Bonus Post: Sound Bites 58

Matthias: I don't want to be dead.
Me: So don't be dead.

Matthias: But I don't want to be FAT and dead.

Me: When will you be fat and dead?

Matthias: I don't know. Afternoon?

Playing Dr Mario.

Kaitlyn: Grandma, these extra viruses are coming down.

Kaitlyn: Grandma, are you doing that?

Grandma: Yes.

Kaitlyn: Grandma, that's not very helpful.

Grandma, laughing: It's helping you.

Kaitlyn: It's making me lose.

Matthias: My hand hurts.

Bryan: Why does your hand hurt?

Matthias: Because I accidentally eated it a little.

Bryan: Oh?

Matthias: But I didn't eat the whole thing, so I will be okay.

Me: Mommies can always break wizards.

Me: These boots are size 11.

Kaitlyn: I'm 11.

Matthias: No, you're 5.

Kaitlyn: I'm 11 feet tall.

Me: Your feet are size 11.

Kaitlyn: Yeah, my feet can count to 11.

Kaitlyn: Be careful because my throat is usually by my belly but today my throat is in my neck and it makes my voice crooked.

Bryan: It'll be done in eight minutes.

Kaitlyn: One, two, three, four...

Bryan: Minutes, not seconds.

Kaitlyn: Oh, oh. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi...

Kaitlyn, to Oma: Oh, just so you know, don't call me Gretchen. I'm Kaitlyn. Oh, but I don't want to boss you around.

March 7-14

We made our own maple syrup! Last year we attended the local maple festival in early March and Bryan came home determined to attempt this magical feat of producing syrup from trees himself. He bought five spiles on Amazon, put four of them in a safe place, and kept one out for the kids to use when playing doctor. Fast forward to this March… We have a friend who works for the parks department, which is probably how we ended up at the maple festival in the first place. Bryan invited Dan and his family over for dinner and dragged Dan outside in the dark to identify which of our trees, if any, were maples. The good news: we have five maple trees. The bad news: Bryan lost the four spiles that he put in a safe place. Not to be deterred, he tapped one tree anyway, rigging an old juice container with wire and a nail in place of a bucket. The next day he found his remaining spiles and tapped two more trees using an oil container and a small pop bottle. Note to our next March selves: we need bigger containers. Maple sap season, as it turns out, is very short, especially if you have silver maples like we do. Our containers collected sap for about a week and then the trees stopped flowing. I boiled down two large pots, each half full of sap, for a long time. Then I dumped the remaining liquid in the smallest pot I own and boiled some more. When it got all bubbly on top like hard candy, I stopped. And voila, syrup. Actually, I might have let it go a little too long, because our ¼ cup of syrup has some crystalized bits in it. Brimming over with enthusiasm, Bryan wants to buy half a dozen sugar maples to plant in our front yard, so I guess I’ll have time to perfect my method in the coming decades.

Theodore loves being outside. He’s a little bit of a problem about it, though, because he’s getting big enough to do things. He learned how to climb the ladder inside the clubhouse and proceeded to climb all the way to the very top rung and get stuck. This wouldn’t be so bad if the top rung didn’t happen to be only inches below the top of the wall. Also, there’s the whole gaping hole thing. Since Theodore is an acknowledged dum dum who frequently makes poor life choices, we decided something had to be done. Bryan built a trap door to cover the hole, and now, providing his siblings remember to put the lid back on after they climb through, Theodore climbs up as high as he can and yells while he tries to shove his head through the space where the ladder still exits the hole. Problem solved?

In an effort to encourage more frequent practicing, or, at the very least, more frequent touching of instruments, I’ve started having Kaitlyn and Olivia send Marco Polos of their progress to Oma. Grandma A recently downloaded Marco Polo, so she’s had a video or two as well. If anyone else needs/wants to be on the Marco Polo Practice list, let me know. :)

An unprecedented thing happened at card club last week: Bryan lost. Now, Bryan doesn’t always win, but he often does and when he doesn’t he’s at least in the top half. He doesn’t lose. Except this time. And whether there were extenuating circumstances or not (alleged misplays by partners who should have known better), the fact remains that he had the least number of points and this will live in everyone’s memory (or at least mine) forever. We usually deem ourselves ineligible to win our own prizes, but for the loser prize everyone agreed that Bryan could claim it. He is now the proud owner of a pair of fish flops that is a little too small. We have a gift receipt so that he can exchange them for the proper size, but when he saw how much the kids loved them he decided to just keep the too small ones.

Our basement renovation is officially started! We have the contractor, we have the loan, and "Mr Basement Guy" has popped in and out several times now. Lines have been drawn on the floor for walls and a lot of alarming noises have been issuing forth under my feet. I believe they've rearranged some of the plumbing pipes down there and we're well on our way to a dedicated HVAC system. Theoretically they'll be completely done at their previous job soon and then we'll see a lot more people a lot more often.

Jacque sewed some snuggets when she was here a few years ago. For those who haven't seen this completely made up product, it's like a Snuggie meets a chicken nugget. ... Kind of. It's a fleece blanket poncho. When we visited the Smiths for Samuel's baptism, I was reminded of the existence of snuggets and spent my entire time (except for the service, of course) wearing one. Upon returning home, I immediately set out to make my own. Well. First I bought too little fabric. Then I was busy doing other things and didn't get around to realizing my mistake for several weeks. By the time I went to remedy the situation, JoAnn was sold out of the original print. Bryan and I looked at solid colors to match, but decided that would be less than ideal. We scoured the shelves for a new Johannah-ish fabric. Bryan tried to pick the most "vegetables and sadness" looking fabric he could find, which turns out to be a surprisingly good benchmark for whether I will like it. Then I noticed that precut blanket panels were significantly cheaper than fleece by the yard, so Bryan had to summon all his energy and caring to look through all of those. He was less inspired by this point, and mostly just suffered through my enthusiasm. I found something okay, but then... I found fabric with a full size princess dress printed on it. It's almost the least vegetables and sadness print there is. After some debate between the okay print and the princess print, I decided on the princess. This was, apparently, quite the upset. I finally got around to sewing my princess dress snugget and it is fabulous. The dress print is my size, so I look like I'm wearing a ball gown when I'm really just snuggled into a pocket of warmth. And it's reversible, with a pink dress on one side and a purple one on the other. My children are so jealous. Now all I need is a couple of snaps on each side to bustle it up when I want to walk. Oh, and a tiara. I'll probably have to get a tiara. :)

Pictures:

Bonus Post: The Absent Pictures

When I wait so long between posts, I have to separate out the pictures from the words. These appear to range from just before Christmas to midway through February. They're loosely organized from newest to oldest.

Pictures:

February 21-March 7

February started out very cold and Bryan despaired of getting his one basketball game in for the month. However, after a ferocious two weeks of winter, spring decided to start making itself known and we had enough consecutive days in the 40s to melt the snow on the driveway. A few brave souls bundled up (and one foolish soul (Bryan) wore shorts) and played a gratuitous game of basketball at 5:30 on a warmer-than-the-rest-of-the-week Thursday. Now it's a year round basketball league.

In the midst of the snow, school got canceled several times. There was one week where the girls only went two days, and one of those was a two hour delay. The school has used up 8 of its 5 allotted calamity days so far this year. To compensate, they've added three days to the end of the school year and have started having virtual learning days instead of canceled days. We've only had to do virtual learning once, and it went reasonably well. Third grade was very well prepared for this -- they have chromebooks on which they access Google classrooms regularly at school, so they all know what to do. Second grade was less well prepared, but Gretchen and I muddled through finding her assignments and getting them properly submitted.

Kaitlyn went to Rudy's house for a sleepover one day and then got an extra day as a bonus because of the snowstorm happening right when we were supposed to pick her up. She was very excited and told Keshia, "It's like I live here now!" We did get her back eventually.

Theodore knows a few more words than last reported. I don't think he's really acquired any new ones, I just forgot to record these: tickle, hot, ow, ball, open.

Theodore is in the shoes and buckles age. He spends much of his day wandering around in shoes several sizes too large and buckling all the buckles he can find (generally the two booster seats) as often as he can get someone else to unbuckle them for him. I dug out the buckles from underneath the changing table pad and he also buckles that while I change his diaper. He likes being outside, especially if it involves a basketball or soccer ball. Oh, and his answer to every question is, "Mmnope."

Kaitlyn has kind of sort of started violin. She came into my room one afternoon with one of our tiny violins and declared that she was going to practice with me. I showed her how to hold the violin (like I've showed three of her siblings before her) and rather than being discouraged and giving up (like the aforementioned siblings), she spent about 10 minutes practicing open strings with me. So I taught her the string names and told her which string to play while I put down fingers so that Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star issued forth from the instrument. This served to increase her excitement and now we try to work on a little bit every day. I ordered her a shoulder rest, a new set of strings, and a bow with all its hair, and we're off.

The weather has been in the 30s-50s most days recently. It tends to bounce back and forth. I was able to take the little kids to the zoo on Wednesday and we had a lovely time wandering around looking at animals. It was warm enough for spring coats, but cold enough for hats and gloves. Masks are useful for keeping faces warm in the cooler weather. :)

We sent the kids to Sidney this weekend. We get them back today and tonight is our Happy March card club.

Pictures:

December 27-February 21

Early one morning I was wrenched out of a deep sleep by shrieks of "No! No! Theo! No!" The clock read 4:34 as I leapt out of bed and scampered through the house. The lights in the boys' room were on and there were two boys in the baby crib. Matthias was huddled in the corner yelling while Theodore rolled over and tried to take a bite out of Matthias's leg. I wondered loudly what was going on, and Matthias answered, "It's morning time." Having been informed that it was NOT, in fact, morning time, Matthias meekly retired to his own bed muttering, "well, I thought it was morning time." I asked if he had woken Theo up. He had. I asked if Theo was trying to bite him. He was. And then, with a lack of caring that can only be achieved at 4:30 in the morning, I said, "That's what happens when you wake people up and climb in their beds. Let this be a lesson to you." I calmed the boys down, turned off the light, turned on the noise canceling fan (although for what, I don't know, since all the noise was coming from within the room), and went through the bedtime routine again. Then, with a firm admonishment to Matthias to not bother Theodore again until actual morning time, I departed for my own bed. Both being rather awake still, the boys chatted for half an hour or so before I finally heard the noises on the monitor diminish and we all drifted off to sleep.

Theodore has lots of words now. He mostly repeats what other people say, so he doesn’t always use his new words correctly independently, but he’s trying. My favorite new one is “away!”, often accompanied by a hand shoving a too close sibling out of his face. Oh, and “noom!” I don’t know what word Theodore is going for with “noom,” but it means television. Specifically the one in our bedroom. He also says hello (mostly to phones), hi (mostly to people), bye, okay, no, cheese, up, down, amen, bobby (belly), go, mommy, daddy, more, uh-oh, grandma, grandpa, help, thank you, and baa do do doo (baby shark).

Matthias excels at the associative property. You know, the one that says that an item is what it is. He was most persistent about it at the zoo when he overheard a little girl questioning whether he knew what a tiger was (“I do know! A tiger is a tiger!”), but he likes to bring it out at other times as well.

Kaitlyn lost her first tooth on Christmas Eve. She has since lost one more.

Funny things Matthias says:
Gruffalo instead of burrito.
Ungorilla instead of umbrella.
Aunt Jujillian.
Except instead of especially (I love everything in the world except mom and dad).
I smell like instead of I smell (I smell like chocolate).

For posterity:
-We have a cleaning lady. Deb comes once a month to mop floors and deep clean the bathrooms and kitchen. Kaitlyn and Matthias follow her around the house to help her and to make not-so-subtle comments about how WE never clean. Which, for the record, we do. I guess Kaitlyn and Matthias need more chores.
-We have a television in our bedroom. Because Bryan said, “If you’re going to fall asleep watching TV anyway, wouldn’t you rather not have to move to the bed when the show is done?” Given the fact that Bryan grew up with a television in his room, I’m somewhat amazed we made it ten years before buying one.
-Gretchen pulled out of gymnastics. She was enjoying it, but the stress of getting ready, the lateness with which we got home, and her tendency to hurt herself caused her too much stress. We had to give one month notice, but she decided not to attend any of those last few weeks, either, and has been much happier on Thursdays. We’re trying to make sure she has a dedicated arts and crafts time during that hour instead.
-We’re finishing our basement. We started the process of getting a home equity line of credit back in October, but had trouble with banks being willing to cover our manufactured home. We finally found a credit union willing to take us, signed the papers, and set about waiting for our contractor to finish up the job he was working on. Then a bunch of snow came and pushed everything back a couple of days. BUT. Now he’s ready and he should be starting this week!

Angelina and Josef came to visit one weekend and told the kids there are unicorns at the Columbus zoo. Josef even produced a picture. Now all the kids think that the Columbus zoo is the best, most magical zoo and they keep asking to go there. Matthias inquires almost daily if I think this or that animal (real or imagined) is also at the Columbus zoo with the unicorns.

We looked up what all our names mean for some reason that now escapes me.
Olivia Helen - Peace (or Ancestor’s Descendant), Light
Gretchen Bernice - Pearl, Brings Victory
Kaitlyn Elaine - Pure, Shining Light
Matthias Edward - Gift of God, Wealthy Guardian
Theodore John - Divine Gift, God is Gracious
Bryan Edward - Noble, Wealthy Guardian
Johannah Helen - (Name not found in database) God is Gracious, Light

Kaitlyn and Matthias are enjoying Catechesis very much. Their teacher says that Kaitlyn is a very helpful leader and that Matthias has improved noticeably in several skill areas since the beginning of the year.

Kaitlyn is now in set 4 of her phonics books. She’s working on consonant blends and two syllable words. She doesn’t enjoy reading very much yet, but she does a good job anyway. Matthias has been listening very carefully as she sounds out words and is now insisting that I work with him as well. He has read a couple of pages of the first book and is very proud of himself.

Olivia has finished multiplication in school and moved on to division. She has enjoyed both of those and thinks maybe she does like math after all. This is in stark contrast to her opinions on estimation.

Gretchen is learning cursive and is very excited to be able to use it more regularly. She does not approve of the steady pace with which they learn new letters. She compensates by making all her printed letters extra curly and flowery.

We saw the Bossards and the JA Fentons for Christmas. Annemarie perfected crawling out of her pack and play while she was here (a skill which she transferred to her crib as well) and now the Bossards won’t visit again until she’s fixed all her sleeping woes. Conveniently, that should line up with our new guest suite being available. Our visit to the Barhorst side for Christmas was postponed due to potential covid exposure, so we had that celebration in mid January instead. Our game shelf (which I had just organized and labeled) is no longer big enough. We saw the JA Fentons again at the end of January, because why not?! And then in the beginning of February Bryan and I left the kids with Steve and Murry and drove to Chicago for Samuel’s baptism. Despite having attended close to 20 Orthodox baptisms at this point, this was the first one in which we were godparents.

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 57

Me: Gretchen, what's that cup up by your bed?
Gretchen: ...Science.

Matthias: The bubbles from the ginger beard are inside me fighting my belly.

Kaitlyn: Theodore, you make me so angry!

Gretchen: Well you make me angry! You said that to a one year old!

Kaitlyn: Yeah, well... We ALL make mom angry!

Gretchen: That's true.

Matthias: I can see our house.

Kaitlyn: No you can't.

Me: Kaitlyn, just pretend he can. Say, "What good eyes you have."

Matthias: I CAN see our house.

Kaitlyn: What good eyes you have.

Matthias: It's because they're blue.

Me: *opening a chocolate bar*

Gretchen: What's that?

Me: If I tell you it's Brussels sprouts, will you not want it?

Gretchen: Yes.

Me: It's Brussels sprouts!

Gretchen: How many seconds until we get home?

Me: 660.

Gretchen: How many minutes?

Me: 11.

Matthias: How many clock?

Bryan, displaying suckers: There's cherry, blue raspberry, co--

Matthias: I know, I know what they are. Watermelon (actually cherry), blueblerry (blue raspberry), butter splatch (cotton candy), different watermelon that's yummier (fruit punch), and I don't know this last one (there's the watermelon!).

Matthias: What are you doing?

Me: Trying to have quiet time.

Matthias: Well... Is it loud time yet?

Matthias: Daddy, we're being bakeries!

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 56

Me: Say "please mom."

Matthias: Please Mom.

Me: "I love you madly."

Matthias, looking sad: WHY?!

Kaitlyn: How did you decide which ones were girls and which ones were boys?

Me: We could tell when you were born.

Kaitlyn: How could you tell?

Me: How could we tell?

Kaitlyn: Because the girls had long hair?

Me: No, all babies are born with short hair or no hair.

Kaitlyn: Oh, because the boys were wearing pants!

Olivia: Everyone point at Daddy and say, "Fixer Man!"

Everyone: Fixer Man!

Olivia: Everyone point at Mommy and say...

Olivia: ...

Matthias: Washer Lady!

Everyone: Washer Lady!

The teller at the bank gave the kids Spongebob stickers.

Kaitlyn: Wait, are these cheese persons?!

Me: Good night, boys. Sleep well.

Matthias: Don't tell me to sleep well. I won't sleep well because I don't like oatmeal.

Bryan did a card trick for the kids.

Bryan: Kaitlyn, is this your card?

Kaitlyn: Yes! How did you do that? 

Gretchen: Is the card warm because Kaitlyn touched it?

Bryan: No, that's not it.

Matthias: Maybe you put your eyeball in Kaitlyn!

Gretchen: Are we cleaning up because people are coming over?

Bryan: Yes. It's called shame cleaning.

Matthias: Mom. Don't watch.

December 20-27

Merry Christmas! Christ is born!

We did not go to Sidney last weekend as originally planned because of covid complications. No one we know has it, but they're working with people who are exposed so... We've rescheduled for January. This left us with several unplanned for days at home (and Bryan was off work). It was quite calm and lovely.

We had lots of church on Thursday and Friday. Royal hours at the Orthodox church on Thursday afternoon. Mass at the Catholic church on Thursday evening (not midnight, though, because they offer a 7:00 that is much better for our kids). Liturgy at the Orthodox church on Friday morning. And then, finally, presents. The kids did great. Except Theodore.

An amendment to my observation that Theodore needs to be held all the time: This does not apply in church. In church Theodore would prefer to be down and running around.

Theodore has a word for when he's excited to see a parent: "Dada!" He has another word for when he's whining or yelling at a parent: "Mom!" Both words are used for both parents, depending on his mood.

When the kids grow up with no sense of time, it's because I say "You have twenty minutes" and then forget to come back for an hour.

I make ginger beer now. Will graciously walked me through the steps for my first batch and now I'm comfortable enough with it to feel relatively confident in my abilities. It's good enough to drink straight but also works well as a mixer. I did try to branch out one time into something of a mulled ginger beer, but that was a failure. I'm back to good old reliable plain and perfectly happy about it.

Two thirds of Theodore's Christmas presents are squeezy pouches. We're a little worried that he'll start raiding under the tree whenever he needs a snack.

Josef and Angelina arrived on Christmas afternoon and stayed for the weekend. Then Josef went back home today to work for a week and Angelina decided to stay and party with us. The Bossards arrive tomorrow sometime.

Pictures:

November 15-December 20

Features that will exist on Gretchen’s ideal house when she’s ready to buy one:

A star
A porch
A chimney
Stairs
A fancy front door

Just before Bryan and I left for our anniversary trip, Kaitlyn cut her hair. She was trying to get rid of her bangs and regretted it immediately. Unfortunately for her, she'd cut off rather a large amount. She resolved to not go anywhere where she might have to see someone. Since keeping her hands over her hairline for the next six months was not a viable option, I suggested that we invest in some stretchy headbands. She has, over the past few weeks, come around to the idea and embraced the headbands. I am hopeful that they'll keep her growing bangs out of her face long enough to avoid another haircut.

Theodore needs more adult attention than our other babies. Actually, it probably just seems like he needs more attention because he has to fight so many other people to get it. Regardless, he often wants nothing more than to be held by whichever adult is willing while life carries on around him. The fastest way to become Theodore’s best friend is to never put him down.

Kaitlyn has mastered short vowel sounds and is now in the second set of readers working on long vowels. She's picking things up quickly and doing very well, but she still despises the suggestion that she should maybe read today. I half remember Gretchen going through these growing pains as well, so I guess we'll see when it gets easy enough for her to be excited about reading.

I took the younger kids to the zoo one beautiful day in early November. Kaitlyn insisted on wearing her bunny ears. This turned out to be a fabulous decision, because the river otters were quite interested in playing with the ears. Of course, they couldn't get the ears through the glass, but that didn't stop them from trying repeatedly.

Gretchen might be a procrastinator. She is constantly distracted from the task at hand, but she had a book report due on Tuesday and after all the other kids went to bed she finally buckled down and finished it. She required no nagging or assistance, and her finished product was beautiful. On second thought, maybe she’s just a hermit.

Olivia got to play a piano piece for the Ribbon Festival, which is a series of little recitals put together by the local chapter of the Music Teachers National Association. Since she’s only been playing for a few months, her teacher gave her a melody to learn and then played a harmony with her.

Thanksgiving saw the Bossards, Jillian, and the JA Fentons visiting us for most of a week. We were supposed to meet Austin, but he had to cancel his trip due to covid. :( The week was as calm as it can be with 17 people sharing a house. The weather was beautiful and the kids quite a bit of time outside.

We had a surprise visit from Tom last weekend. He dropped in on his way from Valpo to Cleveland and managed to catch Zach's visit at the same time. Matthias and Theodore greatly appreciated borrowing Gwen and Silas's grandpa for a weekend.

The night before Thanksgiving, Gretchen came out of her room while the adults were playing games. “Mom, I can’t sleep in my bed because of the feathers.” “...What feathers?” “From the hole in my pillow.” “Did you help the feathers escape?” Gretchen nods. “Did you help the hole exist?” Gretchen nods again. “Bring me your pillow.” Her once stuffed pillow is now only half full, and a four inch gash can be seen in one corner. I send her back to bed and sew up the pillow. When it’s finished, I go into her room to give it back, but not before securing it inside three pillowcases. The carpet by the door is barely visible beneath a pile of feathers. “Here, Gretch,” I say, tossing the pillow on the bed. “Go to sleep.” Pooof. A small explosion of feathers erupts from the bed. “I’m on the floor, mom. There are too many feathers up there and they keep poking me.” I snag the pillow and toss it across the room towards her. Pooof. A feather geyser appears as the pillow sails overhead, ruffling feathers in its wake. I set her up in a sleeping bag in the corner on the room furthest from the feathers and promise to survey the damage in the morning. Thanksgiving morning dawns and, after breakfast and a quick survey of what needs to be done before lunch, Gretchen and I return to the scene of the crime, vacuum in tow. The feather spread is impressive. “Why, Gretchen?” “I just love feathers. Can we maybe keep some?” Request denied. I decide to empty the vacuum canister before we begin. We vacuum feathers out of two full plastic shoe boxes. Gretchen tells me that she and Kaitlyn collected them as they fell the night before so that they wouldn’t bother Edward and Walter, who were sleeping below the beds. We vacuum the floor in front of the door. I leave Gretchen in Angelina’s capable hands and together they vacuum under the beds. Then Angelina notices the feathers on top of Gretchen’s bed. I return, and together we shake feathers off of everything and hide the clean things in the closet. We strip Gretchen’s bed completely and Kaitlyn’s halfway. The floor looks like we haven’t even started. After a second run over everything with the vacuum, the feathers are nearly vanquished. Eventually, we declared it good enough. We emptied the canister 6 times over the course of that morning. Our backyard looked like we’d plucked an entire flock of turkeys for the Thanksgiving feast. Even as I write this, there are still pockets of resistance, hiding among toys and nestled in corners, reminding us of what happens when you love feathers too much.

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Sound Bites 55

Matthias: I am a dinosaur with lion moves and fire in my mouth.

Jillian: Hi!
Olivia: What? Oh, hi!
Gretchen: Aunt Jillian, I thought you were my dad!

Kaitlyn: Wait, why am I the one who has to go get all the supplies?

Angelina: Well, you live here, so we're asking you where things are.

Kaitlyn: But why can't Gretchen go?

Gretchen: I'm too artful for that.

*car brakes suddenly*

Me: Who lost their stuff?

Gretchen: Matthias.

Me: What did you lose, Matthias?

Matthias: I losed everything.

Gretchen: If I convince everyone in Pennsylvania to leave and then I move monsters in, it could be Transylvania!

Matthias: Are we in California?

Me: No.

Matthias: Are we in October?

Me: No.

Matthias: Are we in Sunday?

Me: No. It's a Tuesday in September in Ohio.

Olivia: We're there already? You said it would be 8:30. So your estimate was wrong?

Me: Yes, we got here earlier.

Olivia: Yeah, you were way off.

Gretchen: Are you a mom?

Angelina: Do I have any kids?

Gretchen: No. But you live in your own house.

Angelina: Where should I live?

Gretchen: With your mom!

Gretchen, in front of her godfather while about to receive communion: Wait, MOM! Am I Orthodox?

How Kaitlyn doctored a stuffed dragon back to health:

First I broke his body. Then I took all the fire out and threw it in the garbage. Then I closed him and poked some nails in. Then they dried and now he's all better. Well, he's still a little bit dead. I don't think I was supposed to use nails, but I'm still learning. That's why I'm a little girl.