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