Bonus Post: I Gave Olivia the Camera ...Twice

Olivia wanted me to take a picture of Matthias, but I was busy, so I gave her my phone and showed her how to get to the camera.  After she got the picture she wanted, she turned the camera on herself.  Then I showed her the selfie button.  She retained custody of my phone for the next half hour or so, and then borrowed it again a few days later.  I now share with you a sampling of what is photo-worthy in the life of a six-year-old (spoiler alert: everything).  She did have some sequences of distance shots vs close-ups, and she made an effort to get a few people.  I'm not posting every picture because there were too many (87 the first day and 166 the second day), but there are more than enough here for you to piece together her journey.  I did include 98% of the selfies because I was amazed by how many she took and thought she might care later.  For ease of viewing, I grouped all of the pictures by category rather than chronologically.

Day One:

Matthias (the reason she borrowed the camera in the first place):

Selfies:

Other people:

The least fuzzy of the random objects:

Day Two:
Selfies:

Still Olivia, but taken by someone else:

Other people:

The least fuzzy of the random objects:

December 3-10

Matthias is "grabs the inside of his sleeves while getting dressed" months old.

Now being discussed in the Barhorst car: whether the bears in heaven will be able to eat Jesus since he's already dead but also alive.

Birthday news: We celebrated Bryan's birthday on Wednesday.  His actual birthday was two weeks ago.  I had a birthday on Friday but was too busy to notice.

I played with two different orchestras this weekend, so my Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were full of music.  Bryan had to take care of all the kids by himself quite a bit, but he managed.  He did take a nap as soon as I came home on Saturday, and he was also too sick to function very well on Sunday.

Olivia and Gretchen went to the Lima Symphony Christmas concert.  They enjoyed it very much and thought that maybe they'd like to go to all of my concerts from now on.  Unfortunately, not all the concerts are quite that exciting, and most of them run pretty late.  I am going to make an effort to remember that they like attending, though.

Bryan was supposed to be in Springfield for four days this week, but he surprised us and came home after only two!  His meetings got canceled.  He also brought the good news that next week's meetings that were supposed to take him away for three days int he middle of the week have been postponed until after the holidays.  Suddenly he's home for much more of December than originally anticipated.

I've somewhat resurrected morning stations.  We did them consistently when I was babysitting Sophia and Evalynn, but over the summer they fell by the wayside.  Recently I've been setting them out the night before in an attempt to trap the girls (mostly Kaitlyn) before they come wake me up in the morning.  This gives me a few more minutes of sleep and/or peace and has the added benefit of allowing me to feel like we're getting school done!

Pictures: