Grandma: Someone is a little hungry.
Kaitlyn: No, I am big!
Grandma: Someone is a big hungry.
Kaitlyn: Bigger!
Olivia, singing: Johannah, Johannah, Johannah with Matthias!
(Actual words: Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest!)
Me: What's on the next calendar page?
Kaitlyn: A lion! I do not like a lion. But woodrow likes a lion.
Me: Walter likes a lion?
Kaitlyn: No, woodrow.
Me: Woodrow?
Kaitlyn: Yes. With the lion and the witch.
Me: Oh, wardrobe! The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe!
Kaitlyn: Yes, woodrow. And the bad guys tie the lion up.
Gretchen: Bryan does not sound like a name. It sounds more like a Barhorst name. Daddy should have Barhorst be his second name and let Bryan be at the end.
Me: What would his first name be?
Gretchen: It can be Edward, because Grandma and Grandpa did not know that we would already know an Edward. Edward Barhorst Bryan.
Kaitlyn: Hey, stop! You're going to break me!
Olivia: I know it is!
Gretchen: No you don't. I'm in your mind.
Kaitlyn, referring to her shower: I think the water will be spicy.
Bryan: Good news! Matthias already listens as well as Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn: Christ is business!
Gretchen: I wish babies were born 10 so they wouldn't cry anymore.
Kaitlyn: Augustine is a mean girl.
Bryan: No, Aunt Justine is a nice lady.
Kaitlyn: And William is a nice lady, Edward is a nice lady, Walter is a nice lady, they are all nice ladies! But Augustine will give me a ponytail because Augustine is a mean girl to me.
25 April 2018
15 April 2018
April 1-15
Matthias discovered all his muscles these past two weeks. He dumps out boxes, he throws toys on the floor, he has a pincer grip, he shakes his head (and tilts it sideways), he pulls himself up on furniture (and in his bed)... He also started standing on his own for a few seconds here and there. Related to that, he's too brave, and has the bruises on his face to show for it. After a tumble prone week, he did finally figure out how to sit back down after pulling himself to standing. He does not cruise along furniture, but has instead decided to skip directly to the next step of trying to walk from the corner of one couch to the other. Unfortunately, he forgets to move his feet.
After months of having a new table but no chairs to go with it, we finally got eight nice wooden chairs and two matching half benches! Gone are the days of shuttling our card table chairs back and forth from the basement. :) The girls think the benches are great, and Olivia informed me that they can hold "way more than two people." They can, in fact, hold three children quite comfortably, and four if we squish them a little.
The kids and I took a trip to Findlay for a Music Together demo class and a visit to the Children's Museum. The girls liked the music class, but I was unimpressed with the teacher. Luckily, I had already decided that the 45 minute drive wasn't worth it every week. The Children's Museum was a bigger hit, and all the kids had a great time exploring the different stations. They especially loved the theater area (complete with dress up, a stage, and a real piano) and the "pool" which was a pit filled with blue foam blocks. I did not get any pictures of the pool, but I did get pictures of the kids doing other things. We had a picnic in a big empty section of mall hallway near the entrance before heading back in for five last jumps in the pool.
Holy Week happened, which meant that we attended a lot of church services. Olivia and Gretchen attended every service for the first time in their lives, and Kaitlyn and Matthias made it to everything except Good Friday. Lest you be too impressed, our church only offers evening services at this point. Everyone stayed up late and got up late and it was, in general, a very relaxed week.
Pascha was April 8. Dressing the kids for the service was a breeze because Gretchen and Kaitlyn decided to wear their pascha dresses to bed. All we had to do was bundle them into the car. Olivia didn't wear her dress to bed, but she also didn't put on pajamas (she went to bed in her regular clothes and then took them off when she got too hot), so I just popped her dress over her head as I got her out of bed. We took them straight from the car into church and took up a sizable section of floor with our still sleeping children. Gretchen slept through everything. Olivia and Kaitlyn woke up when the lights came on and stayed awake for part of the service before giving up and snuggling back under their blankets (that's the longest Olivia has ever been awake for a middle-of-the-night service, and the most Kaitlyn has ever slept for one). Matthias was awake for the whole thing, as well as for the party afterwards. We did leave pretty quickly after grabbing some food. The girls woke up enough in the car to notice that they'd missed the party.
The next morning we didn't get to sleep in much because Matthias woke up about an hour later than usual and the girls were up around their normal time. We hosted a cookout after Agape vespers, and Bryan "hid" about 150 eggs in our yard for the church kids to find. He ran out of hiding spots and started taping them to the walls of the house. Bright week was busy with several fun activities that I didn't get to attend because of orchestra. Bryan and the kids had fun bowling and eating ice cream and hanging out with people, though.
Matthias went to the doctor last week, but I'm finishing this post (a day late) at Justine's house and left his height and weight numbers on my kitchen counter. I guess I'll have to add them in next week. He's doing fine in all respects, and is holding steady in the 67th percentile for everything.
Today we head to Pittsburgh for most of the week to spend some time with the cousins. :)
Pictures:
After months of having a new table but no chairs to go with it, we finally got eight nice wooden chairs and two matching half benches! Gone are the days of shuttling our card table chairs back and forth from the basement. :) The girls think the benches are great, and Olivia informed me that they can hold "way more than two people." They can, in fact, hold three children quite comfortably, and four if we squish them a little.
The kids and I took a trip to Findlay for a Music Together demo class and a visit to the Children's Museum. The girls liked the music class, but I was unimpressed with the teacher. Luckily, I had already decided that the 45 minute drive wasn't worth it every week. The Children's Museum was a bigger hit, and all the kids had a great time exploring the different stations. They especially loved the theater area (complete with dress up, a stage, and a real piano) and the "pool" which was a pit filled with blue foam blocks. I did not get any pictures of the pool, but I did get pictures of the kids doing other things. We had a picnic in a big empty section of mall hallway near the entrance before heading back in for five last jumps in the pool.
Holy Week happened, which meant that we attended a lot of church services. Olivia and Gretchen attended every service for the first time in their lives, and Kaitlyn and Matthias made it to everything except Good Friday. Lest you be too impressed, our church only offers evening services at this point. Everyone stayed up late and got up late and it was, in general, a very relaxed week.
Pascha was April 8. Dressing the kids for the service was a breeze because Gretchen and Kaitlyn decided to wear their pascha dresses to bed. All we had to do was bundle them into the car. Olivia didn't wear her dress to bed, but she also didn't put on pajamas (she went to bed in her regular clothes and then took them off when she got too hot), so I just popped her dress over her head as I got her out of bed. We took them straight from the car into church and took up a sizable section of floor with our still sleeping children. Gretchen slept through everything. Olivia and Kaitlyn woke up when the lights came on and stayed awake for part of the service before giving up and snuggling back under their blankets (that's the longest Olivia has ever been awake for a middle-of-the-night service, and the most Kaitlyn has ever slept for one). Matthias was awake for the whole thing, as well as for the party afterwards. We did leave pretty quickly after grabbing some food. The girls woke up enough in the car to notice that they'd missed the party.
The next morning we didn't get to sleep in much because Matthias woke up about an hour later than usual and the girls were up around their normal time. We hosted a cookout after Agape vespers, and Bryan "hid" about 150 eggs in our yard for the church kids to find. He ran out of hiding spots and started taping them to the walls of the house. Bright week was busy with several fun activities that I didn't get to attend because of orchestra. Bryan and the kids had fun bowling and eating ice cream and hanging out with people, though.
Matthias went to the doctor last week, but I'm finishing this post (a day late) at Justine's house and left his height and weight numbers on my kitchen counter. I guess I'll have to add them in next week. He's doing fine in all respects, and is holding steady in the 67th percentile for everything.
Today we head to Pittsburgh for most of the week to spend some time with the cousins. :)
Pictures:
01 April 2018
March 18-April 1
Things I might have missed in my whirlwind of post updates:
-Olivia does the majority of her schoolwork after bedtime.
-Gretchen is staying up to do schoolwork now, too.
-Back when Matthias was not quite crawling, Gretchen liked to show him how to do it. She'd drop to her hands and knees in front of him and say, "Look, Matthias, we crawl like this." Then she'd crawl across the room while Matthias looked the other direction.
-Gretchen's speed in daily tasks is greatly increased if I count. She loves to race against the clock, although I have to be creative in the tasks assigned because if she fails then she loses motivation. We've found a good balance, though, and generally she gets ready faster using the counting method.
-Kaitlyn doesn't particularly care for her own clothes. Her favorite clothes to wear are Gretchen's, but Olivia's will do in a pinch.
-Matthias sucks his thumb to fall asleep. He uses his blanket square that Oma made him.
-Matthias's favorite toy is a pacifier. It's one of those silicone ones they use in hospitals, and he likes to stick his thumb in the hole and gnaw on it.
-A month or so ago Matthias began to be useful when getting dressed. He obligingly straightens out his legs for pants and tries to shove his arms into sleeves.
-Bryan calls Matthias "young sir."
-Although their visits were perhaps less memorable than the ones with the Bossards, Jacque and Jacob both visited in the past few months. We see Jacob about once a month and Jacque about every two months. Kaitlyn calls Jacob "Aunt Jacque" and Jacque "Uncle Jofes."
More recent news:
-Matthias got a fifth tooth. The sixth one is not far behind.
-Olivia's shadow day at school got snowed out. We showed up to a dark building and an empty parking lot. After some phone tag with the woman in charge of shadow days, it has been rescheduled for April 24.
-Bryan took the kids to visit his parents last Thursday afternoon while I stayed home and sewed patchwork pieces together. The dresses are progressing slowly, as might be expected with so many tiny patches.
-Kaitlyn had a birthday! She turned three and had a chocolate cake with strawberries on it. She did not request this, it was an inspiration on my part. She love the strawberries, though, and on later days only wanted strawberries, not cake.
-One of Jacque's visits was this past week. She hasaccidentally deliberately and with much planning managed to attend every birthday Kaitlyn has had since being born. While she was here, Bryan watched the kids and Jacque and I tackled a few more psalms, including number 119. We're now officially just over a third of the way done, plus 119.
-Bryan and I went to the Easter Vigil at the Catholic church last night. It began just after the kids went to bed, so we had someone come over and stay with them.
Pictures:
-Olivia does the majority of her schoolwork after bedtime.
-Gretchen is staying up to do schoolwork now, too.
-Back when Matthias was not quite crawling, Gretchen liked to show him how to do it. She'd drop to her hands and knees in front of him and say, "Look, Matthias, we crawl like this." Then she'd crawl across the room while Matthias looked the other direction.
-Gretchen's speed in daily tasks is greatly increased if I count. She loves to race against the clock, although I have to be creative in the tasks assigned because if she fails then she loses motivation. We've found a good balance, though, and generally she gets ready faster using the counting method.
-Kaitlyn doesn't particularly care for her own clothes. Her favorite clothes to wear are Gretchen's, but Olivia's will do in a pinch.
-Matthias sucks his thumb to fall asleep. He uses his blanket square that Oma made him.
-Matthias's favorite toy is a pacifier. It's one of those silicone ones they use in hospitals, and he likes to stick his thumb in the hole and gnaw on it.
-A month or so ago Matthias began to be useful when getting dressed. He obligingly straightens out his legs for pants and tries to shove his arms into sleeves.
-Bryan calls Matthias "young sir."
-Although their visits were perhaps less memorable than the ones with the Bossards, Jacque and Jacob both visited in the past few months. We see Jacob about once a month and Jacque about every two months. Kaitlyn calls Jacob "Aunt Jacque" and Jacque "Uncle Jofes."
More recent news:
-Matthias got a fifth tooth. The sixth one is not far behind.
-Olivia's shadow day at school got snowed out. We showed up to a dark building and an empty parking lot. After some phone tag with the woman in charge of shadow days, it has been rescheduled for April 24.
-Bryan took the kids to visit his parents last Thursday afternoon while I stayed home and sewed patchwork pieces together. The dresses are progressing slowly, as might be expected with so many tiny patches.
-Kaitlyn had a birthday! She turned three and had a chocolate cake with strawberries on it. She did not request this, it was an inspiration on my part. She love the strawberries, though, and on later days only wanted strawberries, not cake.
-One of Jacque's visits was this past week. She has
-Bryan and I went to the Easter Vigil at the Catholic church last night. It began just after the kids went to bed, so we had someone come over and stay with them.
Pictures:
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