Sourdough festival

Before we had cake (really, brownies) for Nick's birthday, the gang imbibed in a little sourdough bread. Pictures from the cake coming when I download the camera.

Again, 3 in a tree

The girls are obsessed with climbing trees and this tree, in particular. (It's in our front yard, in front of the neighbor's house.) Photo by Nick

Last week

Nat got sick on 3/14 and missed a week of school. Tia got sick on 3/18 and missed 2 days of school. Kira got sick on 3/19 and missed 3 days of school. It was a really long two weeks. Judi and Nick both missed lots of work while juggling sick little girls. Judi had a BIG two-day meeting at work on Th and Fri (3/24 and 3/25) so Nick had to do a lot more with little girls, especially since 2 of them relapsed on Wednesday. The good news was they recovered by Friday so he got to go to work for a little while. Judi and Nick are still washing their hands in an OCD-like manner. Just keep washing!

Thank you

Here's Nat and the thank you letter she received from donating her hair.

Birthday fro-yo

Fixing things

Kira's been asking to take things apart so that she can learn how they work. She was thrilled when she and Nick needed to fix his computer. The fan was really dirty and making a horrible noise; they took apart the computer and cleaned it. Fun stuff! Birthday photos coming soon!

Photo of the week 12/52

I love their coffee cups, too! This cup seems easier to use, more elegant, and more aesthetically pleasing than the average coffee cup.

An update on this crazy week coming soon. We are VERY happy it's over!

Friday (3/18)

Since I've just been posting fun pictures, you don't have the full picture of things here in the K Company house. Last week, Nat got sick on M and missed all week of school. She's better today and is back at school, but now, Tia and Kira are home sick. I'll try to get a picture of them and their set up later today.

Two sisters at home sick is lots of fun. Poor Nat was bored out of her mind as she was recovering, but Tia and Kira have each other. They can watch movies together, play and fight. One almost wouldn't know they were sick... but they are.

3 in a tree

All 3, in a tree. (I feel like that should be a line from a Dr. Seuss book.)

Up in a tree

Can you spot the Natalie up in the tree?

Hygiene: Photo of the week 11/52

This has been a really LONG week so we're calling this photo of the week, this week.

Nat is sick so we're washing our hands really well. It is ironic that Nat is sick from something preventable by good hygiene because she has been studying Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to become a doctor in the United States. Dr. Blackwell also wrote many books on Hygiene.

Memories of Nemo

On her 5th day sick, to keep the bored Nat entertained, I put on Finding Nemo. It was her favorite movie when she was little.

She watched it over and over (REPEAT) on video when she was 2-3. We watched it a lot when Kira was born. Her favorite scene, back then, was the "Tank Initiation Scene." A lot of times, we'd just take 10 minutes and watch just that scene. Some days she'd watch that scene 2-4 times a day. (We used that scene as a reward for lots of things, including potty training. Heh.) This morning, I asked her if she remembered the scene she loved when she was little. She described vague things about it, like that it had silly music and it was dark, so she has some memory.

She's probably watched Nemo a handful of times in the last 5 years, so I am guessing most of her memory comes from the young age. Memory is so cool. Theories from cognitive psychology say that every time you see something/hear something again, you re-access the original memory trace of that thing and slightly change it e.g., add in new information based on new understanding, and strengthen your memory of it. If this is true some of what she remembers comes from re-watching the movie as an older kid, but I would bet that given how much repetition she had with that scene (she probably watched it 200 hundred times when she was 2-3) that some of her memory is somewhat unchanged from when she was so young.

Oops, sorry, I geeked out on you for a second there.

Purdy.

Nat created this picture of herself on the iPad 2. No, we don't have one (yet). We just went to look at them at the Apple store.

Happy St. Patrick's Day. (You can pretend she's a leprechaun or something if you want.)

Division

Here is a picture of Kira's homework. Her comment about #4 was, "They are making me do division and they don't even know it."

She is a smart cookie.

This guy

I downloaded the camera today, after not downloading it for a long time. I found lots of Hawaii pictures on it! Super fun. So, you tell me... do you think this guy (he's pretty cute) went all the way to Hawaii and stayed dry from the knees up the entire time or did he go in the water? Heh.

What do you see?

WE saw these very fluffy clouds as we were leaving school on Thursday. Nat wanted me to take a picture of them. What do you see?





















We saw a dog.... it's head is on the left... It has floppy ears. See it?

Goats

We saw some dairy goats at the farm.

Baa baa black lamb (runner up)

This guy was runner up for photo of the week. We've just made this photo photo of the week.

Tia caught a hen (now, Photo of the week: 10/52)

At the farm field trip, Tia caught a hen! She was so proud. She was the only one in our group who got to hold a hen.

Triplets

One of the teachers called them "the grapes." People asked if we got whine from them... or if we'd heard it through the grapevine. Insert your own bad pun here.

Whatever else you say, they look good in purple. And, believe it or not, they really LIKE To dress alike. They wish they were triplets.

Big pink clouds

I loved these clouds... If random people weren't in the picture, it could have been a photo of the week! (Heh!)

Photo of the week 9/52

After our trip, I was SOOOO busy that I didn't have much time. I tried to get a picture of one of the really cool crows that hang out by the girls' school, but they are scaredy cats and won't let me get very close....

(That picture was taken with a little zoom from about 30 feet away. It's grainy. I'll try again with the iPhone some other time--maybe the crows will hold still.)

I'm going to call this the photo of the week (despite the fact that it's a little blurry) from last week and move on. I call it "Sharing with a peer."

Little Hawaiian friend

5.5

We celebrated the 1/2 birthday in Hawaii.

3rd grade science fair

She had a blast showing off her microscope.

Photo(s) of the week 8/52 (a week late)

Nat and Kira are watching the sunset. (Tia and Mommy were in the hot tub.) (Photo by Nick.)

(Photo by Nick)





The little iPhone 4 really takes nice pictures outdoors!

Which picture do you think should be photo of the week?

First grade science fair (The real photo of the week 9/52)

We interrupt the posting of pictures from the Hawaii trip for pictures of the Science Fair!

The kids do two presentations of their projects. This photo was from the one in the day. During the day, the students that have done a project show their peers their work.  The fair at night is for parents to see.

I went this morning to help and I was talking to one little girl about her project. I asked how she picked her topic and she replied, "My dad thinks it is important and thought I should learn about it." Heh.  Other kids who had typed projects told me their parents typed them. Other kids told me their parents picked their projects for them. I am happy to report that Kira picked her own topic and typed almost all of the report.  Towards the end, on the 4th and 5th pages of the report, to keep her motivated, we had to play a "game" to get her to type.  I would tell her if she could type a sentence in 2 minutes or less, that I would do the next sentence. It worked great and made her try to do better on her typing. Yay, Science Fair! Yay, Learning!

Tonight, we had ice cream for dessert in honor of her first science fair.