Rose's 5th Birthday

Rose turned five on the 19th and asked for a "rainbow unicorn" birthday cake.  We did a little birthday party at home (more like a glorified play date with cake and presents) in between preschool and ice skating lessons that day.  

It was actually kind of perfect.  We just asked the guests to wear their favorite dress-up, then played musical chairs, then the kids went off to the play room.  I was glad I hadn't planned any other games or crafts or anything because really, all they wanted to do was play.  

Rose got some very nice presents although I think the one she has enjoyed most of all is the Elena nightgown that Tabby sent her.  

I took Rose out to lunch at her favorite place (Mr. Pickles Sandwich Shop) after her Tap/Ballet combo dance class.  Then I got to work at preschool with her. 

When I asked Rose what she wanted to take to preschool for snack on her birthday, she immediately said that she wanted fruit salad with marshmallows.  I tried to talk her into cupcakes, but she was adamant that we do fruit salad instead, so that's what we did.  

Rose at 5 years old:

• Loves ice skating, dress-ups, reading books (especially the Mercy Watson and Princess in Black series), dance, gymnastics, and anything pretend.
• Is obsessed with princesses (especially Elena of Avalor), jewelry, make-up, and basically anything fancy or girly.  Whenever she notices me wearing lipstick, she comes begging for a kiss, hoping to steal some right off my lips for herself.  She also likes to pick out earrings for me to wear and then won't let me put them in myself, choosing to do it for me instead (which causes me no small amount of anxiety).
• Rose freaks out about spiders and even the tiniest scrape or hangnail, wailing until a band-aid is applied, which is the only thing that gives her any consolation.  
• She is still our social butterfly and makes friends easily.  But she is also boy-crazy and is constantly informing us about all her various boyfriends and who she plans to kiss or marry.  It's been cute, but it's also worrying us for what she will be like as a teenager.  ;) 
• Loves anything chocolate.
• Gives the sweetest snuggles and hugs.  She still loves to be held and climbs onto my lap almost every morning, just wanting some quiet time with me holding her.  When I snuggle her in her bed at night, she snakes her arm under my neck and pats my check.  The other night she put her cheek right against mine and then told me softly, "mom, I'm so glad God made you."  I died on the spot.
• Deals with serious hanger issues.  For reals, sometimes she just loses it and it's all we can do to manage her rage until we can get her to calm down and eat dinner.  Fortunately, it's been less and less frequent to experience this lately.
• She is soooooo close to riding a bike.  Really I think we are ready for the training wheels to come completely off, but she's wanting them on still and we just haven't had the chance to head over to the church parking lot for some serious practice.

We sure love our Rosie!

January 2019

I keep telling myself I'm going to get around to posting on here, and then I keep not doing anything about it.  I'm not about to try to play catch up over the past year (at least not today), but thought I would do a quick update on this past January 2019.  Maybe some of this stuff will get a post of it's own, but most likely not.  

Utah Trip

I took the girls to Utah to visit cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  We flew out on New Year's Eve actually, and rang in the new year by going to bed early.  Poor Paul stayed home to work.  

Jennie and her girls joined us for most of the week that we were at my parent's house and the girls were absolutely in heaven playing together in grandpa and grandma's basement.  They did dress-ups, put on shows, sang and danced and pretended their hearts out, and generally got along incredibly well.

It was nice to see my grandma, who is still hanging in there.  She has Alzheimers and doesn't communicate much, but you can see that she watches the people around her and every now and then she tries to speak up and comment on something she thinks the girls are doing that pleases her.

We did four days of skiing, which was amazing and so much fun.  The first two we spent at Brighton with the girls in ski school.  Clara and Rose did a full day the first day, then just the morning class their second day.  The rest of the time we all skiied together.

That first day, Rose was not at all happy about going to ski school and cried copious tears and threw a tantrum.  I was worried that she wouldn't be willing to go back in after lunch (we check the girls out and eat lunch together outside on the patio with a picnic that Jennie and I packed that morning).  She was definitely upset about going back and I know her legs were tired (oh how I remember that feeling from when I was a kid!), but I talked with the staff at Brighton about how she needed a firm but kind teacher who would just deal with the complaining until they got going.  Once Rose gets past that initial bout of woe-is-me she does great and actually has tons of fun. 

I stayed to watch to be sure Rose was going to make it and sure enough, she came stomping out of the ski school room with a tear on her cheek and a grimace, but once they had skis on and were moving, her smiles came back.  She did great the rest of the days and we never had the same complaints again except for when we told her it was time to go home and we were done skiing for the day.  Then she wasn't happy again because she wanted to continue skiing.

The third day we went to Solitude, which I loved since that's where I learned to ski.  The girls kept wanting to go through the trees, which was hilarious and frustrating because someone kept crashing and getting stuck.  But it's also what I remember loving when I was a kid.  

Solitude isn't as good for the girls just yet because it has fewer easy runs and more difficult blue runs, but they handled it all pretty well.  

But easily, hands-down my favorite place we skied was Snow Basin.  My dad has a season pass and he took just me, Clara, and Rose on Monday when Jennie's girls had to go back to school.

It was super windy and snowy and cold - definitely the worst conditions of the whole trip since the other days were beautiful, sunny, and bright - but it was so worth it.  I love the resort, I love the runs, I even loved the crazy conditions.  

The girls also seemed to have the most fun this day, with 3 other days of skiing already under their belts.  Their confidence was high and they laughed and giggled all the way down the mountain, intentionally falling into the soft powder until I told them to knock it off because I was getting tired of pulling them back out!  

   

 

My best run of the trip was at Brighton one morning when I was skiing with Jennie and my dad.  My dad told me about this ap, which calculates speed and distance as you ski.  We got competitive and were racing to see who was going the fastest.  43.9 MPH is pretty darn fast, I think.

We also met up with some pretty special people while we were in Utah.  Randomnly, we ran into my friend Rachel's son's birthfather at the ski rental store.  Rachel and Ryan were adopting around the same time that Paul and I were going through the process for the first time and we've stayed in touch ever since.  So when I saw their son's birthfather, I immediately recognized him from pictures on their blog and social media.  I was super awkward about it, but he was really nice (just like Rachel had always described him).  Now if Rachel and I could just meet in person...

We also got to meet up with Kayli and baby Felicity!!  We had just seen her the previous month in Southern California when we were down at Joshua Tree and Disneyland, but this time we also got to visit with Connor (Kayli's husband) and her Grandpa Lamoreaux, who is seriously the nicest, sweetest person in the world.  Felicity is just the cutest baby and Clara loved holding her.  We all sat around and watched her almost attempt to crawl and it was the best.

Jessica wasn't ever able to ski with us this season because she had to work, but she came over in the evenings a couple of times and the girls enjoyed playing Spot It, Jr. and Cat's Cradle with her.

Meanwhile, back at home, Paul actually did another guided fly-fishing trip, this time with his dad, in the Sierras and caught some massive fish.  So it's not like he didn't have any fun while we were off skiing.

Yard Work

We spent a Saturday morning back at home cleaning up weeds and leaves together as a family and I thought to grab my camera and take some pictures.  It's been a few weeks since we did this and we need to get out and weed again thanks to all the rain we have been having.

I think after all the fun, we were all ready for school to start back up again though.  We had quite a few rainy days in January and the kids loved going for walks in the rain with their umbrellas.