December 10-17

Matthias grabs things!  It started with the toys on his arch (just as we were about to retire it to the basement...) and now he can get his carseat lion, too.  He also scoots backwards on his stomach.  See the amusing pictures below.

Kaitlyn likes to use everyone's middle names.  When asked who she is, she responds with "I Kaitlyn Elaine!"  Mom thinks this means that Kaitlyn is in trouble too often, but I actually just really like to say her middle name, so I think that's where she picked it up.  Kaitlyn also wanders through the house hollering for Olivia Helen and Gretchen Bernice.

I decided to attempt a vegan German chocolate cake for my birthday this year.  Yes, my birthday was last week, but I was busy.  We celebrated on Tuesday.  The cake was comically flat (three layers looked more like one and a half) and too pale due to lack of egg yolks, but it tasted pretty good.  I'd say the taste was more like a store German chocolate cake than a homemade one.  Regardless, it was too inconvenient and too time consuming and didn't feel like we were really following the spirit of the fast even though we followed the letter, so in the future I'll just wait until my baptism birthday and have the real thing!

Due to unfortunate circumstances, I drove 200 miles in two days this week.  Gretchen had a dress rehearsal for her dance recital on Wednesday night, and then the whole family drove down to Sidney (that mileage doesn't even count because Bryan drove it).  On Thursday we visited with Grandma and then I left all four kids with her in the afternoon while I drove up to Van Wert (northwest of Lima) for an orchestra rehearsal followed by an evening concert.  Side note: My concert was accompaniment for Michael W. Smith and Jordan Smith.  Neither of these names meant anything to me, but apparently mom and dad used to listen to Michael W. Smith before I was born and Murry saw Jordan Smith on The Voice a few years ago.  After the concert, I went back to Sidney to be with my family.  Olivia's dress rehearsal for the same dance recital  was on Friday evening, so I drove her back to Lima for that and then we of course had to return to Sidney when it was done.

Yesterday was "Murry's Christmas," the official Barhorst present opening day.  Since we have church and Keshia wants to start her own Christmas traditions at her house with her kids, Murry just decided to move her celebration up a few days.  We all gathered there Friday night and played games after the kids went to bed.  Murry and I started a Christmas puzzle.  Then on Saturday morning we opened the pile of presents under the tree.  The girls got a few new shoes, boots, and dresses, as well as some books and toys.  Matthias slept through most of the opening.  I'd had the great foresight to bring laundry baskets this year for easy transportation, so we just tossed presents in as they were opened.  Note to self: do this every year.  We packed everything up last night and then left in time for church this morning.

Pictures:

August 13-27

I got tired of putting off my last post, so when I finished it on Monday I backdated it to Sunday.  If you're someone who only checks on Sundays, go look for it.  :)

Mom, Dad, and James were here for several days during all the craziness.  I didn't really note that in my last post.  We mostly just enjoyed spending time together.

Mom and I painted a tree on the wall.  I've had an idea for a thankful tree since last November, but never screwed up enough courage to actually put paint on my wall.  With mom around for moral support, I decided the tree was going to happen!  We picked a general design, decided not to sketch it out first, and she called encouragement from the other room as I took a deep breath and made the first brush strokes of a trunk.  Once the trunk was done, she came in to help with branches.  We think it turned out quite well.  :)  The idea is that everyone writes things they are thankful for on construction paper cutouts and uses sticky tac to affix them to the tree.  I have dies in the shape of leaves, flowers, butterflies, and snowflakes, so we can change the tree with the seasons.

Matthias had his one month appointment on August 15.  He is 11 pounds, 13 ounces, and 23 inches long.  The pediatrician also noticed a tight muscle in the left side of his neck, probably caused by being wedged in one position during the last month or so of the pregnancy due to his size.  It's not overly severe, but it does cause him to favor looking left (something I had noticed).  We've been told to stretch and massage it in an effort to help loosen that muscle so that his head doesn't flatten.

Kaitlyn says "pick my up" instead of "pick me up."  That in and of itself is not particularly noteworthy, but as a result she also uses "pick my down" to be put down.  :)

Kaitlyn words: Pack-CAT = backpack

A story that got left out of last week's month's post:

Justine and I were downstairs in the basement looking at tubs of clothes and toys.  The big kids were playing, the babies were napping, and there were adults scattered throughout the house.  When we came upstairs, Jacque met us at the door holding Matthias.  Kaitlyn pushed her way outside and Jacque said, "Do you want to tell Mommy what you did?"  Kaitlyn looked at me proudly.  "I give Matthias a Aunt Jacque!"  Apparently Kaitlyn had gone into Matthias's room and came out carrying him by the back of his clothes.  Arms in front of her, she staggered out with the neck and bottom of his sleeper clenched in her fists.  Jacque leapt to the rescue and saved him from being dropped on his face.  As I resignedly removed the bassinet attachment from his pack and play, Jacque wondered if Matthias's neck would be okay.  Mom and I reassured her that since he was face down his neck would be fine.  Mom tried to figure out how Katilyn managed to get him face down since he sleeps on his back.  I was able to help shed some light on the mystery: Kaitlyn can't actually reach into the center of the pack and play bassinet.  She climbs partway up the side of the mesh, braces herself with her armpits, and then she can reach far enough to roll Matthias toward the side.  Once she had rolled him, I assume she climbed down, reached inside, and used her tremendous wrist strength (?!) to lift him over the side.  Needless to say, the bassinet has been relegated to the basement.  Now the worst Kaitlyn can do is climb into the pack and play, land on top of Matthias, chuck him over the side, and then climb out, landing on him again.  That's an improvement, right?

We watched the eclipse on Monday.  The girls did not know it was coming until five minutes before I put the live feed on the television.  We had a different live stream on the computer, just in case.  :)  I gave a brief explanation and then we watched.  Lima was expecting 85% totality, which in reality just looks like an overcast day but with defined shadows.  Just before the peak of the eclipse, it became an actual overcast day with rain, so we got to experience darkness anyway.  :-P  We did manage to make it outside with a pinhole projector before the clouds rolled in, but I don't think the girls really understood what was happening.  I thought it was cool.  For the next eclipse I need to have them use a pinhole projector on the uneclipsed sun first so that they know what normal looks like.

We saw a dragon at Lowe's.  I was on a quest to get a piece of plexiglass cut to fit in our little IKEA bin table.  With the plexiglass and a string of stick on LED lights, it can be a light table as well as a regular table!  But I digress.  Lowe's has realized that Halloween is a mere two months (and one week) away, so they have their giant blow-up decorations prominently displayed.  I confess, however, that I would not have noticed the dragon, or perhaps any of the decorations, had all three girls not started pointing and jabbering about a dragon.  (Side note: In my defense, the dragon itself was suspended from the ceiling, but still...  I wonder how much else I walk by without noticing each day.)  I looked up and, lo and behold, a 9-foot black dragon with moving wings, glowing eyes, and pretend fire coming out of his mouth was looming over us.  Such excitement has not been seen at Lowe's since the day Olivia discovered the chandelier section.  We took care of the plexiglass and then headed back to the entrance to admire decorations for a minute or twenty.  They also had a pirate ship, a monster with spinning eyes, some fancy lights, pumpkins, skeletons, and two spooky trees.  I eventually called a halt to the decoration admiration and we bid a sad farewell to the dragon.

Kaitlyn knows some of her colors.  Blue, red, white, and orange are solid.  Green, yellow, and purple less so.  She has also conquered screw on tops, as is evidenced in one of the below pictures.  This is not new, I just haven't ever remembered to mention it.

Matthias is doing things!  Well, only kind of.  He occasionally makes a sound that is not one of distress, which is quite exciting.  Of more note, at least as far as his mother is concerned, he's sleeping fantastically.  He's been getting at least eight hours each night for two weeks now and as of this writing had four nights in a row where he went to bed between 8 and 9 and didn't get up until 7:30.  This boy knows how to win friends and influence mothers.

Pictures:

December 27-January 3

This was a busy week.  You may remember that last Saturday we returned home from Sidney in time to meet Justine and her boys as they came from Michigan.  Since Josef, Jacob, Jacque, and Zach were with us, our house was rather full that night.  Sunday was the day that the Bishop visited St. Stephen's, so we had a longer-than-usual service followed by a potluck meal.  Tom and Donna met us at church after the service to pick up some things of Zach's (but not Zach himself) and to say goodbye to Jacque before she went to Michigan for a wedding.  She took our van because her car was misbehaving, so Jacob ferried everyone home in his Civic.  Several trips later, we were all back at our house, and Tom and Donna stayed to visit for a bit before heading on their merry way.

Bryan went back to work on Monday, but everyone else was free to sleep in (or not, in the case of the children) and hang out during the day.  Jacque returned from Michigan, bringing Joseph along with her (he'd stayed for an extra day, knowing that she was making the trip).  Josef, Jacob, and Zach stayed until mid-afternoon and Keshia and Tyler (Bryan's sister and her husband) came to visit about the same time.  After dinner and games, Keshia and Tyler returned to Sidney and Sarah and Luther (Joseph's sister and her husband) showed up on our doorstep.  :)

Tuesday was the day that Jacque took her car to get fixed.  Justine and I started feta cheese and resurrected my sourdough starter.  That evening, I ran to the store and then picked Jacque up from the car place in time for dinner.  I couldn't take her back to get her newly healed car, though, because I had orchestra rehearsal.  When I got home from rehearsal, everyone had been taught the game Dominion and they were all happily playing using the two new expansions that Bryan got for Christmas.  We also got a call from Ricky and Nathan (Fenton side cousins) asking if they could sleep at our house on their way from California to Times Square.  Two more air mattress beds were constructed and I cleaned the kitchen while waiting for them to arrive.  Of course, their car overheated eight miles from our house, so they didn't arrive until just after two...

Wednesday morning I stumbled out of bed at 6:15 to fish the feta cheese out of its brine.  Note to all cheese makers: 10 hours in the brine is better than 12.  It was much less salty this time.  Second note: Hang the feta to drain for 4 hours (rather than letting it sit in a colander like the directions say); it gets much drier this way.  Having returned to bed, I got another hour of sleep before Gretchen woke me up and the day got started.  Bryan did NOT make it out of bed, having lost too much sleep up to this point.  Justine made sourdough pretzels, using my starter up completely since I decided that I just don't care enough to keep up with it.  She also made muddy buddies, because why not?  Danielle and Wilson (my college roommate and her husband) arrived in time for dinner and we all played teledraw after the kids went to bed.

Sarah, Luther, Danielle, and Wilson stayed until just before lunch on Thursday and then took off to continue their Christmas visiting elsewhere.  Joseph drove back to Michigan to ring in the New Year with some friends from college.  That afternoon I had an orchestra rehearsal, followed by dinner at home and then the concert.  After the concert I stopped at Wal-Mart hoping to find A Cinderella Story and apple cider for a throwback New Year's Eve party with Justine and Jacque.  Fail on both counts.  We made our wassail with apple juice and debated watching The Prince and Me on Netflix before deciding to watch Parks and Recreation and play Dominion with Bryan instead.  The new year came in an understated, unheralded way: we only noticed because I checked my phone before going to bed at 12:04.  That's about how our parties always went growing up, too.  :)

By Friday morning the house felt empty and was only getting emptier.  The Bossard crew waited until Joseph came back with the van and then packed up to head back to Massachusetts.  Jacque hung around until after dinner before taking off for Dayton.  Bryan and I played a couple more games of Dominion and then crashed.

Saturday my batteries died.  The morning went pretty well, but I fell asleep reading my book around 2:30.  I woke up to go to Mass with Bryan and the kids at 4, but during the car ride felt quite unwell and ended up staying in the van.  As soon as we got home, I went to bed for the night.  Happily, I felt quite recovered by the next morning.

Pictures:

October 4-11

Olivia and Gretchen have a barbie named "Bad Girl" (as in evil, not disobedient).  She's actually a beautiful collector's barbie dressed as a bride.  She does, however, have a pretty heavy layer of makeup on her face.  When I asked Olivia why she was called Bad Girl, she responded, "Look at her eyes!"

A remembered story that illustrates the difference between girls and boys: When we visited Boston, all of the children were playing happily in the living room.  Olivia and Gretchen began playing together while their cousins ignored them.  I believe Edward was playing with trucks and William was reading a book.  Olivia convinced Gretchen to play Cinderella with her, and they danced around for a little while before Olivia ran away saying, "I'm running away!  Chase me, prince!"  Gretchen complied, and they ran a lap around the room before starting over.  They repeated this a few more times before William noticed what was happening.  As soon as he did notice, however, he immediately dropped his book and jumped up.  With a gleeful "Chase Olivia!", he took off running around the corner and tackled her onto a chair.

Gretchen is officially diaper free.  She spent the whole week in Boston wearing a diaper only at bedtime.  While there, she noticed that potty-training William got to wear underwear to bed and asked if she could, too, but we didn't want to deal with the hassle.  Once we got home, though, she woke up dry several mornings and got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night once, so we gave her the option one night and she chose to do without the diaper.  So far, so good.

Kaitlyn has started sitting up.  She doesn't get a lot of practice because of things like hardwood floors and overly enthusiastic sisters, but she does a pretty good job when given the chance.  She's also been rocking on hands and knees with increasing regularity, which is tremendously exciting to Olivia especially.  I am curious to see how wonderful Olivia and Gretchen think Kaitlyn's crawling is once she starts going for their toys...

Kaitlyn has also started solid foods.  At lunch on Saturday, she sat on my lap (as she often does) and tried to grab my Chipotle burrito out of my hand.  She was quite irate when I wouldn't share, so I pacified her with grains of rice until Bryan could take her and I could finish my meal without losing it all over the table.  On Sunday I mentioned to a friend at church that I was going to have to make baby food and she gave me some leftover rice cereal and a few cubes of vegetable puree the her recently-graduated-to-table-food one-year-old wasn't going to eat.  We started with that and I picked up some vegetables on Monday night and spent a few days steaming and pureeing.  So far Kaitlyn has had squash, spinach, and applesauce and seems quite content.

Yesterday was the first orchestra concert of the season, which means that this last week I had rehearsals every night.  Bryan and Jacque put the girls to bed all week and Kaitlyn's new puree obsession meant that they didn't even have to worry about her too much.  What good timing.  :)  Orchestra was great, and I once again appreciated the fact that once a month I have a commitment that requires me to pick up and play my viola.

Jacque is living with us!  She came with us from Boston and is staying here until she moves to Chicago sometime in the nearish future.  We set up her queen bed (box spring and mattress only) in the middle of my workroom and squeezed her things in around the edges.  She was exceedingly helpful in the babysitting department last week when Bryan had to be in Springfield several days and I had orchestra.  Although I suspect she's still getting her fill of small children, the girls appear to have accepted her as one of the family and thus tend to ignore her rather than resorting to constant performance mode.

Did you know that you can check artwork out of libraries?  Our old library had this option and I always wondered what the point was.  While we were driving to and from Boston, however, I was listening to various podcasts and one talked about having artwork around for your kids to look at.  I had the brilliant idea of letting the girls check out masterpieces from the library and on Monday morning we all marched over to the little visited section of framed art.  Olivia and Gretchen happily picked out pictures (shown below; Olivia liked the princesses and Gretchen likes that there are three) and we hung them up in the playroom where they can admire them.  In two months, we'll take them back and get new ones.  :)  While we were picking out paintings, Jacque found a Renoir that she liked, so I went back on Friday and got that for her to hang in her bedroom.

Tuesday was a trip to the Fort Wayne zoo (because we have a membership!).  We conquered Australia and the Indiana farm before heading home.  The most exciting part was probably the peacock that joined us for lunch before we even got through the front gates, although we also enjoyed the sea lions, the stingrays, and the goats.  We were allowed to pet the goats and help brush them, and Olivia made sure to touch each one exactly once.  Aunt Jacque bought some stuffed animals at the zoo store on the way out, and the girls played happily with their new lion and tiger all the way home.

I've been reading chapter books out loud before quiet time, and we just finished another one.  We've now done Charlotte's Web, Winnie the Pooh, and Beezus and Ramona.  After we read Ramona the Pest, I think we're going to move on to a couple of the Little House books and then maybe Heidi. Secret Garden, or A Little Princess.  Any suggestions would be gladly accepted.  I'm looking at you, reader that is getting a master's in library science and has a job in the children's department of the library.  :)

Pictures and Videos:

April 27-May 4

Two weeks ago, I promised more information about the weekend with Oma and Opa.  Then last week was ridiculously busy and my belated post had no reference to any time spent in Michigan.  So.  Here's a quick version of what happened in Michigan:

-The girls and I went to the Good Friday service and Olivia broke the solemn silence at the very end by saying, "Are we done now?" quite clearly.  5 bonus points to anyone in the church who didn't have to stifle a laugh.  Dad finished taking off his vestments and then came to find Olivia and inform her that yes, we were done now.
-I helped Mom cook all sorts of delicious things for after Easter.  We also dyed eggs.  Still no luck on getting nice red ones.  Apparently onion skins are supposed to be good for getting red?  Mom, we should try this next year (there are two links).
-The vigil started at 9, so the girls went in pajamas.  We brought Olivia's pillow and blanket, so she immediately set up a bed on the chairs and fell asleep.  Gretchen, not so much.  She played in the back, looking progressively more drunk as the service progressed.  Getting braver while simultaneously getting less coordinated leads to a lot of bumped heads.  Bryan finally wrestled Gretchen to sleep around 11, I think.  Luckily, both girls transferred to their beds after the service without too much trouble.  Church did look a little bit like a crime scene, though, with all the small bodies strewn about.
-Bryan wanted to bring sandwiches for after the service, because every Christmas and Easter we just fill up on a lot of sweet stuff in the middle of the night.  This was a fantastically well-received idea, and we should make a point to get a couple of party subs from Subway every year.
-After the Easter morning service, we went out to see Uncle Ted and Aunt Ruth.  The food was good, the company was fun, and the egg hunt was warm and suitably easy for the girls and hard for the big kids.  The chocolate chips did melt in the eggs, though.
-Gretchen did a practice cake-smash at Ted and Ruth's.  After we gave her a bite of cake, she happily picked it up and managed to stay pretty clean.  Then she put it down and whined a bit about the frosting all over her hand.  ...Until she noticed that there was FROSTING ALL OVER HER HAND!!!  She licked the frosting off, getting it all over her nose and cheek in the process.  Jacob took pictures, which I will steal and put up someday.  Probably.
-Rachel and Gretchen share the same birthday, so we made Rachel smash a piece of cake, too.  She obliged the crowds by lifting her plate and plastering the cake against her face.  A bit of a waste of a piece of cake, but the pictures should be great and the reaction was priceless.
-We left Ted and Ruth's and stopped at Bryan's parents' house for an hour or so on our way home.  As we left, Olivia told my mom that she was going to "go to Grandma's house and lie down on the couch and watch Scooby Doo."  She wasn't wrong.  We did also convince her to sit outside in the beautiful weather for a little bit.

On Sunday (the most recent one, now), Gretchen got to do another cake smash.  She was a little warier this time, needing to be coaxed into picking up the cake.  She did pick it up enough to get her hand messy, but then noticed that there were enough potentially sympathetic faces around for whining to have a chance.  Sure enough, as soon as she started whining pitifully, several people stepped forward to assist by feeding her the rest of the piece.

Jacque came to visit us overnight before I took her to the airport the next day.  Funny story: Keshia and Tyler, Steve, and Jacque were all flying from Dayton to Chicago on Monday afternoon.  In fact, Steve and Jacque were originally on the same flight.  Anyway.  Bryan and I brought out the game Jacque had given us for Christmas, and the three of us enjoyed several rounds of Scribbo, which is essentially Bingo meets Scrabble.  Bryan and I have played Scribbo almost every day since Jacque left.  On Monday afternoon, I dropped Jacque off at the airport with her bags and some apple butter (since she loved the jar I sent so much) and then turned around to head home.  Halfway home, I talked to her on the phone: the security agents confiscated her (sealed!) apple butter and tossed it in the trash.  Sad day.  :(  Mom thinks maybe somebody rescued it later to have a tasty treat to take home.  Jacque, I will make more apple butter this summer and you can take home as much as you can carry.

Gretchen had an appointment Monday morning.  She is 20 lbs, 12 oz, and 30 inches long.  It would appear that she is actually 30 inches this time (as opposed to at her last appointment, when they said she was 30 but she was really only about 28).  This was the one-year appointment, so she had to get 4 shots and a blood draw.  In an unfortunate development for Gretchen, she seems to have inherited my difficult veins, so they had to poke around for quite some time during the blood draw before the needle would go in.  One is a terrible age.  Luckily, she'll never be one again (she will be five someday, though, and that will be similarly awful).

Gretchen made our wall!  We went for her one-year-old pictures on Wednesday and I had the difficult decision of narrowing down which one to order.  I chose one, but was hoping I could show Bryan (and my faithful readers, of course!) some of the other ones when we got home.  Two days later, having still not received the link that they usually send, I called to find out what had happened.  It turns out that they changed their policy, and in order to get a link to their product ordering page you now have to buy a package that contains a CD.  Fine.  The one I picked is great anyway.  :)

Pictures and Videos:

December 8-15

If you're receiving this by email for the first time, see the beginning of this post.

I remember having little cupcake crayons when we were kids.  Mom would take all the broken pieces, toss them in a muffin tin, and melt them down into new crayons for us to use.  Olivia has a lot of broken crayons, so I decided to do this.  I wasn't able to mix the colors with the same reckless abandon that my mother did, but I did pair a couple up to fill the tins a bit more.  This ended up being a good thing, because I didn't know how long (or how hot) to bake the crayons, and managed to melt them down until the colors were completely mixed.  So instead of the swirly colored crayons we had, Olivia ended up with some new solid colors.  At least I was cautious, so she didn't end up with six shades of brown.  She was intrigued by them and seems to like using them better than her regular crayons.

Gretchen has been practicing her consonants.  She's especially good at mamamamama.  Her other favorite right now is ba (usually just one at a time).  She held up a ball the other day and said, "ba," sounding especially smart.  We'll just ignore all the other things she labels as "ba."  :)

A follow-up appointment for a second flu shot and a check on her ear infection gave us the opportunity to weigh Gretchen again.  At 7 months, she was 16 lbs, 10 oz, which is still over a pound lighter than Olivia was at six months.  This surprised Bryan, because Gretchen eats meals like she might never get fed again.  She puts away more food at one meal than Olivia does in a week.  Apparently she also burns it off faster.

Olivia sounds more like a big person every day.  I'll call her from the other room, and she'll answer with, "yes, mommy?"  She also says, "bless you, baby Gretchen" when Gretchen sneezes, says thank you without being prompted (not all the time, but sometimes), and asks Bryan to "brush the girl's hair" when he puts her to bed.

It's cookie walk time again, so I have more Spritz notes:
-I use medium eggs and the chocolate recipe calls for 2 large eggs.  This year my batter seemed especially dry, so I put in an extra medium egg.  This was a good decision.
-Soften the butter in the microwave before adding the sugar.
-Roll the dough into a log.  It's not that hard, and the time saved is tremendous.
-The chocolate batter is easier to work with if it is slightly chilled.  Do not chill the vanilla batter.  The recipe didn't lie to you.  (Side note: If you're one of those people who buys the Pillsbury cookie dough just to eat the dough with no intention of every baking it into cookies (that's everybody), you should make vanilla spritz and put the dough in the fridge.  I tasted mine, and I'm pretty sure that's how Pillsbury makes their cookies.)
-Don't be afraid to use more than one click per cookie.  One and a half is often the magic number.

Also some notes about Austrian chocolate balls:
-Double batches are very workable.  Larger than that would be unwieldy.
-The recipe says to dip each ball in the frosting, but I get impatient and stir them all into the frosting instead.  (Bonus to this method: the whole cookie gets a chocolate coating, instead of just the top.)  Six batches at a time is a bit much for this technique, though.  Actually, how does using some sort of frosting tip sound?  That might be easiest.
-Large eggs make the batter a little too moist and the cookies flatten in the oven.  Add a little extra flour and you're good to go.

Pictures and Video:

Bonus Post: 30 Before 30

There's something being popularized by bloggers (especially those of the mom variety) lately called "30 before 30."  It's similar to a bucket list, but with a finite number of goals and a more easily predicted deadline.  I thought it would be fun to try and, after showing my list to him, convinced Bryan to try it, too.  When I started my list, I saw it as a way to put some things I've been wanting to do down on paper so that I'd remember them and (ideally) actually do them.  Looking over the finished list, it looks like I also tried to use it as a way to balance all the parts of my life.  :)

Presenting, in no particular order, my 30 before 30:

1.  Genuinely surprise Bryan at least once.
2.  Record the psalms.
3.  Run a sub-2:00 half marathon.
4.  Sell at least one thing I've made (at the Farmer's Market or on Etsy).
5.  Learn Spanish.
6.  Record all 6 cello suites.
7.  Sew Christmas and/or Easter dresses for the girls.
8.  Minimize (eliminate?) the need for disposable products in our house.
9.  Have a compost pile.
10.  Play with at least 2 professional orchestras.
11.  Go 7 days in a row without letting my temper get the better of me.
12.  Make an honest attempt at clean eating/real food.
13.  *Skipped because knowledge by some of my readers could skew the results.*
14.  Go on an overnight vacation with just our family.
15.  Grow a garden.
16.  Write a book.
17.  Sew a skirt that becomes my favorite.
18.  Volunteer to host campout.
19.  Go through RCIA.
20.  Attend Seekers' Group (similar to RCIA, offered by the Orthodox church in Lima).
21.  Complete at least 3 things on my (ever growing) Projects List.
22.  Start a soup kitchen.
23.  Make pectin-free jam.  Make up the recipe.
24.  Go on an overnight vacation with Bryan -- no kids.
25.  Use up all the coupons Bryan gave me (I still have some from when we were dating).
26.  Learn one of the 3 big concertos.
27.  Arrange a regularly recurring get-together with the Lima folk.
28.  Have a religious conversation with Bryan that doesn't end in tears.
29.  Make a new friend.
30.  Improve a stranger's day.
31.  (Because I thought of one more and it kind of fits in with several of the above goals)  Join a co-op.

October 6-13

Last Friday, some women from church took the girls and me to see the sunflowers.  I didn't even know we had a giant field of sunflowers.  There was a hailstorm earlier this summer, so the flowers were apparently shorter than usual.  That turned out to be a good thing, though, because they were more Olivia's height.

Olivia knows her ABCs.  I did not realize this.  She listens to them on Pandora, but other than that we haven't really worked on them.  One day, though, she was singing in the stroller, as she is wont to do, and I very clearly heard, "LMNOP Q R S, T U V, W X, Y and Z."  I listened when she went through a second time (which is pretty much inevitable), and she also knew A through H.  I, J, and K simply don't exist in her alphabet.  Anyway.  She practices her ABCs periodically, usually mixed in with Baa, Baa, Black Sheep (but never with Twinkle, Twinkle, oddly enough).  This week I also discovered that she can identify B, D, E, L, M, N, O, R, S, T, and W.  Those are the only ones I tried before she got bored and I ran out of space on my writing surface.  You will notice, though, that using those letters you can spell "Browns," which makes her father happy.  Actually, I'm guessing that one reason she knows B, N, O R, S, and W is because of the large wooden letters on the wall in our room at Steve and Murry's house.  :)

Speaking of Steve and Murry's house, we were there all week.  I had rehearsal almost every night in Lima, so we just moved in with them to cut the driving time in half.  Bryan was able to work from home one day and stayed at our house instead of driving back another night, so that helped with his commute, also.  Everyone had work still, so the girls and I just hung out and pretended we were at our house.  We even made it to the local storytime on Friday.

I'm awarding the points for Gretchen's sleep to Bryan and Stephanie.  10 to Bryan for suggesting that we just keep her up when she's crabby instead of letting her take a late afternoon nap, and 15 to Stephanie for informing me of the day care schedule: wake up, 2 hours awake, nap, 3 hours awake, nap, 4 hours awake, bed.  We don't get the numbers right all the time, but we've found that getting close to the 4 hour mark at night helps significantly.  I feel a little silly awarding points this week since Gretchen's bed-time routine has been pretty lousy because we're not at home and I've left before she goes to bed every night.  We had a good thing going, though, so I'm hoping we can return to it once we're home again next week.

Monday night I left for orchestra a little early so that I would have time to find everything.  I grabbed a couple of runzas on my way out the door, put in a CD that wasn't little kid songs, and munched and sang my way down the freeway.  Traffic was normal except for a tow truck on the side of the road, and I remember passing a police car and thinking, "I hope it's okay to eat and drive at the same time."  This was immediately followed by two thoughts I always have when passing police cars: 1. "Why are people slowing way down?  We're allowed to drive the speed limit.  *checks speedometer*  Only 65 (in a newly 70 mph zone).  I'm good."  2. "What if I got pulled over and the only thing I that came out of my mouth was the lyrics to the song I was singing at the time?"

One minute later, I got pulled over.  On the plus side, I didn't quote song lyrics.  As I waited for the cop to come to the window, I began regretting the runza I'd been eating as I drove past.  Perhaps it wasn't okay to eat and drive at the same time?  He didn't open with the stereotypical "do you know how fast you were going?", but rather with his own oh-so-original variation: "do you want to tell me why you were driving that speed?"  I glanced at my speedometer, as if the needle now resting on zero would somehow provide me with a recollection of blazing fast speeds, and asked, "65?"  Now I was worrying that maybe I'd get a ticket for going too slowly, driving along at the glacial speed of 65 in a 70 zone.  "I clocked you going 87, ma'am."  ... 87?!  87?!!  I don't even know how to drive 87.  It scares me.  It's like being on a roller coaster, only I have to steer, too.  I generally have to expend effort to drive 70, hence the 65 in the 70 zone.  I explained as much, but he insisted that he'd checked my speed "at least 15 times" as I was coming over the bridge (side note: the only bridge at this section of road is one you go under, not over).  Apparently I was passing a semi and that's when I sped up.  He knew because he caught the semi going 55, and I was the only other car there, so I must have been the 87.  I asked if he was sure it was me, thinking maybe he saw some other light-colored minivan, but he thought I was implying that maybe I was going 55 and the semi was the one doing 87, so he repeated his explanation.  I told him that I hadn't passed anyone yet this drive, and that the only time I'd even been in the left lane was when I moved over for the stopped tow truck (and you thought that detail was unimportant!), but he just repeated "15 times."  All the time he kept telling me that I couldn't drive that fast, because "it's just not safe."  (Another side note: I KNOW IT'S NOT SAFE, THAT'S WHY I ONLY DRIVE 65!)  I asked if I could contest the ticket, and he said I could go to court and tell them whatever I want, which filled me with great confidence in our judicial system.  I could tell the truth or not and he didn't care because it wouldn't matter against his radar gun.  He took my license and went back to his car to write a ticket.  I called Bryan and told him I always wondered exactly how a person could prove they weren't speeding if a cop said they were, but I never thought I'd get to figure it out myself.  He told me to ask if they ever checked the calibration of the radar guns.  The cop came back, and I asked about the gun.  He told me he checks it at the beginning and end of each shift.  Then he handed me my license back and said "I'm 99.9% sure it was you, but I only write a ticket if I'm 100% sure.  Your record is clean, so I'm just giving you a warning.  Be safe."  I thanked him and drove away, now making sure to go no faster than 64, just in case.

As I completed my drive, I had a revelation: We have one of those monitoring devices installed in our car for insurance purposes!  Our old one (with All State) didn't tell exact speeds, but it told us the top speed for each trip and made special note of all speeds over 80.  I hadn't logged in to our new one (with Nationwide) yet, but it must have a similar data log.  The next morning, I figured out how to check the data on the new one and looked up my trip.  It turns out that Nationwide's charts and graphs are better and more detailed than All State's, so I know exactly how fast I was going at every minute of my drive.  My top speed?  68.  Take that, Mr. Policeman.  Your 99.9% is looking pretty weak.  Also, I figured out how to prove to a judge that you weren't speeding: have one of these devices.  I think Nationwide only lets us keep it for 6 months, but there are commercial ones you can buy (usually to monitor teen drivers) if your insurance carrier doesn't supply one.  (A bonus to getting it through your insurance: most companies offer a 5-10% discount for the first 6 months just for agreeing to have it plugged into your car.  Your discount for later terms is calculated based on your driving habits and could be as high as 30%.  Even if it's close to zero (like ours is because we drive too many miles over the course of a year), that's still no worse than what you were paying originally.)

End exciting story and shameless product plug.  I should become an insurance agent or something.

Orchestra went well.  I worried at first that I'd be struggling to keep up (for lack of a better term) with all the official, actually-in-the-symphony-and-not-just-subs musicians, especially since I thought my Lima audition was weak.  I'm definitely not the best player there, and there are a lot of performance majors (as opposed to general music majors) with higher degrees than mine from more intimidating schools than Eastern, but I felt like I fit in, especially by the end of the week.  Vaguely related, my stand partner is also a sub and was also at Springfield auditions this year.  She said that she thinks they don't actually have an open viola spot (which would make sense since they already have 7 violists) even though they keep saying they do.  I accept this as an appropriate reason for not choosing me for the (not really existent) spot even though my audition was fabulous.

Pictures:

September 1-7

Gretchen is night weaned.  She still has trouble getting to sleep at night, but once she's done fussing and finally asleep then she doesn't need to eat until she gets up for the day.  Actually, by the end of this week she was refusing to nurse during her fussy state (unless it had been about 4 hours), probably because she knows that the only time I nurse her after such a short span is when I'm trying to get her to go back to sleep.  At this point, with the exception of the still-not-as-early-or-consistent-as-I'd-like bedtime, Gretchen's nursing and sleeping habits are almost exactly the same as Olivia's were at 9 months.  She's such an overachiever.  :)

I'm having trouble with videos again.  Someday everything will work.  Maybe.  For now, I've uploaded a video to YouTube.  Since I don't want all the videos of my girls to be open to the public, I made it private and listed the email addresses of people who could see it.  You may have gotten an email or six to that effect.  Sorry about that.  If you can't watch it through this link, then (theoretically) that means I either forgot to add you or used a different address.  If that's the case, leave a comment with the email address that you use to view this blog and I'll add you to the approved list.

Video:  Olivia and Gretchen Dance (youtube)

Update: I found another site, Vimeo, that doesn't require new accounts and such (yay! -- I'm not trying to make everybody open new accounts all over the place just because I'm anti-Facebook, I promise).  All videos are password protected with the password BarhorstBrewed.  Here is the same video on that site:

Video:  Olivia and Gretchen Dance (vimeo)

Let me know which method of sharing you prefer.  I'm leaning towards Vimeo myself.

The FAB Fun Run was a rousing plodding success!  Bryan made a route the night before the run and, not being a runner himself, made it "not boring" enough that everyone needed to carry directions so as to not miss the turns.  :-P  We'll work on that for next year.  Also for next year, we want to have music at the finish line.  I thought of it during the run, but obviously that was too late.  :-P  We had a 10K, a 5K, and an Untrained Mile for interested runners and our official timekeeper (Mom) and her helpers (James, Olivia, Gretchen, and some neighborhood kids) set up a water table and handed out finisher sticks.

Bryan was inspired (shamed?) by our fun run and has decided to begin running once a week.  He was the sole entry into the Untrained Mile and got a hamstring cramp halfway through which required him to stop and stretch before continuing.  Tuesday night, he decided that every Wednesday morning he was going to wake up 15 minutes earlier and run/walk a mile until he can run the whole thing.  Then his training will be complete and he will stop.  :)

We had guests (for the Fun Run, of course!) Sunday and Monday.  Sunday afternoon, we decided to go Putt-Putt golfing with Josef, Alison, and Jillian.  Olivia was excited for about the first hole and a half before she got bored.  Luckily, it's a small area and it wasn't crowded, so she could spend all her time exploring the were periodic interesting holes (with stairs, fences, and ramps) while the rest of us played.

My first audition was last Saturday for a sub position with the Lima Symphony Orchestra.  I found out on Tuesday that I'm on their list!  Hooray!  Now if only it wasn't quite so far away...

One of my tomato plants had two little red tomatoes on Wednesday night.  Nevermind that this was the "Fourth of July" plant (meaning tomatoes were supposed to be ripe in time to use on the fourth of July) or that the tomatoes were only slightly larger than golf balls.  There were tomatoes and they were ripe!  I left them there, thinking Olivia would like to help me pick them the next morning.  I was right.  Thursday morning we walked outside and she picked ...ONE tomato?  What happened to the other one?  I looked, but there was no sign that there had ever even been another tomato.  I know I didn't imagine the second one, though, because we've had 4 green tomatoes for a few weeks now, and only two are left.  So something came along in those 12 hours or so and swiped one of my tomatoes.  :(  Oh well.  The one that we did pick was delicious.  :)

Pictures

August 25-September 1

We've partially fixed the bath problem.  I have a little baby bathtub seat that we used once with Olivia and then put away because it was easier to just plop her little self right in the water.  I rediscovered this seat when rearranging rooms and decided to give it a try with Gretchen.  Baths are now tolerable, at least for long enough that I can get her clean before she gets upset.

Time for the Peanut Story.  Once upon a time I learned that it's not very hard to make your own peanut butter.  It is, however, cost prohibitive, especially if you buy Aldi peanut butter like I do.  Having discovered this, I let the matter drop.  Then we went to Traverse City, and mom brought Kroger peanut butter.  As it turns out, Kroger peanut butter is not as sweet as Aldi peanut butter, so when we returned home my Aldi peanut butter was much too sweet for my taste.  Back to my research I went.  Perhaps I could buy peanuts in bulk and get a better price?  After much searching, I found NutStop.com and their raw redskin peanuts for $0.89 a pound.  Excellent.  To get the wholesale price, you have to buy at least 25 pounds of peanuts.  I started looking for people that might also want to make their own peanut butter.  The shipping ends up costing almost as much as the peanuts, so the deal wasn't as great as I wanted it to be.  Then I wondered, does shipping cost less if you buy more peanuts?  It does.  Up to a point.  After checking several price points, I learned that shipping is optimized at 73 pounds of peanuts.  Since it is apparently more ridiculous to me to not get optimized shipping than to have 73 pounds of peanuts show up on my front porch, I decided to order 73 pounds.  Now there are a lot of peanuts sitting in my basement (but they only cost $1.28 a pound after shipping!).  And that is the peanut story.

Gretchen can roll over all the way now, arms and everything.  She actually perfected this last weekend, but I didn't update my already written post to reflect her spectacular talents.  She still doesn't roll front to back, but I'm sure she'll get there.  Back to front is the hard one anyway.

Monday was check-up day, so both girls got weighed and measured.  Gretchen is 14 pounds, 6 ounces and 26 inches long.  Olivia was longer and fatter at the same age.  And speaking of Olivia, she is now 27 pounds and 34.5 inches tall.  Both girls are proportional (I'm not sure why the doctor tells me that every time...) and healthy.

Pictures and Video:

December 9-16

I noticed something this week: Olivia reads books right side up.  She's reached a point where she will look at the pictures in her books without requiring me to be reading them to her.  It used to not matter which way the book faced, but she has recently (or perhaps not so recently, and I just noticed now) begun turning her books so that the pictures are appropriately oriented.  Along similar lines, when she puts her flash cards away in their bucket, she often takes care to position them with the picture facing her in whichever way she has deemed to be upright (the seal, for instance, is always upside down; it makes sense if you look at it).

My sewing machine is dying a slow and painful death.  It will be sewing along just fine and then all of a sudden... not.  The top thread is loose on the underside of the material.  Changing the tension doesn't help.  The best I can do is rethread both needle and bobbin and hope it fixes itself.  :(

I read once that taste buds change over the course of about 7 years.  This study is obviously not done on toddlers.  Olivia no longer has any interest in pickles, Cheerios are only so-so, cottage cheese is not only edible but delicious, and this whole week she chose lentil soup over pears and plums.  Lentil soup.  Full of veggies.  Over a fruit puree.  Two months ago we had to trick vegetable purees into her mouth and she'd spit out any whole veggies she could.  This week, though, it was lentil soup all the way.  I'm hoping this lasts until the end of Advent, as I have a couple more lentil dishes planned still.

And speaking of Advent meals, I decided to try something this year.  We are attempting to go all of Advent without repeating a single meal.  I've been wanting to try some new vegetarian recipes anyway, so this works out well.  In fact, when I sat down and wrote out my MONTH-LONG MENU (!!!), I didn't even get to put some of our more common vegetarian meals on it.  I listed them down the side in case we needed to turn to an old standby.  We did have hot tuna casserole already (for my birthday, of course) and this week did spaghetti for when Bryan's guys came over for man night, so that's two easy meals down.  But we've also tried three new recipes and look strong going into the second half of the month.  :)

Jacob's gift arrived in the mail on Wednesday.  It came all the way from China but did not have any Chinese stamps on the package.  :(  It DID, however, have the little customs slip that has to be filled out when things are shipped overseas.  I saved that to give to Jacob.  I'm also posting a picture here so you can see it.  I'd be worried about Jacob finding out what his gift is, but I think the only accurate information on the whole thing is our address.  Sorry, Jacob, you are not getting a 0.01 kg household lamp from us.


I introduced Olivia to the wonders of sitting on the heating grate and now she sits on it all the time (even when it's not blowing warm air).  It reminds me of when we used to sit on the radiators in the Zion house.  There are two downsides to her new perch: one, it has holes, so sometimes she drops things in it.  It does come up, but only if we move the television, so retrieving things is a bit of a pain.  Two, I can no longer stand over the grate because Olivia is busy sitting on it.  Luckily for me, we have other grates.  :)

One of the churches we attend semi-regularly (the Orthodox one we go to when we stay with Bryan's parents) is having a cookie walk on Saturday.  I decided to contribute some spritz cookies.  I used one of my half days off to get the kitchen to myself while Bryan and Olivia had a daddy-daughter day out.  This was necessary so that Olivia didn't eat all my batter before it became cookies.  ...Or all my cookies after they became cookies.  Anyway.  In the course of making 22 dozen cookies (that's one batch of chocolate and one of vanilla), I learned some things about spritz cookies.  Someone remind me that this list exists next December when I do this again.
-Cooking spray is NOT your friend.  I always figure it can't hurt to spray the pan.  With spritz cookies, it turns out that it CAN hurt.  If the cookies don't stick a little bit, they don't come cleanly off the press.  There's enough butter in the batter to ensure that they don't stick after baking.
-The square is impossible.  I tried and failed at about 5 cookies before giving up on the square shape and moving on to other choices.
-The ugly three-pointed shape is the easiest.  It's ugly, but works well and comes off cleanly almost every time.
-The ugly three-pointed shape is significantly less ugly in green.  I decided to make some green Christmas trees with the end of my vanilla batter.  After I got tired of fighting with the trees, I used the ugly shape to finish.  I had to fight with that one, too, but in green they look kind of like holly leaves, so they're not so ugly.
-Food coloring is exciting, but does strange things to the batter.  I don't think the 4 green drops I used should have changed the consistency of the batter, but suddenly the cookies no longer came off the press without a LOT of coaxing.  Even the ugly ones.
-Vanilla works better than chocolate.  It's also tastier.  At least this year.
-The press works better if you get most of the air bubbles out of the batter.  That's probably why the chocolate recipe suggests rolling the batter into a log before putting it in the press.  I shoved it in with a spoon, which worked just fine (especially when I started leaving the presser part most of the way down to start and slowly using batter to force it back up the tube), but I did feel a little like the boys in October Sky as they try to add rocket fuel without introducing air pockets.  Unfortunately, I can't find a youtube clip that shows that part of the movie.

More pictures: