March 11-18

I had some time this week, so I put up several old posts.  Go back all the way to January 21-28 and read from there.  A few bonus posts did go up in that time frame, and Justine covered some of the same events in her (much more timely) posts, so you may see some familiar material in between the new parts.

My taxes are done!  Bryan was in Springfield for several day in a row this week, so I took the free time in the evenings to start and finish my taxes.  ...Except the Lima City taxes.  I'll get to those this week.  But state and federal are done and filed.  Hooray!

Matthias's forward motion is getting quite impressive.  He favors the army crawl on the hardwood floors, but he does have a regular crawl that he uses on carpeting.  Unless he's in a hurry, in which case he reverts to the army crawl again.

Kaitlyn knows she has a birthday coming up.  She's a little fuzzy on the whole turning three thing, but when asked about it she says, "I am going to have a birthday and blow out a candle and eat a cake and open a present I'm so excited!"

Gretchen is learning cursive.  Justine taught her the first few strokes when she was here visiting, and we've continued to work on it.  Gretchen can now write a, d, c, and o.  She was so cute when she wrote her first a, she ran to show Bryan and said, "Look, it's my very first a!"  It was a beautiful a, too.  Now she works on making her letters beautiful and she puts happy faces inside the good ones.  Then we pick the very best one and I draw a flower in its hair.  Whatever works.  :)

I took Olivia's application in to St Charles and she is scheduled for a assessment/shadow day this coming Wednesday.  She is very excited, eagerly counting the remaining days each morning.  I hope she is still this excited when I have to get her up, dressed, breakfasted, and out the door by 7:30.

We're making dresses.  I was cutting out snapkins in the living room and tossing the scraps on the floor, and Olivia and Gretchen came in and saw so much potential.  I hauled out all my baskets of scraps and told them they could pick out whatever pieces they liked and pile them up and then, yes, we would make dresses.  My plan is to essentially create custom crazy quilt bolts of fabric and then use a pattern.  I'll use a sturdy solid for the bodice and sleeves of the dresses, and let the skirts be crazy quilt patchworks.

Pictures:
Olivia and Matthias, Kaitlyn and Gretchen:

Trying to get a good picture of all four kids.  Matthias kept trying to dive off the couch:

Gretchen's static:

The floor is a veritable smorgasbord, smorgasbord, smorgasbord, before my mom has cleaned!  Each day when I am put down, it can be found on the ground all around. Oh, what a Fias feast!

Gretchen reads, Matthias listens: