Barhorst Brewed: July 1-August 5

Updates since I last wrote:

Matthias...
...plays peekaboo. His preferred method is to hide behind a chair (table, crib, wall, etc) and lower himself so that he can't see me but I can still see his hands and the top of his head. Then he pops up with an excited look in his eyes and waits for me to be astounded by his apparition skills. He has recently begun using his blanket square as a way to hide his face as well.
...says mama, and I think he means it. He's also experimented with dad and uh-oh. His preferred all purpose noise is a loud, grating shriek.
...was sleeping all the way through the night (again) during June and into July. He was consistent enough that I had decided he'd made it. Then halfway through July he began waking up once in the middle of the night most nights. As of this writing, he wakes up most nights, but throws in enough complete nights to keep me hopeful.
...only takes one nap. He dropped his second nap sometime near the beginning of July (probably coinciding with his ruined nighttime record). Now he takes one nap from about 11-1. I've managed to push it as late as 12-2 some days. About once every week or two he gets incredibly cranky and gets forced down for a second nap. As a result of his one nap, his bedtime has migrated forward again into the 6:15-6:45 range (it had been in the 6:45-7:15 range).
...sings. Usually he chooses to sing along with music in the car. Sometimes he sings along in church. Rarely does he sing when I'm just singing during the day.
...dances. He's always danced a little, but he just figured out that he's doing it. Now he walks into a room with music, looks at me, and bounces up and down. When he's older, he can be embarrassed about the fact that his preferred dance move was the innocent baby version of twerking.
...cannot clap. In a funny twist, he thinks he can clap. The girls and I tried to teach him by grabbing his wrists and slapping his hands together, but when he tries to replicate it he just flaps his hands in front of him.
...closes doors. This is his new favorite ~~game~~ mission. Refrigerator doors, cupboard doors, car doors, room doors, drawers... If it is open, Matthias will find it and he will close it.
...runs. He tries, at least. He speed toddles.
...likes to play fetch with himself. He throws everything and anything and then walks after it to pick it up. His favorite ball right now is a small onion that he can get whenever the pantry door gets left open.
...turned one! Matthias had a birthday. There was a car cake on his birthday, and then a polka dot cake for his party.

Kaitlyn...
...can reliably buckle all of the parts of her carseat. This means that she was allowed to move to the coveted back row of the van. We have not tested this for very long, so we'll see if she gets to stay. Olivia happily switched to the middle row so that she could be next to Matthias.
...learned that Olivia can read and now asks her to read books frequently.
...likes to color. Well, more accurately, she likes to scribble with one color of marker. But she appreciates having coloring sheets to scribble on.
...had a day out with me. Mommy and Kaitlyn day was fun, but I'm not entirely sure that Kaitlyn realized the significance. We went bowling, had lunch, and played at a park for several hours. Then we stopped at the splash pad where she got very wet before falling asleep in the car on the way home.
...got to practice being the oldest child several times this summer. In addition to VBS (June), Olivia and Gretchen went to Safety City for a week and had two different three day stints at a nature day camp. Kaitlyn and I hung out together while Matthias napped.

Gretchen...
...woke up one night with severe stomach pain, prompting worries of appendicitis. After a trip to the pediatrician the next morning, we determined that it was most likely not her appendix causing issues. He though she might be coming down with a stomach bug, but nothing ever manifested. All her symptoms went away on their own.
...has an updated weight stat as a result of the aforementioned doctor's visit. She's 41.4 pounds.
...made a scavenger hunt. This was the hardest kind of scavenger hunt, because she hid an uncounted number of rolled up papers all over the house and provided no clues. Due to circumstances beyond her control, we didn't get to search for the papers until two days later, so she forgot where most of them were. We are still finding papers tucked in corners.
...learned to write. I never taught her to write, but she can make most of the capital letters now. The same thing happened with Olivia.
...is very motivated to do school. She's often found writing random strings of letters in her school books, and when she remembers that she's learning to read then she will bring me her reading materials and have me listen to her sounding out stories.

Olivia...
...starts soccer tomorrow. She asked if she could try soccer, so we enrolled her in the fall session. It's run according to school district, but is not connected to the public school as far as I can tell.
...has discovered the wonders of the library. We haven't been to the library since Matthias was born, but we went last week and asked the librarian for suggestions. She came home with ten books of varying levels of difficulty. After discovering that she was particularly fond of a series called "Owl Diaries," I put a few more on hold for her. We went yesterday to pick one up, left with four books instead, and she began reading in the car.
...also had a birthday! She turned seven, which is very old. She wanted birthday brownies instead of cake, and we are deferring her main birthday meal until after the Dormition fast ends.
...made a friend. We met another little girl at a playdate and they exchanged life stories. Elaine will be seven later in August and is also entering first grade at St Charles.

Stats at age one:
Olivia - 21 pounds, 10 ounces, 30 inches tall
Gretchen - 20 pounds, 12 ounces, 30 inches tall
Kaitlyn - 21 pounds, 10 ounces, 29.75 inches tall
Matthias - 23 pounds, 10 ounces, 30 inches tall

Other odds and ends:

We visited the Palsgroves and then the Bossards at the end of June. The first one made it into my last post, the second did not. Bryan came with us for this trip, and we played games with Joseph and Justine after the kids went to bed.

The kids and I took a second trip to Pittsburgh on July 20 to see Dad while he was in town. We drove in after Safety City, stayed overnight and most of the next day, and then dropped Dad off at the airport on the way home. Dad read books to the girls and tried to teach them baseball. It stuck for a little bit, because they insisted that Bryan and I play with them the following day.

I went to my Music Together training and it was just as exciting and inspirational as they designed it to be. I'm now licensed to open a center, which I'm hoping to do this fall.

I gave Matthias frozen peas one day because I didn't want to take the time to heat them up, and now "cold peas" are a sought after staple in our house.

Periodically I open cupboards and find toys hidden inside, courtesy of Matthias. He also picks things up and carries them to other rooms before getting distracted, which makes finding things like shoes especially exciting.

"dressup" - the catch all word for tasty goop that goes on food

Pictures:
We played a game called "Where's Bob's Hat?" and Justine obligingly provided hats for everyone: