5 years + 5 months

Emily has had big dreams this month.  At the beginning of the month she was trying to decide if she wanted to be a scientist or a detective.  She settled on detective and started taking notes on the members of our family like Jack from The Magic Treehouse books.  She keeps them on slips of paper in containers on her art desk.  Her notes on me say "Hard work" "Pays bills" "Favorite state is Iowa" and "Does not like rice spilled" (referring to the rice box).  Lincoln's notes say "Spills rice" "Mess of rice makes a disaster" "Never picks up rice" "Likes rice and diggers" "Loves bagels" "Doesn't obey anybody".  The last one makes me laugh.

 

Lately, Emily has been playing Rock Star Emily.  Although I'm pretty sure she has no idea what the real lifestyle of a rock star looks like, she thinks it means she is the best.  She has been making posters advertising for Rock Star Emily.  She has her own web site (www.rockstaremily.com), her own TV channel (712) and some kind of singing contest with 60 episodes and the finale on May 1 (although we've never watched any of the reality singing shows).  She also made her own pennant flags.  EEK stands for Emma, Emily & Karen (two imaginary friends).  I know this is all coming from a Fetch! episode where they learned about playing/writing rock songs.

I have mentioned many times the Child Craft books from my childhood that reside in Emily's room.  She loves looking through them.  This month she has really studied the "Guide for Parents," which is basically a how-to guide circa 1986.  At various times she has informed me that you really only need to bathe babies 3-4 times/week unless they get really dirty, we need to let the babysitter know what TV shows or commercials she is allowed to watch and suggested we create a "safe" place for Lincoln (a "toodler") where he is allowed to make messes and we can say "yes" instead of always saying "no".  How would we live without her?!? ;o)  The other night she told Austin she was reading it so she would know what to do when she had kids.

Geography is still a major interest.  Emily is doing better at pronouncing the states after learning the song Fifty Nifty United States.  After conquering "Stack the States," Emily has moved on to "Stack the Countries."  That's another pronunciation challenge!

Emily has been very proud to start making her own lunch, which is usually a ham & cheese sandwich.  She still enjoys her beloved Chocolate Frosted Mini-Wheats for breakfast (dry) with an occasional addition of Quaker Oatmeal Squares or Life.  She usually requests it for snack, too.  However, she has an annoying habit of always leaving 4-5 pieces in the bowl no matter how full I fill it.  :op Sometimes when I ask her what she wants to eat she replies, "Whatever you give me is fine."  She is doing better about trying things that I make with less drama, although she still prefers things plain and bland.

House color? Vote now!

While still finishing up the new home office, we're already getting started on the next big project--painting the exterior of our house.  Austin was going to wait until May, but we found someone to spray the siding who might be ready as early as next week, so we have to pick a color!  We have already decided that all the trim is going to be white, including the porches and all the brick molding around the windows.  We will also have white gutters and downspouts.  The house color needs to look okay with the existing brick facade.  Here are the two colors in the running.  I won't tell you who picked out which color.  I realize that it's hard to tell from pictures since the coloring can be so different.  None of the pictures have been doctored using Picasa.  Please let me know ASAP your vote!

For reference, here are some pictures of the outside of our house taken when we first bought it.

More Spring

Spring flowers

I have been eagerly anticipating spring after spending a lot of time and effort planting all sorts of new bulb plants last fall.  I have not been disappointed!  And I didn't even have to wait until April or May!

Painting

Right after Christmas, Emily started asking about an art easel like the one they had at preschool.  About a month ago I finally got around to using the kids' Christmas money to order an easel and supplies from Amazon.  Then the weather turned nice and we've spent almost every day outside.  The kids have used the chalkboard side a bit, and Lincoln might have already ruined the whiteboard side by scribbling all over it with regular markers.  The painting aspect is also a bit limiting, because although the paints are washable, at this point I am not willing to get them out while Lincoln is awake.  But today Emily decided to give it a try.  Here are her creations...

Spring break visit

Grandma Lorenzen was on spring break this week, so she came to visit this afternoon.  It was another beautiful day, and we enjoyed playing outside.

Emily's schedule

The book What Time Is It, Mr. Crocodile? by Judy Sierra has been very popular in our house lately.  Lincoln loves pointing out the clock on each page and lets you know if you skip it.  Emily recently made a list of her schedule for the day...

1.  Meet friend  7:00
2.  Explore the world  7:20
3.  Read Bible  7:30
4.  Do something fun  7:35
5.  Snack  7:40
6.  Mail time  7:50
7.  Play in the gym 7:55
8.  Clean up  8:00
9.  Play  8:20
10. Look  8:30
11. Go home  12:00

That's quite a lot to fit into one morning! :o)

Refinished floors

We are almost done with our next remodeling project.  One of the big components of this one was refinishing the original hardwood floors in our house, which cover four bedrooms, two hallways, the treads on the stairs and various closets.  If you're going to do them, you might as well do them all at once, so it was a daunting task.  However, Austin found an amazing company online that does a mess-free, nearly fume-free, sand-less refinishing method in one day.  Our Mr. Sandless crew was out of Urbandale.

I think it took longer than they expected because of some detail work they had to do, especially on the stairs, and me requesting that they also do the raised closet floor in the master bedroom.  The kids & I stayed away from the house most of the day, and Austin worked out of the basement.  The crew ended up staying until 9:30pm to finish up, and we weren't able to move furniture back onto the floors for another 5 hours, so we had a family camp-out in the middle of the living room.  This is probably the closest we'll ever get to real camping.  We even turned on the fireplace for effect. ;o)  The kids thought it was fun.  I wouldn't want to do it every night.

Here is a picture video I made showing the final results.  We are very pleased and highly recommend them!

Catch me!

We got Emily signed up for T-ball this summer, so we took a trip to Wal-mart for a new glove.  Lincoln also got a little one along with a bike helmet.  Emily was super excited, so all four of us went outside after supper to play catch for the first time ever.  Emily did well, but it's going to take a lot of practice and a lot of hours.  There is a short video in the March play list of Austin & Emily together.  There is also a long montage of our trip to the hospital parking lot with the plasma cars a few nights ago.  It's going to be a fun summer!

Chasing ducks and climbing stumps

There is an odd group of Mallard ducks that shows up and roams our neighborhood for a couple weeks each spring.  It's only ever one female and this year is up to four males.  Together, they slowly waddle around across lawns, alleys and streets.  I've seen them hold up traffic on the street in front of the hospital for a few minutes.  Lincoln is fascinated by them and one night he tried to catch them.  He didn't get very close, though, because I wouldn't let him run over other people's lawns.  So now we have to "look for the ducks" when we go outside.

The other thing Lincoln loves to do is walk around the block.  What he really just wants to do is climb all over the stump of a huge tree that was cut down last fall.  Here are the King & Queen of the Stump!