September 14-21

I finally got last week's post up.  We have been unpacking all week and finally look like we're making progress.  I will take pictures if/when I ever find my camera (I don't remember packing it, so finding it is a little tougher).  This house is double the size of our last house, so even with all our boxes piled up, the girls have had plenty of room to run around.  :)

On Sunday, Bryan told me that he kept asking Olivia if she liked her new house and she kept saying no.  :(  My response was, "stop asking her!"  We did get the television hooked up so that she could watch a movie on Sunday night.  First thing Monday morning, Olivia helped me unpack all of her clothes and Gretchen's clothes and we got their bedroom arranged with everything familiar.  Then we moved on to the playroom and began finding their favorite toys.  By Monday afternoon she had decided that her new house wasn't so bad.

On Thursday we had to go back to Springfield to supervise some roof work on the old house.  The Kleins met us there and Steph and I swept up all the dust left over from moving furniture while the 4 kids ran around the empty rooms delighting in how much noise they could make.  Before we left I got everything out of the main section of the house (some stuff had been left in the linen cupboard and the kitchen) and grabbed a couple boxes from the attic.  We still have things in our mudroom and attic, but the main house is empty.

A couple of updates on the girls:

Gretchen has opinions.  The trouble is that no one, including Gretchen, knows what those opinions are.  Mostly, it would seem, her opinion is, "You want me to do it that way?  No, that's terrible!  Wait, don't do it my original way either!  Nothing ever happens the way I want it to.  *cue meltdown*"

Gretchen's new favorite word is "shoe."  This surprises no one, given her affinity for shoes.  Bryan wants to name it her first official word (by claiming that yeah, no, and more don't count), but I'd like the record to show that she did, in fact, say other words first.

Strange phrasings that Olivia still has:
We are at to the store.
I'm going to knock on the doorbell.
Umballela.
Mlilk.

And something funny Olivia said the other day:
"I'm Olivia Barhorst and you're Mommy Barhorst and she's Gretchen Barhorst and Daddy's a boy."

The girls and I are headed out to visit Justine and Joseph this weekend (as well as Jacque, who is also visiting them!).  Bryan is going to a Browns' game instead.  Priorities.  :-P

Pictures:

The girls on the "marching square" at the old house:

We had a very friendly stray kitten:

Gretchen napped through lunch one day and then got tired of waiting for me to come over and feed her, so she took matters into her own hands:

She also had a cookie:

We love coloring on the roll of paper at our new house.  Or, more accurately, Olivia loves commissioning fabulous artwork from me.  Below we have Olivia with a crown and sword, Gretchen holding my phone and walking on the crayons, Mommy drawing pictures (I did get glasses later), Daddy working, Olivia and Grandma on the couch watching Scooby Doo, and Olivia, Grandma, and Grandpa eating Scooby Snacks:

Olivia also does artwork occasionally.  Here is the whale she drew.  The extra lines at the bottom are the water: