in a row a couple of times and then finally made it 7 (nine, actually). I'm finding it easier to take deep breaths and move on, and I have a chart to keep track of my progress. Next goal: three weeks. That's how long it takes to form a habit, right?
12. Make an honest attempt at clean eating/real food. I've done some research and tried some substitutes and reached a comfortable point. Do I care enough to use butter instead of margarine? Yes. Do I care enough to buy coconut oil regularly? No. Whole grain noodles and brown rice most of the time? Yes. Completely eliminate sugar? No. Homemade bread? Yes. Whole wheat bread? Sometimes. But often I appreciate the airiness that I can only achieve with a little bit of white flour.
13. *Skipped because knowledge by some of my readers could skew the results.* April 5, 2014
14. Go on an overnight vacation with just our family.
15. Grow a garden.  My garden is progressing nicely, although technically we haven't seen any actual vegetables yet since they still have a month or so before they reach maturity.  The leaves look beautiful and healthy, though!
16. Write a book.
17. Sew a skirt that becomes my favorite.
18. Volunteer to host campout.
19. Go through RCIA.
20. Attend Seekers' Group (similar to RCIA, offered by the Orthodox church in Lima).
21. Complete at least 3 things on my (ever growing) Projects List.
22. Start a soup kitchen.
23. Make pectin-free jam. Make up the recipe.
24. Go on an overnight vacation with Bryan -- no kids. --Scheduled for our 4th anniversary.
25. Use up all the coupons Bryan gave me (I still have some from when we were dating). --Slowly but surely coming along.
26. Learn one of the 3 big concertos. --I have music for two of these. Now I just have to practice.
27. Arrange a regularly recurring get-together with the Lima folk.  --Second Thursday of each month is "go to Lima" day.  We've successfully done this two months in a row, so I'm crossing it off.
28. Have a religious conversation with Bryan that doesn't end in tears.
29. Make a new friend.
30. Improve a stranger's day.
31. (Because I thought of one more and it kind of fits in with several of the above goals) Join a co-op.

June 1-8

I've started a new Fun Friday summer series.  Go check it out!

Not much happened this week (or perhaps quite a bit happened and Yellow Duck is simply stealing all my brain cells), so this will be a rather short update followed by some pictures.

Sunday night was do or die for the girls' room.  We put them in together and decided to leave them there no matter what.  They talked, jumped in their respective beds, talked some more, and eventually fell asleep around 9:45.  Monday they did better, but the rest of the week they averaged about 10 for actual quiet.  :/  They're not generally sad, just not asleep.  On the plus side, they've both been napping spectacularly to make up for the fact that they're not getting enough sleep at night.  Next week I might have to start cutting naps short, though, in order to encourage earlier nights.

I finally bought and planted tomatoes and peppers in my garden, which means it is as full as it's going to get.  I have one green bell pepper, one yellow bell pepper, and one tomato.  It was difficult to resist the temptation to spend $15 at the garden center to get a tomato plant that already had an abundance of little green tomatoes on it.  Frugality (and stubbornness) prevailed, though, and I got one that should do just fine in its current location.  Bryan says getting the big one would have been cheating anyway.

One of Bryan's cousins is getting married this weekend (yesterday, by the time this post goes live), so we're going to that.  I'm packing my camera right now, but I promise nothing in the way of pictures.  :)

Pictures:

Fun Friday - June 6

I've decided to start a new Summer Series called Fun Friday.  :)  It will essentially be Balderdash via my blog, with opportunities to win points for various things each week.  For those of you who have never played Balderdash, it's a game of made up definitions and facts.  I'll present a word, date, name, or acronym, and you comment with your best idea of the definition (or importance of the date or name).  Later you'll get to vote on which submitted comment (including the real answer, which I'll mix in) is the best.  You get 3 points for having the actual answer, 2 points for choosing the actual answer, and 1 point for every other person that is tricked into thinking that YOUR answer is the real one.

Here's how this will work on the blog:
-At 7:00 am (Eastern time) Friday morning, a post goes up listing the category and the word.  Time to start commenting!
-You have until 7 pm (Eastern time) Wednesday evening to submit your comment.  I'll have comment moderation turned on so that no one except me sees the comments until after the voting.
-The next Friday's post will have the comments listed (in the post) and the real answer will be mixed in with the others.  The new word will also be presented.
-You have until the following Wednesday to vote for the best comment AND submit your next answer.
-After a vote is finished, I'll award points and allow the comments to show so that we can all see who made each goofy answer.
-You're all on the honor system.  No cheating and looking up the word (on the internet or in a dictionary).  Hustling votes is allowed, although you risk tipping your opponent off to the real definition.  To keep too many even exchanges from happening, I'm offering a 10 point bonus to the person who has racked up the most Fun Friday points by the time the game concludes at the end of August.


This week's word is an easy one, as this series was inspired by Bryan knowing a word that I did not.  We will start with this word, AGLET, and go from there.  Give me your best definition.

May 25-June 1

Gretchen desperately wants to walk.  Last week she spent a lot of time standing up, wobbling a bit, and dropping down to the floor to crawl.  I let her hold my hands to walk around the house, and then spent the whole time tickling her palms to get her to let go.  She thought that was the best game ever.  :)  Unfortunately for Gretchen, she lunges forward more than she walks, so she loses her balance if there are no hands supporting her.  This week she's been getting braver, but still not much more successful.  She has managed to take a few steps, but only when she was busy paying attention to something else.

Keshia's wedding pictures are up!  If you're facebook friends with her, you'll be able to see all of them.  Since I assume most of you are not facebook friends with Keshia, though, I grabbed the important ones (of the flower girls, of course!) and put them below.

We spent last weekend visiting my parents.  Justine and her boys were there, too, so it was a wonderfully hectic family reunion.  Bryan and I played cards with my parents and siblings, Olivia and William chased each other through the house carrying trucks, and Gretchen and Edward... interacted (pictures of that below!).  Mom had some boxes from the garage, so we spent some time going through things that haven't seen the light of day since they were unceremoniously dumped from the Zion-house playroom drawers into said boxes just under eight years ago.  After mom, Justine, and I made a mess, we cleaned most of it back up, only to discover all the little kids making a bigger mess while glorying in their new-found treasures the next morning.  We also watched some home videos, which were pretty hilarious.  I never knew that Josef filmed Jacque doing a music video (3 times, to get the best take!).

Garden update: I have one thriving zucchini plant (memo to self: obtain a cage for it before it takes over everything), 8 green bean plants (including one that had to fight to get out of the shadow of its rather aggressive neighbor), 6 pea plants (even though I planted eight), a lot of carrots (especially in one section, where I must have gotten over-zealous with my "pinch" of seeds), and more beet plants than I started with.  I planted 18 beet seeds in one specific section, and I have beets all over my poor little garden square.  I have no idea what's going on with that, but beets are living up to their "easy to grow" reputation.  I still need to get a tomato and a couple of peppers planted, and my peas are going to need a trellis soon.

Yellow Duck has been requiring a lot of blood supply lately.  I always have trouble with low blood pressure during pregnancy (also low iron), and this time is no exception.  I find it ridiculous that I ran a half marathon less than 2 months ago and yet now there are days when I struggle to hold a conversation while standing up.  :/

Pictures: