I haven't written in a small eternity, but the end of the year is fast approaching and I need to wrap things up for my 2018 blog book. :)
Matthias words and phrases: bye, no, kitty cat, up (eeya), here you go (ehgo -- this means both "here you go" and "give me that"), all gone, cup, down, Mommy, Daddy, guys, boo boo butt, I want that, Olivia, Gretchen, did it, let it go (in song form), whoa
Olivia got her ears repierced at a piercing shop. She had them done at Clair's in May, but months later they were still painful and oozing and finally she decided to take the earrings out and let the holes close up. After they healed completely, she screwed up her courage again and I took her downtown to a tattoo and piercing place. That was an exciting adventure, because the process is slower than a piercing gun and involves a clamp that looks like scissors. She was unimpressed and we almost walked out with only one ear done. Finally she decided that she would tough it out for the second ear, but I'm pretty sure the poor guy getting tattooed across the hall was scarred for life (no pun intended). We've just finished the six weeks of care and her ears are doing much better than the first time around. Her ear lobes are still tender, but they don't look swollen or red at all, which is encouraging.
I took the older two girls for official haircuts a while ago. Gretchen had given herself bangs and layers with no sign of stopping, and Olivia just thought that shorter hair would be nice. I felt like I should be able to handle bobs and bangs myself, but I also didn't want to deal with the complaining when I didn't do things exactly the way Gretchen envisioned, so I took them to Great Clips. They loved it and Bryan and I agreed that adding haircuts to the budget was worth not having to deal with the stress of cutting Gretchen's hair.
You probably saw in an earlier post that we lost the baby. Hilary Shannon was born on November 19. I have a plaque on the wall to match our other ones, a new willow tree angel holding a baby, and beads on my bracelet. When I told the girls, Gretchen said, "Why??!" and Olivia said, "I'm sad, but I'm also happy because now we have 9 people in our family." Sometimes it's nice to see things from the point of view of a seven year old.
Mom, Dad, and James came out the week before Thanksgiving. There was an ice storm in Ohio the day of their flight, so they didn't actually get to leave until a day later because nothing was flying into Columbus. When they did finally get on a plane, it was delayed by several hours, which caused us to not be awake enough to pick them up, so they ended up in a hotel and I picked them up the next morning. Thirty six hours after they were originally scheduled to arrive, we made it back to our house. Barring the initial difficulties, the visit was quite pleasant. The Bossards and the Smiths made an appearance, and we saw all of Justine's in-laws during the week as well. Thanksgiving day was good food and happy family and everything that wonderful holiday memories are made of.
Bryan and I both had birthdays. We're 32 now, and have been married a quarter of our lives.
My birthday weekend was filled with viola. I had three rehearsals and two concerts (different groups). Since I wasn't going to be home at all, Bryan took the kids down to Sidney to see his parents. My hour or so at home was quite peaceful.
We rearranged bedrooms, and now Olivia and Gretchen share what used to be the playroom while Kaitlyn and Matthias share the bedroom. All three girls have junior lofts with a play area underneath. Kaitlyn has a little table and the older girls have drop down wall desks. I hung strands of Christmas lights underneath each bed so that they could see to play -- that was a huge hit. :) The guest room mattresses were taken downstairs to make room for the new playroom. Books are arranged on shelves and toys are in the closet. I went through a lot of hoarded junk (of mine) and trashed/donated less than I should have. The rest is (mostly) stored neatly in tubs in the basement. I do still have a couple of boxes that I need to sort since we shoved them out of the room at the last minute to make room for air mattresses for Christmas visitors.
December 15th was Grandma's Christmas, which is what we are apparently calling the lovely new tradition of opening presents at Grandma's house a weeks or so early. We all got matching pajamas, which made for some fun pictures. Saturday was ice skating (a huge hit with the kids) and opening presents. We came back after church on Sunday to play games.
The oldest four siblings were able to get together after Christmas, so we had the Bossards, the Smiths, and the Fentons here for a few days (the Bossards and the Smiths are still here, actually). We had a good time hanging out. Josef and Angelina played a ton of games with both the adults and the children. They also got put to work assembling desks for the girls and a mini game table for Bryan (but really for the kids because I did not realize how small it was). We see the Smiths and the Bossards more frequently, and their visits were (are?) fairly typical.
I think last you heard we had a new cat named Shalina. We have the same cat still, but her name was quickly changed to Stephanie. Her full name is actually Bigger Stephanie, but this was problematic since she was actually quite small. The girls agreed to call her Little Stephanie (our cat has a street name?) until she grows enough to deserve the title of Bigger Stephanie. For the most part she goes by just Stephanie.
Matthias loves our cat. He can often be seen at the back door looking for the cat. Now that he's a little taller, he can also often be found opening the door to let the cat inside, usually for the sole purpose of picking it up and tossing it back outside. Since his experience at this point is limited, he assumes that any living thing that does not walk on two legs is a cat. Large dog? It's a cat. Genevieve, the two month old baby of our friends from church? Also a cat.
Bryan has noticed that Kaitlyn has a different way of responding when she's in trouble. Around age 3, all of the girls have become self aware of being in trouble, and he's pulled them aside and said something to the effect of "What should a good daddy do?" Olivia will start trickling tears down her cheeks and say, "I don't want a spanking." Gretchen will burst into floods of tears and say, "A good daddy would give me a spanking." Kaitlyn gets a hopeful look on her face and says, "Well, if you let me watch PJ Masks on your phone then I will be good."
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