Two weeks ago, especially the second half of the week, was ridiculously busy.
You may recall that Steph and I started an Etsy shop. Well, said Esty shop exploded in business over the last month, presumably because of the holiday. We nearly doubled our total orders in the time from Thanksgiving until we went on vacation December 15. Because of this, I had 13 sets of snapkins, 6 car roll-up travel maps, and 1 custom Pomeranian golf club cover to make. I sewed and sewed and sewed, only taking breaks for all the other things that were happening in my life.
What other things? Let's see... The church had a cookie walk, for which I baked 32 dozen Spritz cookies and 40 dozen Austrian chocolate balls. I also helped roll 50 dozen gingerbread men and 40 dozen rum balls. The cookie walk took place on Saturday, December 13, so I was at church all morning arranging tables and selling cookies. Then I had to leave for rehearsal because my concert was the same day.
Yes, the Lima Symphony Christmas Concert is the same day as the cookie walk. A bit of poor planning on the part of the cookie walk, since I'm not the only member of our (rather small) parish that is in this concert. That's the best day for it, though, so Elesha and I just leave the cookie walk early for rehearsal. I had a rehearsal Friday night, another Saturday afternoon, and then a concert Saturday night. All went well and I happily went to bed that night knowing that the only thing left to do was sew.
...Except that we didn't have enough cookies to cover all the preorders that were made. Sunday afternoon and evening were spent spooning out 12 dozen lemon ricotta cookies and rolling approximately 700 buckeyes. Monday was dipping buckeyes in chocolate and packaging preorders until they were finally done. THEN back to the sewing. ...With a brief hiatus Tuesday afternoon to babysit Carrie's three boys while she dropped off preorders at local businesses, because it's quicker to do all that running in and out without three carseat-dwellers in tow. :)
In the midst of all this craziness, Jacque came down to surprise me for my birthday and stayed for a couple of days. She and I chitchatted when she wasn't being required to dance or read or play hide-and-go-seek with her nieces. She was instantly accepted by the girls as one of their own (although Gretchen had a change of heart for part of the second day) and Olivia gave her the tour of the house. By the way, the "house" according to Olivia apparently consists only of the playroom. Jacque painted Olivia's nails and watched Tangled with her, thus further cementing her favorable position in Olivia's eyes. Gretchen spent the first lunchtime trying to convince Jacque that she was actually Billy and then, having finally accepted the fact that this was, in fact, Jacque, spent the rest of the visit saying, "Not Billy. Jacque." and laughing to herself.
Bryan and the girls gave me Blue Moo for my birthday. It's a compilation of Sandra Boynton songs, complete with pictures, lyrics, music, and a CD. If you don't own it, you're missing out. This CD has been the only thing playing in our car since I opened it a week ago and it is fabulous. I'd list our favorite songs, but that's practically the whole album, so you should just check out the link. Click on the picture of the cover to look inside. You will not be disappointed.
Gretchen's most recent words: backpack, candle, Jacque, Justine, please, booger brain, ate well, candy, lunch, juice, grapes, wand, raisins. Gretchen is one of those children who repeats every word she hears, so she says a lot of things once, but not all of them stick. Olivia didn't repeat things this much, so I was beginning to think that the constant repetition was a bit of hyperbole used when stereotyping toddlers. It's not.
A lesson learned: The best mode for taking pictures of toddlers is Sports mode. The pictures don't try so hard to focus and generally come out less blurry.
A fun thing to do: Watch two 3-year-olds and a 5-year-old try to assemble Mousetrap.
Now we're at Bryan's parents' house for the holidays. We'll be here until Christmas Day, when we travel up to Michigan to visit my parents for a few days. Let the craziness begin!
A few pictures:
21 December 2014
14 December 2014
10 December 2014
Bonus Post: 30 Before 30 Update
A record of my 30 Before 30 progress thus far.
1.Genuinely surprise Bryan at least once. February 15, 2014
2. Record the psalms. --Siblings, when are we going to do this?
3.Run a sub-2:00 half marathon. April 6, 2014. 1:54:30
4.Sell at least one thing I've made (at the Farmer's Market or on Etsy). --May 17, 2014. Steph and I set up an Etsy account and my first order was for the matching squares that I made William for Christmas.
5. Learn Spanish. --I listen to Spanish CDs while I run on the treadmill, so I'm making progress here. --Progress has slowed since my race in April ended my daily treadmill runs. I need to get motivated to keep learning. --Progress has picked up again, thanks to smartphones and the duolingo app.
6. Record all 6 cello suites.
7. Sew Christmas and/or Easter dresses for the girls. --I have patterns! I'm waiting until the girls are bigger to make them.
8. Minimize (eliminate?) the need for disposable products in our house.
9.Have a compost pile. --We have a bucket that we've begun collecting scraps in and the pile is growing.
10. Play with at least 2 professional orchestras. --I play with Lima, and I'm looking for auditions with other orchestras.
11.Go 7 days in a row without letting my temper get the better of me. February 14-21, 2014 I'd gotten 6 days in a row a couple of times and then finally made it 7 (nine, actually). I'm finding it easier to take deep breaths and move on, and I have a chart to keep track of my progress. Next goal: three weeks. That's how long it takes to form a habit, right?
12.Make an honest attempt at clean eating/real food. I've done some research and tried some substitutes and reached a comfortable point. Do I care enough to use butter instead of margarine? Yes. Do I care enough to buy coconut oil regularly? No. Whole grain noodles and brown rice most of the time? Yes. Completely eliminate sugar? No. Homemade bread? Yes. Whole wheat bread? Sometimes. But often I appreciate the airiness that I can only achieve with a little bit of white flour.
13. *Skipped because knowledge by some of my readers could skew the results.* April 5, 2014
14. Go on an overnight vacation with just our family.
15.Grow a garden. My garden is progressing nicely, although technically we haven't seen any actual vegetables yet since they still have a month or so before they reach maturity. The leaves look beautiful and healthy, though!
16. Write a book.
17. Sew a skirt that becomes my favorite.
18. Volunteer to host campout. --We tried to do this for 2016 campout (and even thought we'd succeeded), but apparently we didn't tell all the right people, so someone else is doing 2016. We will be trying again for 2017. :)
19. Go through RCIA. Edit: Arrange to talk to a Catholic priest several times. RCIA won't answer the questions I have.
20. Attend Seekers' Group (similar to RCIA, offered by the Orthodox church in Lima). --Bryan and I are attending this every Tuesday and I have no reason to believe we'll quit before it's finished.
21. Complete at least 3 things on my (ever growing) Projects List. --I think I finished one, but now I can't remember what it is!
22. Start a soup kitchen.
23.Make pectin-free jam. Make up the recipe. --August 18, 2014. I made peach jam with almond and nutmeg.
24.Go on an overnight vacation with Bryan -- no kids. --September 25-28, 2014
25. Use up all the coupons Bryan gave me (I still have some from when we were dating). --Slowly but surely coming along.
26. Learn one of the 3 big concertos. --I have music for two of these. Now I just have to practice. --Practice is not happening as much as it should. :(
27.Arrange a regularly recurring get-together with the Lima folk. --Second Thursday of each month is "go to Lima" day. We've successfully done this two months in a row, so I'm crossing it off.
28.Have a religious conversation with Bryan that doesn't end in tears. --July 27, 2014. Nothing was solved, but I didn't cry.
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.
1.
2. Record the psalms. --Siblings, when are we going to do this?
3.
4.
5. Learn Spanish. --I listen to Spanish CDs while I run on the treadmill, so I'm making progress here. --Progress has slowed since my race in April ended my daily treadmill runs. I need to get motivated to keep learning. --Progress has picked up again, thanks to smartphones and the duolingo app.
6. Record all 6 cello suites.
7. Sew Christmas and/or Easter dresses for the girls. --I have patterns! I'm waiting until the girls are bigger to make them.
8. Minimize (eliminate?) the need for disposable products in our house.
9.
10. Play with at least 2 professional orchestras. --I play with Lima, and I'm looking for auditions with other orchestras.
11.
12.
13. *
14. Go on an overnight vacation with just our family.
15.
16. Write a book.
17. Sew a skirt that becomes my favorite.
18. Volunteer to host campout. --We tried to do this for 2016 campout (and even thought we'd succeeded), but apparently we didn't tell all the right people, so someone else is doing 2016. We will be trying again for 2017. :)
19. Go through RCIA. Edit: Arrange to talk to a Catholic priest several times. RCIA won't answer the questions I have.
20. Attend Seekers' Group (similar to RCIA, offered by the Orthodox church in Lima). --Bryan and I are attending this every Tuesday and I have no reason to believe we'll quit before it's finished.
21. Complete at least 3 things on my (ever growing) Projects List. --I think I finished one, but now I can't remember what it is!
22. Start a soup kitchen.
23.
24.
25. Use up all the coupons Bryan gave me (I still have some from when we were dating). --Slowly but surely coming along.
26. Learn one of the 3 big concertos. --I have music for two of these. Now I just have to practice. --Practice is not happening as much as it should. :(
27.
28.
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.
07 December 2014
November 30-December 7
Gretchen has a name for herself: Kiki. We're not quite sure how she came up with that (perhaps because we call her Gretchy?), but that's her name. Mommy, Daddy, Lolly, and Kiki. In addition to providing a name for herself, Gretchen has picked up the words boot, other foot, bed, hungry, silly, bark, eat, up, and down.
Olivia has begun covering her hands with her mouth as she laughs at something that she thinks is particularly funny. I'm not sure where she picked this up, but it always makes me laugh, too. Gretchen thinks this is a great trick, so now we sit at the dining room table and try to finish meals while both of them snicker into their hands.
Gretchen is in a copycat stage. If Olivia is doing it, it must be fabulous. The most obvious place that this happens is the table, as Gretchen is still perfectly content to play by herself. Anything Olivia says or does at the table, though, is fair game and is generally repeated at top volume by Gretchen. Olivia tries to use this to her advantage by saying things like, "I think Gretchen said 'cake'" and hoping that Gretchen will pick up the refrain.
The other day, Olivia sang "Five Little Speckled Frogs" in its entirety. She even counted down correctly. This would not be unusual, except for one tiny detail: I've never sung that song before. I have no idea where she heard it to begin with, let alone enough times to have it memorized.
I have stacked the perfect Candy Land deck. Competitive until the end, it allows the younger player to get all the picture cards (in order!) with just enough colored squares in between to facilitate color and number recognition without inspiring boredom in either party. ...Until the third or fourth time through, when the adult knows how it's all going to play out. :)
Steph and I met at the old house on Saturday and painted, touched up, and staged everything. I think it looks better, and Bryan and I are hopeful that the extra touch will help it sell more quickly when we do finally get around to listing it. (Yes, you read that right... Our old house is still not listed even though we've been moved out for three months.)
The running was short-lived. :( When I went to run on Monday, I only made it five minutes before having severe stomach pain. I assume it's just a ligament thing, but have put the running on hold until I can double check and get recommendations for a solution. I have already resigned myself to the solution of "don't run until Hippo is born."
Pictures:
Olivia has begun covering her hands with her mouth as she laughs at something that she thinks is particularly funny. I'm not sure where she picked this up, but it always makes me laugh, too. Gretchen thinks this is a great trick, so now we sit at the dining room table and try to finish meals while both of them snicker into their hands.
Gretchen is in a copycat stage. If Olivia is doing it, it must be fabulous. The most obvious place that this happens is the table, as Gretchen is still perfectly content to play by herself. Anything Olivia says or does at the table, though, is fair game and is generally repeated at top volume by Gretchen. Olivia tries to use this to her advantage by saying things like, "I think Gretchen said 'cake'" and hoping that Gretchen will pick up the refrain.
The other day, Olivia sang "Five Little Speckled Frogs" in its entirety. She even counted down correctly. This would not be unusual, except for one tiny detail: I've never sung that song before. I have no idea where she heard it to begin with, let alone enough times to have it memorized.
I have stacked the perfect Candy Land deck. Competitive until the end, it allows the younger player to get all the picture cards (in order!) with just enough colored squares in between to facilitate color and number recognition without inspiring boredom in either party. ...Until the third or fourth time through, when the adult knows how it's all going to play out. :)
Steph and I met at the old house on Saturday and painted, touched up, and staged everything. I think it looks better, and Bryan and I are hopeful that the extra touch will help it sell more quickly when we do finally get around to listing it. (Yes, you read that right... Our old house is still not listed even though we've been moved out for three months.)
The running was short-lived. :( When I went to run on Monday, I only made it five minutes before having severe stomach pain. I assume it's just a ligament thing, but have put the running on hold until I can double check and get recommendations for a solution. I have already resigned myself to the solution of "don't run until Hippo is born."
Pictures:
30 November 2014
November 23-30
I've started running again. After the half-marathon in April, I pretty much stopped cold turkey, but this week I decided to begin hopping on the treadmill every morning before the girls get up. I have about 15 minutes between Bryan's alarm going off and their usual wake-up time, which is just enough to fit in a mile or two. Nothing too strenuous, as that would put Bryan right over the edge (he's already only grudgingly accepting of the fact that I chose 5 months pregnant as the appropriate time to start running again), but enough to get me up and moving and full of endorphins for the day.
Olivia read Cat in the Hat to her monkey the other day: "The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house all that cold, cold, wet day. I sat there with Sally. We sat there, we two. I sat there with Sally. We sat there, we two. Well... What would YOU do if your mother asked YOU? Oops, I forgot the middle!" Contrary to the end of this display, however, she actually knows this book quite well.
We've been working with Olivia on actually listening to the bible story read during prayers at night. Usually I'll give her something to listen for and then ask a question at the end. She has yet to know the answer. The other night, though, I told her to listen to where Jesus and his family went to hide from Herod. Bryan and I even redirected her attention as I read the line about Egypt a second time. At the end of the story, I asked where Jesus and his family were hiding. "Um... The laundry room!" Bryan had to leave the room to compose himself.
We learned on Sunday that Gretchen knows the word "hat." A baby in a hat sat in the pew in front of us, and Gretchen spent 20 minutes saying, "See baby hat!" Nothing could dissuade her from making this observation or convince her to make it it a quieter voice. The whole back right of the church knew that Gretchen could see the baby's hat. Continually.
As illustrated in the story above, Gretchen attempts sentences for most of her communications. Her favorite question to ask is "doing?" At breakfast, we talk about how we "see Daddy water", "see milk", "want oatmeal", and know that "Daddy go work." She listens to conversations and chimes in whenever she hears a word she recognizes, and she repeats everything. As a result, she says "minute" quite clearly with absolutely no idea what it means, and she's attempted "seriously." Seriously?
This extended weekend we'll be spending with my family, so there are sure to be plenty of pictures from the paparazzi adoring aunts and uncles next week, assuming I can convince them to send said pictures to me.
Pictures:
23 November 2014
November 16-23
You may not know this, but our house came with 7 locks and only 4 keys. We had 2 deadbolts, but zero deadbolt keys, and none of the doorknob locks matched each other. Bryan released his inner handyman this week and fixed our doors so that now we have one key that opens the knobs and deadbolts on both the front and back door! The next project (postponed for the time being) is to replace the lock in the sliding door with one for which we have a key. :) This weekend Bryan also spent time with his dad finishing some walls in the basement so that we can get an electrician to come outfit his office with light and heat!
More news in Bryan's life: He got older! His birthday was Friday and he's now only two years away from 30. Also, we've entered the brief window of time during which I can tease him about how much older than me he is.
Words not mentioned in previous posts that Gretchen says now, either because she already knew them (and her mother forgot to list them earlier) or because she learned them this week: coat, boot, ribbit, work, milk, more, baby, sock, belly, eye, potty, hello, peekaboo, up, down, look, see, want, plug, fork, plate, hot, book, oatmeal, crown, stroller, ice cream, phone, ball, thank you, please, Scooby Doo, open, Lolly (Olivia), doing, big, barbie, oh.
Phrases Olivia uses (one from me and one that she still says wrong):
"You're a silly goose!"
"You need to talk about Gretchen." -- meaning that I need to talk TO Gretchen.
We're at a tough developmental stage right now. Gretchen is into parallel play, so she will happily go off by herself and play quietly. She likes to be in the same room as others, but doesn't require it. Olivia, however, is a copycat, and thinks that everyone else's ideas are the best. Unfortunately, this means that Olivia follows Gretchen around the house, stealing her toys and taking over her games.
Gretchen has a dish and utensil at every meal now. Her preferred use for the utensil is to hold it in her right hand while she puts food in her mouth with her left hand, but she's improving. Her coordination is better with a fork than with a spoon, mostly because I don't give her very many spoonable foods to feed herself.
Gretchen has begun potty training. It's going very slowly and thus far she has not produced anything while actually sitting on the potty. She wants to sit, though, so sit she does. A plus to potty training this time around is that Gretchen says "potty" very clearly, so I always know what she means. Olivia's word for potty was "dobby," which was the same word she used for pretty much everything else in her life at the time.
Olivia has elaborate conversations with her dolls and stuffed animals. During quiet time, which is one of the only times she's not following Gretchen around, I listen to her make up stories and scenarios to keep Barney and her babies amused. She's also started projecting her wants onto her playthings, as if the fact that Barbie wants a piece of cake might trick me into leaving a piece of cake unattended on the table. :)
Pictures:
More news in Bryan's life: He got older! His birthday was Friday and he's now only two years away from 30. Also, we've entered the brief window of time during which I can tease him about how much older than me he is.
Words not mentioned in previous posts that Gretchen says now, either because she already knew them (and her mother forgot to list them earlier) or because she learned them this week: coat, boot, ribbit, work, milk, more, baby, sock, belly, eye, potty, hello, peekaboo, up, down, look, see, want, plug, fork, plate, hot, book, oatmeal, crown, stroller, ice cream, phone, ball, thank you, please, Scooby Doo, open, Lolly (Olivia), doing, big, barbie, oh.
Phrases Olivia uses (one from me and one that she still says wrong):
"You're a silly goose!"
"You need to talk about Gretchen." -- meaning that I need to talk TO Gretchen.
We're at a tough developmental stage right now. Gretchen is into parallel play, so she will happily go off by herself and play quietly. She likes to be in the same room as others, but doesn't require it. Olivia, however, is a copycat, and thinks that everyone else's ideas are the best. Unfortunately, this means that Olivia follows Gretchen around the house, stealing her toys and taking over her games.
Gretchen has a dish and utensil at every meal now. Her preferred use for the utensil is to hold it in her right hand while she puts food in her mouth with her left hand, but she's improving. Her coordination is better with a fork than with a spoon, mostly because I don't give her very many spoonable foods to feed herself.
Gretchen has begun potty training. It's going very slowly and thus far she has not produced anything while actually sitting on the potty. She wants to sit, though, so sit she does. A plus to potty training this time around is that Gretchen says "potty" very clearly, so I always know what she means. Olivia's word for potty was "dobby," which was the same word she used for pretty much everything else in her life at the time.
Olivia has elaborate conversations with her dolls and stuffed animals. During quiet time, which is one of the only times she's not following Gretchen around, I listen to her make up stories and scenarios to keep Barney and her babies amused. She's also started projecting her wants onto her playthings, as if the fact that Barbie wants a piece of cake might trick me into leaving a piece of cake unattended on the table. :)
Pictures:
16 November 2014
November 9-16
Gretchen is trying her hand at sentences. This week we got "What doing, Mommy?", "Where Daddy go?", and "No, Olivia, no sit Mommy." She's been stringing words together for a while, but this week is the first time I heard clear sentences.
More old Gretchen words: chair, sit, coat, milk, sock, pants, shirt, car.
Olivia "reads" books by talking through the pictures. This is wonderful, as she is now more content than ever to sit quietly with a book. She also enjoys reading to Gretchen. However. If the words in the book do not match what she sees in the pictures, Olivia will (occasionally, but with increasing regularity) call out the actual reader, claiming that words/pages were skipped.
Tuesday was Hippo's ultrasound. Everything looks great, and Bryan and I got a wave during the scan. :) The office that I'm with now started doing a 3D rendering during ultrasounds, so a few of the pictures we got are really cool. Those are all below. Of course, if you move during the rendering then you get wavy pictures, so Hippo's moving hand in the third 3D picture makes his head look wobbly. Side note: "his" is used generically here; we did not find out the gender, even by accident. Bryan says he's 52% sure Hippo is a girl, though.
I showed Olivia and Gretchen the ultrasound pictures, and Olivia looked at me and said, "that's a head!" I told her it was a baby, and she wanted to know whose baby. "Our baby!" "Gretchen's baby?" "No, our new baby that's in Mommy's tummy right now." She looked skeptical. When Bryan went over things with her again later, she lifted up my shirt and said, "there's no baby there!" Bryan told her it was inside, and pointed to a section of my stomach. I pointed to a different spot and mentioned that the baby was over there. At that, Olivia looked at Bryan and said seriously, "No, Daddy, it's over here, actually."
The girls also had appointments this week, so we got to find out how big they are. Olivia is a full meter tall and weighs 33.2 pounds. Gretchen is 33.5 inches and weighs 25 pounds, 4 ounces. Six inches of height difference looks incredibly large at this size. :) As for milestones, both girls are doing well. We did learn that Olivia can't draw a person yet because she is bothered by the imperfect circle for the head and refuses to move on. She is, however, crushing it in the language department, where she's apparently supposed to have mastered sentences of 3-4 words. For those of you who haven't heard Olivia recently, she speaks more in paragraphs than in sentences. :) I was also told that Gretchen's ability to put on her own socks and shoes is a little ahead of schedule, but her dislike shots is about par for the course.
During the appointment, the doctor asked Olivia if she was going to have a baby brother or sister, and she said sister. Then the doctor asked if she had baby dolls at home, and she said, "yes, but not in my tummy!"
This was concert week for me, so I had rehearsals every night. My family came down for the concert on Saturday, which was a nice, albeit brief, visit. Josef and Alison stayed through until today.
Pictures and Video:
More old Gretchen words: chair, sit, coat, milk, sock, pants, shirt, car.
Olivia "reads" books by talking through the pictures. This is wonderful, as she is now more content than ever to sit quietly with a book. She also enjoys reading to Gretchen. However. If the words in the book do not match what she sees in the pictures, Olivia will (occasionally, but with increasing regularity) call out the actual reader, claiming that words/pages were skipped.
Tuesday was Hippo's ultrasound. Everything looks great, and Bryan and I got a wave during the scan. :) The office that I'm with now started doing a 3D rendering during ultrasounds, so a few of the pictures we got are really cool. Those are all below. Of course, if you move during the rendering then you get wavy pictures, so Hippo's moving hand in the third 3D picture makes his head look wobbly. Side note: "his" is used generically here; we did not find out the gender, even by accident. Bryan says he's 52% sure Hippo is a girl, though.
I showed Olivia and Gretchen the ultrasound pictures, and Olivia looked at me and said, "that's a head!" I told her it was a baby, and she wanted to know whose baby. "Our baby!" "Gretchen's baby?" "No, our new baby that's in Mommy's tummy right now." She looked skeptical. When Bryan went over things with her again later, she lifted up my shirt and said, "there's no baby there!" Bryan told her it was inside, and pointed to a section of my stomach. I pointed to a different spot and mentioned that the baby was over there. At that, Olivia looked at Bryan and said seriously, "No, Daddy, it's over here, actually."
The girls also had appointments this week, so we got to find out how big they are. Olivia is a full meter tall and weighs 33.2 pounds. Gretchen is 33.5 inches and weighs 25 pounds, 4 ounces. Six inches of height difference looks incredibly large at this size. :) As for milestones, both girls are doing well. We did learn that Olivia can't draw a person yet because she is bothered by the imperfect circle for the head and refuses to move on. She is, however, crushing it in the language department, where she's apparently supposed to have mastered sentences of 3-4 words. For those of you who haven't heard Olivia recently, she speaks more in paragraphs than in sentences. :) I was also told that Gretchen's ability to put on her own socks and shoes is a little ahead of schedule, but her dislike shots is about par for the course.
During the appointment, the doctor asked Olivia if she was going to have a baby brother or sister, and she said sister. Then the doctor asked if she had baby dolls at home, and she said, "yes, but not in my tummy!"
This was concert week for me, so I had rehearsals every night. My family came down for the concert on Saturday, which was a nice, albeit brief, visit. Josef and Alison stayed through until today.
Pictures and Video:
09 November 2014
November 2-9
The Halloween party in Cleveland last weekend was nice, but even nicer was getting to sleep in for an extra hour on Sunday. I think we'll send the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's for Daylight Savings day every year!
I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but our lovely little backyard fence got slightly smushed on the U-Haul's way out of our driveway. It was still functional, but less aesthetically pleasing than it had been. I am happy to report that this has been remedied. On Wednesday we had a guy come out and by the time he left, our fence had regained the decorative half of its title.
Gretchen's recent words include milk, snapkin, cake, and ponytail. She also says car, baby, plug, blanket, book, mommy, daddy, and (I think) Olivia. The latter list is made up of words I've neglected to mention, even though she's been saying them for a while now.
I had a craft show on Saturday, so Bryan watched the girls. Everything seems to have gone fairly well, although I do question Olivia's outfit choice. After the girls went to bed, though, Bryan came up to me and said, "I'm going to go lie down for the first time today. You have a hard job." If I'm ever feeling under-appreciated, I'm taking a day off and leaving Bryan alone with them. :)
On Saturday night we went to church. When we came home and began eating dinner, Olivia looked up from her plate of quiche (which she was eating without complaining) and said, "I need more broccoli, please." ... We're not sure whose child we accidentally brought home from church, but we're keeping her. :) As a side note, I made this quiche with ground beef and California veggies. Members of KAQ, I recommend that you try it before renewing your membership this year.
Also food related, I have an informational bulletin for my mother and siblings: Cream of Wheat is simply farina (a ground up part of wheat). Farina can be found in bulk food stores for $1-1.50 a pound, which is significantly better than the cost of Cream of Wheat at the grocery store.
Pictures:
I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but our lovely little backyard fence got slightly smushed on the U-Haul's way out of our driveway. It was still functional, but less aesthetically pleasing than it had been. I am happy to report that this has been remedied. On Wednesday we had a guy come out and by the time he left, our fence had regained the decorative half of its title.
Gretchen's recent words include milk, snapkin, cake, and ponytail. She also says car, baby, plug, blanket, book, mommy, daddy, and (I think) Olivia. The latter list is made up of words I've neglected to mention, even though she's been saying them for a while now.
I had a craft show on Saturday, so Bryan watched the girls. Everything seems to have gone fairly well, although I do question Olivia's outfit choice. After the girls went to bed, though, Bryan came up to me and said, "I'm going to go lie down for the first time today. You have a hard job." If I'm ever feeling under-appreciated, I'm taking a day off and leaving Bryan alone with them. :)
On Saturday night we went to church. When we came home and began eating dinner, Olivia looked up from her plate of quiche (which she was eating without complaining) and said, "I need more broccoli, please." ... We're not sure whose child we accidentally brought home from church, but we're keeping her. :) As a side note, I made this quiche with ground beef and California veggies. Members of KAQ, I recommend that you try it before renewing your membership this year.
Also food related, I have an informational bulletin for my mother and siblings: Cream of Wheat is simply farina (a ground up part of wheat). Farina can be found in bulk food stores for $1-1.50 a pound, which is significantly better than the cost of Cream of Wheat at the grocery store.
Pictures:
02 November 2014
October 26-November 2
Gretchen has started singing "Alleluia." It comes out "ah-luuu," and she sings it over and over, especially in our chapel after prayers. She got to try it out at a liturgy for the first time on Friday and was quite proud of her participation.
My words coming out of Olivia's mouth:
"That is my plan."
"Shall we get Gretchen?"
"You're driving me crazy!"
"Yes, that would be fine."
Our newest baby is now being affectionately called Hippo. When I was pregnant with Olivia, I was never hungry. When I was pregnant with Gretchen, I was hungry all the time, but usually for healthy things. With Hippo, I'm most hungry late at night, and then only for snacks. :/
We've been quite busy this week, mostly with Halloween related things. Olivia loves it, because Halloween means she gets to wear her fairy princess costume out of the house more often. We did storytime in costume on Wednesday, went trick-or-treating on Thursday night with some friends (it turns out that our road doesn't have enough traffic for anyone to bother with handing out candy), and attended a Halloween party on Friday. Then the girls went to Grandma and Grandpa's for a couple of nights while Bryan and I attended another Halloween party on Saturday at his sister's house.
Pictures and Videos:
My words coming out of Olivia's mouth:
"That is my plan."
"Shall we get Gretchen?"
"You're driving me crazy!"
"Yes, that would be fine."
Our newest baby is now being affectionately called Hippo. When I was pregnant with Olivia, I was never hungry. When I was pregnant with Gretchen, I was hungry all the time, but usually for healthy things. With Hippo, I'm most hungry late at night, and then only for snacks. :/
We've been quite busy this week, mostly with Halloween related things. Olivia loves it, because Halloween means she gets to wear her fairy princess costume out of the house more often. We did storytime in costume on Wednesday, went trick-or-treating on Thursday night with some friends (it turns out that our road doesn't have enough traffic for anyone to bother with handing out candy), and attended a Halloween party on Friday. Then the girls went to Grandma and Grandpa's for a couple of nights while Bryan and I attended another Halloween party on Saturday at his sister's house.
Pictures and Videos:
26 October 2014
October 19-26
I'm drawing a blank on the things I wanted to mention this week, so this entry is rather short. Perhaps I'll remember for next week.
Gretchen's new vocal talents include "Amen", elephant sounds, monkey sounds, "bowl" (which means plate), "spoon" (which means fork), and the word "poop." The latter is generally not in context; I think she just likes to say it. She's also started counting: "two, two, two, two, two."
Olivia discovered this week that if she turns in circles, "the house moves!" Gretchen thought this was a brilliant discovery, and they've been making themselves, I mean the house, dizzy.
When asked what she wanted to be for Halloween, Olivia gave her standard answer: "I don't know." Bryan and I decided that she wanted to be a fairy princess. In green, of course. I bought the materials and Olivia pestered me about turning them into a dress for two weeks. When I finally produced the dress, she put it on immediately. At the writing of this blog post, she has worn the dress non-stop for three days. I do make her get dressed in real clothes in the morning, and she usually wears the dress over them. She's also not allowed to wear dress-up clothes to the store. Other than those restrictions, though, the dress has been her constant companion. Good thing it's washable.
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