Imagination

There's something magical about being 3. Emma's imagination has exploded and lately Emma has been taking a lot of trips. She's either a princess in a far away land, on a flight to Geneticut to see Grammy, at Tooey's pool in Virginia, or off on some other amazing adventure. This girl sure likes to travel!

This morning I had a delivery and asked Emma to bring the boxes downstairs after I unloaded them. After the third box she disappeared. Approximately 15 minutes later she runs up the stairs and yells, "All aboard, your train is getting ready to leave!!" Huh, what train? I went down to see that she had transformed the three boxes into a train complete with an engine, passenger car, and caboose. "Where are we going?" I asked. "Seattle! Hop in. Sit down!" she demanded. I got into the caboose and looked around. She had packed a lunch (crackers and juice), pretended to secure all of her babies into their imaginary seats with imaginary seat belts, she crawled into the engine, tooted her horn and off we went. Ahh, the wonders of childhood.

Adventures in Food

We've been lucky. Em is an eating machine. She will eat just about anything. When I hear my friend's adventures in picky toddlers, I sit quiet and am unable to offer any advise because my kid loves food.

Her favorites include: kale, spinach, capers, blue cheese (the stinkier the better), swiss chard, mushrooms, kalamata olives, balsamic vinegar, steak, salami, and collard greens.

Her least favorites include: eggs. She absolutely despises them. She still won't eat them in any form; scrambled, fried, poached. . . nada.

I'm pretty sure she gets her broad pallet from Brian. I'm not a very adventurous eater by any means and my list of dislikes is definitely a long one. Brian on the other hand claims he'll eat anything as long as it's not poisonous. Em definitely takes after him in this category.

On Sunday we went to the Aquarium and then had lunch at Anthony's. Brian ordered a mussel and clam dish and Em wanted a bite. Well, you know how this story goes. Em ate 1/2 of Brian's bivalves and then insisted we order her a dish of her own. Apparently bivalves need to get added to the love list. . . . who would have thought?

The blogging dilemma

So here I am 2 months after my last post facing the biggest blogging dilemma. . to post or not to post? Should I just give up?

I'm busy. I'm really, really busy.

I am a mom. A working mom raising her child at the store she's trying make successful.

I am a small business owner with two separate thriving businesses; the store and my collar business.

I have a household (or zoo) containing three dogs, 12 chickens, two fish tanks, a bird, a husband, and a child in which I'm primarily responsible for keeping alive.

I have a 35 year old body that needs some attention after three years of neglect.

I feel like I continuously try to squeeze 26 hours worth of stuff in 24 hours and have hit my breaking point.

Something has got to give. That something has been my free time. Time where I'm not picking up dog poop, chasing a child, sewing, running a shop, cooking, cleaning, walking dogs, being a taxi, etc etc etc. . . you get my point.

So the question is. . in the few rare moments that I have to myself, do I slip into a warm bubble bath with a glass of red wine (fantasizing here. . this never happens) or sit on an uncomfortable bar stool trying to think of something cute and witty to write about my day. . . or do I just go to bed and try to get sleep to recharge myself for the next day?

Then I start accessing my blog. I have very few followers. No one ever posts anything so is anyone even reading this crap?

I reach a decision. I'm okay with giving it up. Great!! It's one less thing I have to do. I don't have the time or energy and no one will miss it. Right?

Well. . . then I get an email from my mom, (hi mom) stating that my brother (hi Chad) wants to know why I'm not blogging anymore. . . hmmm. . . .

I guess that was the kick in the ass that I needed. I at least have two readers, right?

I realized that I have to take a new approach. Instead of worrying about my "story" and making this a witty replay of my child's existence I need to use this as a family album where Emma can look back and be utterly embarrassed that her mother posted X, Y, or Z about her into the world wide web for all to read. . . now that's inspiration!

So I vow to blog more. . .forgo that bottle of wine and bubble bath. . oops I mean glass. . . and I will post. . . .

With that . . .here's Suzie the Punk Rock Georgetown chicken. . a collaboration between Em and I (she did the head, I did the body) I think we have a future artist in the making. . .

Halloween Bee Princess

Initially Emma wanted to be a fairy princess for Halloween. Okay that's easy. Raid her wardrobe, throw together some fairy wings, and wha la! costume finished.

Then we took an afternoon and went on a shopping adventure. We ended up at Old Navy where they were clearancing all of their costumes and Em decided she wanted to be a bee.

I present to you her royal majesty the "bee princess". We stayed in the hood this year and went trick or treating with Em's buddies Asher, Lucy, and Pasqual.
Em and LucyAfter about 15 houses, I think she was pretty spent.

Enter the chorus of Blind Melon's "No Rain" now:

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain I like watchin' the puddles gather rain . . .

a bee costume isn't complete without a bee dance. I don't know fluent bee, but I think she's telling us the flower is down the street, around the block, and to the right.

Future Profession.

Emma wants to do hair when she grows up.

She decided that she would be her first client.

Drumroll please. . . . .

This was her work.

this is the work of a professional.

Thank you Columbia City Cuts for fitting us in on a Friday afternoon and doing such a wonderful job "fixing" Emma's masterpiece!

Right before the big "fix"
3 weeks later. . it still looks good!

A Different Child

Having a child is an adventure. Children grow and develop at amazing speeds and the the child that wakes up in the morning is a tad bit different than the one that went to sleep. Emma is definitely developing into a wonderful little girl and I find each stage more fun than the one previous one.

This weekend a friend commented, "Wow, Emma has changed so much in a month. She's a different child!" I totally agree. Her personality has exploded. Her confidence is increasing daily. She is finally asserting herself in play with other children and she will now freely speak her mind to other people besides me. My baby is long gone and my little girl no longer relies on me for her confidence, she has found it internally. I don't know if it's preschool, this stage in development; but my meek, cautious, introverted-extrovert (yes, oxymoron I know), is now amped and ready to take on the world.


This weekend we went to the Puyallup fair for Brian's birthday and I was amazed at Emma's response. She wanted to ride the rides, pet the animals, and play her guitar with the bands. Who is this kid?? I don't know, but all I can do is smile.

Her first carnival ride ever. . . .I think she's trying to ignore Brian and his antics. "Papa, you're embarrassing me!"

Waving from the swing.

Feeding the goats.

Rocking out with her new purple guitar.

I was totally surprised by Em's reaction to the band. She grabbed her guitar and wanted to get on the stage. Again I ask, who is this kid? Three weeks ago she refused to leave my side and dance at the Toddler Tunes concert, but on this day she was rocking it out!

Seeing Emma "come into her own" this weekend and watching her rock out in front of the crowd was a moment that I will never forget. This is the same kid that wouldn't talk at preschool and was labelled as "painfully shy".

I think Em has finally figured it out and I am so proud of her!

Oh Chicken

Chickens. . .

Our flock has exploded.

What sparked this? Is Lori nuts? That's still to be determined. . . . but the real catalyst was that we lost one of our original chickens, Penny, and our other three girls went from laying an egg a day to an egg every three days. These girls are pets, so sending them to the "farm" was not an option. Instead, I decided it was time to add some new layers and fresh faces to our flock.

With that my friends I have become indoctrinated into the the crazy chicken lady club.

I figured that since I was going to add some fresh layers why not have some cute minis, and while we were at it, why not have some a the store too. So now we have our three originals, 5 mediums, and 7 littles (these littles were a last minute addition due to me attending a livestock auction. . . . Really, Lori went to a livestock auction? Yep. I made an adventure out of it. . went with Em and friends and had a fabulous time. I went for two, came home with 5 . .. I was totally meant to be a farmer in sticksville somewhere. . . and I digress). . .

So. . . we have a coop at home for the bigs and mediums, a chicken tractor at home for the littles, and Brian is building a coop at the store. I' m waiting for everyone to get big enough to integrate and then I'll be able to break down my maze of temporary chicken wire fencing. Classy, I know.

Now for the introductions:

Our three originials: (l to r) Chippy, Henny, and Big Bird

The 5 new mediums in one shot.

Front is Nemo, back (clockwise) Percy, Charmagne, Susie, and Paulie is on the far right.

Front to Back:

Nemo, Charmagne (Silver Laced Wyandotte), and Percy (Barred Rock)

(l to r) Susie (Americauna. . she'll lay Easter Egg colored eggs. Pastel blues and greens), Percy, Paulie's butt, and Nemo

Littles:

We have two Frizzle Cochin Bantams -- Shirley and Chotchki

Four Polish White Crested Bantams -- Elizabeth Taylor and three currently unnamed. I am planning on re homing two.

One Mottled Cochin Bantam -- Mottle

Pictured are Shirley (front), Mottle and two of the Pollocks

Elizabeth Taylor. . Lizzie for short Cute little Mottle.

She's by far my favorite addition.

She won't get much bigger and is very docile.

Because we have so many chickens at the house I needed to expand the chicken "holding area". I built a cute little fence and gate to keep the chickens in and keep the dogs out. Pictured below, our little rooster Paulie demonstrates how effective my gate is. . . . .

it's his new roost.

Paulie likes to sit on the fence, and Cocka Cocka Koo. . . .his doodle is definitely broken.

When I say Paulie is our "little" rooster I mean it. Here he is with two of the new mediums. The girls aren't full grown, but he is. He's about 1/3 of their size, and won't get much bigger. He was part of a batch of mixed bantams I bought to sell at the store.

I think he's a Bantam Americauna.

He's little but all attitute.

"Who are you calling little!?!"
I'm going to split all of the newbies up once they're big enough to be integrated into the general population. 1/2 of the littles and 1/2 of the mediums will reside in their new deluxe coop at the store.