Barhorst Brewed: 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:
Pictures from the children's museum: