May 22-29

We spent a few days in Michigan visiting my parents.  Dad left for the airport on Tuesday.  After he left, Justine and I put the backseat of my van into her van, packed up the six kids, and headed to Lima a bit ahead of the rush.  Bryan finished working in Jacob's computer room and then came down with James.  Mom and Joseph followed the next morning.

We bought Olivia and Gretchen bikes on Tuesday night and promptly removed the training wheels and pedals so that they wouldn't know that their bikes were supposed to have training wheels and pedals.  They picked out helmets on Wednesday but since then haven't been much interested in riding their new bikes.  All the little boys we've had visiting lately have enjoyed them, though, so at least they're getting used.

The cousins stayed to visit for a day and a half before leaving after lunch on Thursday.  We'll see them again at Aufdy camp in a few months.

Mom and James stayed until Saturday morning and plan to be back next week.  Before leaving, Mom made new construction paper crowns for Olivia and Gretchen.  The crowns were laminated in an attempt to give them a longer life than is typical for crowns in our house.  Olivia wears her crown constantly (including to bed).  Gretchen is less attached during the day, but has come out of her room two nights in a row looking for her Oma crown to take to bed with her.

Pictures (not in chronological order) and a video:

May 8-22

It seems I have a lot of Gretchen updates this week.  They will make up for the fact that I generally have little to report about our poor, neglected middle child.  To begin, she had a checkup recently so I know that she weighs 34 pounds and is 38 inches tall.  She was willing to follow all the doctor's directions and was relieved to learn that she would not be receiving a shot.

You know the part in The Little Mermaid where Ariel has to sing for Ursula as she trades her voice for legs?  Somehow that scene made such a big impression that the "wah wah wah" song is now background music for every change that Gretchen's dolls make.  Anna turns into Elsa, Sofia becomes a mermaid, Rapunzel changes her clothes...  Gretchen holds the character up in the air and sings "wah wah wah, wah wah wah, wah wah wah, wah wah wah..."  Judging from the amount of time she spends singing, we've decided that some changes are more difficult than others.  Gretchen's sense of pitch isn't particularly well developed yet, so the resulting incantation is quite exciting.  She does let her pitch rise somewhat incrementally, but when she hits the top of her range she just continues singing yelling a monotone "wah wah wah."

Gretchen cannot stand still.  She is constantly fidgeting, even walking in large circles around the living room while she and Olivia discuss who is going to play which part in their games.  She does moderately better at sitting still, but even then is prone to constant readjustments.

Gretchen has a method for choosing things: When asked to make a choice, she says, "um, whichever one I touch."  Then she wobbles back and forth between her decisions saying, "I touch...  I touch..." before finally picking something.

"Powers" are a physically visible thing in our house.  This is a result of two barbies that we have who came with accessories meant to represent their superpowers.  Elsa has an ice clump that shoots from her hand and a superhero has a splash of purple magic.  Now when Olivia and Gretchen play, they say things like "I take my powers off.  I give my powers to you."

Kaitlyn has a few things she says, but the most common ones recently are "no", "stop it", and "don't do that".  The last one is admittedly a stretch, but that's what her babbling sounds like and the meaning is clear.  This must be what it's like to grow up with two older sisters.  Sorry, Jacque.  :)

The biggest house news this week is our new driveway.  We had a company come out and cover our loose stones with asphalt.  Our driveway is now wonderfully paved and smooth so that the girls can ride bikes and cars won't get stuck in the winter.

My snapkins got mentioned in an online article recently, which was pretty exciting.

This weekend we are in Michigan to attend Jillian's graduation and visit with family.

Pictures and Videos

April 17-May 8

Greetings, strangers.  Christ is Risen!

Things that happened:

Gretchen's birthday - Little Miss Gretchen turned 3 on April 24th.  We didn't have a big party, instead choosing to celebrate alone and then have some friends over for her baptism birthday.  She got a Doc McStuffins doctor kit and a box of REAL bandaids to use whenever she wished.  The bandaids (all 60 of them) were gone in less than 24 hours.

Holy Week - April 24th was also Palm Sunday in the Orthodox Church, which meant that the days following it were filled with church, church, and more church.  We actually had less than some (I know Justine's parish had services twice a day, but we only had evening services), but it was still a lot.  We tried to keep activities to a minimum during this week so that we (read: I) would not become overwhelmed.

Pascha! - May 1 was Pascha, which meant we all got dressed up for a vigil service at 11 the night before.  Olivia was too excited to sleep, so she stayed awake long enough to get dressed and dance around in her finery before falling asleep in the car on the way to church.  She slept on a pew through the whole service (and the party afterwards) and then complained in the morning about how we forgot to walk around the church (we didn't).  Gretchen refused to wake up, even through the transfer to and from the car, and slept on a pew in her pajamas until just before communion, when she suddenly realized that she was missing things, rubbed her eyes, and stumbled into line, bedhead and all.  Kaitlyn woke up as we were getting ready to leave the house, wore her dress, and stubbornly stayed awake for the entire service and half the party.  She was not cranky, just awake (and rather proud of the bell that she got to hold).

Bright week activities - The week after Pascha is called Bright Week and the people at St. Stephen's try to make it an especially festive and social week.  We all went bowling one day and spent another day at a park.  While bowling, we learned that our bowling alley has a program where registered kids get two free games every day during the summer, so we now have two registered kids and an accompanying family pass so that we can go bowling whenever we want.  (Your local bowling alley may do it too: KidsBowlFree.com)  Women's group did a paint and sip, which is an event where everyone drinks wine and paints a picture based on the a masterpiece.  Carrie, one of the mothers here, was an art major in college, so she led the painting for us.

Gretchen's baptism birthday - Since Gretchen's birthday was on Palm Sunday, we moved her party to her baptism birthday on May 5.  This will probably be a common occurrence.  It was a kids only event featuring ice cream cake.  I had a couple of games planned, but no one cared because it was a nice day and our back yard has a rockbox AND a trampoline.  This was the easiest party ever.

Other items of note:

The girls helped me fill alms bags with non-perishable items and toiletries so that we can hand them out to homeless people.  We keep a few in the car and restock as needed.

The bandaids were such a big hit that we put two more boxes in the Pascha basket for Olivia and Gretchen to have.

Bryan dug out the grass and added to our patio walkway so that it's the same width as the fence instead of being one off-centered line of tiles.

The Pascha dresses were done a full two hours before the service began.  They would have been done sooner (Olivia's and Gretchen's were both done a few days before), but I took a break to make and eat dinner after putting Kaitlyn's zipper in.  The were all wearable by 3 in the afternoon.

Kaitlyn walks all the time now.  She also says "no" and means it.

Gretchen's bathroom skills have improved.  Or perhaps it's her listening skills that have improved.  Either way, she's not currently in a "run around in crazy circles" phase.

Olivia's screening results came back.  One school suggests preschool, the other says they'd take her for kindergarten but they want her to work on 9 of the 13 core things that they look for.  We have decided that she will be doing preschool at home next year.  I have a curriculum and everything.  It's super exciting.

The girls' calendar is a big hit.  Such a big hit, in fact, that I bought them a large desk calendar and some stickers to decorate it.  I also found a place where you can make custom stickers, which I will be doing shortly so that I don't have to draw the same pictures (mostly of visiting friends) over and over.

Tomatoes and banana peppers are started in my laundry room.  The cloche that was over the broccoli bed has been moved to begin warming up soil in another bed.  The broccoli (and accompanying weeds) looks great, and my second planting of peas (after the first batch perished during the transplant) is growing nicely.

I am hoping that it won't be another three weeks before I post again.  Good thing Jacque has been stepping up her blogging game (8 posts since my last one!) to mask my failures.  :)

Pictures:

April 10-17

I made the girls a calendar.  They want to know when things are happening, so I drew a calendar with little pictures on it and we cross of a day every night.  I'm hoping this will help with Gretchen's confusion about when her birthday is -- she knew at Kaitlyn's birthday that her own birthday would be in a month, so now she's just patiently waiting: "Is it month yet?"

Olivia had her school readiness screenings this week.  I was given very little information, but I know that she got to use scissors once.  They're sending results ...sometime.  The two big disappointments about the screenings (from her point of view) were that Gretchen didn't get to come and that the school that had cookies for the open house did not also have some at the screening.  :)  In the car on the way to the first screening, I had to combat a litany of "I am only happy if I am with Gretchen.  I love Gretchen.  I will be sad if Gretchen is not there."  At least she loves her sister.

Gretchen has been taking control of her play a little more, creating her own dialogue rather than following Olivia's lead.  She got an hour of being the oldest while Olivia was at school and didn't quite know what to do with herself.  She did help me decide what to make for dinner, so I guess that's something.  :)

Kaitlyn is walking about half the time now.  She tends to speak in tongues, but has the occasional "uh-oh" and is beginning to say "no."  Her favorite word is still "dadadadadada."  She loves being outside and will stand at the window staring outside for long periods of time, waiting for some unwary visitor to open the door and let her out.  I'm trying to give her more time outside now that it's warm again.

Bryan built a rockbox for the girls.  It's an in ground sandbox, but with pea gravel instead of sand because we didn't want to deal with the mess.  Olivia and Gretchen have some buckets and a couple of large plastic trucks and are quite happy to dig in the rocks.

On the garden front, our fruit trees are getting leaves, which is very exciting.  My raspberry patch has 13 plants with leaves, which might be more exciting.  I have three rhubarb plants growing and the peas and broccoli are in the ground.  :)

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Flashback -- May 2010

Just some pictures from May 2010 because I love this album every time Jacque reminds me that it exists.  Back row: Justine, Jacob, Jacque, Josef.  Front row: Jillian, James, Johannah.

April 3-10

Kaitlyn's one-year check up was Tuesday.  She's 21 pounds, 10 ounces, and 29.75 inches tall.  The doctor speculated that perhaps Kaitlyn had been wiggling during the length measurement since her weight has been holding steady at 75% but her height has been swinging from 60%-80%.  Otherwise all is normal.  :)  Kaitlyn is the exact same size as Olivia at the same age (if we give her a quarter inch of wiggle room).  Gretchen was a tad thinner.

Olivia and Gretchen both walked late (14 months), but once they started taking steps they were walking and didn't really go back to crawling.  Kaitlyn takes a few steps here and there every day, but has decided that crawling is faster and safer most of the time.

Kaitlyn has a fake "everyone else is laughing so I should, too" laugh.  I believe the video was in last week's post.

For everyone hoping for the baby news they know is coming at any moment... there isn't any.  :-D

When Kaitlyn gives hugs, she pats the huggee's back (or, more accurately, shoulder).  It's pretty cute, and when she started doing it I remembered that Gretchen used to do the same thing.  It was cute then, too.

All three girls lean in for forehead kisses.  If I say, "give me a kiss," they'll run their foreheads into my mouth.  Olivia still does that even now.  Gretchen is the least likely to do it, opting instead for a real kiss, but I know she used to do it.  Kaitlyn will sometimes lean in so forcefully that she's in danger of chipping teeth (mine, not hers).

Kaitlyn is ... wait for it ... sleeping in her crib!  In her room!  With her sisters!  This development comes after three months of sleeping in a pack and play in the oratory that is connected to our room.  She also spent about a week sleeping in the pack and play in the old workroom, during which time she also finally conquered sleeping all the way through the night!  There's a very happy mama over here.  No regressing now, Kaitlyn.

Gretchen "reads" several books.  We have 24 books that come with an electronic reader that reads them aloud.  It's pretty much the 2016 equivalent of books on tape.  Olivia and Gretchen love all the books and read them to themselves before bed almost every night.  Both of them quote large portions of the books throughout the day, but Gretchen took it a step further by "reading" the Cinderella book that she got from the library.  Note that the book from the library is about 50 times longer than the one with the reader.

Most people needing to go to the bathroom will simply excuse themselves, walk to the bathroom, and take care of their business.  Not Gretchen.  When Gretchen needs to go to the bathroom, she immediately runs to tell me (despite the fact that she was playing less than five feet from her bathroom, the one with a step and potty seat already set up).  Then she runs in increasingly frantic circles around the house -- to the bathroom, to me, to the living room for no apparent reason, to me, to the bathroom, through the playroom, back to the living room, to me, to the bathroom, into the playroom again -- until I either physically put her on the potty or she pees on the floor.  "Well Johannah," I hear you saying, "just take her to the bathroom when she first tells you and the problem would be solved."  That would be a fantastic idea, except that she tells me when I'm nursing Kaitlyn, or trying not to burn dinner, or changing a diaper.  This in addition to the fact that she doesn't actually NEED my help.  Most of the time she doesn't even want me to help her, she just wants someone to watch while she does it herself.  Also, I'm trying to encourage her to take care of things herself.  Because she CAN.  She's doing better lately, for which I am grateful.

The end of last week was spent at a homeschooling conference.  We haven't decided one way or the other about homeschooling vs regular schooling, so Bryan and I are both trying to be open minded.  I'm heavily in favor of homeschooling, he's more interested in a traditional school experience.  Regardless, this conference has many different kinds of talks and we went with friends (and without children), so it was fun.  We learned a lot about various things and Bryan said he'd even go back again, especially if I let him walk across the street to get a beer when he needs a break to think about things.  :)

Pictures:

March 27-April 3

I have found recently that I have little time for blog updates.  Sorry about the lateness of, well, ALL of them.

This week's quick synopsis:
Kaitlyn turned one!  Sunday's weather was beautiful and warm, so we took the cake outside and she smashed daintily picked at it while a crowd of admirers looked on.  Bryan says the cake destroying is getting better with each subsequent child, but he thinks there is still plenty of room for improvement.  Kaitlyn did not have to worry about being able to blow out her own candle (she can't) because several of the gathered children blew it out before her cake got to her tray.

Kaitlyn's cake was entirely fast friendly.  I have a good vegan chocolate cake recipe if anyone wants or needs it.  WE need it, because I've just discovered that we only have one birthday that is not during a fasting period, and that one (Gretchen's) still falls during Lent about half the time.

Jillian, Jacque, and I went to a 2Cellos concert on Monday night.  It was a lot of fun, although noisier than I thought necessary.  I might be turning into an old fuddy duddy.

On Tuesday the girls and I took Jillian back to Michigan.  We ate lunch on Oma and Opa's old porch while Jillian sorted stuffed animals for the trip back to my house.  Then we dropped Jillian off at her current residence, visited the guys at Lube Cube (because the van needed an oil change), and were back on our way home.

On Wednesday we all traveled to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Bryan and I were attending the homeschooling conference in Cincinnati over the weekend.  Kaitlyn got Grandma all to herself for a few days and Olivia and Gretchen had a two day sleepover with the Kleins.

Pictures and Videos:

March 20-27

Though I haven't written an actual on time post in a while, there are a few bonus posts that have gone up recently, so make sure you catch Sound Bites 10 and March 6-20 Words.  Also, if you're a reader who usually gets an email, you could have missed several months of posts due to a Blogger issue that appears to be last on the list of things they're going to fix (ever).

First, a confession: We did not fill out March Madness brackets this year.  It was something of a tradition for us to have even the kids fill out brackets (you may recall the detailed process of Olivia's first bracket), but we've gradually lost hold of the tradition and this year didn't even notice that our chance had come and gone until it was too late.  Oh well.

Sunday was our bi-monthly trip to La Comedia.  We saw Fiddler on the Roof and it was sadly underwhelming.  The poor singers just could not keep up with the pre-recorded music.  If there's one thing I don't like about La Comedia, it's their lack of live musicians.  It doesn't usually bother me much, but it was especially obvious in this show.  That aside, Fiddler is a great show and we enjoyed ourselves.  We spent the night in Sidney and then drove back home Monday at lunchtime.

Tuesday was spent making pierogis with people from church.  None of us had ever made them before, but they're not too hard.  We made several large batches and froze them so that we can use them throughout Lent.

On Wednesday I packed the girls into the car and took them to JCPenney to get Kaitlyn's one-year pictures.  Here's a link where you can go look at them.  At some point I should figure out how to put them right in my blog, but that's a project for another day.  Olivia and Gretchen were incredibly patient, and Kaitlyn decided she'd rather walk than stand still.  The photographer got some good shots, though, and now Kaitlyn can join the gallery on our wall.  :)

Thursday was rainy and gross, but that didn't stop us from driving up to Michigan to pick up Jillian.  She's on Easter break and decided to come hang out in Ohio for some of her time off.  Jacob also came down later in the evening, and I was only a little bit sad about the communication failure that resulted in me fetching Jillian rather than Jacob bringing her.

Friday morning was Liturgy (for Annunciation) and it sounded like I'd brought my own choir to church with me.  :)  Shortly after we got home the Kleins arrived for a playdate.  Two hours later brought Jacque to visit as well.  We all hung out and had a good time until the Kleins had to leave, and then it was off to the Weys for our newly established recurring game night.  We brought Jacque, Jacob, and Jillian with us, ate chili and kale salad, put the girls to bed upstairs, and played games.  All three girls did well going to sleep at not-their-house and the transfer to the car and then to their own beds later in the night went smoothly, so we should be able to do this again.  :)

Saturday was a rather busy lazy day.  Bryan and Jillian ran to the store for fruit leather ingredients and we got the dehydrator started.  Bryan did a lot of dishes and then weeded my raspberry patch.  He reports that at least two of the plants are alive.  He also noticed that four of our seven trees have green buds on them!  I popped some beans in the pressure cooker (which is becoming less terrifying the more I use it) and when they were done Jillian and I went shopping for dinner ingredients and dress fabric.  Sarah met us at JoAnn to hold my hand while I picked out material for the girls' Pascha dresses and Jillian helped me finalize decisions after Sarah left.  I now have all the things I need to make what should be incredible cute dresses.  :)

Today is Kaitlyn's birthday and we're having cake made with a Lenten recipe I just discovered.  We'll have her smash a small one and hopefully someone will remember to take pictures...

Pictures:

Bonus Post: March 6-20 Words

Dear readers, I do still write posts.  I intend to keep writing posts.  And I feel silly making a bonus post to cover my normal posts that I haven't written in several weeks.  However.  Life has been busy and my blog got pushed to the back burner.  So there you have it.

Way back at the beginning of March, we had our card club.  Several months ago I printed out scorecards so that we wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel every time we played.  The scorecards came with goofy names on them (Peanuts characters, pet names for a significant other, kinds of wine, etc), so I told Bryan to pick a theme.  We ended up playing as 80s rock bands and then had the brilliant idea of making a playlist with songs by only those bands.  If you made a loner called while your band was playing, you won a prize.  No one succeeded, but it was a fun gimmick anyway, so we'll probably use it again.  Bryan has already created the next playlist.

On March 6 we went to two open schools (whenever I call them open houses I get questions about moving...) to see what they were like.  They were about what I expected from Catholic schools, although preschool has gotten more rigorous in the last 25 years.  Olivia actually misses the Ohio cutoff by two days, so we have another year to figure out what's going on with kindergarten.

We visited the Kleins on March 8 and I seem to recall being able to spend quite a bit of time outside because the weather was so gorgeous.  Olivia tried out Eva's two-wheeler (with training wheels) but had trouble making it move.  I think she mostly wanted to ride so that she could wear the helmet.  :)

I spent the next few days practicing for orchestra, which is something I rarely do.  I'd been told I was sitting second chair for the upcoming concert, though, and I figured that was grounds to at least look at the music ahead of time.  Happily for me, I ended up being third chair, where I am much more comfortable.  Our concert was all Star Wars music, and we even got to perform three pieces from the newest movie.  The new music became available on Tuesday morning, the conductor ordered it immediately, it was delivered on Thursday, and we saw it for the first time at rehearsal on Friday, so it was all very exciting.

The concert was on the day Daylight Savings began (or ended?  I never know which half of the year is the savings half).  There was a baptism at church in the morning, which meant liturgy ran long.  Then the evening was the beginning of Orthodox Lent, so we headed back to church for vespers.  My concert was sandwiched nicely in between all of the busyness.

The beginning of Lent is always church-heavy and this year was no exception.  Bryan had to be in Springfield on Monday and Tuesday, so the girls and I got a ride to church for services those two days.  Wednesday we all went together, Thursday I went alone (and it was wonderfully peaceful), and Friday I took the girls by myself again and we made it halfway through the service before we gave up and came home.  :/  After the first week it gets less intense and there's only an extra service on Wednesday evenings.

Other happenings from these past two weeks:
-The girls didn't really participate in the time change since they were going to bed late because of all the evening services.  They're still not quite fixed even now.
-We had some new people over for dinner one night.  I met Ruth at orchestra and she and her husband and their two-year-old daughter visited.
-Voting happened on Tuesday the 15th, and somehow Bryan and I both managed to make it despite the fact that he and our car were in Springfield for most of the day.
-Women's group was dedicated to exchanging Lenten recipes, so I have a bunch of new dinner ideas to try.  My goal this Lent is to create a full meal plan that I can just pull out on Cheesefare Sunday every year so that I don't even have to think about what to have for dinner during Lent.
-My peas outgrew the laundry room and got booted outside.  I covered them with plastic to protect them from the wind and cold (and bunnies), but I think it also protected them from the sun because they started wilting and don't look too happy right now.  I've since removed their cover, deciding that they'll just have to brave the weather in order to benefit from the sun and rain.
-Kaitlyn took her first steps.  I suppose this should be a paragraph in its own right, especially since she's our earliest walker by at least two months.  The monumental event happened on Saturday, March 19, and we managed to get it on video (I'll post that another time).  Since those first steps she's been braver, but still finds it faster and safer to crawl.

March 6-20

Just pictures for now.  I'll try to get some words up later this week.