15 February 2015

February 8-15

Gretchen had a nightmare last week.  She woke up screaming in the middle of the night, so I went to check on her.  As she explained through her tears, I gathered that her animal blanket (the one my mom made her) was missing.  I found it under her other blankets and tried to hand it to her, but she shook her head, insisting that "Lolly took it."  After a few more attempts, she realized that I was, in fact, holding her animal blanket in front of her and that Olivia could not have taken it.  She immediately calmed down and went back to sleep.  Oh, the horrors of a one-year-old's life.

We have a lot of tea parties in our house recently.  At least once a day, those present must congregate at the small table in the playroom to eat cake and drink tea (with milk).  The table is set, the prayers are said, and the cake is gone when the girls decide we've pretended enough.  :)

Another frequent game in our house is hide-and-seek.  Often I will be working in the kitchen and I'll hear, "Mommy, your girls are hiding!"  "Mommy.  Girls.  'iding!"  Of course, if I'm not quick enough then they pop out of hiding to come find me instead.  Gretchen is a fantastic hider, being still and quiet and (often) patient as long as she knows someone is looking.  Olivia is less skilled, or perhaps just more excited, and usually makes fidgety noises to lead seekers to her position before jumping out to proclaim that they couldn't find her, so she needs to hide again.  Favorite hiding places include the master bathtub, the guest shower, and all the closets.

Our sliding back door finally has a lock that matches everything else!  When Bryan originally took the handle off to see what kind of lock he needed to look for, he accidentally dropped the locking mechanism into the sliding door frame.  He went to Lowe's and was told that he couldn't replace just that piece.  Rather, he needed to go to a specific website and look at pictures until he found one that matched our door handle so that he could order a replacement.  We decided that we could wait to get the pieces.  Then I was at Menard's getting keys made one day and noticed some hardware that looked suspiciously like our door handle.  I talked to someone there, and he said it was a universal handle and should fit our door, after which we could have it rekeyed however we wanted.  I bought it and brought it home, but when Bryan went to put it on, he realized that the lock mechanism was not included.  This inspired him to get some wire and a powerful magnet in order to fish our original mechanism out of the door.  I returned the part we already had and brought in our keyhole to be rekeyed, but apparently they can only rekey something if you have a key to fit it.  Luckily, they sold locking cylinders, too, so I got one and they rekeyed it and...  It broke when Bryan put it in.  I went back, found out it was a problem with the way the rekeying was done, and exchanged the lock cylinder for the last one on the shelf, which then broke while being rekeyed.  :(  It would be at least three weeks before they had the piece back in stock.  I called Lowe's, and they told me that what I wanted didn't exist, so I opted to wait the three weeks before going back to Menard's.  This time everything went smoothly, and Bryan was able to install the cylinder in our sliding door.  It was a long ordeal, but everything is in place and matching now.

Olivia phrases: "A lot of many," "very nice of kind"

Wednesday evening I left for Texas (hooray warmth!), so stories of those adventures will have to wait until next time.

Pictures:
More princess pictures.  You may see a few of these every week as it's difficult to find times when the girls AREN'T being princesses.  :)

With Eva (taken by Steph):

We have a little princess dress rack in our playroom now:

Our bathtub gets rather crowded when you put in four kids and a bucket of toys:

The girls hide behind a mattress as it leans against the wall:

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