Pictures:
18 November 2020
15 November 2020
November 1-15
Words since the end of September. Pictures to follow.
Brad and Shantelle came to visit at the end of September. They worked in the basement during the day and we were able to play games and visit in the evenings. Shortly after they left, Jacque and Julian came to visit for a few days. Julian has seen quite a bit of us over the past few months and doesn’t take long to warm up to his cousins anymore.
We’ve also seen a lot of Josef and Angelina since they moved to Columbus. We spent the first weekend of October visiting them at their apartment. We squeezed four kids into the guest/workout/office room and let Theodore sleep in with Josef and Angelina. Then Bryan and I slept in the living room and I went to fetch Theodore when he woke up. It was a fun visit, but quite crowded. A lot of Saturday was spent at a couple of local parks just to get the kids out of the apartment. More recently, Josef and Angelina came to our house and Josef helped me paint the playroom. We did a Jackson Pollack light splatter wall which turned out quite well.
Bryan has started throwing a yearly Halloween party and this year was the second year. He has candy/prize stations around the yard and basement and sets the kids loose to find all the treasures. A highlight is the basement path where they can collect pennies to spend at the clubhouse store. The party gives Bryan an excuse to decorate and lets our kids get their Halloween fix without the hassle of trick or treating. Or in addition to trick or treating. Double Halloween is a big hit.
I took the kids and went to visit the Bossards over a long weekend. Coincidentally, we managed to hit their trick or treating weekend (it worked out that way last year as well), so our kids did get double Halloween after all, despite missing the Lima night. Trick or treating in the Bossards’ neighborhood has both times been more pleasant than our route we usually end up taking in Lima, so perhaps we’ll just have to plan to be there every year. The kids enjoyed playing together and it was a pleasant visit.
In mid October I had my yearly vacation with my friends. We were supposed to go to Chicago this year, but coronavirus made that impractical. We went to Mansfield, OH, instead, and visited Mohican State Park. On Sunday we were able to attend liturgy at the nearby monastery. Then we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant that served an amazing giant Bavarian pretzel. We decided to hike out to see a “low flow” waterfall and arrived at an 80 foot dripping faucet. The hike was nice, but the waterfall was not much of a payout. :)
Bryan and I celebrated 10 years of marriage in September. We delayed our trip for a couple of reasons and, having divvied our kids up among various households, set out for ...Toledo on October 21. We were planning to go to Niagara (the American side) since that’s where we took our honeymoon, but Ohio got put on New York’s travel ban list a week earlier. When I called, the hotel said it had a one week grace period, but if we were still on the list on October 20 then they would cancel our reservation. We were and they did and we threw together new plans the night before we were supposed to leave. Luckily, hotel rooms aren’t too hard to come by midweek, so we didn’t have much trouble once we decided where to go. We had a lovely time in Toledo, visiting both the zoo and the casino twice. Bryan won at craps and then we lost all his winnings at roulette, but we had a good time doing it. I even won once which let us keep playing a little longer. :) After a few days in Toledo we came home and enjoyed our quiet house for three days before retrieving our children.
Theodore walks. He’s been playing around with the idea for months now, but he didn’t really take off until about a week after 14 months. If I’m remembering correctly, that puts him at about the same age as Olivia, and a hair younger than Gretchen. He now chooses to walk everywhere all the time and is steady enough that he only sticks his left arm up for balance sometimes. I write so infrequently thesedays years that I can’t remember what I’ve mentioned and what I haven’t. Theodore has been sleeping relatively reliably through the night since before he turned one. He has the occasional rough night, and he has a tendency to wake up with my alarm in the morning and not go back to sleep. We finally bit the bullet and moved him from the oratory to the room he’s supposed to be sharing with Matthias. After a rough few nights, he has settled in well. He is still likely to wake up around the time my alarm goes off, but I can usually nurse him and put him back down so that he can get a little more sleep and I can start my day without him immediately underfoot.
Kaitlyn has been practicing her cartwheel and is good enough now to do one pretty much anywhere. It’s a common occurrence for her to be walking through the house or yard and decide to throw a cartwheel in just to mix things up. She’s been working on reading and writing with me. Progress through the first set of readers is always agonizingly slow and I have to fight her for every page. When she decides to read, though, she does great, and I’ve assured her that the books will go faster with practice. Her writing is also improving. She’s through all the letters and has moved on to copywork. I’m trying to monitor her writing a little more than I did her sisters’ since I’ve noticed that Olivia’s handwriting slants funny because she doesn’t angle her paper and Gretchen makes all her letters from the bottom up. Clearly I let them down in the handwriting department.
Gymnastics continues to be popular in our house. All three girls are in the same Thursday evening class, which has been quite nice logistically. We have a tumbling mat in our living room now that they can pull out to practice cartwheels and handstands. Kaitlyn has the cleanest, most confident flips, but Olivia and Gretchen have improved noticeably in the past month. We got all three of them sweatsuits to wear over their gymnastics clothes and they think they’re so cool. :) Sometimes both boys stay with Bryan while I take the girls to class, and sometimes one or both of them comes with me and we check out the local park. Matthias knows that gymnastics day is the day he gets to go to the park with mom, so he often does his best to come along. He’s going to be out of luck for a while now since it’s pretty cold and dark by 6:00 these days.
Kaitlyn and Matthias have started Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This year we have both the youngest and the oldest in the program. Matthias slipped in a couple of weeks before the deadline and Kaitlyn stayed in on a technicality -- she’s not enrolled in kindergarten anywhere. Kaitlyn took this once a week class last year and loved it. Matthias is enjoying it now, as well, although he does wish he could do the work available to the older kids.
November has been very mild thus far. Actually, it’s been downright summery. The little kids and I took of a 75 degree Monday to visit the zoo while the animals were likely to be out. The highlight of the trip was the river otters. Otters tend to be friendly and exciting anyway, but this time they were especially interested in Kaitlyn. Or rather, they were especially interested in the bright pink bunny ears Kaitlyn was wearing on her head. They kept coming right up to her at the window and then jumping up and swatting at her ears.
I finally managed to get in to see a neurologist about my headaches. They’re mild right now, so it feels a little silly to be having appointments while I’m not really bothered, but the past three years have taught me that they will return. I’m supposed to get an MRI in the coming weeks to make sure that there’s nothing alarming going on inside my head and then we’ll talk treatment. They said more options will be available to me once Theodore weans, which is to be expected.
The end of this week saw our kids in Sidney while Bryan and I drove up to Cleveland to visit Brad and Shantelle. They had a Friendsgiving that we attended as the resident old fogeys. Saturday was dinner and video games and then this morning we went to church early and then made breakfast before everyone else woke up. We had time for a couple of board games before heading back to Sidney.
We’ve also seen a lot of Josef and Angelina since they moved to Columbus. We spent the first weekend of October visiting them at their apartment. We squeezed four kids into the guest/workout/office room and let Theodore sleep in with Josef and Angelina. Then Bryan and I slept in the living room and I went to fetch Theodore when he woke up. It was a fun visit, but quite crowded. A lot of Saturday was spent at a couple of local parks just to get the kids out of the apartment. More recently, Josef and Angelina came to our house and Josef helped me paint the playroom. We did a Jackson Pollack light splatter wall which turned out quite well.
Bryan has started throwing a yearly Halloween party and this year was the second year. He has candy/prize stations around the yard and basement and sets the kids loose to find all the treasures. A highlight is the basement path where they can collect pennies to spend at the clubhouse store. The party gives Bryan an excuse to decorate and lets our kids get their Halloween fix without the hassle of trick or treating. Or in addition to trick or treating. Double Halloween is a big hit.
I took the kids and went to visit the Bossards over a long weekend. Coincidentally, we managed to hit their trick or treating weekend (it worked out that way last year as well), so our kids did get double Halloween after all, despite missing the Lima night. Trick or treating in the Bossards’ neighborhood has both times been more pleasant than our route we usually end up taking in Lima, so perhaps we’ll just have to plan to be there every year. The kids enjoyed playing together and it was a pleasant visit.
In mid October I had my yearly vacation with my friends. We were supposed to go to Chicago this year, but coronavirus made that impractical. We went to Mansfield, OH, instead, and visited Mohican State Park. On Sunday we were able to attend liturgy at the nearby monastery. Then we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant that served an amazing giant Bavarian pretzel. We decided to hike out to see a “low flow” waterfall and arrived at an 80 foot dripping faucet. The hike was nice, but the waterfall was not much of a payout. :)
Bryan and I celebrated 10 years of marriage in September. We delayed our trip for a couple of reasons and, having divvied our kids up among various households, set out for ...Toledo on October 21. We were planning to go to Niagara (the American side) since that’s where we took our honeymoon, but Ohio got put on New York’s travel ban list a week earlier. When I called, the hotel said it had a one week grace period, but if we were still on the list on October 20 then they would cancel our reservation. We were and they did and we threw together new plans the night before we were supposed to leave. Luckily, hotel rooms aren’t too hard to come by midweek, so we didn’t have much trouble once we decided where to go. We had a lovely time in Toledo, visiting both the zoo and the casino twice. Bryan won at craps and then we lost all his winnings at roulette, but we had a good time doing it. I even won once which let us keep playing a little longer. :) After a few days in Toledo we came home and enjoyed our quiet house for three days before retrieving our children.
Theodore walks. He’s been playing around with the idea for months now, but he didn’t really take off until about a week after 14 months. If I’m remembering correctly, that puts him at about the same age as Olivia, and a hair younger than Gretchen. He now chooses to walk everywhere all the time and is steady enough that he only sticks his left arm up for balance sometimes. I write so infrequently these
Kaitlyn has been practicing her cartwheel and is good enough now to do one pretty much anywhere. It’s a common occurrence for her to be walking through the house or yard and decide to throw a cartwheel in just to mix things up. She’s been working on reading and writing with me. Progress through the first set of readers is always agonizingly slow and I have to fight her for every page. When she decides to read, though, she does great, and I’ve assured her that the books will go faster with practice. Her writing is also improving. She’s through all the letters and has moved on to copywork. I’m trying to monitor her writing a little more than I did her sisters’ since I’ve noticed that Olivia’s handwriting slants funny because she doesn’t angle her paper and Gretchen makes all her letters from the bottom up. Clearly I let them down in the handwriting department.
Gymnastics continues to be popular in our house. All three girls are in the same Thursday evening class, which has been quite nice logistically. We have a tumbling mat in our living room now that they can pull out to practice cartwheels and handstands. Kaitlyn has the cleanest, most confident flips, but Olivia and Gretchen have improved noticeably in the past month. We got all three of them sweatsuits to wear over their gymnastics clothes and they think they’re so cool. :) Sometimes both boys stay with Bryan while I take the girls to class, and sometimes one or both of them comes with me and we check out the local park. Matthias knows that gymnastics day is the day he gets to go to the park with mom, so he often does his best to come along. He’s going to be out of luck for a while now since it’s pretty cold and dark by 6:00 these days.
Kaitlyn and Matthias have started Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This year we have both the youngest and the oldest in the program. Matthias slipped in a couple of weeks before the deadline and Kaitlyn stayed in on a technicality -- she’s not enrolled in kindergarten anywhere. Kaitlyn took this once a week class last year and loved it. Matthias is enjoying it now, as well, although he does wish he could do the work available to the older kids.
November has been very mild thus far. Actually, it’s been downright summery. The little kids and I took of a 75 degree Monday to visit the zoo while the animals were likely to be out. The highlight of the trip was the river otters. Otters tend to be friendly and exciting anyway, but this time they were especially interested in Kaitlyn. Or rather, they were especially interested in the bright pink bunny ears Kaitlyn was wearing on her head. They kept coming right up to her at the window and then jumping up and swatting at her ears.
I finally managed to get in to see a neurologist about my headaches. They’re mild right now, so it feels a little silly to be having appointments while I’m not really bothered, but the past three years have taught me that they will return. I’m supposed to get an MRI in the coming weeks to make sure that there’s nothing alarming going on inside my head and then we’ll talk treatment. They said more options will be available to me once Theodore weans, which is to be expected.
The end of this week saw our kids in Sidney while Bryan and I drove up to Cleveland to visit Brad and Shantelle. They had a Friendsgiving that we attended as the resident old fogeys. Saturday was dinner and video games and then this morning we went to church early and then made breakfast before everyone else woke up. We had time for a couple of board games before heading back to Sidney.
01 November 2020
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