Emma at 15 Months

Emma has definitely been enjoying the warm weather and loves being outdoors.  She is a very movement-oriented girl, and has a ton of energy.  She stomps her foot when she is mad and when she runs, tucks her chin to her chest and bulldozes full speed ahead.  She loves climbing and the only thing stopping her from serious injury is her height and our constant vigilance.  This past month she learned how to climb into the bathtub by herself which definitely freaked us out.  We were filling the tub up for a bath when Emma decided that she just couldn't wait any longer and hiked herself up and over, landing head first into the water.  You would think this would teach her to not climb into the tub, but it hasn't stopped her.  She also learned how to climb up onto the dining room chairs, which actually was a gateway to her next accomplishment - the kitchen table.  Here she is below getting ready to climb the next mountain.

It has been super hot this month.  The girls and I went to the beach with some friends to stay cool and had a great time.  It was Emma's first time this summer experiencing sand and she was okay with it as long as I kept her sandals on.  After a while she got used to feel of sand and demanded her sandals off.  There was no stopping her after that!  By the time we came home there was sand in nooks and crannies I didn't even know existed!

We also went to the zoo this past month, and had a great experience with the chimpanzee exhibit.  There was a baby chimpanzee the same size as Emma and it was like the world stood still as the two checked each other out.  The baby monkey started showing off for Emma and we were highly entertained.  I'm really not sure what Emma thought of this, but you could tell she was definitely trying to figure out why the baby was so hairy.  Also, as you can see in the below picture, Emma had a death grip on her sippy cup - she was not about to share!

Here Emma is below in the butterfly house.  She was mesmerized with all of the fluttering butterflies.

Emma also enjoyed the fountain at the zoo where she loved pointing and yelling "DUCK!"  Here she is below with her classic smile for the camera pose - squinting her eyes shut tight so the flash doesn't get them!

Friends of ours daughter is just a couple of months older than Emma.  This past month they have both 'noticed' each other, and have started interacting together.  Their first conversation went something like this at the dinner table:

Chloe, touching her food said, "Hot!"

Emma, surprised at the fact that she understood what the little person next to her said, responded with, "Hot!"

Chloe, smiling that the little person next to her seems to speak the same language she does, replied with "Hot!"

Emma, pleased that the little person next to her understood what she said, responded with "Hot!"

This went on for several minutes and I think they are BFF's now.  Here they are below on a different day, intently putting wood chips on the see saw together.

I haven't had the heart to tell Emma that her BFF is moving to Japan this week and will be gone for a year.  The good news is that Emma and Chloe can be each other's first Skype Pals!

Emma's vocabulary highlights include:

-"Boon" for balloon

-"Truck" anytime she sees or hears one go by

-"Boom" whenever we set her down or she crashes into something
-"Hmm Hmm" - which I guess isn't really a word, but she makes this sound whenever she wants something - toy, food, water, etc.  It reminds me of the King of Queens episode where Doug's boss says "whoo whoo" to indicate that he wants the swoosh ball tossed to him.

-She calls Lucy "Sister" now

-"Hank Ew" for thank you

-And Lucy's favorite, "Poop".  We discovered this new word after it rolled out of her diaper and onto the floor during a diaper change.  I set Emma on the ground so that I could go and get the proper disinfectants to handle the bio hazard spill and that's when she spotted it on the floor.  Her eyes went wide with surprise and she pointed and said, "Poop!"  I'm just glad that this otherwise yucky situation turned into a great new word that has given Lucy endless giggles and laughs.

Speaking of poop, Emma has been having bad diaper rash this month from us being bad parents and giving her dairy.  She is dairy sensitive and when she has it her butt gets super inflamed.  I have been trying to let her have some time every day with no diaper so that the air can help heal the rash.  Will came home from work the other day and picked Emma up, not  realizing that she was sans diaper until he demanded to know why I was practically rolling on the floor laughing or why I took a picture of him rummaging in the fridge.  He claims his arm hair kept him from feeling the bare butt cheeks on his arm.

 Not that it would matter if his baby had a diaper on or not - Will adores Emma and I believe the feeling is mutual.  Will went upstairs to put Emma down for a nap the other day and after some time passed and he hadn't returned downstairs I went to investigate.  I found them both asleep on the floor.  Fortunately, my camera flashes only woke Will up and Emma was able to finish out the rest of her nap while Will became quite conscious of an aching neck and reduced airflow to his windpipe.

 Emma's last molar came in this month and as long as we remember to keep the dairy away from her she has been sleeping really good.  Now we just need to work on getting Emma to stay quiet when she wakes up at 6:00 a.m. because that is too early for Sister who doesn't have the mood benefit of two naps to keep her happy till bedtime.

Here Emma is below, taking some time out from her busy life at 15 months old to smell the flowers!

The Fruits of our Labor

June has flown by for us.  We have been busy trying to finish our outdoor to do list so that we can relax and enjoy the fruits of our labor.  Compared to the previous two years, it seems this season is operating about two weeks ahead of time and berries that were usually ready to pick in July, were ready by the end of June.  We spent the past several weeks up to our elbows in berries - berries on top of brownies, berries made into sauce on top of our ice cream, berries in our pancakes, muffins and cobblers and berries on our cereal and oatmeal in the morning.  We canned a new type of jam this year that used a mixture of the four berries around our house (supplemented by the Meijer produce department) - blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries and strawberries.  I am pleased to say that it is the best we've made yet.  Here's Lucy below picking the wild black raspberries by our house.

And here we are on a walk in the woods by our house gathering more of the wild black raspberries.  The crop was actually quite small this year compared to years past, so that is why we actually turned our usual black raspberry jam into four berry jam.

This past spring, the woods across the street from us were designated official "Green Space" by our town which we are really excited about.  Pretty much it guarantees that the view out of our front windows will forever be natural and undeveloped.  There are great trails there too, which we no longer feel like we are trespassing on, since it has been labeled green space.  Here is one of the trails below with beautiful orange wild flowers painting the hill.

We feel so blessed to have this nature conservation steps from our front door while still having a great downtown with unique restaurants and interesting boutique shops, grocery stores, drugstores, our bank, library, schools, parks and hardware store all in walking distance as well.

Besides picking the wild berries, our garden has produced a four berry array this past month, along with lettuce and peas.

 Lucy loves picking the berries and some even make it into the bowl for the rest of us to enjoy.

She also got kick out of shelling peas.  I have to admit, Will and I have never shelled peas in our life either, so in fact, we all got a kick out of shelling those cute little peas!

We were practically fighting over the pea pods, and kept excitedly showing each other how amazing those peas looked all lined up, snug as a couple of bugs in a rug, tucked into those pods.

Next year we definitely need to plant more peas.  They were delicious raw and cooked.

Lucy is deep in thought in the above picture while she watches our chickens.  We still haven't gotten any eggs yet, but our hens are starting to show symptoms of egg laying.  They are beginning to make divots in the dirt and seem content just sitting in their newly made nests.  One of our hens however prefers the fresh mulch Will put down this past month in our garden to the dirt of her chicken run, causing Will to get creative to keep her out of our garden.  He keeps constructing higher string lines on top of the fence, poles and gadgets but so far she keeps getting into our garden.  Fortunately she hasn't done any damage yet, but just keeps creating nests in the wood chips.  I have decided to call her Mother Superior, as she seems to be at the head of the pecking order in our little flock.  I've named another hen The Bearded Lady because her feathers look like a beard around her face the way they puff out and I'm still thinking of good nun names for the other girls.  It seems Lucy has given up on naming the hens, as the ones she named have all gone to that great nest in the sky.

We are still eating outside as much as possible which is keeping my house clean and the kids happy.  We've even shared a meal or two with our neighbor who happened to be out while we were eating dinner.  It is just so nice to eat outside, and I am enjoying the fact that my kids like it too.  I remember as a teenager sulking over dinner at our family's picnic table on the back deck thinking that eating outside was annoying and inconvenient - swatting bugs and feeling hot while completely missing the view and the breeze (and the fact that I didn't have to purchase or lift a finger to make the food in front of me).  Sorry mom and dad!  But because of this, I am fully expecting karma to bite me in the behind with my own kids, so until then I will count my blessings as we eat as a happy family in the great outdoors.

Lucy has been great this past month.  She seems taller to me these days and a little more grown up too.  So far, I am really liking her at age 3.  It seems like we are finally seeing the fruits of our labor as she is becoming more and more self-sufficient.  She is a great listener in the store, especially now that Emma is too heavy to put in my front carrier and has taken Lucy's seat in the shopping cart.  Lucy helps me around the house now getting wipes when I run out during a diaper change for Emma, setting the table and being another set of eyes to keep Emma out of harms way.  Her naps are hit or miss, but she does a good job staying quiet in her room while Emma sleeps.  I found her the other day absorbed in her books when I came in her room to tell her that Quiet Time was over.

I mentioned in the May post that Lucy has become very conscious of her appearance.  Lately she has been wanting to have her nails painted.  We haven't painted them in the past because Lucy bites her fingernails (and toenails!) and I don't want her to ingest the paint.  She has been more persistent as of late to have her nails painted so I decided this could be a good incentive to get her to stop biting her nails.  We are still working on her fingers, but her toes were ready last week!  To say that Lucy was excited was an understatement and I couldn't help but feel like I was in the middle of creating a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life while I painted those little piggies.  I think I was almost as excited as Lucy and I am so proud of her for letting her toe nails grow out.

I will end this post with a couple of things Lucy said this past month that brought a smile to my face:

Lucy: "Mom, can you take the gate down?  I need to go upstairs."
Me: "What do you need up there?"
Lucy: "To have some time in my room to get the grumpies out of my head."

While we were over at my brother John's house for dinner, Lucy took Emma by the hand and whispered, "Emma, let's go get into trouble."


Happy Summer!