April 19-26

Kaitlyn is very well taken care of here.  Olivia makes sure to keep her well supplied with toys and Gretchen always brings a blanket to cover her up.  :)

Gretchen has named all of her baby dolls "Baby Kaitlyn."  She carries them around (usually one at a time), changes their diapers, and burps them regularly.

We've had a lot of trouble with monsters lately.  I am happy to report, though, that all our monsters currently appear to work normal days and therefore only show up during daylight hours.  This makes them much easier to evade.  If we're in the car then the girls will exclaim that we have to drive faster.  Most of the time they accept the answer "I'm going as fast as I can."  If they don't, then we tell them to hide.  The proper way to hide from monsters?  Cover your face.  We're working on keeping them from protecting Kaitlyn from monsters...

Gretchen goes to bed again!  Bryan broke her a couple of months ago and had her to the point where she needed to be rocked to sleep every night.  Over the past two weeks, though, circumstances have conspired to return her to normal.  Bryan was sick, then he had to work late a few nights, then Gretchen was sick, then she skipped her nap a couple of days and fell asleep at the table, then he had to work late again...  All in all, I think Bryan only had to stand firm one night in the past two weeks and the rest just took care of itself.

Gretchen is struggling to find her bedtime balance.  By this I mean that Bryan and I are struggling to find Gretchen's bedtime balance.  If she doesn't nap at all then she goes to bed well, but she's also cranky from about 4:00 on and I don't get any quiet time.  If she naps then everyone is happy, but she doesn't fall asleep until 10 or 10:30.  The late bedtime is becoming less of an issue now that she's doing better going to bed, but we're still trying to find some middle ground.  The current solution is to wake her up from her nap (which usually just consists of me letting Olivia go check on her) if she's been asleep for more than an hour and a half.

We got another shelf for our playroom closet so that the boxes of toys are easily accessible.  They used to all be stacked on top of each other and the girls never got to play with the bottom boxes because their mother didn't feel like rearranging the stacks.  Then their father would feel sorry for them and open ALL the boxes at the same time, citing lack of use as an excuse for the mess.  So I bought a bookshelf.  My organizational sense is pleased and my mother is proud.  :)

Everyone is in town this weekend for Kaitlyn's baptism.  When I listed the names of all the people showing up on Saturday, Olivia exclaimed, "yes, they are all coming to see my new trampoline!"  Priorities.

Pictures:

April 12-19

Things we learned at the Pascha service last week:
-Olivia has more sense than eight other kids put together.  We arrived at church just before 11 pm.  Olivia saw the dark church, the cushioned pew in the back, and her blanket that we'd brought with us and immediately decided it was time to go to sleep.  She made herself comfortable and missed the whole service.
-Gretchen runs out of batteries at 1:30 am.  The girls didn't fall asleep before it was time to wake them up to get ready for church, and Gretchen did not think that sleeping on a pew was a valuable use of her time when there were candles and lights and bells happening.  She was clearly tired but fought it until she finally succumbed (unwillingly) out of sheer exhaustion.
-Kaitlyn doesn't mind lights or singing, but sudden bells bother her.  Every time people started ringing bells, she would start squirming and whining before settling back into nap.  The same thing happened the next day at vespers.

We spent a lot of the week in various states of illness.  :(  Bryan and Olivia were recovering on Saturday and then we went to a midnight service, causing small setbacks for both of them.  I had a fever Monday night, recovered for 36 hours, and then got sick again on Wednesday night.  Gretchen was pretty mopey for a day in there and had a fever, but has been since.  Side note: Gretchen is much more cooperative for pictures when she's not feeling well.

Kaitlyn had her three week growth spurt near the end of this week.  She outgrew newborn outfits seemingly overnight and decided that hunger was her constant companion.  On Friday she nursed every half hour from 5:30 pm to 11 pm.  Then Bryan fed her 4 oz of formula before she finally allowed us to put her down for bed.  Thankfully, she spent the next six hours sleeping off her binge before waking to eat again.  I'm hoping that she will return to her previously agreeable schedule in a day or two -- though I wouldn't mind keeping the six hour chunk of sleep at night.  :)

The highlight of the week?  We got a trampoline.  Bryan put it on a list of things to save for a while ago, and we were about three quarters of the way there so when the house sold we bought it.  Now we have a 12-foot trampoline (complete with net enclosure) in our backyard.  The girls are very excited and Olivia hopes that "the big man [who] brought the mail" visits more often since he is apparently the one who anticipated her need for a trampoline.  :)

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 2

Olivia: I love big hill!
Me: Did you just say, "I love a cow?"
Bryan: She said, "I love big hill."
Olivia: I love a cow, too.
Bryan: I love your mom, too.
Me: Hey!
Gretchen: Mooo!

Gretchen: Please have eat banana.

(Gideon borrowed a pair of Olivia's underwear after staying overnight at our house one day)
Me: Okay, pull up your undies.
Gideon: Actually, this is Olivia's underwear.
Me: ...You're right.  Pull up... Olivia's undies.

Me: Are you my little snuggle bug?
Gretchen: No, I penguin.

Murry: Your baby's going to be here soon!  Are you excited?
Olivia: No, Grandma, the baby is in mommy's belly.
Murry: I know, but he's going to come out soon.  He can't stay in there forever.
Olivia: Yes he can!

Olivia: Where's Grandma?
Me: She's at work.
Olivia: Grandma cannot go to work, she is a girl!

Olivia (talking on a toy phone): Hello?  Yes?  I have a Gretchen sister and my baby's going to come next year.

Olivia: Next time it is raining we need to bring an umbrella so that we can be on top of things.  We were not on top of things.

Gretchen: A B C H K L Ba P Q S Double X Y Z.  Now I ABC, next time won't sing me.

Olivia (poking my stomach three days after Kaitlyn was born): What's still in here?
Bryan: I think your three-year-old just called you fat.

Gretchen: Daddy go work?
Me: Yes, Daddy is working downstairs.
Olivia: Yes, but we only go downstairs to get things, we don't go to work because we are girls.  Only boys go to work.
Me: What do girls do?
Olivia: Play.  But I do have a work computer.  But it is just pretend.
Me: What do grown-up girls like Mommy do?
Olivia: Well, someday I will have a sewing machine and then I will make dresses like Mommy.

April 5-12

Happy Pascha!  Christ is Risen!

(Due to technical difficulties, those of you who receive my blog via email may be getting this post twice.  Sorry.)

Kaitlyn's post went up.  It's dated March 27.

Details from last week:

-Superficial thrombophlebitis is a blood clot that isn't considered dangerous.  Pregnant women are more susceptible to clots (usually in the legs), as are people who spend a lot of time in bed (those who have recently given birth), and people who have had an IV.  Doctors keep an eye out for clots because a deep vein clot could dislodge and work its way up to a vital organ, causing a whole host of problems.  A superficial clot is in a surface vein and is too small and remote to be worrisome.  My clot was right where I had the IV, and the emergency room doctor assured me that I was fine.

-Bryan and I gave Kaitlyn formula for three bottles and then pumped milk for three bottles to confirm that she was indeed spitting up blood that she got from me and not her own blood from some problem with her insides.  After seeing no more blood, we let her start nursing again and she's been fine ever since.

Moving on:

Mom, Jillian, and James came down to visit on Sunday evening and stayed until Tuesday morning.  Jillian held Kaitlyn, James amused Olivia, and Mom helped me in the kitchen.  :)  We had a good time visiting with them.

Our mailbox lost a battle with the rain and ended up on our driveway, mail strewn everywhere.  Mom and the kids rescued it as they left Tuesday morning and set the mail out to dry on the counter.  Everything either survived or was not important, but Kaitlyn's social security card and our new mortgage payment booklet are on excitingly wavy paper now.  Bryan fixed the mailbox the next day, nailing it more firmly to its post.  Unfortunately, he realized when he was done that he nailed it on backwards.  He is still deciding if he is embarrassed enough to go turn it around.  The mailman does not appear bothered by the backwards-ness of it (there are doors on both ends), but he no longer puts the flag down after picking up mail.  :)

All Olivia's dresses are too short this year and the new ones that can be found in the store aren't much better, so I decided to make some.  Mom suggested that I get some t-shirts and attach skirts to them, so I picked out three t-shirts and took Olivia fabric shopping with me.  All three dresses are now done and she seems to like them.  :)  There's a picture of one below.  I'm sure the others will show up in later posts.

We've had church every night since this was Holy Week.  Kaitlyn has been sleeping through services like a champ and Olivia and Gretchen have been doing remarkably well given how much extra church they've been to.  They did miss Tuesday, but made it to all the other services.  At the writing of this post, how they manage at the Vigil service on Saturday night remains to be seen.

On Thursday I got to try making pysanky, which are blown-out eggs decorated with wax before being dyed.  It's a fun process, although drawing with wax takes a little practice.  There's a picture below of one that I dropped before it was done.  :(  Maybe I'll have pictures of the successful ones next week.

Bryan got sick with something on Thursday night and spent all day Friday in bed.  Olivia also spent most of Friday in bed, complaining of not feeling well, although she never actually got sick.  Small mercies.  Gretchen and I bopped around the quiet house and enjoyed the peacefulness of everything.

Pictures:

March 29-April 5

The week in brief:

Happy Easter!  Or Happy Palm Sunday!  Pick your week, I guess.  :)

It seems I inadvertently lied about the Kaitlyn post.  Hopefully this week I'll get around to it.

Everyone was home on Sunday.  The girls (Gretchen especially) love holding Kaitlyn and giving her kisses.

Superficial thrombophlebitis in my arm.  Apparently nothing to worry about, but we did make a trip to the ER on Sunday night just in case.

Kaitlyn had a doctor appointment on Tuesday.  She had to get blood drawn because there was blood in her spit-up that morning.  Her bloodwork came back normal and the pediatrician thought maybe she was swallowing blood while nursing and then spitting that back up.  Bryan and I did an experiment to verify that hypothesis.

Since this is a brief post, I just want to reiterate that EVERYONE IS FINE.  Please don't freak out.  I will elaborate when I have more time.  :)

On Friday we sold our Springfield house!  We are now down to one house again and have already planned several projects now that we have some extra money each month.

The weekend was spent at Bryan's parents' house for Easter.  Bryan and I went to the vigil service and then on Sunday we all drove back in time for Orthodox Palm Sunday.

Tonight some of my family will be here to visit for a few days since they're on spring break.  We are looking forward to that.  :)

Pictures: