Emma at 29 Months

Emma has been working on her last pair of two year molars and as I type this, they are about 50% through.  I am really hoping for a complete mood turnaround when those teeth are finished ripping through Emma's gums.  She hasn't been sleeping well and has been clingy and cranky as well.  Yesterday I took a shower while she stood outside the curtain tearfully repeating, "Mama, I need you, Mama, I need you" over and over again.  When I ask her what she needs, she just says, "I need you."  Emma has little tolerance for Will, and even less tolerance for Lucy.  All she wants is me, which is hard to do 24/7.  With that being said, the following pictures and stories of Emma this past month will reveal her good moments and the fact that she is still our sweet, funny and cuddly little girl.  Here she is below baby-wearing her doll much like I think she would like to be attached to me.

Emma is our little thrill seeker and likes to swing with her head upside down.  It scares the heck out of me, but as you can see below, she loves it.

 Emma likes wearing her fairy tutu everywhere she goes...

...and enjoys playing dress up with lots of jewelry.

However, when it comes to getting dressed in the morning, she really doesn't have a preference about what she wears and is fine with me picking out her clothes.  This is a change for me, as Lucy has been picking out her clothes as soon as she learned how to open her dresser drawers and would sooner stay in her room forever than wear something I picked out for her.  Emma would really rather not be bothered by outfit coordination and is happy to have the decisions made for her.

She's definitely a goof-ball.  Here she is below after she discovered the cold-air vents Marilyn Monroe style while we were shopping.

I've noticed that when she is hanging out with the older kids, which happens more than not, she pulls out all of her comedy tricks.  Here she is below with her friend Grace who Emma refers to as her "best friend."  Grace is Lucy's age, but that doesn't stop Emma.  In fact, all of Emma's friends are her "best friends."  She talks about being best friends all the time and when she is fighting with Lucy will yell, "You're not my best friend any more!"

Emma likes to help.  Well, let me explain with an example that shows her mood this month combined with her underlying desire to be a big girl and her lack of tolerance for Lucy.

Me: "Emma, can you please get the ketchup out of the fridge?"
Emma: "NO.  CAN'T.  I'm too busy."
Lucy: "I'll get it Mom!"
Emma: "NOOOOOOOO!  I GET IT!  "
Lucy: "Mom!  Emma hit me!"
Emma: "Lucy not let me get the ketchup!  I get the ketchup!  I get the ketchup!"

The below pictures will make the above scenario seem impossible, but here they are anyways.  Below, Emma is happily helping me whip cream for some homemade, you guessed it, whipped cream.

In the next picture, Emma wanted to help Will push the stroller.  She ended up just hanging from the handle bar.

Finally, in the next picture, Emma took it upon herself to help keep the chickens from going through the fence into our neighbor's yard after we let them out of their pen to graze on the bugs and grass in our yard.  Here she is below, keeping guard with a rake.

I asked Emma the other day why she didn't like sleeping in her own bed, as she keeps sneaking into ours in the middle of the night.  Emma responded with, "Because there are no people in my bed!"  I had no response for this.  Here is Emma below, sleeping in her bed so sweetly I had to take a picture.  I'm sure two hours later she had climbed into our bed.

Let's hope by next month's post those molars will be done wrecking havoc on our poor girl!

Do You Wanna, Ship Ship Shewana

One of the last weekends in August we took a trip to Shipshewana, Indiana to pick up our built-in dresser and to have a little bit of rest and relaxation.  We have been to Shipshewana several times before and usually average about one trip a year.  You could say that Will and I have a weakness for solid, quarter-sawn oak furniture and this town has wood craftsmen at every turn.  Here Will is below, loading up a nightstand and our built-in dresser.

We usually stay at a locally owned hotel in Shipshewana that has a homemade Amish breakfast each morning, a pool, and the best Amish restaurant in town for dinner.  This year however, since we had furniture sitting in the back of an open trailer we decided to look for different accommodations that could house the furniture so that we could stay longer.  We found a great camp ground that had mini cabins available complete with two full-sized beds, a bathroom and all of the linens we would need.  They agreed to house our trailer in one of their over sized sheds until we left on Sunday.  Here are the girls below taking a giant drink after our long car ride while Will and I set up "camp".

 Will and I have been dreaming for a while now about buying a pop-up camper, however have been held back by not only our budget, but the fact that our car really can't pull one and where would we store it.  After our little cabin trip in August, we have revised our dreams.  In a matter of minutes we were set up for the weekend and could start relaxing.  Since Will and I aren't the best at relaxing to begin with, this type of vacation was perfect for us - we were still close to nature but without all of the packing, unpacking, setting up and taking down.  We sat on our porch swing on the cabin's covered porch and watched with great interest as the campers nearby painstakingly set up their giant jet stream and another family spent several hours setting up their tent.

One unfilled item on our summer bucket list was in fact to go camping.  Our last minute decision to try out a cabin at a campground was the perfect solution.  My toe was still not completely healed at this point, so I was nervous about public restrooms and couldn't even think about lakes and swimming pools.  I was able to bring all of my wound care products and soaked my foot twice a day in the comfort of our cozy and clean cabin with indoor plumbing.

The girls were so excited about the cabin that they were literally bouncing off the walls.  The first night Will and I had intended for the girls to sleep in one bed with us in the other.  At about 10:30 that first night, Will and I threw in the towel on having a nice evening on the porch while the kids slept.  We literally bear hugged each kid into separate beds and held them until they finally fell asleep.  I'm not going to lie - this was NOT our idea of a vacation.  I tossed and turned all night next to Emma, the great sleeping somersaulter.  The following night I had an idea.  I had wanted to watch a foreign film for quite some time but hadn't been able to convince Will of it since he isn't a fan of subtitles.  Given no other options, he decided that subtitles weren't so bad, and downloaded it onto our laptop.  Once the girls were in bed - still awake mind you - Will and I snuggled up to watch the movie.  Since neither girls understand French or could read the subtitles they were asleep in no time and Will and I were able to enjoy a nice and relaxing evening together.  I slept much better that night and so did everyone else.

It was nice waking up each morning (early, thanks to the kids!) and stepping outside to the cool quietness of the farming community.  We enjoyed the peaceful setting and even found a giant turtle by our cabin.

Shipshewana also boasts some yummy Amish food.  It really is quite ridiculous that we write notes to ourselves for future visits that state things like, "Do not waste a single calorie on pointless food.  Make every bite count."  There is a certain bakery with amazing cinnamon rolls, a food wagon with fried pocket (a.k.a. greasy goodness) pies, a hot pretzel stand, popcorn, and of course an all you can eat Amish buffet complete with chicken, potatoes, gravy, buttered noodles and all the fixin's.  The good news is we have learned how to sample all of that rich, tasty food without getting too sick and bloated.  First off, never let Will order the food.  He has a complex where he is afraid there won't be enough and as a result always orders way too much.  I order, and only one of each item we are craving.  Then we split it four ways and move on to the next treat.  We do not waste stomach space on any food we do not like just because the other person likes it.  Also, we throw balanced eating out the window - with no guilt.  Shipshewana businesses have limited hours, so we insanely plan out each snack and meal based on which day and what time each is available.  To say that we have become food connoisseurs of Amish food would be snobby, but to say that we have been there a time or two and know good food when we see it would be accurate.

To give you an idea as to how focused I was on not wasting calories - the ice cream shop on the campgrounds that we stayed at didn't even tempt me - the kids had ice cream both days we were there but for once in my life, all the amazing Amish food I was saving my stomach for trumped ice cream.  I think it was the first time Will had ever seen me say no to ice cream.

We had a wonderful time on our mini-vacation and it was a nice end to an otherwise busy and stressful summer.  It was just what we needed.  Good food, good furniture, and good family times.

August Work and then Play

August was jam-packed with what felt like more work than play.  Here is Will off to work as "King of the School" as Lucy tells people.  He is really enjoying his new position and we are hopefully riding the tail end of the learning curve as we adjust to Will being gone more.

This King has another kingdom to run when he gets home, and he will be the first to admit that behind every great King is a marvelous Queen.  Ahem, ahem.  Here he is below changing the breaks on his Queen's chariot.

He also put in a new royal bathtub for the princesses.

Finally, he installed a built in dresser in our bedroom to save on space.  Our upstairs is actually built into the roof and has dead space in the walls where the roof slopes down.  There are three more "dead spaces" in our upstairs that I am excited to create more built ins as time and money permit.  Here is Will below prepping the space for the dresser.  First, he cut a whole in the wall in our closet between the studs to make sure there were no hidden skeletons.

We were relieved to find out it was empty.  We found two pennies, one from 1981 and another from 1995 so the wall hadn't been closed up as long as we had thought.  Next we had to move the new dresser up the stairs.  This was the most difficult part of the entire project and I prayed fervently as my brother helped Will get the solid oak furniture up our narrow and winding stairs.  I kept promising them that they would never have to bring it back down!

The dresser made it up with only a couple of nicks on the wall and some sore muscles for Will and John.  It fit quite nicely into the wall, so that was a huge relief!  We designed the dresser through the mail and over the phone with an Amish furniture producer in Indiana who had never seen the space himself.

Below is the before and after.  If you look really close, you will notice that my toe is finally better!  From the fourth of July (when the before picture was taken) to Labor Day it was badly infected despite various efforts to help heal it.  After the last official holiday salute to summer, it is finally better.  But I digress.  

Will is very thorough in his demolition and installation but has a hard time remembering the clean up.  He didn't tarp anything when he cut into the wall - which was a double layer of plaster and drywall - and as a result every stitch of fabric in our room had to be washed - all of our bedding, and every piece of clothing we own.  After I got over my anger about the work Will had created for me, it became a really good way for us to weed through a ton of clothes to donate when the question came down to not, "Will I ever wear this again," but, "Do I really want to wash this?"

The most exciting project we worked on this past month was for our new educational poster business.  We had our first shipment of posters come in and were faced with the job of collating 7,000 pieces of paper into 1,000 poster sets.  We hired my teenage brother and sister to help collate and my parents came along and volunteered their time to the cause.  It took two solid days and several serious paper cuts, but we got the job done.  Lucy and Emma had fun helping as well - their job was to put caps on the mailing tubes.  Only mild panic set in when I realized that they were capping ALL of the tubes and we had to go through each and every one of them to find out which had posters in them already and which ones did not.  Minor set backs!  We are feeling very fortunate for the over sized garage and good weather to house our assembly line and inventory.

By the end of August we were feeling quite burned out and forced ourselves to make some time for relaxing.  Fortunately, our time spent in the garden is fun for us.  Below is a picture of our garden this past month, the rhubarb bed we planted this summer, and our peach tree.

Below are the sunflowers Lucy and Emma planted this past spring.  They really make the garden beautiful and the girls are so proud of them.  Next year they want to plant even taller ones!

Lucy got a little creative the other day when she found herself in the garden with lots to harvest but no basket on hand.

August's harvest included a dozen peaches from our peach tree, the last of the season's blueberries, pounds and pounds of green beans, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and pears.  Oh, and of course eggs.

I suffer from a disorder that sees baked good and other processed foods whenever I look at fresh produce.  I wish I could just eat the produce unprocessed and be satisfied, but my mind immediately wanders to the pancakes and muffins fresh blueberries will make, the cheesecake and oven-puffed pancakes and sauces the pears will enhance, the three bean salad and dilly beans the green beans were made for and of course the peach cobbler God clearly intended peaches to be used for.  Not to mention the zucchini that should only be eaten in muffins, the kale that can only be eaten as chips and the plums for plum buckle.  Oh, and I almost forgot about the luscious strawberry rhubarb cobbler!  If I could just get over this disorder, then maybe I could lose these last 15 pounds!  Below is a picture of the blueberry pancakes and muffins, ginger pear cheesecake (heaven!) and a mason jar of my first batch of freshly brewed kambucha (a fermented sweet tea drink stocked full with beneficial probiotics).

 Lucy has been very helpful these days.  In the below right picture, she stocked the toilet paper in the downstairs bathroom for me.  It reminded me of a quote by George S. Patton that says, "Never tell people how to do things.  Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."

In the above middle picture Lucy is helping me babysit a friend of our's baby.  She absolutely loves helping me with babies and is looking forward to the day when she is old enough to go babysitting on her own.  The left bottom picture above is of Emma putting her finger in the ringlet of curls cascading from Lucy's forehead.  At least someone looked good in the humid weather we had this past month!

I bought some beads and string on clearance at the local craft store this past month.  Lucy and Emma were excited to try their hand at jewelry making and did an amazing job.  Lucy made patterns all on her own and Emma was able to string the tiny beads with no problem.  It was fun for me to sit back and watch their little minds creating.

It has also been fun to sit back with my feet up in the yard and watch them play.  This is possible a bit more now that Lucy has learned to swing herself this summer and fortunately Emma is content to do "belly swings" as she calls it and use her feet to kick off and swing herself.  Here they are below laying on a blanket, watching the clouds go by.  Lucy has been interested in clouds and the proper names of them so we are learning all about cumulus, stratus, cirrus and nimbus clouds with help from some library books.

 Lucy told Will the other day after she came inside from an afternoon of running around the yard barefoot, "Dad, I think I have your feet."  When Will asked why, she responded with, "Because they are dirty."

Thank goodness for the little girls in our life to help us balance out all of our hard work with giggles, play and someone to help me eat all of the baked goods!