Emma at 13 Months

The other night while Emma was running around upstairs in her birthday suit, Will and I looked at each other and decided that one is a really fun age.  It brought back memories of Lucy at this age and we feel very blessed to experience it all again.  What a bonus!  The utter joy on Emma's face as she ran around diaper-free made us laugh so hard it hurt.  I could watch her all day long, running around naked.  Or at least until I had to clean up the carpet.

The following is the clothed version of what our little one year old has been up to this month.

Emma is very active and is constantly on the move.  She loves spinning around and around to music and she loves throwing and chasing after a ball.  She loves chasing and being chased with Lucy.  In case you are wondering, Emma is holding a fake knife from the play kitchen in the below picture.  She was chasing Lucy while brandishing the knife over her head, but by the time I found the camera, the tables had turned and Emma had turned into the chase-e, even though she was still holding the weapon.  Yup, when subsequent children run with fake knives, we take pictures.

Emma loves climbing.  She can climb to the top of the slide in our backyard, can climb up the heating register to look out the window while she clings pull up style to the window sill and she also loves climbing on top of the Little Tikes picnic table as well.  Here she is below, after she climbed into Lucy's new doll wagon.  Seconds later she started jumping in it, the wagon started to move, and she fell out.  She tends to curl into a little ball when she falls though, and usually falls, rolls and then springs back up.  That is of course if no one saw her - otherwise she will sob uncontrollably while hiding her face out of embarrassment.

Emma loves reading simple board books on our lap.  She has a handful of favorites that she always brings us to read and it is fascinating to me that she picks out the same couple of books every time from a very large selection.  She also is really enjoying the new bookshelf Will built her for her birthday as it is just her height.

Emma's food pickiness has decreased ever so slightly.  She has tried several new foods this month that she has previously refused including chicken and shell-shaped pasta.  She ate one or two bites of the pasta before she discovered it was more fun to put them on her toes.

Note to self - try spaghetti next time.

Emma has also developed quite a sweet tooth and knows the difference between a vegetable and a dessert. The difference is she refuses to try the vegetable, where the dessert she will shove in her mouth faster than you can say childhood obesity.  She swiped a juice box for Lucy out of my hand the other day and drank it so fast she started choking.  Even when the juice box was gone, she refused to give it to me and even fell asleep holding it.

She also swiped a sucker Lucy had left on the picnic table outside.  By the time I realized it, she had already fallen in love and sticky drool was everywhere.  Lucy has been telling Emma, "Swiper, no swiping!" which some of you might recognize from Dora the Explorer.

Speaking of Lucy and Emma.  Besides Emma's constant swiping, they have been playing together better this month.  Emma adores Lucy, and wants to do whatever she is doing.  Here they are below checking out some worms in our flower bed.

Monkey see, monkey do.  As many of you know Lucy adores running around with bags of all shapes and sizes filled with toddler treasures.  It seems Emma has developed this habit as well this past month.  Here she is below toting a purse.  She kept running over to me whenever it fell off of her tiny little shoulder and would then indicate that she wanted it put back on.

To me, the biggest development this past month besides her fourth bottom tooth and an upper molar popping through is her level of comprehension with the world.  We can almost see the wheels turning in her head, and the connections being made.  The other day Will found a frog in the yard and put it on the driveway so the girls could see it better.  Emma ran off while we were looking at the frog and came back with a plastic toy frog.  She proceeded to set it down next to the real frog and then went on her way.  It was like she was saying, "yup, I know what a frog is!"

She understands simple directions now like "Go get your socks" or "Put your spoon on the table."  She can give high fives when asked, and even blow a kiss.  I swear she said "Banana" and "Jane" (for Aunt Jane of course!) but hasn't repeated it so I can't say it is official yet.  She hasn't yet learned that she can defy our simple directions, and I think that is one reason why I love this age so much.  When I say, "Emma, lay down it's night-night time" she immediately drops to the mattress.  That of course doesn't stop her from popping up 10 seconds later but I attribute that to a short attention span, and not defiance.

Ah, the sweetness of a freshly turned one year old!  Look at my little cuddle bug snuggling with me.  Oh, I love my baby!

Lucy is Three!

Usually it takes a while for my mind to catch up with the reality of time and my babies growing up.  For some reason though, it feels like Lucy has been three for a while now and the calendar has finally caught up!  Maybe Lucy claiming during her first week of officially being three that "I can do anything, now that I'm almost four" has helped me come to terms with three.  Either way, three she is and as my friend's pediatrician told her,"Three is just like two, only with a bigger vocabulary."  True that!  I like the term "threenager" a relative of mine coined for her three year old daughter.  The sass that is coming out of our little threenager's mouth is shocking at times.

-Me: "Lucy, please sit down."  Lucy: "No, YOU sit down!"

-Me: "If you don't stop that right now we will not be going to the park."  Lucy: "No, if YOU don't stop that right now, YOU won't be going to the park and I won't be your friend anymore!"

-Me: "Lucy, it's time to go now."  Lucy: "I will spit in your face and be naughty if I can't stay and I'm not going to like you anymore!"

-Me: "Lucy, what are you doing?" Lucy: "I'm not being a good listener, and I'm not sharing!"

That's probably enough to give you the general idea of our girl's budding vocabulary.  Most times I am at a loss as to how to respond to such sass, but we have had many a conversation about "sweet words" versus "rude words" and are really trying to use positive reinforcement techniques on the "sweet words".

Fortunately, Lucy isn't all sass and still says some pretty cute things as well.  The other day she found our swim bag that we take to the beach and emerged from the bathroom wearing a pair of goggles and asked me if I liked her "Googles".  Some of you might remember that for the longest time she called Will by his first name instead of Dad which really bothered Will.  Well, now she refers to him as "Big Guy" so I'm not sure if that is an improvement or not.  In other news, she now calls me Liz if I don't respond to Mom in a quick enough fashion.  Her favorite exclamation is "oh boy!" and when we get into the car to go anywhere she says "On the road again folks!" as we pull out of our driveway.  She has also begun to determine the difference between boys and girls and has even taken this new knowledge and applied it to what Will and I can and cannot do.  For instance, only ladies can read "lady books" (where the main character is female) and only daddies can read "man books".  If I am singing a song by or about a man she will remind me that the song is a "man song" and not to be sung by me.  I was informed that "Do you know the muffin man" has to be sung "Do you know the cupcake lady" if I am going to sing it.

Lucy has gotten a little bit more adventurous with new foods - we're talking ground beef and mangoes - not sushi and tabbouleh.  But any attempt on her part to try foods she had previously banned is exciting for Will and I.  One evening however, Lucy was picking away at her plate and when I asked her if she wasn't hungry, she told me, "I want the chickens to have it Mom."  The chickens do love Lucy's table scraps that is for sure.

Lucy's had her hands pecked a couple of times, so now when she plays with the chickens, she keeps her hands in her pockets.  The other day she was in their pen bossing talking to them while I was watering the garden nearby.  All of a sudden I heard the most horrific screams.  I dropped the hose and ran for the pen expecting to find the chickens pecking her to death.  Instead, I found the chickens going crazy on a bracelet Lucy had dropped, and Lucy freaking out screaming, "My BRACELET!!!  My BRACELET!"  Imagine my relief!  I recovered the bracelet and removed Lucy from chicken territory, only to find Lucy minutes later chewing on the exact same bracelet!  Double ew.  She does love the chickens though, as long as they stay away from her jewelry and has named several of them so far.  The names are kind of new agey: Friendly, Stone, Daisy and Dandelion.  She is still thinking up names for the rest of them.

Lucy has become quite a little helper around the house.  She can put a new garbage bag into our kitchen garbage can very efficiently, and has also taken her job of watering some grass seed we planted very seriously.  She received a kit for planting wild flowers from her Aunt Jane for her birthday and has been taking care of them all on her own.  Here she is below planting the seeds.

Lucy and Emma are interacting more with each passing week.  Since Emma's birthday came first this past month, it was like Lucy had two birthdays - Emma doesn't yet understand the law of possession, and Lucy takes full advantage.  Here Lucy is below "sharing" Emma's new dollhouse by letting Emma play with her.

Emma also received her own "Simone" doll for her first birthday from Grandma T. just like Lucy received Simone for her first birthday.  Unfortunately, Lucy now believes she has "twins" as she told us and just today she named Emma's new doll Annabelle.  We have been trying to enforce the fact that it isn't Lucy's doll but have decided short of putting the doll away until Emma understands it is hers, we don't stand a chance.  The first night after Emma got the new doll we were tucking Lucy into bed and she kept trying to speed up the routine.  Will and I kept exchanging glances and raising our eyebrows at each other because it was like Lucy was trying to kick us out.  This has NEVER happened before and usually it is all we can do to get out of her room in under a half hour as she thinks up every trick in the book to make us stay.  We thought this was very strange until we caught her taking a peek under her pillow and saw Emma's new doll hiding under there.  We decided to ignore it and take advantage of our ticket out.  The next morning, and every day since, Lucy will secretly bring Emma's doll downstairs in the morning and then bring her upstairs at night and hide her in her bed.  Will and I have decided to pretend we don't notice, because it makes bedtime a breeze.

Sibling rivalry is alive and well between these two.  If one has a toy, the other one won't rest until they have it.  If my lap is occupied by one, chances are good that it is just a matter of time before the other one realizes and needs to sit in my lap as well.  If Will picks one girl up, he better be prepared to carry two.

 They really can be sweet together though, and I love that they have each other to learn conflict resolution with.

The other day when I was checking pockets as I put Lucy's dirty clothes into the washing machine I kept finding cheerios.  When I asked Lucy why she was putting cheerios in her pockets she told me, "So that I can feed them to Emma when I need her to do something."  This left me speechless.

All throughout winter we've talked about the things we can do when spring gets here.  One of them was to ride the new carousel at the Detroit Zoo that is put away during the winter.  Here Lucy is below on her first ride of the season.

 Another spring event we looked forward to was flying a kite for the first time.  In the picture below, Lucy and Will are flying a kite that is so high you can't see it.  We've had super windy weather this month which has been perfect for kite flying.

 And of course the number one spring time event that Lucy has been looking forward to was her third birthday!  She received the Golden Book "Nurse Nancy" that created the theme for her gifts.  The book was probably written in the 50's and is about a little girl who loves playing nurse with her dolls and uses a toy wagon as the ambulance.  Lucy loves playing nurse with her dolls, so we thought this would be perfect for her.  We got her a Fisher Price doctor kit and a Little Tikes doll wagon to go along with the book.  As I was tucking her in the night before her birthday I asked her what she wanted for her birthday.  That was a big mistake, because she then listed several items which we didn't have for her.  Will was promptly sent out for a late night shopping trip that included several different stores as he tried to find the "Dora stuff", gummy bears and suckers that Lucy requested.  We also got her a big girl swing that we are hoping to be able to hang from our tree.  Otherwise, Will is going to have to move up his swing set plans by a year or two.  Finally, we got Lucy a Lego Duplo Chicken Coop set.  I can't forget to mention that she kept dramatically yelling, "Don't look at me" out of pure excitement as she ripped open her presents.

Here Lucy is helping me decorate her Dora cupcakes that we served at her and Emma's joint family birthday party.

 And here Lucy is below with her Dora Cake on her actual birthday.

Happy Almost Fourth Birthday Lucy Anne!  We love you and are so happy you are a part of our family!

Happy 1st Birthday Emma!

My baby is one now!  She is such a joy to be around, and it has been an amazing year with her in our life.  Somehow Emma knew exactly what to do to fit into our family and we can't imagine life without her.  Emma, where have you been all my life?  I am so glad you are here!

At one years old, Emma is a sweet...



 ...funny...



...cuddly...

...agile...



 ...and sensitive little girl.  She hopped on the toilet all by herself in the above picture and surprised even herself when she filled it with pee!  In the below picture she took a ride on the carosel at the zoo and broke down crying when it started to move.  She is extremely sensitive when we tell her no, and will even burst into tears if you look at her wrong.  This is new territory for Will and I, since we are used to aggressive defiance from our older daughter when things don't go her way.

 Emma loves wagon rides...

...and stroller rides, as well as short cat naps.

Emma enjoys bringing books over to us and climbing into our laps to read.

She has added the words nigh-nigh for night-night and says it when she is tired.  She loves saying my name like a chant: mamamamamama and she says Uh Oh when she drops something.  She also says Dora, dog and duck much the same way - duh!  Here she is below pointing at the pair of ducks in our neighborhood, waving and saying "Duh!"

Emma is walking like she has done it all of her life, and has even started to run.  She popped two more teeth this past month - her fourth front one on the top, and a molar on the top!  She still only has three teeth on the bottom though.

For Emma's birthday we ended up staying home because Lucy was still sick.  Unfortunately, by bedtime Emma was running a fever as well.  It didn't seem to slow her down though, and we had a nice and relaxing day together.  I made all of her favorite (dairy-free) foods including pancakes for breakfast, tortillas and hummus for lunch, and orzo, pickles, grapes and homemade pitas for dinner and an apple cupcake for dessert.  We were able to play outside for a short period of time until the wind picked up so badly it kept blowing Emma over.

Emma thought opening presents was funny, and after she ripped each piece of wrapping paper off of the gift, she stood up and walked it over to the garbage can in the kitchen.  This made gift opening a very slow process but highly entertaining for Will, Lucy and I to watch.  We gave Emma a Little People doll house, a book I made for her about the day she was born, a wooden book shelf Will made for her room that will hang at her height on the wall, and a snack tray for her seat in the double stroller.  It was tough coming up with meaningful gifts for someone who would rather just play with dirty socks and has a big sister with every toy a little girl could ever want, but we managed!

Here Emma is below getting her second measurement written on our family growth chart.  She measured in at 27 inches tall, about a 1/4 inch shorter than Lucy at a year old.  Ironically, Emma was a 1/4 taller than Lucy at birth.  It will be interesting to see how their heights play out over the years.

Happy birthday Emma!  We love you ever so much!

Suburban Homestead

Will and I share many hopes and dreams for our family.  One of our biggest dreams was made a reality the day we bought our house, over two years ago now.  We had been on the search for a certain kind of home to grow a family in since we were dating.  After all, we did meet in the School of Architecture, so design is very important to us.  But just as important to us was the type of beliefs that go along with the particular type of architecture we love.  The American Arts and Crafts Movement which took place in the 1920's and 30's embraced craftsmanship, attention to detail, and simple, beautiful designs that were both pleasing to the eye and highly efficient.  Out of this movement was born the Bungalow, a house design built for middle class families trying to live the American dream.  Most of these Bungalows are very modest in size, but were made with great attention to detail, and used local materials and artists as much as possible.  Wood, glass, and masonry were integrated into these homes with reverence, resulting in beautiful simplicity which still resonates with a lot of people today.  We dreamed of our Craftsman Bungalow, in walking distance to most everything we could need - schools, shopping, library, post office, medical facilities and outdoor recreation with enough property  to refine our own crafts - Will's woodworking and our love of gardening.

Our search had become an obsession however, especially after we lost Luke.  It felt like if we could just find that house we had been dreaming about all of these years then our life could be happy again.  We would fill the emptiness we felt with endless car drives searching miles and miles for the perfect house.  We thought we found it several times, only to watch it slip through our fingers.  It was an emotional roller coaster, fueled by our desire to prove to ourselves that there was a dream within our control.

Unfortunately, most bungalows that are left some 80 to 90 years later are usually found on busy roads or packed tightly on tiny lots in subdivisions.  Will and I wanted the best of both worlds - a simple and beautiful bungalow, but on a decent sized lot on a quiet street.  After a decade of searching, we were beginning to think that we would need to make some compromises to find our dream home.

But one day in early January, 2010 a house popped up on our Internet search that fit every single criteria we had.  Our hearts were nearly pumping out of our chests we were so excited and scared at the same time.  We dialed up our realtor (who is more like a family friend) and she agreed that this house was perfect and we didn't have a moment to lose.  We were walking through it hours later, and put in an offer after our walk through.  It was perfect.  But the anxiety was only beginning.  Two other offers had been put in and ours was the lowest.  We couldn't afford to offer any more, and the next day we learned that we had lost it.  To make a long story short, over the next couple of weeks the house was put back on the market two more times.  Our third offer (of the same price our original offer was) was accepted and we achieved the unimaginable - our dream home.

And here we are today, a little over two years later.  The disbelief and awe has begun to fade, but our love and genuine appreciation remains.  Every morning I wake up and look out of my bright and architecturally pleasing Craftsman windows and I can't help but smile.  Barry Manilow's song, "Looks Like We Made It" constantly runs through my head.  We are so grateful.  Our home has been amazing in the healing process as we learn to readjust our hopes and dreams for our family.  When Will and I fell in love over a decade ago and began planning our future together, never did we think for one minute it wouldn't be as we planned.  Everything changed when we lost Luke though.   We learned a difficult lesson - our life together may not be what we had imagined.  But despite the hard times that we now understand inevitably come, it is still a beautiful life worthy of hopes and dreams.

So Will and I have been very busy since we moved into our dream home, making to-do lists, researching, building, digging, growing, fixing, painting, cooking, baking, canning, and, well, you get the idea.  It is our hope to make our almost 1/2 acre lot a self-sufficient producer of children, food and most recently, chickens.  In February we bought eight baby chicks and brought them home.  Here we are below on our way home from the farm with the tiny chicks stowed at my feet in the car.

We set up a comfy little box in our basement complete with a heat lamp and found endless hours of entertainment watching our new "Chicken TV".  Lucy has taken a shine to these little birds and loves to talk to them as well as feed them.  Emma thinks they are funny and loves to say "hi" over and over to them.

Here are the girls below, watching our chicken TV.  I think Lucy is wearing a pair of 3D glasses to add another dimension to the experience.

But baby chicks grow even faster than baby humans we found out.  Before long, these little birdies were big!  But still not big enough to go outside.  And despite nightly cleanings of their little box, they started smelling.  After a couple of weeks of the stench getting worse with each passing day, I finally told Will he had 48 hours to get them out of the house or I would sell them on Craigslist.  Needless to say, 24 hours later (another reason why I love Will - he is so efficient!) they were set up nicely in our garage with a heat lamp over head to stay warm.  

All winter long we have been researching chickens, gardening and how to make our piece of property as efficient as possible with all systems joined together in a complimentary and tightly run ecosystem.  After the girls were tucked into bed, Will would head out to the garage and build the chicken coop, while I curled up on the couch with a stack of library books.  Here Will is below building the coop in our garage.

Many people have asked us why we would go through all of this work when a dozen eggs can be bought at the store for a dollar.  There are many reasons, but I think the main reason can be summed up with our Craftsman mentality.  We value the art to be found in the details and systems that are efficient and designed with great thought.  Easier and faster isn't always better.  We find enjoyment in quality and process.  We could have a microwave, but we choose not to because food just tastes better heated by slower methods and a lot of research says the more traditional ways of heating your food is healthier.  Finally, after gardening at our house for the past two summers, it became clear to us that manure would really help our growing efforts.  The chickens provide the manure, while we feed them all of the many table scraps left over from our two toddlers.  They will also eat the bugs and weeds in our lawn and in return provide us with eggs more nutritious than any we could find on the grocer's shelves.

The coop is finally finished, and last week we enlisted the help of family and neighbors to move it into the run we have set up.  Our first-laid eggs have already been promised to the friend who donated the left over roofing shingles from his house and the gentlemen who helped move the coop.

Will has been busy digging holes for cedar fence posts and building garden boxes for a new method of gardening we are going to try this year as well.

All Will has to do now is put up some extenders on the fence posts to keep the deer out, plant our seedlings that he started in our basement last month, and hook up the rain barrels he made.

I have been busy planning out what to plant and how to grow each fruit or vegetable to it's maximum potential.  All I have to do now is apply my book knowledge to real life!

So far, our little homestead has eight chickens, one peach tree, four blueberry bushes, countless strawberry plants, raspberries, black caps, rhubarb, asparagus, herbs and annual veggies like tomatoes, cucumber, peas, beans, pumpkin, beets, squash, onions and garlic.  Oh, and two precious little girls!

Lucy and Emma are loving all the time spent outdoors while their mama and dada work.  And when Lucy isn't busy digging holes in the garden and Emma isn't occupied chewing on rocks and drooling mud they are having a blast in their new playhouse the chicken coop.  Too bad once the chickens move in the stench will ruin their fun!

If the above picture was our family billboard, I think it would say, "A toaster oven family living in a microwave world!"