Bonus Post: Sound Bites 71

From October 2024:

Theodore is confused about how we measure bigness. Matthias is "two heights" older than him. Which means he's "two pounds" bigger. He wants to know how old he will be when Matthias is "the first height of grown up."

From June 2025:

Olivia I had a question but I don't remember what it was. Oh wait, I just wanted to talk.

Olivia: I can't figure out the answer to this question. Why are they talking about wildfire?
Me: That says wildlife.

Me: Do you want to see an M O V I E?
Olivia: What's an M O V I -- Oh, wait.

Olivia: Mom, you look like someone I know.

Theo says "tiny tin bit" instead of "tiny" and "hugeamungous" to mean something large.

From August 2025:

Me: Matthias, those are not your pants. You have got to notice when your pants don't even come to your ankles. Those are Theodore's pants. 

Me: *checks tag*

Me: And they're on backwards. You're wearing Theodore's pants backwards.

Theo: Easily peasily lemon squeezily.

From October 2025:

Theodore: Hey! The Browns are actually winning!

From January 2026:

Theodore: Mom, can you get me cereal? 

Me: Can you get your own bowl out of the dishwasher and get out the cereal? 

Theo: No.

Me: Why not? 

Theo: Because I don't want to do any work, I just want to eat.

January 18-25

Olivia and I went to La Comedia on Sunday night. A Christmas present for the last three years for each kid has been an individual thing with Bryan and and individual thing with me. Olivia and I have been going to La Comedia, and being creatures of habit we saw no reason to mix it up this year. We decided to see Murder on the Orient Express, which is based on an Agatha Christie book, so of course we read the book first. The play did take a few liberties, which Olivia disliked greatly. She took notes. She decided on the way home that the play was good, but it has to be good on its own because it is NOT the book (which was also good). Classic Olivia. We did learn that there are two movie adaptations (and a TV show?) and we have plans to watch those at some point.

Since reading Murder on the Orient Express, Olivia has decided she likes Agatha Christie and is now working her way through those books. I believe she's on number three, although that's more a collection of shorter mysteries, so she might have skipped ahead to four. Murder on the Orient Express is number ten. So far she has not managed to deduce the murderer before being told. It's a good thing Hercule Poirot is on the case as well. Olivia has been trying to convince her sisters to read with her, giving them enticing but spoiler free synopses of the books she's finished. The main take-away from this as I understand it is that Alfred clearly ate all the cookies, and if Olivia were a better detective she would have noticed that.

Monday was a school holiday and a waste of a perfectly good snow day. Olivia and I went to school midday so that she could play pickleball with some classmates and I could do relatively distraction free lesson planning. Gretchen did NOT have basketball practice, despite a schedule sent out earlier in the month stating that she did. Communications got crossed somewhere, so she and I sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes waiting to see if anyone else would show up before her coach confirmed that she had the day off. Gretchen was decidedly not devastated. While we waited I showed her the This is a Coat song by Holderness Family, and now she sings it when she's in the car. She has also seen the error of her ways and started wearing a coat (but also sometimes just carrying it while she sings in the freezing weather).

On Tuesday our furnace was fixed and on Wednesday it started blowing cold air instead of hot, so on Thursday the furnace guy came back yet again. It turns out there was a sensor that was misaligned and now our furnace both turns on consistently and blows hot air. Luckily for us, the day it was struggling was the warmest one this week. Getting out of bed on Thursday was chilly, but it could have been worse.

Friday night was a Winter Gathering for teachers. Bryan and I told the kids to feed themselves dinner and went bowling with my colleagues. Dinner for the kids was an adventure because we combined it with a "Snack House" activity. They built not-gingerbread houses out of all of the fun supplies that Bryan had purchased, took pictures, and then ate the houses. So dinner was probably mostly crackers and candy, although we did tell them that eating the broccoli was mandatory whether or not their houses had trees. When we arrived home just after nine the house was quiet and three kids were asleep, which was pretty magical.

By Saturday the temperature had dropped enough that I went to the Y for my long run and completed 86 laps around the track -- if my counting was correct. Not my preferred long run venue, but my friend Jill was there so at least I had company. Also on Saturday was a low-key puzzle competition where my team won by completing a 300 piece puzzle in 17:40. This was the first time the organizer had hosted a competition and she was worried that 1.5 hours might not be enough. We did another 300 piece puzzle afterwards for fun before heading home.

Saturday was also the day I decided we needed to tackle the problem that is our house. We have three main rooms and seven people, so we divided and conquered. An hour later all three rooms were cleaned, organized, and swept, plus a little bonus invisible clutter removal in the rooms Bryan and I did. We tried to do time lapse videos, but the first one I accidentally swiped to slow motion as I pressed play. The other might be good, but it is on Kaitlyn's camera so I haven't seen it yet.

This morning we had a fair amount of snow on the ground and it is still falling. Roads are not plowed, at least not in our area, and St Stephen's cancelled all services. We're thinking about trying to make it to St Charles for their later service. I will have to let you know next week if we succeed or if we end up at virtual church. On the plus side, I have given some much needed attention to the oratory in anticipation of virtual church. It's not perfect, but it is better.

Bryan discovered a new game that he bought for our switch: Duck Game. Up to four people can play at once and you just run around (as ducks) and try to kill the other ducks in entertaining ways. It's very quick and very silly, although Theo can only play in small doses because he gets mad when he dies. Bryan's favorite weapon is the net gun, which traps a duck just long enough that if you're quick you can pick them up and toss them over the edge. Matthias's favorite is the mind control gun. He also enjoys the powerful magnet that can attach to armor and muscle a duck over to the side. My preferred (note: preferred, but not recommended) tactic is to panic throw my weapons because I forget which button to use. I am Theodore's favorite opponent.

I tried some new things with my blog these last few weeks. I was attaching captions directly to pictures so that I would have more options when integrating into printed books. Blogger made that a bit of a pain, so this week I played around with Word Press. I thought I had everything figured out, but then Word Press stopped connecting to my Google Photos. So in a fit of pique I moved back to Blogger. And I decided that the individual captions weren't worth the frustration. I will find a book that can print them how I want them when it's time. That sounds like next year Johannah's problem.

Pictures:

January 11-18

Bryan and I are both trying to spend less time on our phones. He put a large 100 sided die in his pocket to get in the way every time he reaches for his phone. It gives him a moment to remember that he doesn't actually need his phone, he's just reaching out of habit. He reports that it is working as planned thus far. I finally activated the tiny smart phone that I purchased a couple of years ago for this purpose. It can do everything a normal sized smart phone can do, but the size makes it quite inconvenient to use for non-essential things. Importantly, I didn't install chrome, which has made a huge difference as well.

We had a snow day on Thursday, much to the delight of the children. It was a very laid back day. Kaitlyn and Matthias played video games together without fighting for several hours while Theo watched them. Olivia, Gretchen, and I played Eye Found It, a Disney I spy game for 5 year olds, and had a grand time. We then promptly packed it back up and put it on the donate pile because we are unlikely to play it again. I also pulled out Taboo to show them. Kaitlyn organized a recital that she recorded on her new camcorder. I'll have to see about getting the video put up somewhere.

Yesterday we went on a family adventure (from a scratch off book that we got for Christmas 2024) to the bowling alley. We have several of these books, and Bryan decided that if we were going to have any chance of completing them before Olivia leaves for college then we need to get moving. So we scratched something off and put it on the calendar for yesterday. We had to try to bowl the lowest score, but also each person got to dictate how to bowl for one frame. It was silly and fun, until I accidentally bowled a spare for Theo (Bryan's rule was that everyone had to pick a different person to bowl for them to try to drive up the score) and he immediately followed it with an accidental 9. Theo still managed to get third place after Bryan and our big winner, Matthias. We had some time left to bowl 7/10 of a real game in which Bryan wiped the floor with the rest of us.

It was also Matthias's unbirthday yesterday. He's a bit of a chore to cater to because he has a lot of specific requests, but we had "homemade pizza" (read: cardboard pizza -- this hurts my soul), bagel bites, and donuts. He originally asked for fried onion chicken as well, but then decided he didn't really want that. At least he picks things that I can just buy from the store and toss in the oven, unlike his father who wants things like Thai green curry and entremets. 

Gretchen discovered a mermaid tail blanket from several years ago and dressed up fabulously. She wanted to make sure her fashion statement was documented for posterity. Pictures below.

Bryan got a giant soft blanket for Christmas from his sister. His first question was, "Are you sure this is for me and not for Johannah?" She replied that she got it because he complained that I always stole his blanket and this way he would have one to use. It is a fabulous blanket and, while I do leave it for Bryan to use at night, I love it more than he does.

Theodore has a way of playing with his matchbox cars where he bonks them into each other by flinging them together forcefully. If one turns around on its belly, it is dead and gets eliminated. He repeats this process over and over until he is left with one champion. This game gets played pretty much every day right now. He also wants you to know that he likes building car tracks and using boosters to make the cars drive fast.

Olivia had a high school placement test that worried her mightily but went well. She's very comfortable at the high school since she's been taking Spanish there this year, so she was at least not worried about finding her way around the location. She and Bryan and I also had to go in for a meet and greet with teachers/administrators so that they could impart important information and we could ask pressing questions. Two more things checked off the high school application list. I think all that's left is turning in financial aid paperwork, although sometimes they add steps to the checklist without telling me and I discover them later.

Our furnace has been doing this fun thing where it doesn't heat reliably. It hasn't dropped below 63 yet, but it does struggle to go much higher than that during the day. Until it doesn't, and then it's fine for a while. This was a problem near the end of last winter as well, so we nursed it through with the occasional percussive maintenance. At the beginning of this winter, I called someone. Unfortunately, the furnace was on its best behavior and the problem was not observed. Since then, it's been a game. Can I catch it not working when I also have time to be home to meet a technician? And will it stay not working long enough for him to drive to my house? This week I finally caught it. A faulty pressure switch was diagnosed and repaired. The furnace worked. But then a couple of hours later it did not work again. The tech came back. The fan in a can was the immediate next suspect, but was exonerated. He's thinking the control board, which of course is hard to find because the furnace is 20 years old, so maybe we should just get a new furnace. Bryan and I pretty much decided to continue on as we had been (after all, the basement has its own furnace if we end up needing to escape the cold) when the technician called with news that he had found a control board. So we're getting that fixed in the next week or two and hopefully our furnace will limp along with fewer diagnostic thwacks for a few more years.

Pictures:

Bowling, but only Olivia
was paying attention.

Bowling, take 2.

I was at bowling as well!

Gretchen's post bowling strut was fun.

Milling around getting ready.

Four kids playing Heave Ho,
one watching happily.

Kaitlyn's hamster, Li'l Lilly.

Me enjoying Bryan's blanket.

Kids enjoying video games.

Theodore and his car game.

This is Gretchen.

January 4-11

Gretchen's aggression in basketball leaves much to be desired, but her enthusiasm is there. This week she got a steal during a game AND successfully passed the ball to a teammate. I don't ever watch her play and wouldn't understand what was happening if I did, but judging from her excitement and Bryan's congratulations, this was a big deal for her. In yesterday's game she touched the ball at least twice. :)

Matthias is also playing basketball and Bryan went to that game while I was at Gretchen's. They won, and Matthias says they are undefeated this season.

I forgot to mention last week that I managed to lose my voice for a few days. On Sunday I could sing only my lowest 4 notes, and by Sunday night I was alternating honking and whispering, much to Bryan's amusement. On Monday I woke up with only a whisper that mostly served to make all the children in the house (ours and the Smiths) seem exceptionally loud and uncouth. Jacque and Will sat nearby  and whispered back to me during conversations, which made the whole experience very secretive. By the time the Bossards arrived just after lunch, my voice was speaking again, albeit quietly. Over the course of the week it slowly regained strength and each day I managed a few more sung notes. I was still not at full strength yet this week, which made teaching music classes a little more exciting.

I also neglected to mention that our priest, Father Joshua, has been moved to a new parish. December 28 was his last Sunday with us and we were sad to see him go. The Archbishop is hoping to have a new priest at St Stephen by mid-summer, but until then we're back to the constant parade of visiting priests. We do have a freshly minted Deacon at our church now, so on the in between weeks we will have communion within the shorter typica service. Our typicas were getting rusty anyway.

Bryan took an overnight trip to Chicago to see our new Deacon (Josh Hodges) get ordained on January 6. He stayed with Jacque and returned a small box of things that the Smiths had accidentally forgotten in our house.

Friday was the spelling bee at St Charles. Olivia and Gretchen both participated. I missed seeing it because I was teaching, but Gretchen ended up getting 3rd place! Olivia was eliminated on the word "winsome" after she debated internally a little too long about whether or not to add the e. Gretchen was eliminated in the same round as second place (but she spelled first) on the word "riveted," which remains a disappointment to her because she knows how to spell that word.

Also on Friday was my Music Together class, which normally would be so routine as to avoid mention, but this week was the start of a new session and I had a FULL CLASS! 12 kids is the cap -- a cap I've never had to worry about before because I've never had more than 7 (in a summer session... 5 in a school year session). But somehow between November and January seven new families discovered my class and signed up and now my class is maxed out. It was delightful. This is my dream.

Related, I got an email from Lima, Peru, asking me in Spanish about my classes. I had to tell a parent than although their 10 month old was the perfect age, I am a little far away. I am assuming that my newfound popularity is due to my actual website (I upgraded from Wix at the end of August). Turns out that matters more than I want it to.

Theodore thought of a story he wants immortalized in the books: Remember when we had a big box and one kid would get in it and then we would close it up and tell mom and dad they had a package? And then they would open it and the package was us! That was so much fun!

Bryan claims I steal the blankets.
I claim he shoves them on me.
This is the bed in the morning when he hasn't slept in it.

3rd place in the spelling bee!

December 28-January 4

I'm just going to pretend I didn't take a two (five) year hiatus...

The kids love the blog books and want to keep reading about themselves even as they get bigger. If you want to leave a comment, saying something on the actual post rather than on the discord server is preferred because when I do eventually turn these into blog books I like to print the comments as well. If that is prohibitively inconvenient to you, discord commentary is acceptable.

We had a lot of visitors this week. Josef and family came in last Friday, Jillian arrived late Friday/early Saturday, Jacque et al joined the party mid afternoon on Saturday, and the Bossards rolled in just after lunch on Monday. Josef and Angelina actually had to leave on Sunday (before the Bossards arrived), but it was nice to get to see everyone in little groups. Smiths and Bossards stayed until the 1st and our family spent the rest of that day decompressing.

All the cousins seemed to get along well. Jacque's kids are becoming more comfortable here, so Julian and Samuel jumped right in and Lenore spent some time near the end happily existing in not-the-same-room as her parents. William and Olivia were the Lenore whisperers, displaying enough calm patience and persistence to win her affection. Gretchen managed to accidentally invent a game where Lenore would happily high five Olivia, but then equally happily NOT high five Gretchen. The girls wanted to get it on video, but I don't think they managed that feat. Margaret and Lenore were good buddies and amused us with their adorable two-year-old antics.

Many games were played at our dining room table, many meals were eaten in our sunroom and living room (because our table was full of games). A package of shrinky dinks was opened, decorated, and shrunk. Living room workouts were de rigueur. Video games were enjoyed, the hot tub was used, bread was baked, cookies were consumed. The kitchen was closed to all between-meal requests, but we did provide vegetables -- Justine and I are not total despots. We did go through 7 pounds of carrots in one day after discovering on a previous day that carrots were the most popular vegetable by far (followed, in order, by peppers, mushrooms, and finally broccoli). We took two cousin line-ups, one with the Barhorst, Smiths, and Fentons, and the second with the Barhorsts, Bossards, and Smiths. If I recall correctly, the latter is less of a line-up and more of a mix-up, much to the chagrin of some of the more orderly older children.

New Year's Eve was an event, with several different countdowns. Bossards and Smiths were here, and our friends the Miroglios joined us, as well as Bryan's brother, Brad, and his family. We counted down and celebrated at 7 pm (midnight by Greenwich Mean Time, which felt exceedingly appropriate). But we forgot the kid champagne, so we counted down again at 8 pm and the kids clinked glasses. Adults thought we might make it to midnight -- hah -- but then gave up and had our champagne at... 9:31. We were aiming for 9:30 because Justine said someone was celebrating then. I don't remember which country, and we missed anyway because we were too slow with the champagne. I went to bed right after that. Bryan committed to staying up, as did Olivia, Gretchen, Kaitlyn, and Matthias. Bryan's brother and sister-in-law, Brad and Shantelle, were here and made it to midnight as well. Welcoming the New Year with the most joy and alertness was Brad and Shanelle's 17-month-old, Lincoln.

These last couple of days have been calm and lazy. We are not ready for school and activities to start back up tomorrow. Gretchen had a basketball game on Saturday. Matthias went to Fort Wayne to play laser tag with some friends. Kaitlyn, Olivia, and Theo entertained themselves around the house. I went for a run and finished my grades and decided that this is the year I resurrect the blog. Fingers crossed.

Pictures:

Cousin line-up. Barhorst, Smiths, Fentons.

Cousin mix-up. Barhorst, Bossards, Smiths.

     

Box hats. Olivia, Sam, Margaret.

Living room workout class.

We're I'm an adult! Matthias and Walter.

Matthias and Theodore, all snuggled up.