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 has accidentally 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:


Kaitlyn and Mommy have a nap:

Picking out fabric for dresses:

Reading cards that they got in the mail:

Kaitlyn, aggressively loving Olivia:

Matthias and Kaitlyn play: