Dear Kiddos,
We've had quite the busy week filled with all sorts of new experiences. Earlier in the week, you girls were in a make-up fad. You would disappear for up to an hour at a time, leaving the house eerily quiet, too suspicious for my comfort (especially when Hannah is involved), and when I would check to see what you were up to, this is what I would find.
Except Hannah was smearing on some unknown make-up product that you got at a birthday party who knows when that left basically a greasy residue on your little sister's face. She felt beautiful, but she was a greasy mess. I broke out my face paints and
finally (after years of pleading) let you use them to paint Hailey's face.
In math this week, you are learning about rounding and estimating. In this picture, you are building numbers with blocks. I'm actually having you read the numbers back in chinese to me because the chinese language works better with place value. English always has to throw in these weird things like "eleven".
As a culminating activity to review energy forms and transformation, we finally added our last components of our solar cookers and tested them out.
You guys prepared pizza crackers and smores.
We first set the solar cooker in front of the garage, but the sun quickly moved, leaving our preselected spot shady. The ambient temperature outside was 79 degrees F. The solar cooker got to about 110 degrees and plateaued.
But then we moved the solar cooker to a sunnier spot and Hannah's solar cooker, which was the larger of the 2, reached a maximum temperature of 129 degrees, 40 degrees hotter than the outside temp. You guys were outside for about 3 hours total, collecting the temperature data every 5 minutes.
After an hour, we tested Nathan's smaller cooker. You had guessed that it would get hotter, because there is less space to heat up inside. It turns out that in this case, bigger is better. Yours hovered mostly at 119 degrees, but did reach 124 degrees for a few minutes.
Nathan, you have declared that everything cooked in a solar cooker just tastes better because it was cooked for free. (Not to mention pizza and s'mores are delicious)
This year we got flu shots as a family. It was a pretty interesting experience because our friend, who is a pharmacist was able to immunize us all up right in his driveway. Daddy and Hannah went first while I tried to distract Hailey. Nathan, you were a bit nervous and tried to run away a few times, but you finally bit the bullet and got it over with. Hailey, you, despite my efforts of distraction, figured it out pretty quickly and declared that you did not want a shot. You screamed and cried but then was easily placated with a cherry or watermelon lollipop (hot debate between you three).
Instead of our tradition of going out for ice cream after shots, you all settled for brownie sundaes at home.
Hailey, you wanted me to take a picture of your snowman. You've actually been pretty interested in the character Olaf lately. You even carried around a carrot for 2 hours, because you could use it to pretend that you were Olaf. Three year olds are funny.
Hannah, I've been promising you a spa night for the longest time, and we finally did it this week. We all smeared on face masks, painted our nails, and relaxed.
I took this picture as a reminder to document the fact that you are obsessed with "chup chup." We've been going through this stuff at a record pace. I recently went to Costco and stocked up on chup chup and while you were eating lunch, I showed you all 3 bottles at once. You opened your eyes wide and exclaimed, "Chup chup!" You know it's for dipping, but sometimes I will see your little side eye check to wait for a moment when no one is looking before you scoop up a spoonful of ketchup to eat.
The one good thing that came out of this is that you actually like to eat raw tomatoes.
This morning we took a walk to the lake, which is now so dry and low. You guys collected some grass seeds because they reminded you of paint brushes and you guys want to try painting with them.
Hailey, you were quite brave today as you had no issues venturing off on your own.
And Hailey, you are slowly becoming a medium sized girl as you are becoming more responsible with putting on and taking off your shoes on your own, putting away utensils, taking clothes out of the dryer and even being completely potty trained (even night trained) at 3.
I took all 3 of you in for your well visits at the same time. All 3 of you are doing great on growing. The only issue that came up was with Hailey. The doctor had heard a heart murmur in the past, but we were waiting for it to improve on its own, which happens in most cases. This time, he referred us to see a cardiologist for a consultation. Because your cousin had the surgery (and turned out fine) I'm thinking that it is likely that you may also have to have surgery to fix the leaky valve. I'm praying that you don't have to go through heart surgery, but we'll just have to wait and see. Our appointment is on election day, which doesn't make a difference because we will be voting early!
Update: I talked with our family doc today and he told me that he's being cautious and you probably won't need surgery.
I've also been taking it easy because I'm recovering from a cyst removal and haven't been able to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds. Now that my scar is healed up a bit more, I've been able to give Hailey a bit more cuddles and hugs, but I still feel a sting when I overdo it. Nathan, you are upset because I can't play Beyblades with you. Well, the stitches are coming out soon and you guys will be able to get all the hugs, boingy boings, and Beyblade battles that you want.
Until next week,
Love,
Mommy
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