Pit Stops and Treasures at 27 Months

Emma is our little comedian.  Her favorite things to make us laugh include poop jokes and, well, poop jokes.  "See you later poo pee!" and "You have poop on your head!" are some of her favorite one liners.  When she isn't busy making us laugh, she can be found enjoying life as a toddler, playing outside, cuddling, and even hunting for treasure.

Emma is a full-speed ahead kind of gal.  She can't be bothered with opening doors, so she gets in and out of her vehicle "Dukes of Hazard" style.

 Here she is below riding her tractor, and then driving her asparagus delivery bike.

 Will is officially on summer break for the month of July, and I have been taking full advantage of having him home.  While I've been out and about kid-free, Emma has slowly, ever so slowly, been converted to a Daddy's girl.  We aren't completely there, but one time out of ten she will now pick Will over me.  It is definitely a start.

When I ask her, "Emma are you a Daddy's girl?"  Emma responds with, "Yup!  I love Daddy, Lucy AND Mama!"  Our goal here is not for her to pick Will one hundred percent of the time, but a nice 60/40 deal with me picked slightly more than Will would make everyone happy I think.

Emma loves babies.  Here she is below cuddling her cousin, Sam.

 When there isn't a real life baby around, Lucy and Emma play baby.  Emma plays a really good baby, it is almost scary.

 Emma seems to be growing taller this month and perhaps only I can tell, but her baby chub is stretching out too, much to my dismay.

She talks very matter of fact, and can uphold her end of the conversation on the phone now too.  She starts out quite a few of her sentences with, "So, ....".  She has also been known to shout "NOT FAIR!" a time or two thousand as well.

 It is especially unfair how much bugs like to bite my poor girl.  Here she is below with three mosquito bites by her eye.  She woke up in the morning and her eye was completely swollen shut.  Thankfully, it got better as the day wore on because I was getting concerned about the Neanderthal comments coming her way.

It seems like this past month I spent a lot of time in public restrooms with Lucy and Emma.  Lucy does fairly well following my directions, but Emma is like a caged animal.  Once that stall door closes, she is bouncing off the walls and floor like a ping pong ball as she waits her turn.  This is stressful for me as I envision all of the diseases she could be picking up off the floor.  The other day I caught her ankle as she was crawling under the divider wall into the stall next to us.  As I dragged her back she was proudly exclaiming, "I found a penny!!!"  Needless to say I scrubbed her and the penny down in the sink and Emma has been obsessed with pennies ever since.  Fortunately, the subsequent pennies she has found were all in slightly cleaner locations.  Below is a picture taken by Emma during one of our many restroom visits.  Thank God for the iPhone, as it is my saving grace in keeping Emma occupied while attending to business.

 Until next month, may your pit stops be few and your treasures be many!

The Frog Days of Summer

Change is in the wind at the Timmerman house.  Will accepted the position of principal at the high school he has been a teacher at for the past seven years.  We did not set out on this path, but circumstances have brought (and sometimes dragged) us by the hand to this choice.  It will be a relief in so many ways to have the financial security that comes with the new job, however it is an adjustment for how much time Will is going to be away from home.  We have treasured our laid back summers and his teacher hours during the school year.  The good news is that he still has a great amount of days off compared to most professions, even though we are learning that in a leadership role, there really is no such thing as a day off.  We are going to try and ride the learning curve of our new situation, and focus on enjoying the moments when Will is with us to the fullest.

Will and I have spent a lot of time in the car this month it seems, from a vacation to Ohio, trips to pick up bee supplies and chicken feed from faraway farms, and trips to visit friends and family.  Besides our gasoline bill, it has been a blessing for us to have the down time to wrap our minds around our new situation while the girls napped in the back seat.  Will and I feel like the ceiling has finally broken on our lives, and all of the work we have put in this last decade is finally paying off.  The business that we started together at the beginning of the year is full of promise and Will's new job is also filled with hope.  Not only are we accomplishing more than we thought possible, dreams we have held for quite some time will now be possible.  It is amazing and scary all at the same time and my breath still catches in my throat when I think about our new future.

We haven't had any routine this month because of Will's new job as well as all of the social gatherings of summer.  This has been a bit unsettling for me, but like I mentioned before, I am trying to roll with it.  Picture me rolling down a grass hill.  Not pretty.  But I AM rolling.  Below is a picture of Lucy and Emma doing a much better job rolling down the proverbial and in their case literal, hill.

 

 Yes, the girls have done a great job rolling with all the changes as well as distracted parents.  They started and finished their summer reading program which involved reading over 100 story books with Will and I.  Here they are below at the library, one of our most favorite places to go.

One of the prizes for completing the summer reading program was a free ice cream cone.  We have enjoyed quite a bit of ice cream this summer.  I will be the first to admit that when I am stressed, ice cream is my go to relief.  I fear my children are being trained early.  Here they are below enjoying ice cream from their favorite place down town.

 The sisters have had to play with each other this month, as Will and I have been preoccupied.  I'd say it has been really good for them as although the fights have been tremendous, when they are getting along, they are playing better than ever.  Their favorite pastime this month has been playing Mommy and Baby.  Below, Mommy Lucy is hugging her baby Emma.

My brother and sister-in-law gave the girls one of the best presents for their birthdays this year.  It is a three month art project subscription.  Each month a box called a Kiwi Crate comes in the mail complete with everything you need for two in-depth craft projects.  This has been a God send for us, as my usually crafty self has been occupied with other things.  Here the girls are below with their newly made explorer box and lantern.

The girls have definitely been like two peas in a pod.  Please do not confuse this with peace and harmony, but it is safe to say that they are with each other through thick and thin.  Here they are below with matching chicken tattoos from our local Farmer's Market.

The girls have also spent a lot of time outside.  Their favorite pastime for June has been going on Frog Hunts.  Let's just say that I feel bad for the local amphibians as these girls have a lot of love to give.

Emma prefers to observe, but Lucy is not afraid of getting her hands dirty.  Our rule is we have to release any living creatures by bedtime.  Below is a picture of Lucy and Emma letting their pet frog of the day try out a swim in their swimming pool.

Fortunately, the girls have been able to swim in Will's aunt and uncle's pool in the meantime, as I still haven't gotten around to disinfecting the kiddie pool in our yard.  Lucy and Emma are really warming up to the water this summer which is a relief, as they seem to be overly fearful of water.

 We have spent a lot of time with friends and family this month which has been great.  We started off the summer with a trip to Ohio.  First we stopped in Bowling Green to visit my sister Jane.

Then we continued south to Dayton where we stayed with my roommate from college.  We had a great time and the girls were great travelers too.  Fortunately for us, my friend was extremely tolerant of the traveling circus I brought with me and the girls got a kick out of sharing a trundle bed, catching fireflies, and even playing in a bucket of water!  We read lots of stories, they watched lots of movies, and we ate tons of delicious Ohio food.

 My friend took us to a great Children's Garden which is a part of Dayton's metro parks.  Lucy remembered visiting this same Dayton metro park the summer prior, and begged us to take them again.  It is nice to see how Lucy's memory is starting to stick with her now.

We also met Will's brother in Cincinnati as he was up visiting from his home state of Arkansas.  It worked out really nice, as the drive to Cincinnati was under an hour from Dayton, as opposed to the 17 hour drive to Arkansas.  We toured the Cincinnati Zoo with Uncle Tim, and a great time was had by all.

Favorite phrases heard on the trip included:

-Emma: "I spy with my little eye something poopy."  Lucy without missing a beat: "Is it your underwear?"

-Lucy as we were driving south on I-75 past Detroit: "Are those volcanoes?" Will: "No, those are landfills."

-Lucy, as we were still driving south on I-75 past Detroit: "Why is there chalk on the buildings and walls?"  Will: "That's called graffiti.  It's an art form."

-Lucy, same expressway: "Wow, you were right.  This is a long trip!  I should have gone to the bathroom before we left."

-And finally, Lucy all month long has prefaced any detail she wants to tell me with, "Mom, I want to tell you something."

Our good friends came back from Japan after almost a year overseas.  We are happy to have them back and are looking forward to having their dad back for good next summer.  Here they are below, blazing a trail with Will as their guide.

We also attended two wedding this month.  The first one was my cousin and we had a great time.  It was an outdoor wedding and it was super hot that day!  My cousin still looked amazing despite the heat and Lucy and Emma were very impressed by the whole shindig.  They have been playing "Bride" ever since.  We also enjoyed having my brother Joe up from Florida for the wedding, as we haven't seen him in over a year.

 

Will and I also attended the wedding of a very close, long-time family friend.  The bride's three year old nephew took the below picture of Will and I.  I thought he did an excellent job!

 

 We of course still found time for projects this past month.  Will tackled a tree stump that has been bugging him for two years.  It was quite a job, but he finally got it out with the help of our neighbor.  We will be planting an asparagus bed there this coming month!

 Will also built a traveling chicken run for our chickens to get more grass in their diets.  Chickens love to scratch around, and within days of being on the same piece of land will eat every green plant down to the dirt.  It will be nice to have something movable for them to be in during the day so that we can ensure that we keep our lawn while they are getting plenty of green in their diets.

I have been learning the fine art of fermenting food.  The other day I noticed that my kitchen resembled more of a chemistry lab as I had four different projects bubbling and fermenting at the same time.  The cabbage turned into sauerkraut quite nicely, however the cucumbers skipped the pickle stage and went straight to a greenish gray bubbly stank.  I haven't tried the pickled watermelon rinds as they aren't ready yet, however the fermented yogurt dough was tasty, I just wouldn't use it as pizza dough the next time.  This is my attempt at eating probiotic rich foods so that we can save on the pricey probiotic pills we are currently taking.

Our garden has been extremely low maintenance as we have had so much rain we haven't had to water.  We have harvested bowls and bowls of strawberries and peas and are just now getting into blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.

We are in the Frog Days of Summer I suppose, and just like a frog transforms from a tiny egg to a tadpole and then a full sized hopping frog the Timmerman family is also transforming into our new normal.  I am hoping for as graceful of a transition as possible!