Saturday, June 03, 2006
This mornings activity
Spill milk on the rail, wipe up the milk. Over and over and over. Then she wanted to move on to the couch, the chairs, the carpet, her legs and her books. We finally had to draw the line.


Friday, June 02, 2006
This is why...
I despair moving her to the big girl bed. She is ALL OVER her bed at night. I started using the pillow in hopes it would help her stay in place. Some nights I find her whole body draped over the pillow. A first step would be moving the crib bed all the way to the bottom and putting in the half rails. I still don't think we're quite ready...


Jakey's walk
It's about a mile total. To and from the neighbor's gate along the old road that runs along this property. The key to happy dogs is lots of exercise. They do this walk three times a day. Emma gets to go for the evening walk too.

Thursday, June 01, 2006
Dontcha know?
I cleaned my house yesterday and today I had an unexpected visitor. It almost never happens that way.
Emma's first dinner at the table
She was actually quite excited to get into her seat. She did pretty well. We did go through a put-down-your-plate spell. We let her get started on her shrimp while the eggrolls were still baking...


I usually have cocktail sauce for my shrimp and duck sauce for my eggrolls. She decided she wanted to dip her shrimp. I dipped it in the cocktail sauce. She put it in her mouth and then spit it out. Then she looked at it and since the sauce was gone she put it back in and ate it. After all, it's shrimp. Next she tried the shrimp in the duck sauce. She liked that and continued to dip it herself. It's the first time I've seen her dipping in sauce.


Notice the leg...she's enjoying her extra degree of freedom in the booster.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Caught reading
Just recently I've started letting Emma play alone in her room for 10 or 15 minute spans. Only recently because it took M. a year and a half to get around to securing her closet/cabinet to the wall. Ahem. Anyhoo...since I was cleaning house today she got to play in her room. I came upstairs and this is what I found, she was sitting in Mommy's chair reading a book. Awesome.

Mark your calendars
I cleaned house today. It wasn't the master plan, just something I've been contemplating for a while, a big purge. I think Slacker Mom's suggestion of the Flylady way got me fixated on my kitchen sink. I started there and just kept going. I got my kitchen so clean and decluttered that I'd swear there's an echo in there. I cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed downstairs. I went through my hutch and boxed up a whole box worth of stuff for yard sale or Goodwill.

In my hutch I found the Sprite of Significance. It's a bottle of 12 1/2 year old flat soda from our first date. Maybe I'll tell you the story someday soon...

Mommy's seat
Emma has taken to asking to be fed in this chair. I'll sometimes do it for lunch. I'm guessing we could probably do away with the highchair now if we wanted, but we'll probably hold on a little while longer. She'll obviously need a booster.

Nature study
These were all taken between the house and the end of the driveway. First, we have the dutch irises that M. brought over from the house he remodeled with a friend and sold right before we started dating. They've pretty much taken over the place.


I don't know what these are...a wildflower or weed of some sort.


Here is a thistle for Leslie. In another day or two it will bloom. M. said to tell you if left unchecked these suckers can grow to eight feet tall.


I showed this guy to M. and he said "Tater bug."
"Really?"
"Well, actually it's a Colorado Potato Beetle," locally known as a Tater Bug.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Ack! She's coming for my brownie!
Nothing like chocolate to light a girl's fire.

Tonight's project
Ready to go. I love the salmon colored impatiens. They're so bright and pretty, and you can actually see them from the road once they're in full bloom. Impatiens are easy so I don't end up killing them right away. They wilt when they need water, and then you water them. Easy.

For Shawnie


Brand new shoes with one day's worth of dirt applied. They actually came with shoe laces that were trimmed in blue and metallic silver, but I thought the white would make them go with more outfits. They also had some charms hanging off of them, but Emma wouldn't let me come near her with the shoes until I removed the charms. Then the shoes were just fine with her.
Monday, May 29, 2006
This one's for Popi


Please excuse the socks and sandals combo. It's the first time she's worn those sandals and I didn't want them to rip her feet to shreds. After morning nap we shed the sandals and went for a brand new pair of Sketchers from Aunt T. You rock, Auntie T!
A work-at-home day
M. went and got the tiller and tilled up our garden. Then he arranged the old rails around the garden to connect it to the new fence. When the landlord put up new fence last summer they reconfigured our yard and basically cut us off from the garden. There was a small gap between the end of the fence and the outbuilding so M. built a gate for it and used the rails to attach the garden to our yard again; basically he made us a little corridor to the garden. All of this is necessary to keep out the pain-in-the-ass cows. They get their jollies tromping through the garden if they can. We're planting sunflowers and a pumpkin patch. I'm looking forward to watching them grow.

He built a new gate to keep the dogs and Emma out of the garden; you can see it to the left. It's attached to the building...


This should give some perspective on the whole set up. Once again the gate is at the far left...


M. also "laid waste to vast regions" with his weed-whacker. I did the laundry and cleaned and decommissioned some baby toys and packed them away.

Emma played.

Labels:

Monday outfit
This is a hand-me-down from the older Emma, but I absolutely love it. It's just so adorable on her, with her little round shoulders and cute arms. And it's not pink. I like the yellow in it; she can actually wear yellow, unlike her mama.


Confusion
Elmo and elbow. They're so close. Now when she wants Elmo she points to her elbow. I guess she taught us a sign.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Annual Memorial weekend camping trip
This gathering began approximately twenty-seven years ago when a few high school seniors grabbed a case of beer and headed way into the mountains to drink. Decades later it has evolved into a huge gathering of many families with nearly every amendity you can think of. It's all centered around an old schoolhouse that sits on the property belonging to one of our friends.

Camping in the mountains may sound redundant for us. Let me stress the point that this is waaaay out in the mountain wilderness. It's hard to believe there was ever a community large enough to sustain a school in this remote area. Here's the little schoolhouse.


No one is actually cheeky enough to bring a camper out there. But they have enough luxuries to embarrass a real camper. We have an old fashioned outhouse, a new port-a-john, and premiering this year, a shower tent. They also have a kerosene heater for the school when it's cold. This year there were two gas powered generators. They actually had video games set up in the schoolhouse! I mean it's one thing to bring them to run your blender...but video games!?!

Spot the johnny houses...(To the left is the shower tent)


Here is the central gathering area in good weather. They put two canopies together and we all huddle in the shade.



The weather today was terrific, but we have spent many a Memorial weekend huddled in the schoolhouse, chased indoors by the cold and rain. In twenty-seven years M. has only missed the trip once, to attend my brother's wedding. I've used Emma as an excuse not to spend the night the last two years. I'd stay overnight if I could ever sleep at night. But I simply cannot. I'm sure Emma will force me to do it again someday.
The swimming hole
The ladies went on an extended walk and worked pretty hard at it. When we got back we decided we'd like to dip our toes in the river. We left our camp and went a couple of miles to the swimming hole. Here everyone is hunting the perfect rocks to step on and not slip and lose our balance...


M. took off Emma's shoes so she could dip her toes too. She was soooo not interested. The water was probably about 54 degrees. She has the super grip on Daddy's hair so he won't dip her in the water again.


One of the teenaged boys road the dirtbike down from the camp. He left it to go into the water and M. thought he'd let Emma sit on it since she's so fascinated with motorcycles. She wasn't happy. I think it had more to do with wanting to get back to the water bottle she was drinking from.


Here are all the nuts who decided they wanted to actually swim in the frigid water. This area was further downstream from where we waded.


I like this action photo...


Emma and Daddy looking back upstream to where we were earlier.

Big kid swing
I knew Emma would be drawn to this swing. It's been hanging there for years so I knew it would be there. She absolutely cannot hang on to it; besides her legs are too short. I should have known Daddy would figure out how to make her happy on it. He just basically held her there and ran around in a wide circle.