New room and new discoveries

Emma's room all set up. This is during naptime, see little Emma in her bed? The shades for the other windows are on the way, hopefully it will make it a little darker in there for naps.

Where's the fireworks? 

Our first cherry tomato was just ripe enough to be plucked off and sampled

Approved!

Found stars in an apple core

View of Emma's wonderful, wonderful room from her bed. So much room to grow!

Emma's Castle

Emma's room is DONE besides minor things we can work in while the room is filled with all her belongings. She has a few new pieces of furniture which came with the house, I changed them up a little to better fit the room. My favorite is this low table (or is this a bench?) that I sanded the top of to the bare pine wood. It's light and natural but the dark stained legs give it a nice contrast. Emma uses this table for cutting her fruit and making food for her animals. 

This fruit cutting set was given to Emma by CoCo, and the fruit for the most part were packed away until now. They were too comfortable for Emma to throw so we thought we'd reintroduce them a little later. 

Today it is the first thing Emma went for when we went to her room after breakfast. She cut all the fruit into pieces then exclaimed, "Emma work hard, like Daddy!"

So right, little girl! 

Emma zips about her room to wherever inspiration takes her.

These shelves in the last two pictures came with the house, they were dark wood and mounted on the livingroom wall. I sanded them and painted them to match the wall color.

Emma raining animals down on sandwich toppings- of course!

Her table has five wooden toddler sized chairs I found on craigslist for $2 each which will be perfect for when we host play dates. That open wall between the windows could house a couple shelves for art supplies but I have to be sure this is where the table and chairs are staying before we start drilling into these walls- we had so many to fill when we were prepping for paint!

Putting her babies down for naptime c:

So that's is so far! We think Emma's bed will be moved in this weekend and the transformation will be complete. Very excited!!

Life and lessons at 23 months

Whole lotta love and being gentle with our pets.

Pets teach children responsibility, not by the animal being their responsibility but by us demonstrating their care and the child learning from it. 

Emma and a favorite tree of mine. That bark!

Ready for anything in her garden.

Lessons gardening is teaching us: care of environment, how food (tomato) is formed, how plants grow. Now that Emma's vocabulary has increased she can understand when I tell her that the leaves use sun to make food. Root are like straws to pull water up the plant. Plants get thirsty! We're keeping it simple but she's learning the cause and effect behind caring for the plants and them in turn growing, and producing fruit. 

Emma's first time setting the table solo (napkins and forks) for only showing her this a few times she did pretty well with no instruction. 

Because we're saying goodbye to "1" next month I want to post a list of all the things Emma has accomplished this year or where she is at this month. It's been another big year for her with lots of learning and growth in many areas.

At 23 months Emma sings the ABCs,

Runs,

Jumps with two feet,

Jumps from ledges (or climbers two feet high!! Wow, daredevil!) 

Walks up and down stairs,

Plays make believe games, 

Knows names of and can point out basic shapes and recognizes some letters

Is completely out of diapers day and night, even outings and travel,

Gets herself on and off her potty regularly, has used the toilet independently,

Sleeps through most nights and takes a predictable nap every afternoon,

Talks often about her friends and their families; talks about games they play or things she associates them with, and their pets.

Uses words to describe things (red car driving. Black cat tail wagging)

Asks others for things she wants,

Listens to our requests but makes her own decisions!

Helps, identifies herself as a helper, and helping

Repeats different words to the tune of ABCs

Can kick a ball,

Throw overhand,

Summersault,

Is openly affectionate to her family,

Requests certain food, songs, and activities by name.

And so much more! It has been a busy year for all of us but the biggest changes have been to Emma's abilities and her shinning personality.

 We love you, Lovey!