October 14-28

Murry and I took the older girls to the Lunch and Learn children's theater production at La Comedia a couple of weeks ago.  The show was Click, Clack, Boo! and Gretchen and Olivia loved it.  They are the perfect age for this sort of thing.  The next day, Murry and Keshia and I took Olivia, Gretchen, Kaitlyn, and Rudy to Frozen on Ice.  We had front row seats, which was really fun.  The skaters/actors interact with the audience quite a bit (there were corner podiums built just so that they could pause there to wave) and we got to wave to pretty much everyone.  Kaitlyn sat in stunned silence the whole time and has since asked to go back and see "real Frozen" several times.  Gretchen was the most engaged, bouncing up and down with excitement, waving enthusiastically to characters, and trying to catch the fake snow that came down from the ceiling in frequent bursts.  At the end, she threw her head back and said, "Best. Time. Ever."

Last weekend Bryan and I took Kaitlyn to Cleveland to visit Rudy while the other kids stayed with Grandma and Grandpa.  There was a Halloween party while we were there, so Kaitlyn was a dragon and Rudy was a showgirl.  Then they traded.  :)  Bryan and I were Gomez and Morticia Addams.  The two girls had a great time together and it was nice to spend some time with just Kaitlyn.

The Bossards came to visit this past week.  On Thursday Justine guest taught a Music Together class for me and then later we took all the kids trick-or-treating.  They stayed long enough to say hi to Jacob (who was down for monthly D&D) and left Saturday morning.

Bryan discovered a hamburger bun in the oven on Wednesday.  This was a source of some confusion for a minute or two before he figured out what it meant.  Per Kaitlyn's unwitting request, this bun in the oven has been nicknamed Hamburger.

Kaitlyn loves looking at crucifixes.  Whenever we're in church, she looks for the crucifixion icon.  When we're at home she asks to hold whatever crucifix she sees in the room.  She is especially interested in the nails in Jesus's hands and feet.  I'm not sure what prompted this obsession, but it's been going on for a couple of months now.  I bought her a small plastic card of the crucifixion icon for her to keep with her whenever she wants.

Olivia and Matthias had check-ups last week.  Olivia is 51.2 pounds and 49.25 inches tall.  Her throat clearing turned hacking cough is most likely a nervous tic as we have suspected.  It has been slowly improving recently.  Matthias is 25 pounds, 11 ounces and 31.25 inches tall.  He likes exploring the doctor's office but gets panicky when the doctor and nurses come in.

Gretchen is loving the little school things we're doing.  She writes all the time without being asked, and we did a craft where we made some pretty postcards so that she can send mail to people.  Recently she asked to learn how to sew, so I set her to perfecting a running stitch.  It's more wobbly than a straight line, but she can do it.  I found a pattern for cute little flowers that use only a running stitch and she finished her first one yesterday.  She is eagerly awaiting the day that I let her use the machine.

Kaitlyn can count, but her one to one correspondence is shaky.  If she is physically moving things (putting pom poms in a jar) then she does okay, barring the occasional skipped number (who needs sixteen?).  If she is just pointing at objects then her numbers don't line up with the objects at all, and she also double counts some and misses others completely.  It is strange to me to realize that she is the same age Gretchen was when I was babysitting Sophia and Evalynn, because then I remember that I had Gretchen doing school related things almost every day.

Bryan gave the girls Create Your Own storybooks and Olivia has eagerly started hers.  She's going through the pages in order, so of course the first thing she filled out was the Table of Contents.  She has chapter names and pages written down and is now filling in the story to match up appropriately.  :)

Pictures:
Frozen on Ice:

Gretchen:

Three girls at the apple festival:

Fixing the calendar:

Halloween pictures: 

Matthias, so pleased that Mr. Hodges was babysitting:

Watching movies at Grandma's:

Occupying time while Olivia is gone: