...loves her sisters. Anytime she hears them playing she will look around until she spots them and then smile at their game.
...is beginning to be ticklish. She has to be in the right mood, though.
...grabs things quite well now. Beware those with long hair, beards, glasses, necklaces, and/or noses. Once she was trying to grab a toy on the bed but couldn't because she'd captured the grabbing hand's thumb with her other hand.
...will eat anything, even a door. If she can pick it up, it's food. If she can reach it with her mouth, it's also food. She has sampled every toy she's been given, the hair of the unwary who stray too close, and, yes, a door. She was quite upset that the door did not fit in her mouth.
...rolls everywhere. Hence the ability to taste the door. Having mastered rolling from front to back (either direction) and back to front (either direction) in addition to turning in circles on the floor, Kaitlyn is quite mobile. She hasn't figured out how to get exactly where she wants, though, so watching her get places is kind of like watching a chess match played with nothing but knights.
Gretchen...
...can drink from a regular cup now. It took an unreasonably long amount of time for her to master this trick since she always stuck her tongue inside the cup to lap at the water like a cat, but she's got it now.
...knows her colors. This was kind of a gradual thing, but we didn't work on it much, so it surprised me when I realized that she could do it.
...stays in bed at night. We haven't put the gate up for some time now, and Gretchen does just fine. She only gets out of bed if she needs someone to refill her water cup. This is, needless to say, quite terrifying in the middle of the night when I wake up with her face right in mine as she patiently waits for me to become aware of her presence. Once I fill her cup, though, she turns around and walks right back to bed.
...can twirl spaghetti on her fork. I discovered this at dinner on Friday and was very impressed. Unfortunately, she suffers the same fate as most spaghetti twirlers: all of her spaghetti twirled up into one hugely unmanageable bite.
...opens doors. This also took longer than usual, but through no fault of Gretchen's. Our door handles are unusually high in this house, so she couldn't reach them until recently. Now that she can reach them, however, no room is safe.
Olivia...
...learned to spell her name. We've been practicing with letters on the fridge as well as spelling out loud. She seems to have a good handle on it, but I'm not sure she would be able to tell OLIVIA from OSTRICH just yet.
...likes to play her new violin. My mom brought a 1/8 size violin with her last week (complements of Aunt Jan, via Donna) and Olivia has played it several times. Mercifully, the e string broke as it was being tuned, so we're only hearing the lower notes. She is impatiently waiting for the day when I teach her to put fingers down on the strings.
...wants to be the oldest, but not necessarily the most grown up. She likes being in charge, but becomes helpless when it suits her. For instance, when HER water cup is empty in the middle of the night, she sits in her bed and wails.
Our car had brake problems when Bryan was driving from Springfield back to his parents' house last week, so we had to abandon it at Steve and Murry's, shoehorn three carseats into the backseat of their Jeep, and borrow their vehicle for a few days. Everything worked out, though, and our van is once again in our possession and working as well as it ever has. An unexpected bonus: somehow when they fixed the brakes they also stopped the power steering whine.
Labor day was our fun run, and we had quite a good turn out. Friends from church came, as well as Matt and Tricia (Bryan's cousin and his wife) and Rianne and Titus (my cousin and her husband). My parents and some siblings came down as well, and Bryan's family made an appearance at the cookout afterwards. The big improvement to the fun run this year came in the form of a semi-marked course: I tied yarn on sticks. Unfortunately, the sticks and yarn were difficult to see and our front runner was color blind and therefore unable to decipher whether he should turn right or left. Next year I will use large ties of patterned cloth. :)
Alison and Jacob came down for the weekend before the fun run. We hung out, Bryan got Jacob addicted to a new video game, and Alison and I tried our hand at cheddar cheese. We're not tremendously hopeful as to the outcome, but won't know the extent of our failure or success for several months since cheddar takes 4-6 months to age. The most exciting part of the combined visit came after church on Sunday morning, when Father pointedly asked, "so, do you have any news to share with us?" while staring at Alison's hand. Keep in mind that Jake and Joe look similar, Alison and Joe were together for all their previous visits, and Alison is now Orthodox, which is always a hopeful sign. Anyway, Alison looked mildly uncomfortable and then said, "Well, I saved a lot of money on car insurance by switching to Geico."
You may remember from last week's pictures that I made feta cheese after everyone left. This batch looked much more promising than the cheddar and feta only takes 2 days to cure. The verdict on the finished product is that I left it in the saturated brine (homemade seawater) too long. It looks and feels like feta, but is incredibly salty. Bryan says store feta is sharper also, so that is something that I will have to work on. I have a couple of ideas to try next time. If I can perfect this, though, I made a pound of feta for less than $3.50, which is well worth it.
This past Monday, Kaitlyn and I drove up to Albion to visit Jacob. He had picked up some bulk food from the (kind of local to him) store for me and in exchange I was giving swing dance lessons to his residents. The turnout was only about 9 people, but I thought it went well. The one male that came (other than Jacob) said afterwards that he'd be interested in learning the steps to some other dances, too, so I may be going back.
Pictures and Videos:
Videos (password BarhorstBrewed)
Olivia Spells Her Name
Gretchen and Kaitlyn
Gretchen Teaches
Kaitlyn
The pile of things that I removed from Olivia's bed when she was gone for the day:
Kaitlyn helps me teach swing dancing:
Happy Kaitlyn:
Kaitlyn and Daddy:
Yay for wraps!
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