Mid-February fun

I finished the Valentine hats that the girls requested. Karalee's is my favorite, and might be my favorite I've ever made. She wanted really long braids down the sides, and seems to be pretty happy with the result.

She requested, "more red than pink".

They were very anxious to play out in the snow after school on Tuesday.

Kiersten also loves her hat, and says in the mornings, "where is my sweetheart hat?" when she's getting ready for school.

I asked Evie what kind of hat she wanted, and she said, "with lots of rainbow hearts". so I assumed she was talking about conversation hearts.

The writing didn't turn out so great, I kinda wish I'd left them blank.

 

Lots of fun in the back yard!

 

 

She had been sick, so I didn't let Evie go out to play in the snow. I asked if she'd like to help make hot cocoa. She said an enthusiastic "yes!" and also suggested we make some cookies. I thought that was a good idea. But could we get them made before Kiersten got cold and decided to come inside???

It turns out we could! The first batch was just out of the oven, when I heard Kiersten tapping at the door.

enjoying some cookies and  cocoa to warm up.

Ben or Kara must have taken this picture of Evie. I just found it on the camera, not sure what was going on here.

Kara earned her cooking patch for brownies this week. She chose to make a cheesecake, and I bought all of her ingredients, but we forgot to make it. She remembered at 8:30 as I was sending her to bed. So we hurried and made it. We actually got it in the oven in less than 15 minutes, so I thought that was pretty good. I was surprised how hard it was to just let her do it. I had to stop myself from taking over several times. I didn't realize I was so controlling, but I wanted her to do it herself, and noticed, how often I tend to just step in and do it "faster", "better", "cleaner" etc. But she did a great job. When I told her to put it in the oven, I noticed she was completely trembling, she was so nervous to do it. I really need to give her more chances to do these things, I guess.

It was so fun to see how proud she was of herself. When I was cleaning up after she went to bed, I noticed she used a 1/3C measuring cup for the sugar instead of 1/2C. so it wasn't quite as sweet as normal, but it actually tasted really good. I don't think anyone missed the extra sugar.

Yesterday I taught Evie to write the word "red" and the word "cat". She was so happy and proud. The picture didn't pick it up so well, but you can see the first 3 times where I helped her, and then the very bottom one is what she did all by herself. I told her she was getting so smart, and she said, "I know. I gonna celebwate by dwawing a surfboard with ears!" It's the tiny scribbly thing in the middle of the paper, but very hard to see.

On the back of the page, she drew the cat she had been writing about. At dinner I asked if she could remember how to spell the two words. It took her a few minutes of thinking, and a little help, but she got them both eventually.