Happy Thanksgiving and More

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving as I hope all of you did. Rose has been fighting a cold, which she kindly shared with her mommy, but it didn't manage to slow either of us down too much!

For the past 3 years we have hosted Thanksgiving at our home for which ever family members are able to attend. This year was our largest group with twelve. We had 4 generations with a span from Rose (19 months) through great-grandpa Bechtel (89).

As always, we had WAY more food than we needed, but enjoyed it all :) The guys took on deep frying the turkeys while us woman did all the sides.

So since we had the fryers out anyway, why not start with some wings as an appetizer?

I put the Aunt Kate's to work with making fruit salad. Rose was so cute with her two Aunt Kate's - If she was with one and we asked 'where is Aunt Kate?' she would look at the person who was holding her and then at the other Aunt Kate and get this perplexed look on her sweet little face :)

Here are the turkeys hard at work...

 Or not so hard at work...

Ah! Time to carve the birds!

We were able to fit everyone at two tables in our dinning room. I think this would be the limit and if we have more people we will have to spill into the living room.

Rose enjoyed sampling from everyone's plates. Rose actually took a nap and woke up just as we were starting to serve food. Last year she completely missed the meal, not that she would have eaten much of what we had last year anyway. This year she seemed to enjoy the cranberry sauce, baked corn, and mashed potatoes the best!

Here she is in her cute Thanksgiving dress :)

Ok, I think this is my favorite thing from the whole day. Rose LOVES to play on the iPad and can unlock the screen, find her folder of games, and click on what she wants. She will gladly take her beloved iPad to people to hold her while she plays. Today she went to Great Aunt Ruth and Great Grandma Catherine, both of whom have probably never held an iPad before and happily showed them how to play some of her games :)

And that's what it's all about, we had a wonderful day with our family!

Now on to the rest of the long weekend! Justin took off on Friday, so we got to spend LOTS of time together, well not really. Justin was busy working on house projects and Rose and I had lots of playing to do! Justin completed the outside porch railing and worked on Rose's book nook. He also built her stairs so she can now wash her own messy hands after her finger painting :)

We did get to spend some family time Friday morning when we went out for breakfast with the Stillinger family. I was busy with Rose, but apparently Uncle Matt was informing Justin that Rose should have a sibling...well, not gonna happen. BUT she would love lots more cousins to play with ;)

Rose also reached the 19 month milestone this Saturday (and Becky turned 30!). The most exciting development this month has been Rose's increase in language. She has a few words that we hear: dad, doggie, blanket, 'o' for open, and thank you; but this week she started saying 'go' very repetitively which is very significant in language development. We finally got this word out of Rose by pairing language with motor activities that she loves: spinning in her chair and swinging from her blanket. Hey, whatever it takes :)

Rose also loves raspberries, water, and finger painting. She is showing imagination with her play and such gentleness with her dolls. She continues to be obsessed with playing in water and now with the stand to reach the sink, washing her hands is a 10 minute activity! She also eats well most of the time, but definitely has her favorites. She would eat a whole pint of raspberries from the farmer's market if we let her. Rose really loves any fruit, cheese, and crackers. She insists on using a big fork when she see's us with them at dinner and does really well. She is also drinking from regular sized cups. Rose is working on going up and down the stairs and can kick a ball. She is able to follow directions and even knows some directional terms. Rose is able to match a few shapes and we are starting to work on matching coloring, so we'll see how that goes. Rose continues to amaze us with all she is able to do for such a little girl!

December is shaping up to be a busy month with lots of fun for Rose, but before I get caught up in sending Christmas cards, decorating the house, and buying presents let me end the blog with what I am most thankful for:

Our families-
I am really happy the Rose is surrounded by so many of her extended family members. I also love that she spends the day with her grandma's who give her lots of hugs and kisses while I am at work.
Our home-
Although I am constantly whining that it will never be done, I am grateful for a home to  raise our little girl and welcome our family and friends.
Our health-
We realized this year with Matt's accident that things can change so quick, but are thankful he is healing well. Justin, Rose, and I have only suffered from the occasional runny nose, so we have no complaints!
Our paychecks-
While we would rather win the lottery and stay home with Rose all day, if we have to work (and we do) at least our jobs provide us with lots of flexibility.

What a Week(end)!

It's that crazy time of year when holiday's seem to get mushed together as retailers prepare to sell as much as they can with no thought to simply enjoying one holiday at a time...oh well :)

I also got caught up a bit in the mush this week as I ordered our Christmas cards and family ornament. So the Christmas card was a bit of a disaster... while we have had Rose's pictures taken professionally twice now and I am always amazed at how creative the ladies have been to get 'that' shot, I thought 'hey, it's just one picture for the card, I can do that!'.

Well here is how it went:

While Rose looks beautiful in any picture, as you can see, I failed to capture 'that' picture for our Christmas card :( My back up plan was to use some of Rose's one year pictures, but goodness has see changed since those were taken, so I couldn't use those either... Luckily I found a card that uses a whole bunch of smaller pictures to recap the year and so that is what I finally decided on. In order not to add to the Christmas before Thanksgiving craziness, I will wait until later to reveal the card :) BUT someone please remind me of this for next year, so if I want 'that' picture I contact a professional!

Anyway, the rest of the week was uneventful, just how I like it :) But this weekend was super busy, in a good way!

Rose's speech therapist had recommended going to a Music Together class with Rose, not that it would necessarily improve her language, but lots of kids find it fun and it couldn't hurt anything. So I called the Kutztown locations director and she said we could come on Saturday to try it out. After the farmer's market, we all headed to Kutztown to sing and dance. I LOVED it and Rose and Justin had a good time too ;) It was a big class because it was a make-up session for two of her classes, so there were probably about 15 kids and 20 adults. Rose stuck with me most of the time, but did venture out a little bit with some of the other kids. Rose also has such a sweet nature, when we were playing with balls or instruments, she would pick them up and hand them to the other kids :) She did also imitate some of the motions and moved her mouth to some of the sounds, so I'll count it as positive! The next session doesn't start until January and I can't wait to start going weekly with Rose. Since Rose isn't with other kids every day, I have really started to make it more of a priority for her to have opportunities to develop some social interaction skills. I am super happy that Grandma is taking her to story time weekly and now with this group every week, I feel like Rose will have lots of opportunity to meet others.

Saturday after her nap, Rose and I went out Christmas shopping for a little bit. We were able to get a couple gifts and give daddy time to work on some house projects. The stores were already packed and everything was out for Christmas. I will NOT be venturing out on Friday, good luck and stay safe to all of you who do!

Sunday we headed out to church. Rose became a little goof ball by dropping things off the pew and laughing during the sermon, so we headed to the nursery. There were two other little kids and another mommy, so we had the kids color, told them a story, sang a song, and had snack :) Yay, for even more time with other kids this week!

We ended this very busy weekend with a pony ride :)

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, I can't wait to post pictures of our feast!

Weekend :)

It was a pretty boring week at the Stillinger homestead...just the way we like it! Justin is continuing to work on house projects and Rose leaves a wake of destruction in her path, so mommy spends lots of time cleaning up!

This week Grandma took Rose to story time at the Boyertown library. After Rose warmed up to the other children, Grandma said she did very well and seemed to have lots of fun with the songs and activities. Since Rose is mostly with adults all week, I am excited that she is having more opportunities to be around other children. I am also looking into something for her and I to do on the weekends and will see how that goes. 

Rose is working very hard on learning shapes. She has this puzzle mastered and even matched the circle to her apple, what a little smarty she is!

This picture is waaay awful, but Rose will stop anything she is doing if a song comes on that she likes and start dancing. This only lasts about 30 seconds though, and then she runs back to whatever she was doing.

We also enjoyed the nice weather this weekend.

Don't worry daddy ALWAYS catches her :)

Sunday we got to go to another horse show and Rose, of course, picked out all the ponies she wants for Christmas :) I have this fear of getting a call from my neighbor on Christmas morning informing me that we can not keep a pony in our yard :)

While we were enjoying the nice weather this afternoon, Rose noticed her favorite animal...birds. She stopped what she was doing to point them out to us and watch them fly around. (I really don't want her to get any birds for Christmas either...)

But Rose can have all the stuffed birds she wants! See I am a great mom :)

Now I have to get busy with Thanksgiving and even Christmas planning...
Have a great week!

...November already?

Where is the time going? I can't believe we are already in November and will shortly be celebrating my favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving because the focus is just on spending time with people you love and Rose is really lucky to have so many people who love her close by to watch her grow. 

Anyway, the week was off to a crazy start with Sandy's arrival. I was really expecting to work at least part of Monday, but my work decided to close by 7 am, so Rose and I got to spend Monday together. Justin, however, headed off to work for the day. Rose and I had a pretty fun day, except Rose is such an outside kid and it was just too miserable to go out for more than a quick breath of air (and a little water table). By Monday night my work also decided to close for Tuesday, so another day with my baby. 

My mom came up in the morning for a hour before she had to head in to work. That afternoon Justin was helping my dad finish installing heat in my parent's home, so after Rose's nap we headed down their for the afternoon. I think we were both getting a little claustrophobic after two days with each other in the house. Rose had lots of fun helping daddy and papa, she dug right in to the bucket of copper fittings and was eager to put them together.

Rose was also rather 'handy' when helping daddy to spackle her book nook on Tuesday evening. 

It was really weird to return to work on Wednesday. I like to think my job is important, but I am not an 'essential' employee. Anyway, my job also requires frequent travel throughout the county and meeting with families. I was really appreciative that my employer considered our safety and closed for two days. I am always happy to have extra time with my baby, but I think by Wednesday we were both ready to get back to our routine.

Friday Rose went Trick-or-Treating one more time at Great Grandpa and Grandma Bechtel's. Rose and I went down Friday night after dinner and Rose was a busy little girl :) Great Grandpa and Grandma commented several times on how much Rose likes to explore and play. Rose was very creative in wanting to incorporate any items she found in her play. She also really loved playing with a very vintage Fisher Price TV that I played with as a child.

This weekend was actually low key for us, which was a welcome change from the busy October weekends. We ran our usual errands to the farmer's market on Saturday and Sunday Rose got to see both sets of grandparents.

Rose enjoyed lots of inside water fun at the sink, now that she is super safe in her stand :)

We also played a game of 'hide bird' in the pile of leaves. Rose had no problem finding him and even hid him again :)

I have started to make preparations for Thanksgiving. For the last 3 years we have hosted family in our home. Usually the parents do Christmas and Easter, so I try to lighten the load a bit with whomever wants to come. Usually we have between 8-12 people to enjoy the day and food. Last year Rose slept through the whole meal, so this year I can't wait to see what she think of this festivity :) 

So ends are really unexpected week and begins November :)