Study Time

Emma gets up early every morning. She typically wakes up at 6:30 a.m. while Da and I prefer to sleep until 7:30 or 8:00 whenever possible. For a while her morning routine consisted of t.v. or computer until we woke up. But just about every morning there were questions or problems. "Mama! My computer says something, can you come read it!"

Makes it hard to sleep in if Emma keeps asking me questions.

Now that we are at Gramma and Boppa's, the computer and the t.v. are upstairs. We would like her to stay downstairs until the rest of the house wakes up, so we started a new routine yesterday.

When Emma wakes up, she will work on "school" for a about 10 minutes (or longer if she wants to). This consists of working in her work books (she has math, writing, puzzles, etc), drawing, reading, etc.

There are 3 reasons why I think this setup will work. 1.) There are not a lot of distractions at 6:30 in the morning and, 2.) She works better when I am not breathing down her neck, 3.) She truly enjoys working in her working in her work books.

I have a tendency to say "Let's just do one more page," or "Let's just finish this up," or "Why don't we do the pages in order." With me not being part of the equation she can work on whatever she wants in whatever order she wants.

Once I get up, I will look over her work and she gets to put a sticker on the pages that she has completed. Stickers are so cool.

If there are pages that are half finished I might suggest we finish them so she can put a sticker on the page, but for the most part this is her gig. I look through her work more for my benefit then hers and if I notice mistakes, I let her know and we work on fixing them together. Then I date the page and we are done.

Yesterday Emma did about 8 pages in one of her work books. She also drew a picture of an Ardennes horse (after looking in one of her horse books) and wrote the name of the horse on the paper as well. Once I got up, I read the paragraph that went along with the horse for her.

This morning was a bit different. A crappy nights sleep leads to some crabby people but she still managed to get a bit of work done in her work books. I ended up getting up with her so I took a picture of her working (and yes, I kept suggesting she do one more page).

And just for the heck of it, here is the bookcase next to her desk. Her tinker toy creations are on top; kid markers, higher end markers and stationary are next; a giant tub of crayons (and we have more floating around the house somewhere) and her plastic critters in a jar in the middle; coloring books, blank notebooks, and paper on the bottom.

I am sure over time we will play with the set up, but for now she seems to like it.

Emma's Room

We are here at Gramma and Boppa's house and finally getting settled in. Emma's room was my top priority and I feel like I can say that her room is done.

Of course, that doesn't mean we won't find random toys or boxes of toys that need to be put away as we unpack the rest of our stuff, but hey, it's a start.

Here are some pictures.

Walking into her room, this is the view. The clutter on the top bunk has been removed and we are currently relocating all of her stuffed animals up there. It's a long and involved process. The file holder things hanging from the top bunk hold books and other random little toys. The red case is full of Mega Blocks (and I think we have more somewhere else as well).

To the right of the door and back a bit is her closet, a perfect blank canvas for horse posters.

On two sides of the room there is a ledge that we have decided to fill with books, as you can see better in the next photo. The storage cubes are about 1/2 full right now, mostly with random toys. The books on top of the storage cubes are all easy readers. She has really gotten excited about reading, as long as the book isn't to hard. I figured the easy readers should be easy to read and easy to reach.

Her toy kitchen was a must keep. <sigh> She loves it, but I don't think she really plays with it all that much. Time will tell. The books above the kitchen are loosely organized by fiction and non-fiction (ish).

On the far left of the picture you can see a little desk. This will be Emma's work space. On top of the desk in the corner are her work books and art journals. She has a cup for pens (she hates pencils) and a bucket full of odd writing utensils. To the right of the desk is a little bookcase with kid markers (crayola, rose art, etc) as well as our fancy/professional markers. She has a big bin of crayons and on the bottom shelf are all her coloring and drawing books as well as blank paper, scratch paper, and blank notebooks/journals.

The books on the ledge above her desk are all her chapter books (Magic Tree House, Rainbow Magic, Bone, etc.).

Both Emma's work desk and the dresser that matches belong to her Auntie Sara. The desk and dresser have gotten a lot of good use out of them and they are still going strong. In the dresser we keep play kitchen items in the top drawer, dress up/music items in the middle drawer and doll clothes in the bottom drawer. The books on top of the dresser are all horse related.

The hutch (or whatever it's called) holds her more fragile horses and other items. Books to the right of the hutch are fairy tales (Gramma has a great collection of Cinderella stories from around the world). Books to the left of the hutch are all Bernstein Bear books, Little Critter books, and other books of the same size. Most of the Bernstein Bear books belonged to Emma's Da when he was a little boy.

And the closet. Two bookcases- the one on the left holds puzzles, games, and craft stuff as well as a few educational type items like Base 10 blocks, tanagrams, etc. The bookcase on the right holds; on the top shelf- toys from Da's childhood such as Tinker Toys, He-Man characters in their case, Castle Grayskull, and an Ewok Village. The next two shelves are just random toys, and on the bottom shelf is Emma's beloved Legos, which many of them also belonged to Da when he was a boy.

The upper shelves in Emma's closet hold more random items with room to expand (though really, she doesn't need any more stuff).

She LOVES to spend time in her room, which is such a relief because for a while she wouldn't play in her room if no one else was downstairs with her. Now that her room is situated and full of fun stuff, she is happy to hang out down there with no problems.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of Emma's room!

Teeth and Math

Emma pulled out her own tooth today! 

So much easier when she does that instead of Jared holding her down while I pry open her mouth and pull it out, which is how it normally goes. 

We tried letting them fall out on their own, but the amount of yucky stuff building up underneath was causing concern for the adult teeth. 

But... this latest tooth has been loose for a bit and she actually wriggled it a lot, so today, when she complained that she was having a hard time biting her teeth together and eating, I figure it was about time. I explained why it would need to come out today and she cried. I made sure to ask her what it is about loosing teeth that really upsets her. 

The blood. 

I know where that comes from. Knocking out a baby front tooth when you are 4 and having blood pour down your face and onto your mothers arm can be pretty traumatizing I imagine. So I gave her extra snuggles and we made a deal to watch one more Curious George, then we would pull the tooth, then she could watch some more CG. She cried, but accepted it. 

Then she cried and begged and pleaded to wait till tomorrow to pull it once the moment arrived. I hugged, and soothed best I could, but then I started getting my implements ready (paper towels, ice cold water, ice). I told her this time we would pull the tooth with her sitting up so that way the blood wouldn't drip onto her tongue and that she could close her eyes while I stopped the bleeding so she wouldn't have to look at the blood. 

As my fingers where headed for her mouth, she said "Wait, let me try first!" in a panicked voice. This is one of the stall tactics, but we always let her try. 

On her 4th or 5th try I saw her eyes grow wide as she actually managed to pull the tooth out! I quickly grabbed the tooth (in case there was blood) and stuffed some paper towels in her mouth before the blood could get on her tongue. 

She was so excited she tried to talk to me about it while her mouth was full of paper towels and my fingers. 

All it all, it was the 2nd least dramatic tooth removal we have experienced and I hope she remembers it for next time as we still have 13 teeth to go. 

Look at the adult top teeth coming in! The missing tooth is on the bottom left (right in the picture). 

On our return from Ames for our celebratory gelato (that was Emma's reward for pulling her own tooth out), Emma mentioned that she had math homework to do when she gets home. 

Me- "Ok. Wait, were did you get math homework?

Emma- "Oh, I have to go to school first to get my math homework."

Me- "What school are you going to go to?"

Emma- "The school in our family room."

We do not actually have a school in the family room. That room is basically Emma's domain, so I guess it is possible that there is a school in there.

After we got home, Emma headed for the family room and was quite for a bit. Then she wandered into the living room to show me her math homework. 

(The last equation is 609+9=618)

Apparently we should employ the unicorn teacher on a full time basis because she seems to be a pretty good teacher. 

Oh, and we made a super yummy millet porridge for breakfast this morning!

Collaborative Artistic Decor

We still have no idea when we will be moving to Montana, but I already know of one thing I would like to put up in either Emma's room or one of the main rooms when we get there.

Something like this. Feel free to ignore the changing table, we won't need one of those again. But I love the jumbled alphabet. I found this picture on pinterest, and the idea that was typed under it was to have guests at a baby shower each pick a letter to decorate and give as a gift at the baby shower.

As Emma will be our one and only, I thought this might be a fun house warming gift (not that we typically requests gifts) for us when we move.

So family and friends, I would love for volunteers to pick a letter and spend the next... year, 9 months, whatever it ends up being, working on a letter for us. If you happen to want to pick the letter that your name starts with, even cooler.

Decorate it however you would like. Love trains (and your name starts with a T...) put train stickers and other train stuff on it. Name start with an M and love motorcycles?

The letter of your name, and whatever you decorate the letter with don't have to be the same. Heck, if you have a favorite letter go ahead and pick that one. Name start with a Y and love crafting? I think you guys get the idea.

You can purchase letters at various craft stores (Hobby Lobby, Jo Ann's, Michaels, etc) in various sizes or, if you feel inspired, you can make the letter(s) out of whatever you have handy. My only request is that the letter be at least the size of a standard piece of paper (8.5 x 11), and be made of  something sturdier than paper- a cereal box would probably be the thinnest material that would hold up to our moves over the coming years. Bigger and sturdier is just fine. I love in the picture about that all of the letters are different sizes, styles, colors, etc.

If no one volunteers, I guess Emma and I can make them ourselves, but they really won't mean as much.

If you are interested, please let me know (e-mail or comments section is fine) which letter you would like!

A
B- Memere
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y- Yvonne
Z

If you have any questions, let me know. I will update this post as people choose letters.

Have a great day and I hope to hear from you soon!

p.s. I know not everyone is on the computer, so if you can think of someone who might want to partake, feel free to pass the word on!

Emma's Domain

Emma has effectively taken over the family room. Most days when she is in there, she has a ribbon strung across the doorway, though she is more than happy to allow others to enter. 

What does she do in there?

Plays with Legos, listens to music or audio books, and, as of yesterday, paints.

She had asked a few nights ago (10 minutes before bedtime) if she could paint. I told her that she could the next day. She asked again the next day so I started to get the kitchen table ready for her, but she told me she wanted to paint in the family room.

She had set up an empty box as her easel, a little table to set her paints on, we found a blank canvas for her to use, and she has been happily working on her painting for the last 2 days. 

It's fun to walk through the family room at various times throughout the day to see what new Lego creations she has, and what additions she has made to her painting. 

Emma's Trail Mix

Yesterday, Emma asked for something to eat as we were getting ready to walk around town to get some errands done. She had wanted pretzels and homemade peanut butter. When I suggested she put them both in the same container (for ease of traveling), she decided she wanted trail mix instead. I asked what she wanted to put in it, thus, Emma's Trail mix was created.

(I didn't think to take pictures yesterday, so when Emma asked for more today, I made sure to snap a few photos.)

Emma's Trail Mix
Ingredients:
1/4c almonds (we use raw almonds)
1/4c raisins
1/4c craisins
1tbsp chocolate chips (we use Enjoy Life mini's- gluten, dairy, soy, nut free)
15 pretzel sticks (Snyder's of Hanover Gluten Free)

Mix ingredients together and enjoy!

Exceed Photo Capacity

I had no idea I was limited in the number of photos I could upload to add to my blogs. Not only do the pictures that end up in a post count, but so do the ones I upload then decide not to include.

With that being said, I will probably be a little pickier about the pictures I post. In order to free up space, I have to look through each post to see which pictures I used, and which ones I did not. A bit of a process, but one I will work on as I go.

I would appreciate your help! If you notice any pictures that are not working, please let me know so I can fix them.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!