Sew Much Fun!

 Dear Kids,

This past week we have lived a typical childhood summer full of pool time, play and boredom busting activities. 

First of all I wanted to share this adorable picture of Hannah. This was your "carrot" for attending swim lessons. I was desperate because when we went to the pool for the first time, unless you were in the baby pool section, you pretty much just sat on the top stair going into the pool. You refused to even be carried deeper. You were terrified of being in the water. 

I tried bribing you with extra dessert, crafts, I pulled out all the stunts and you still refused to go into the pool, much less agree to take lessons. Finally, one day I was showing you guys videos of babies swimming and one video led to another video, which led to a bunch of kids swimming with mermaid tails. I saw your eyes light up and immediately, I jumped on the opportunity to let you know that in order to wear mermaid tails, you have to learn how to swim well. It didn't take any further convincing and the next day, you were swimming happily in the water. Best $16 spent ever. 

As a result of completing swim lessons, Hannah has been requesting to go to the pool every afternoon. I'd say 5 out of 7 afternoons last week were spent at the pool.

 The mornings are pretty much the only time we can get out to play. So one day, I pulled out the wagon to pull Hailey to the playground. I felt something tug on the handle and I turn around to find you fully standing, supporting yourself with the wagon handle. So you can now pull to standing. I immediately called Daddy to ask him to lower the crib. He reminded me that you can't get to sitting yet, and he will adjust things once you master that skill.

 On the way back, I decided to let you big kids sit in the wagon just to keep Hailey safe.

 On Friday, we decided to go to a splash pad, but it ended up being closed, so we stopped by to get some ice cream and headed to a playground closer to our house instead.

 Hailey didn't get any ice cream, but you were perfectly content practicing your stand-up skills.

 It was super sunny, the water spray from the seal was very underwhelming, but alas, you both had so much fun with your friends.

 Hailey didn't get to play in the water, but got to sit on the swings instead.

 On Saturday, we went to a birthday party at a new art space, Figment art. There were lots of activities to do and you all had a great time.

 Even Hailey enjoyed the colorful space full of different textures.

 On Monday, Hannah, you got a chance to experience your first VBS and this would be Nathan's 3rd year of VBS. You both told me you were a bit nervous at drop off, but in the end you both had lots of fun.

 It's very special to see the bond that is growing between the three of you. Hailey, you really look up to your older siblings a lot and you love getting attention from them. Sometimes they give you a bit too much attention, or are a little too rough, but you are sure to let them know that you do not like that one bit!

 Hailey, you are generally such a happy baby during the day, but in these past weeks, sleep has been driving me crazy. You have been taking 30 minute naps and at night, you wake up after the first hour of being asleep. All the sleep websites stated that these things are happening because you are overtired, but I recently found another article that said that these are possibly due to being undertired. So, I let you stay up a bit later before your first nap, and over time, your naps have been improving.

I actually installed this app called Huckleberry and it's been giving me a good window to put you down for a nap or sleep. It's not perfect, but it's helped me realize that you needed to stay awake a bit longer. I'm still wanting you to take longer stretches at night (more than 2-3 hour stretches) so I have subscribed for a month of sleep consulting. There's a plan, so we'll see how things go in a week or so.

 For the past 8 months I've been trying to raise her like I did Hannah and Nathan, but you, unlike your older siblings, march to your own beat. I should've known considering Nathan and Hannah both came 2 weeks early, and you came a week late.

From all of this craziness with sleep I have learned that I really need to step back and really get to know who you are as an individual and not try to cut and paste what I did with Hannah and Nathan on you. 

Yesterday after reading a book, we were inspired to make some "stuffies." The book we had read provided a template and we followed the template to sew (with needle and thread) our own stuffies. Now, I was pretty sure that I would've ended up doing most of the work, but you two surprised me with your fine motor skills. Nathan was able to do about 95% of the project all by yourself and Hannah, you did about 75% of the project all by yourself. I did the other 25% only when you got bored and wanted to walk off. 

We talked about needle safety and talked through our plan. Nathan had a great idea to use hot glue to glue the pieces together so that they would not slide around while sewing. Great idea! It ended up working sew well. (See what I did there?) 

 As you can see, the workmanship isn't perfect, but I'm so proud about what you did do.

 When you two finished your stuffies, you cherished and loved them so much and played with them the rest of the afternoon.

 A few days ago I picked up some workbooks from Target. This afternoon I decided to have each of you work on a page from the workbook. Well, after the first page, you both thought the activity was fun and wanted to do more "homework." You two were so excited about using the eraser to erase mistakes and Nathan even learned to work on a crossword puzzle. It was pretty neat because Nathan, you could read most of the instructions. This gave me extra time to work with Hannah.

Who knows how long this interest will last. I'm glad that both of you are so eager to learn. I pray that this excitement for learning lasts throughout your lifetimes.

Well, that's about it for now.
Until next week,
Love,
Mommy

Ballet, Board Breaking and New Teeth

Dear Kids,
This past week has been busier than I expected. After Ama left, Hailey started to sleep horribly. Like really badly. Nighmarishly. I think God is using her to help me become a future sleep consultant. This girl comes with all sorts of sleep issues. I'm actually thinking about coming up with a sleep problems flow chart but I'll work on that later.

Anyways, Nathan attended a week of Kuk Sool Won and on your last day, you were able to break a board in half with the heel of your palm. It was quite the emotional roller coaster ride as each child stepped up, was briefly coached, and then attempted to break the board. Some were successful upon their first try, for some, like Nathan it took a couple of tries, and then there were the kids who took a few more tries and when they finally broke the board, I felt all sorts of emotions: Goosebumps, tears of joy, pride for the kid. It was pretty much like watching the last episode of an american idol. Who knew martial arts can be so emotional.

 Hannah attended rainbows and unicorns dance camp. I kind of expected you to not like ballet as much, but you told me, "I don't like it...I love it!" I think we'll keep you in gymnastics for another year and then you can try dance. During the recital, you were the kid who pretty much stood there and looked cute while the other kids twirled and followed the choreography. I still think you like the idea of dance but will enjoy gymnastics more in the end. We'll see.

For Father's day we just took things easy. Ate Daddy's favorite foods (including doughnuts for breakfast).

The weather has been nice enough in the morning for us to go to the playground to play.

 Hannah wanted to show us that you can now go across on the monkey rings. You are still too short to dismount, so you just drop down before the last ring.

 Hailey, you are not crawling yet, but you are scooting across the floor when you are sitting up. You can spin yourself around 360 degrees, and your main mode of getting from point A to point B involves rolling. But the new thing this week is pulling up to standing.

At some point along the way, we cut off the straps to the high chair because they were getting really gross, so now, being the third child, you get a strapless high chair. While this sounds like the latest baby accessory, this can be very unsafe especially for a little girl who is very eager to practice standing up. I'm sure we can come up with a solution in the next few days. In the meantime, you will be having lots of picnics in the kitchen. 

 On Saturday, we went to a swap meeting at church and Hannah picked out these salad claws. BEST thing ever. Not because we can now toss salad without getting our hands dirty, but because it has converted Hannah into a salad lover! In your words, "I don't like salad, I love it!" (Except the purple leaves)

On Monday we went to the library to get new books and we ended up having a little picnic at the gazebo by the library. It was a fun impromptu event. 

On Tuesday, we had super fun camp and our topic was Oceans. You all learned about oceans. Camouflage

 Sorted sea shells...

 played games to help support reading and learned about Jonah.

It's been rainy the past 2 days (which is awesome because we totally needed the rain) so Hailey has not been able to go swimming as often. You still enjoy watching Nathan and Hannah swim.

 On the day you were able to get into the water, you really enjoyed hanging out in the baby spa floaty.  You are also happy after I dunk you under for a few seconds.

And today concludes swim lessons for Nathan and Hannah. Nathan can now swim completely across the pool and Hannah is able to swim freestyle, but still needs to practice breathing. The important part is that you are now not afraid of being in the water anymore....which is huge! 

And yesterday, Hailey's 4th tooth broke through. This could explain the horrible 30 minute naps that you've been taking, but I'm happy to see that you are back to your happy self. Despite being a bad sleeper, you are still generally happy and pleasant to be around.
You love to take things out of buckets, you love turning board book pages, you like to grab my lips while nursing, which can be quite painful if your nails cut into my skin just the right way.
I think you can sign "more" and you are waving at people. You are very interested in Teddy and will often reach to pet him if he is near. You, however, don't like Teddy kisses.
Next week we have VBS and then the rest of the summer is plan free. Hopefully Hailey will start to sleep better and have a more predictable schedule so that we can do fun things.
Until next week,
Love,
Mom

37 Weeks Adventures with Ama

Dear Kids, 

This is another catch-up post because you just don't get extra time with an extra baby! Since Nathan is getting ready to start Kinder in the fall, I realized just how little time I have left with you guys at this pre-school stage so I have been trying to spend the afternoons playing with you all more. 

And then at night, when I plan on sitting down to update the post, Hailey decides to wake up and need comforting, so the blog has to be put on the back burner. 

While Ama was in town Hailey slept much better. Some nights you were going down at 7:30 and sleeping until 2:30! As a result, Daddy and I got to go 2 date nights, which is huge considering we had only gone on 1 other once since you were born. 

You love reading peek-a-boo books. You are now able to open the pages to reveal the hidden picture beneath. If I pull out a different book, you will lunge towards the book pile to find this particular book. 

You've started to blow raspberries when you see water. Either that, or you are trying to tell us that you want whatever we just poured. You are doing pretty good at drinking from a straw (although I have to squeeze the straw to limit the flow).

On 6/6 you got a new tooth! Top right incisor. You were relatively happy during this time around, I didn't even know you were teething and only noticed it when you leaned back one day.

Your hair can get pretty crazy sometimes.

A few new tricks for you include falling backwards when we lightly poke you, and when sitting on our bellies, you will bounce up and down like you are riding a horse. 

You've really bonded well with Ama because now that she's gone, you are back to not sleeping as well. 

The past two weeks have been busy ones. We had a playdate with a bunch of church friends

Went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. And when given the choice of 31 Flavors Nathan likes chocolate mint and Hannah like strawberry.

Haley even got to enjoy a little bit of cone.

On Saturday we went to Home Depot and each build a car Haley stayed at home with Ama while Daddy went to go play hockey. It was nice to just hang out with you two.

On Sunday we skipped Church to go pick peaches. The Harvest was Bountiful and you all had lots of fun searching for peaches without boo boos.

Free from certain area where can play and go on pony rides. It was a hot day so we didn't stay too long, but we got to do everything without having to stand in long lines.

On Monday we had super fun School. Four of us mamas are getting their kids together each week during the summer to have super fun school. I ended up having a meeting that I didn't plan on having our first day so I wasn't there for most of it. One of the Mama's fortunately captured these moments for me. All four families have an older brother who is around the same age and younger sisters who are around the same age.

There were not enough''N" so Hannah decided to use an "m".

We also started with swim classes for Nathan and Hannah. Nathan is working on Strokes and breathing. Hannah is working on getting over your fear of water. I think last year's lessons scarred you a little bit. But these teachers are from our neighborhood and we meet in our pool, so it is very convenient.

Our good friend's grandparents just moved within minutes from our house. This means we get to see them more often! We spent one morning at the pool together. Very fun! 

On Wednesday we went to Austin Symphony children's art day. This year they held it at a very different venue, the new Central Library. While the venue was very cool, I think the atmosphere (without all of the cute balloons) was not as fun. The crowds also made things seem claustrophobic. Nevertheless be brave the crowds, tried some new musical instruments, and listened to some live music.

Afterwards we tried out a new sushi place yes. The cool thing about this place is that your food gets delivered on a conveyor belt. There is even an Express belt that delivers your food that you order on the side. It was a hit with all the kids.

On Thursday Nathan and I got haircuts. Nathan, your new haircut makes you look like such a big boy. Sniff. You're growing up too fast.

And then on Sunday we met up early with our friends and had a play date at The Wildflower Center. You guys did a great job building a teepee, or tent, as you called it.

Remember when we went to the Renaissance Festival a few months back? Well Nathan really wanted a wooden sword but they were very expensive. So we finally got around to going to the craft store to pick up some wood and we made our own swords. Two swords cost us less than $2. I'd say crafting win.

This week is kind of an exciting we too, however I will be part of it because both of you guys are doing camp. Hannah has a five-day dance camp so we are trying out dance because Hannah you really want to do ballet. I think you will hate it or think it's boring, but we'll see how it goes. Nathan is trying kuk sool won which is only a 3 day Camp.
Well, that's about all of the updates for now. Until next week,
Love,
Mommy