This week in Photos

Here are a few photos from this past week. 

Emma making clay creatures for her Ocean Diorama Art Class

A beautiful leaf discovered on our way home from the park

Goofy photo from an old camera- We are standing in front of a Grampa Ott flower.

Emma working on her bike skills

Walking home from the park. 

One of Emma's favorite things to see on our walk home

Horse! This horses name is Cash. We think.

Emma's horse made from clay. His name is Midnight. He was created from a hunk of clay by Emma with the help of Christine from The Smoldering Bowl. It took Emma about 3 hours of steady hard work and concentration to create Midnight. Emma's first time working with clay that requires firing.  

Emma's reading is going really well. She is finally convinced that she can indeed read and so she reads, or tries to read, just about anything. At this point she doesn't like to read for very long- it still takes a lot of concentration so her brain gets pretty tired, but she will read an entire Elephant and Piggie book. I love listening to her read them. She reads with such enthusiasm and spun! Totally fun. 

That's it for now. I will try to do another post next week or so. 

Have a fun weekend!

A Break from Food

So, are you sick of the food posts yet? I have a tendancy to obsess over something until I feel like I have a understanding of it, and I think that this whole gluten/dairy free thing might take a while to get to that point. I will do my best to not drown you in all things food related in the mean time, but we warned, I love to share the knowledge that I have, especially if I feel it can improve a persons quality of life.

Enough of that.

We have actually been doing other things lately. With the crazy gorgeous spring weather we had in March, we tried getting outside every day. Some days worked out better than others.

So happy to be on "Fat Black" (the name she gave her pet 'horse')

There was a week were we went for a bike ride 3 days in a row. We thought it would become habit, but life doesn't always cooperate with our ideas. 

Our first day out. We thought it was going to be a beautiful evening...

Going down hill with her feet off the ground- Learning all about balance

Da goofing around doing manuals (its a bike thing)

Uh oh. 

Emma running, Da has gone on ahead to get the car because not only has the sky opened up, it is also thundering and lighting. 

Yes, it did rain on our parade bike ride, but we still had a blast. 

So, the next day we decided to go out again. This time we managed to make it through the entire ride with no rain. 

This is the spot where it had started raining on us the day before. 

And day 3. By this day, Emma was pretty tired from all that exercise. I think I ended up carrying her bike more then she rode it. It was a good arm workout.

I can't remember why we didn't go out the next day. I think Emma was just flat against it. So, now we know to spread the wealth out over the entire week instead of three days in a row. 

Emma has also been learning a lot. She still insists that she can't read, despite the fact that she read "We Are In A Book" by Mo Willems to us last night. All. By. Her. Self. 

I love Elephant and Piggie books and I need to start keeping my eye out for some used copies to add to our library. 

(sorry, got side tracked on Mo Willems blog for a bit there)

One other thing to report is that we have been playing with numbers a bit here and there. One thing we have done only a little of, but I see a huge improvement in, is number place values. 

With the help of these cool cards (that I found via pintrest- maybe I just went to search for them, and they came from this website), Emma has a better grasp of what the numbers look like and how to say them. Like I said, we have only used them a handful of times, but I am amazed at how well she picked it up. We might have to start adding in some bigger numbers, as she keeps asking, "What comes after thousands, etc." She actually asked all the way up to the billions, which after that I really wasn't sure. I love that I get to learn right along with her :)  

Last Beautiful Day of Fall

I did a pathetic job this summer of getting us out of the house and into nature. My excuse is bugs. They love Emma. We had to implement a 3 bite rule, which meant that after I noticed 3 angry red bumps on her, it was time to head in. Unfortunately it never took very long to get those bumps.  Sometimes I would even pull out the nasty DEET spray, which we hated to use, but they would still bite her.

Anyway, now that the weather has turned colder, we have been outside more.

On the first day of November, while some people were suffering through massive snow, we had a beautiful day in the 70's. We went for a bike ride.

Actually, they biked, I walked. 

Beavers at work

A fun beaver slide

Jared on his BMX bike.  

Emma going off-road

Queen of the Rock Pile

Glad we took the time to enjoy the beautiful day.

Earning a Buck

In case any of you are not aware, Emma LOVES horses. Her ideal day includes going to the store to purchase a new model horse.

Of course, if we gave in to this we would be broke. Those model horses are not cheap! So, being the mean parents that we are, we make Emma earn her horse money. Some days she works harder for it then others. Here is a list of ways Emma is able to earn money.

Chores- She doesn't have chores she HAS to do, more a list of chores she is able to do when she wants. Sadly, this is how we all feel about chores, so sometimes the house is a mess. Oh well. We have better things to do. Anyway, Emma earns a quarter a chore. If she is really motivated, she gets a lot done and gets a lot of quarters. Most days she doesn't get much.

Paper Route- I have been doing a paper route off and on since we have lived in Iowa (about 4 years). I have dragged Emma along with me in the past, but just recently she has started to realize how much money she can make from helping. We only deliver on Saturday and Sunday and she gets $.20 for each paper she delivers. Well, last weekend she helped out so much, I had to pay her most of the paper route money.

The pictures are not the best quality. That will happen when all you have is your camera phone :)

Emma has also been making crafts with me and selling them. There is a local shop called Where It's At that I sell some of my crafts at. Last week we set up a little sidewalk sale in front of the shop and Emma sold 2 of her t-shirt bracelets. She was so excited. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend!