Emma 43 Months

This girl...she's always gonna give us a run for our money!

-and I mean that in a literal sense

-she's discovered this new behavior called running away when we ask her to come

-it's not my favorite

-we were debriefing after one such episode recently, and I asked her "Emma, do we run away from mommy?" Her response? "Yes, because I runned the fastest and you couldn't catch up with me."

-seriously.

-but gah!! how could you not just love a face like hers?

-she's grown equally more adorable as she has testy with each passing day

-she's my most constant kitchen helper and I've almost got her flipping pancakes unassisted

-asks no less than 10 gajillion questions every time you read her a story

-doesn't prefer quiet time and tries to convince me her clock already beeped (our timer) at least 3 times a day

-she has, however, mastered the art of staying in her room til 7 AM - hallelujah!!!!

-recently started having nightmares involving snakes all around her so rarely sleeps through the night anymore (zzzzzz)

-started her very first ballet class and LOVES IT

-it made me feel like the best human being to ever walk the planet watching her glow when I took her

-convinced me to buy a scooter we saw at a second hand store and had it figured out in 2 seconds flat

-didn't qualify for speech therapy through the school district and we are told this is a good thing

-for now we are to work at things at home and making sure she is given opportunity to talk slowly and finish all her thoughts

-stutters the most when super excited and just can't seem to get the words out fast enough or when she has "competition"

-also when asking questions about the book you are reading her

-says her favorite stores are Barnes and Noble and Home Depot

-favorite colors: pink and yellow and purple

-wears dresses and tights every day with an eclectic selection of shoes (usually on the wrong feet)

-she is awesome

To all of Emma's peeps

To all of Emma's fans,

I'll get straight to the point. I wanted you all to know that we've started speech therapy. If you are reading this, there is a high likelihood that you are in this spunky girl's life and I want us all to be on the same page. Although our visits to therapy may be ending nearly as quickly as they started, there is still some work to be done. It may come as no surprise to you when I say that she has struggled with a bit of a stutter. It comes and goes but, as far as I can recall, she has essentially been stuttering in some capacity since she first began stringing together words. We chalked it up to normal language development when she was 2 but then we didn't really notice much of an improvement at age 3. About 5 weeks ago, things got really bad and her stuttering frequency increased ten-fold, to the point where she showed marked frustration that she couldn't say what she wanted to. It didn't help matters that her older sister would yell with great urgency to "Just say it!!" They definitely have a love-hate relationship. 

 Needless to say, I quickly called her doctor's office to seek advice. They directed us to the school district and now here we are, a couple sessions in with a lovely therapist who Emma is convinced is a doctor. The first time we went, I told Emma she had an appointment and she looked at me almost excitedly, and asked if she was going to get shots. She and I have been going to the sessions, just the two of us, and this may sound weird but I am totally cherishing our time together. I don't think anyone ever wants to bring their kid to therapy and I am definitely no exception. It has been a bit of a tough pill for me to swallow, this whole business. But, the silver lining has been getting the opportunity to spend solo time with just my second-born, maybe some of our longest stretches alone together in her entire life. I feel like I've gotten to know her so much better as I watch her interact with the therapist and answer her many questions. She is the sweetest, most hilarious little human and I can hardly stand it! At her first appointment, she was asked to identify and name a bunch of different animals one might spot in a pet shop. The therapist held up a picture of a guinea pig and without a moment's hesitation, Emma yelled "It's a chinchilla!" I nearly died laughing. What kid (or adult even!) can identify a chinchilla? Mine, apparently. At another point, they were conversing about animals that lived on the water and I when she excitedly burst out "And Jesus walks on water!!!" I could have eaten her she was so cute.

Our appointments have been enlightening. Emma stuttered some but quite minimally when she was alone. The GOOD news is that she isn't showing any other physical signs of stress when she stutters. This means it is a fairly mild form and it is quite unlikely she will qualify for further services through the school district. Yesterday, we had big sis join us for the last part of the session and we noticed a marked difference. It was eye-opening to watch her go from speaking smoothly to stuttering when there was someone else in the mix. Her therapist and I will be having a phone conversation to discuss these findings next week but essentially what she saw was a very normal example of two siblings trying to get a word in edgewise which likely is making things challenging for Emma. We have our work cut out for us!

 

For any of you in Emma's life, here are the tips and tricks we are trying to put into practice to help her:

-lead by example and use slow and easy speech

-don't rush her

-allow her to finish all of her sentences and ask her questions

-it's ok to acknowledge "you had a hard time getting those words out, didn't you?" if she is obviously frustrated but otherwise avoid commenting on her stuttering   

-stand up for her and help create space for her to finish when you notice others cutting her off

 

Please and thank you!

 

Lastly, I'll close with this breakfast time snippet. She's ridiculously cute, I'm telling you! 

Isla 67 Months

Want to know what's up with Isla this month? Here are a few tidbits:

-new seating assignment = better days at school! (THANK YOU for praying!!)
-she is now sitting my her best friend at school, Savannah, and it sounds like the two are inseparable

-we still aren't out of the water yet, so to speak, but we've determined that misbehaving, constantly-talking kiddos who mess around during assignment time to be a big culprit in her anxiety 

-would die happy if she could have a play date or adult interaction 100% of the time

-I kid you not - one week I planned 4 play dates and she was still complaining about wanting to see her friends
-REALLY excited about her new morning routine chart to help her get ready for school

-loves "mommy talk" at bedtime

-has newfound love of rough housing with daddy, particularly a game they've named "tickle horse" 

-walks around the neighborhood loudly exclaiming "Mom, do you want to meet them!?" toward every new person we pass (we're meeting lots of our neighbors...)
-loving the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary from my childhood and she listens to them on CD during quiet time

-loves creating and projects, most recently, sewing

-we sewed her first dress together and she was SO PUMPED

-next up, I'm hearing plans of a matching headband and maybe another dress using a different pattern

-speaking in whinese most of the time which has been trying for us this month

-obsessed with space thanks to the show Space Racers (when we told her we were going to AZ, she asked if it was still on earth...)

-doing lots of math and loving writing her own equations at home

-really helpful with entertaining and caring for Jack lately

-fighting and bickering with her sister tons

-sort of had a brief mischievous stint (ok it was just one day) where she decided to test the rules
-I left her kneading bread and returned to find this:

-CANNOT WAIT for her dentist appointment on April 22nd (and has been asking when it is for 3 weeks straight now)

-sleep walking regularly and speaking jibberish and crying while she does it
-would pay big money to have her Grandma Crozier tell her made up stories all. the. time.
-speaking of money, earned some of her own to go toward a toy crown by doing extra chores
-wants daddy to try and "trick her" at dinnertime by asking her hard questions such as "What is the capitol of Washington?" or "What is 100 minus 10?"
-she's getting tougher and tougher to trick, for sure!

The before and afters

I am so excited to share these pictures with you guys! In case you've been wondering what we've been up to the last 4 months, this post should enlighten you. I seriously am going to have to relearn what I do with myself after the kids go to bed because my current gut reaction is a pick up a paint brush and paint something. Of course, there are still a bunch of smaller-scale projects we plan to take on but we are "done" enough with the remodel for me to finally go public with some pictures. Without further adieu, WELCOME TO OUR HOME!!!

 

I'll begin with the entry way before...

 And then after! This puppy was 100% Graham's vision. He had the genius idea to knock out the walls and add balusters and newel posts. These were thanks to a dear and very talented friend who does gorgeous work, am I right? It was also Graham's idea to paint the stair risers white. At first, I must confess I wasn't convinced (mostly because I thought I'd die if I had to paint anything else) but now that I see it completed, I totally love it.

Our home came complete with plenty of oak trim and arched 90s doorways which are no more. Here is another before view of the stairs and the archway entrance into the formal living room.

 And now after - much more open! The next step will be to furnish that living room (the table you see there is not permanent).

The formal living and dining room and enclosed stairs before. Note the coffered/lowered ceilings in the dining room, the lack of lighting and the archways.

And now the after - no more archways, raised dining ceiling, open stairs and lights! (Not pictured of course is all the rerouting of plumbing, electrical and heater vents that also happened. This room was essentially taken down to the studs, I kid you not.)

If you recall from my prior post, we almost didn't make an offer on this home due to the lack of openness in the floor plan, particularly in the kitchen/family/laundry. I don't know what the architects were thinking but the space was so non-functional with the laundry butting out into the kitchen and family room. When we first toured the home, I think I stood here for about 15 minutes just shaking my head. But, our hunt had proven we weren't going to find what we wanted in our price range in this market so we knew we'd have to make some sacrifices somewhere. We weren't originally going to knock down the laundry room in phase one of the remodel but Graham got a crazy hair one day and thought, what the heck, we're tearing down everything else, what's one more wall?

And here you have it friends...AMAZING! I am so glad we didn't wait to make this change!! The former laundry room was converted into a double-door pantry. This would be a good time to give a major shout out to my dad who was the mastermind behind the framing of all the lovely new 5 panel doors. All 27 of them (I would know - I spent a good percentage of my life painting them!!!) Also, please note Graham's amazing faux 5 panel door leading to the garage (below). He painted the door that was already there and then added thin boards to create rectangles for a paneled look - genius! Oh! And I can't forget that the room has another important feature: lighting!!

 Just in case you haven't yet wrapped your mind around how non-functional the area was before, here's another view with the laundry bump out (and the former garage door) on the left and the lovely pointless half pony wall there on the right.

And what it looks like now! (Kitchen remodel coming to a home near you possibly in 2106?)

 Next, I'll take you down the hall off the kitchen (the front door is behind us in the photo below). So. much. oak.

And then now!

The office before

And now with windowed French doors and a fun, bold ceiling.

We weren't going to remodel the bathrooms on this phase but let's just say someone "took out the vanity so we could install hard wood floors underneath it while the floor guy was here." It still remains a mystery how the vanity "accidentally" ended up in the back of a truck headed to the dump. It didn't help matters when one of our very large dry wallers *cough* used the toilet and broke the seal. One thing led to another and...

Now we have the most beautiful powder room I have ever seen!

Like, yeah. I look at these and wonder how we pulled something off so cool. The countertops are essentially handmade butcher block by my dad. And for the record, a 200 pound person could stand on the edge of the counter and it would only give 1/4 inch. In case you wanted to know. 

Remember how I said we had the living/formal dining room torn down to the studs? Well, the plus side of all that destruction is that you get to see what would ordinarily be left unseen. Like that there was totally usable space under the staircase!! This picture does not do it justice but if you come over, our kids will happily show you the carpeted "secret hideaway playroom" under our stairs (entrance at the back of our coat closet).

Let's move on to the upstairs hall before

And then after! Some paint, new trim and doors and a spray-painted fixture did wonders.

Here is Jack's room before

And then after. All the closets in the house were cheap bifolds which we replaced with lovely french doors (hence all the door painting!)

Another angle

The kids/guest bath before

And now after. For now we just updated the paint, trim and doors. A full remodel will commence someday...

Isla's room before...

And after

Isla's room from another angle before

And after

Emma's room before

And after

Another angle before

And after

The master before

After

Another angle

The bonus room before

And after - it's now the combination guest room, play room and laundry room all wrapped into one!

We bumped out the storage closets in the bonus room (there were two) and turned one of them into my new laundry closet. We rerouted the plumbing upstairs and added extra plumbing for a utility sink. I scored an awesome concrete countertop and sink from a second hand store and my father-in-law, the all-around-handy man and "contractor" through this whole remodel, built me a cabinet to fit using doors from the same second hand store. Someday we will tile behind the sink or do something fun but even as is, the area makes me happy every time I open the door.

One last view of the bonus room with the laundry and storage closets on the left.

 And with that, our home tour has come to an end. Many thanks to ALL the people who helped us tremendously with this crazy undertaking, particularly our two dads who put in countless labor hours. I look at these pictures and wonder how on earth we did all this in only 4 months. Whew! I'm sure there will be many more interior pictures to come but for now you get the jist. Next up on our list: barn door for the master bathroom, raised vegetable gardens out front and possibly a homemade giant farmhouse table to seat a billion. Just like everyone says, you never will really ever be "done."