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.

Pictures:

October 5-19

Last week's post was not written during the week like they usually are because I had orchestra rehearsals and Etsy orders and people visiting...  I was planning to write it after my concert on Saturday night, but Bryan thought I should skip it to watch a movie with him and eat chips instead.  Peer pressure prevailed, hence the description of the reason for my delay.

The orchestra season started two weeks ago, so I had rehearsals and concerts.  We performed with a group called Cirque de la Symphonie, so we were the background music to acrobatics and juggling.  Judging from the sounds coming from the audience, the performers were quite entertaining.  Unfortunately for the musicians, circus music is fast and flashy, so we had no time to stop and watch the show.

On Sunday morning we drove up to Michigan for dad's ordination to Archpriest.  Everyone except dad knew what was going to happen, and he was quite surprised.  I think the rest of us were surprised that he didn't find out ahead of time by accident.  We just stayed to visit for the day and then drove home at bedtime.  Jacob followed us home so that he could see our new house and spend some time de-stressing.

While Jacob was here he took lots of pictures.  A sampling is below.  He also caught a bee in a parmesan cheese jar.  The bee deserved it, as it was terrorizing us while we tried to enjoy the lovely weather.  It probably did not deserve the shaking that Gretchen gave it when it was her turn to hold the jar.  :/  The girls, Olivia especially, liked looking at it up close, though.  Also while Jacob was here, I decided to hire him as my personal car babysitter.  Small errands go so much more quickly when I can just run in without taking the girls!  Unfortunately, he has prior commitments.  Some nonsense about college classes, campus photography, and a capella, I think.  We here in the Barhorst household shall be patiently waiting for the day he comes to his senses and realizes that this would be a better gig.  :)

This weekend I was at a craft show but had a pitifully small amount of inventory due to the fact that people keep buying things off the Etsy site.  It's like they don't know I'm trying to build my inventory for a show!  I guess there are worse problems to have.  :)

Gretchen's update:
Gretchen has several recognizable words now (more than several if you're her mother and speak semi-fluent Gretchen!).  I was surprised by her mastery of blends; she uses the sounds sh, bl, and pl consistently.  She has recently started singing along with Olivia and her favorite words to sing appear to be "la" (on most songs) and "shapes" (for one shapes song).  Occasionally the shapes song morphs into one about shoes, because Gretchen loves shoes and can remember that word.  :)  Other recent skills include being able to crawl under Olivia's legs, putting on a headband, and identifying people in pictures.  The last one is less impressive than it sounds because Gretchen declares all the people in every picture to be "mama" (or, on a rare occasion, "dada").

Olivia's update:
I taught Olivia to use a computer mouse, and she's scarily good at it.  Good thing she can't type yet, or I'd never be able to curb her computer habits.  She is, however, able to pick her own songs when listening to music, which keeps me from having to come back to the computer every time she changers her mind.  She has also discovered that if she clicks through songs enough then eventually a full episode of Barney or Sofia the First will present itself for her viewing pleasure.  Olivia's other big thing right now is playing games.  She loves pulling out the games in our cupboard and trying to play them.  She does not love it when Gretchen interferes.  :/

I have a set of girly girls here.  Important things this week include shoes and nail polish (of course), strollers and babies, hair accessories, and purses.  Olivia has an old Easter hat and a small purse from Jillian that she wears across her body.  Gretchen prefers to carry a baby doll and the Jenga container.  :)  Both girls insist on hair accessories.  Lately they've been favoring headbands.

We have the occasional fruit fly in our house, and Bryan and I will try to catch them as they fly around the table.  As those of you who have tried to catch fruit flies before may know, the approved method is to clap your hands and then examine them for the fruit fly before deciding that it has escaped and looking around the room to relocate it.  Olivia realized we were trying to catch bugs, and started spotting a bug, clapping, and looking around.  Her sense of range is a little off, though, so we watched in amusement as she clapped at bugs that were halfway across the room.  The best part came afterwards, though, when Gretchen decided this looked like a great game.  Clearly having no clue that she is hunting bugs of any sort, Gretchen will clap once and immediately look at the ceiling for a few seconds before grinning triumphantly at her laughing audience.

Pictures:

October 5-12

This entry postponed due to movie and chips.  We will return to your regularly scheduled program next week.  Or possibly later this week, if I'm feeling on the ball.  :)

September 28-October 5

Our Cincinnati trip last weekend was wonderful.  We accidentally themed it around food because the only concrete plans we made before going had to do with places we wanted to eat.  Conveniently, the rest of Cincinnati (well, Newport, KY, actually) fell neatly into line with our plans.  We visited the Newport Aquarium, the Casino, Eden Garden, a bowling alley, and a putt-putt place.  We also got fantastic grilled cheese (Tom and Chee), heard dueling pianos (Gangsters Dueling Piano Bar), tried Bavarian food (Hofbrauhaus), and had a fancy four course dinner (Nicola's) where we couldn't finish the tiny portions because we were too full from all our previous meals.  At Hofbrauhaus I noticed a sign that said "1 liter of beer = 3 12-oz bottles."  I hurried back to the table to tell Bryan, whereupon he looked at me with wide eyes and said, "I just ordered a liter."  We took our time eating an appetizer while he nursed his liter of beer.  :)  At Nicola's -- a restaurant where we were asked what kind of water we wanted (tap, bottled sparkling, or bottled still) -- we split all the courses, and Bryan accidentally tricked me into eating raw fish because the first course was sashimi (raw fish) in a mushroom broth.  The menu talked up the mushroom; the sashimi not so much.  :-P  On the way home after church on Sunday, we stopped at Jungle Jim's -- a huge store full of all sorts of weird things -- to get some kangaroo and rabbit meat.  We also got two pounds of assorted Jelly Bellys.

While we were in Cincinnati, the girls had a grand old time at Grandma and Grandpa's.  They ate hamburgers and pancakes, watched Scooby Doo on constant loop, and also played outside a fair amount.  :)  Murry kept them too busy to mind that we were gone, although they did seem pretty happy to see us when we got back.

Then it was back home to sleep in our own beds and spend the week unpacking some more.  I've been making pretty good progress this week, and even managed to unpack a few things in my workroom, which is by far the least unpacked room in the house.  Maybe I'll get around to taking some pictures this next week.

Bryan and his dad bought wood for the basement office, and Bryan set up a card table down there in the meantime so that he could spread out and use all of the computer monitors he is used to using at work.  He is apparently much more productive now than he was on the floor in the chapel, so that's good.  Now he just needs to get the office actually built and wired for electricity (and heat!) before winter arrives.

We have the Sandra Boynton book Tickle Time that is a favorite of both girls.  In case you haven't read this book, it is all about tickling (surprise!) and all the characters are cats.  We have another book about baby animals that Gretchen likes to read, especially now that she can do the sounds for dog, duck, horse, and cow.  She also thinks she can do cat: they say "tickle tickle tickle!"

Pictures:

September 21-28

I have made pickles.  Murry had a large cucumber harvest this year and I decided to turn her cucumbers into pickles.  I made two batches -- one that is refrigerator cured and one that is canned for longer storage.  The refrigerator ones turned out pretty tasty, especially when cut up into tuna salad for a tuna melt.  They probably would have been even better, but I cannibalized their pickle juice to supplement the canned pickle juice (I had already packed my dill weed by the time I got around to canning and needed something to add to the dill seed I had).  I will let you know how the canned ones turn out.  Regardless, this is an endeavor I shall be repeating next year!

Earlier this week, Olivia came looking for us in the middle of the night saying that something was coming into her room.  She could not describe "something," but she was not pleased with its presence in her nighttime visions.  Recalling the stories of my parents shooing dogs and chipmunks out of my room when I was younger, I dutifully got out of bed and went to shoo "something" away.  Unfortunately, shooing was not sufficient and Olivia could not go back to sleep unless I stayed to keep her safe.  Conveniently (???), Gretchen woke up during all of this and needed to be rocked a little to go back to sleep anyway.  I stayed until everyone was calm and mostly asleep again and then left, turning on the kitchen light on my way back to my room.  There followed a series of eventless nights, followed by a night where a bee apparently invaded.  Bryan took a turn chasing bad things, went the light route much more quickly, and managed to stop the bee visions in mid-flight.

Ever since these nighttime visitors, Olivia has told me that we have an alligator trapped in our third bathroom.  Perhaps if it's in the bathroom then it won't bother her anymore?  We can hope.

Gretchen knows the sounds that ducks and horses make now.  She is still consistent at identifying a dog as well.  In other developments, she can find her nose, hair, arms, feet, mouth, eyes, belly, and sometimes ears.

Last weekend the girls and I went to visit the cousins.  Olivia and William chased each other around the dining room table for hours at a time while Gretchen and Edward scavenged dropped breakfast Cheerios.  Justine sent me pictures of the kids, but I have yet to get them up.  Maybe next week.  Jacque was there, too, so the we had fun with her (when she wasn't overwhelmed by the noise and chaos of 4 babies).  Justine, Jacque, and I played Cubs Monopoly one night, and Jacque inadvertently crushed us, partly due to the fact that Justine and I refused to let her drag the game out indefinitely by being nice to debtors.

We may have lost one of Olivia's shoes on the way home.  About an hour away from our house, I stopped in a gas station parking lot to retrieve dropped books/toys/pacifiers/blankets for the girls.  When we got home, one of Olivia's shoes (which she takes off in the car) was nowhere to be found.  So if anyone is traveling along state route 30 and happens to stop at a Speedway nearish Upper Sandusky (a few miles west of a rather convenient rest stop that we passed without stopping), please check the back of the parking lot for a white size 8 tennis shoe.  :-P

We have new phones!  While visiting Justine, Joseph, and Jacque in Pittsburgh, we went and changed our phone plan.  We've all followed mom to the cheaper-but-less-reliable pastures of t-mobile and, in doing so, joined the smartphone world.  I am, as it turns out, just as bad at answering my new phone as I was at answering the old one.  It is exciting to be able to make whatever calls I want whenever I want without worrying about minutes, though.  :)

Thursday was our 4th anniversary, and to celebrate we abandoned the children and took a trip to Cincinnati for the weekend.  More on that next week.  :)

Pictures:

September 14-21

I finally got last week's post up.  We have been unpacking all week and finally look like we're making progress.  I will take pictures if/when I ever find my camera (I don't remember packing it, so finding it is a little tougher).  This house is double the size of our last house, so even with all our boxes piled up, the girls have had plenty of room to run around.  :)

On Sunday, Bryan told me that he kept asking Olivia if she liked her new house and she kept saying no.  :(  My response was, "stop asking her!"  We did get the television hooked up so that she could watch a movie on Sunday night.  First thing Monday morning, Olivia helped me unpack all of her clothes and Gretchen's clothes and we got their bedroom arranged with everything familiar.  Then we moved on to the playroom and began finding their favorite toys.  By Monday afternoon she had decided that her new house wasn't so bad.

On Thursday we had to go back to Springfield to supervise some roof work on the old house.  The Kleins met us there and Steph and I swept up all the dust left over from moving furniture while the 4 kids ran around the empty rooms delighting in how much noise they could make.  Before we left I got everything out of the main section of the house (some stuff had been left in the linen cupboard and the kitchen) and grabbed a couple boxes from the attic.  We still have things in our mudroom and attic, but the main house is empty.

A couple of updates on the girls:

Gretchen has opinions.  The trouble is that no one, including Gretchen, knows what those opinions are.  Mostly, it would seem, her opinion is, "You want me to do it that way?  No, that's terrible!  Wait, don't do it my original way either!  Nothing ever happens the way I want it to.  *cue meltdown*"

Gretchen's new favorite word is "shoe."  This surprises no one, given her affinity for shoes.  Bryan wants to name it her first official word (by claiming that yeah, no, and more don't count), but I'd like the record to show that she did, in fact, say other words first.

Strange phrasings that Olivia still has:
We are at to the store.
I'm going to knock on the doorbell.
Umballela.
Mlilk.

And something funny Olivia said the other day:
"I'm Olivia Barhorst and you're Mommy Barhorst and she's Gretchen Barhorst and Daddy's a boy."

The girls and I are headed out to visit Justine and Joseph this weekend (as well as Jacque, who is also visiting them!).  Bryan is going to a Browns' game instead.  Priorities.  :-P

Pictures:

September 7-14

What a whirlwind of a week!  Last Friday we closed on the house and the sellers told us that they only needed a week to get out, rather than the expected month.  Our moving choices became move this weekend or wait a month anyway because we're busy.  Bryan and I talked it over and decided that we'd rather move right away.

So.  I spent the week putting things in boxes.  I had found free moving boxes on Craigslist a few weeks ago and picked them up, so they were just sitting in our attic waiting to be filled.  We got them down and I began packing.  It was going discouragingly slowly until Tuesday night when Steve came to visit with his pickup truck.  He packed up all the boxes we had done as well as a lot of unwieldy furniture and whatever else we could find to fit in his truck at the last minute.  Important note: "whatever else" included Olivia's bike, which she saw as we packed it.  He took that whole load back to Sidney with him and then met Bryan at the house on Friday to unload it.  After he left, the house looked a little emptier and we suddenly had a place to stack boxes.  Our flagging motivation was replenished.

I took care of bedrooms and books and wall pictures, etc., studiously avoiding packing anything in the kitchen.  The toys already live in tubs, so those were pretty well packed already, which was good because then the girls still had things to play with.  We talked to Olivia about how her bike was at her new house and how we were all going to move to her new house on Saturday.  She was excited to see her bike again.  :)

On Saturday, Bryan dropped the girls off with the Kleins while I started packing the kitchen.  When Bryan got back, he loaded the van, leaving room for the girls to get in.  Helpers from the church in Lima and Bryan's work in Springfield came with muscles and a pickup truck and trailer.  They got quite a bit packed up before noon, which was when Bryan went to pick up the u-haul.  Two more hours were spent eating pizza and packing the u-haul and then everything was full and we decided it was good enough.  I went to pick up the girls and the trucks headed straight to the new house.  By the time the girls and I arrived, everything was unpacked into our house and the Lima folk were driving away.  Presbytera had brought dinner for everyone and there was a little leftover pizza, so we didn't have to worry about that.  The girls and I went to vespers while Bryan and his work friends put boxes in the correct rooms and assembled beds for that night.

Now all we have to do is unpack and organize...  :)

Pictures:

Ack!

We moved!  Therefore...

This blog post is delayed due to the general craziness associated with moving.  Also, our internet takes some time to transfer so I couldn't write it even if all my packing and unpacking was done, which it's not.  :)  Perhaps Wednesday.

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.
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.
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).
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. --Scheduled for our 4th anniversary.
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.

August 31-September 7

Monday was the Second Annual Barhorst Fun Run.  Most of my family was able to make it, and the Kleins showed up just in time for Scott to succumb to peer pressure and run a half mile.  Jillian, being on the cross country team and all, ran 3 miles.  The rest of us tagged in and out for between half a mile and a full mile each.  :)  Easily the best part of the fun run was watching all the little kids play "the race game."  Olivia won the first race handily by virtue of the fact that she was the only person to follow the directions.  Then Olivia, Eva, William, Eli, and Gretchen ran back and forth between the driveway and the corner as many times as we would let them.  After the fun run was lunch, and Steve and Murry showed up for that (also Tyler and his friend, Thomas).  It was nice to hang out and chat with people.  Bryan even managed to get a game of soccer organized before everyone went home.

While my family was in town, we gave a gift to mom.  Raise your hand if you know what it means!

We moved our very last "Lima day" up a week so that we'd be more conveniently located (in Sidney) for closing on Friday.  That all went smoothly and we are now the proud holders of two mortgages!  ...We hope to sell our Springfield house soon so that we're back down to just one mortgage.  :)  We get the keys this coming Friday, but estimated move-in date is second weekend of October unless we can somehow make it work this coming weekend.

I've decided to make the points section of my blog slightly more interesting.  Therefore, points will reset at the end of each year.  The winner for the year will get a small, yet-to-be-determined prize.

Pictures: