Learning Life Skills

I am always amazed at how long I can go between posts. Oh well, such is the way life goes.

Over the past eight months, Emma has been busy learning a lot of life skills:

In April she learned how to ride her bike with pedals.

In May we took a family trip to Boulder, CO and Gramma met us there. We had a BLAST and got to explore a lot of cool towns and a museum.

In June she and I both got started with archery.

In July we went camping with friends and she got to go off and explore just her and her friend.

In August she got to spend a week at a friends house while Da was laid up in the hospital and I was hovering offering my support and help.

In September we decided to move to a bigger rental house so she got to learn (again) about packing and all that moving involves.

And this month? This month with all the extra room we have, she and I have started to learn woodworking.

Wall Frames

'The Handbuilt Home' by Ana White

Measure twice and all that. 

Yup, bought some new tools today.

Da was nice enough to take photos. 

Another new tool. This one is going to get us into so much trouble! It's so easy to use, Emma can set it up and use it on her own. 

See!

Da really wanted to give it a try as well. We decided to let him.

That cordless drill is really heavy for small hands. Emma had a hard time with it also...

A quick demo of how to use the sander.

She's a quick study. This wasn't her favorite part as she didn't like how numb her hands got. 

These hands sure do look cute though. And capable. So incredibly capable. 

Ta-da!

She even did a great job cleaning up after the project was finished. 

We really had fun making this. If the lumbar is already cut, I have a feeling Emma could make this entire picture frame on her own. Especially once we get her tools that fit her a little better...

The sawdust had hardly settled and she was already off to paint her new picture frame!

I can't wait to see what she ends up doing with her new picture frame!