2013 in Review

First family trip to Knoebels

Rose entered her first Horse Show

Rose completed 2 sessions of Music Together

Another Beach Vacation

An office was completed

Our family kept growing:

Wedding: January- Jon & Kate

Wedding: July- Matt & Jenni

Reception: September- Bruce & Kate

(and I made an afghan for EACH of them!)

And BABY...no Justin and I are NOT expecting, but we are super excited to be welcoming Bruce and Kate's baby in 2014

Rose hit a bunch of milestones this year: underwear, jumping, learning some letter and numbers, and TALKING (this is a work in progress, but there has been lots of progress this year!)

Merry Everything!

We have had a very, very merry week! I am merry because I have spent the whole week with my little girl and daddy joined us for most of the week too! Honestly of any'thing' I could get for the holidays, nothing is more precious than time with those I love!

Monday Rose and I started our week by making new play dough. Rose was eager to skip to the food coloring part, but hung in there as we mixed it up and cooked it. She did get to pick out 2 colors (pink and purple) and we added some cinnamon too ;)

We also headed out in the rain to get our free iced coffee since the Eagles won on Sunday, hopefully they repeat with another win today!

Tuesday we made a trip to Home Depot to pick out tile for our bathroom (Merry Christmas to us!)

After dinner it was time to bake the pies. Rose was a great helper and had lots of fun rolling some extra dough. I remember rolling MANY pie doughs with my grandmother and am excited to teach Rose.

Wednesday was the *BIG* day... We are still not sure exactly what we are going to explain about Christmas to Rose. This year we saw Santa a few times at the farmer's market and we taught Rose to say 'ho ho ho'. She would wave to him and we said he was collecting money to give to other family's for gifts. So, when we brought her down the stairs Christmas morning and saw the presents under the tree, I asked her who brought the presents? Do you have any idea what she said?   NANA!!!

Since we had already given Rose a few of her gifts, she opened all the art/craft supplies I stocked up on to replenish her love for art. She needed no help unwrapping her gifts this year and even put bows on her head to humor us!

Our homemade gift for Rose was a train table. It was not a *BIG* surprise as she helped daddy put it together this week. 

It's going to be reversible with one side attached and then the other side open to build different tracks on. So far we like this layout for the attached side, but I'm not committed enough yet to attach it. 

Then we headed to Nana and Papa's for breakfast and a HUGE pile of gifts! Rose decided to stay in her PJ's all day and would not wear either of the cute Christmas outfits I had for her :(
Rose loved all her gifts from Nana, Papa, Uncle Bruce, and Aunt Kate; she is a very special and loved little girl!

We decided to skip Rose's afternoon nap due to the two celebrations and Rose just wanting to play with her presents. She did pretty well, but is definitely not ready to give up her nap.

Papa gave Rose a birthday cake set and Rose enjoyed having us sing 'Happy Birthday' to all her babies :)

My parents also got Rose the reversible easel for her learning tower (one side is a dry erase board, the other a chalk board, and both sides are magnetic to put paper up to draw). 

Oh! and my mom got Rose a cute little broom, dust pan, and mop set...of course Rose insisted on real water to mop with ;)

After some play time at home we went down to celebrate Christmas with Justin's family. Rose appreciated all her gifts, but her favorites were a new baby doll and an AWESOME stroller.

Rose also got her very own popcorn stand from Uncle Josh and we have had popcorn for a snack many times since :) 

By the time we headed home and tucked Rose into bed, we were all exhausted from such a fun day!

Thursday we had a day at home recovering from Christmas. We had planned to go to Hershey...as we have planned and cancelled several times already this month, but we were all too exhausted for another late night.

Friday we celebrated with Aunt Kate and Uncle Jon

And Aunt Laura and the cousins

Rose started mouthing things and producing some extra saliva this week, so I knew to check her mouth and sure enough it seems she is working on her 2 year molars. Saturday morning she woke up feeling warm, coughing, and a runny nose. We decided to still go to some of the Bechtel Christmas because it's only once a year and Rose kept saying 'out' when asked if she felt up to a party. We stayed for lunch and a little visiting and then headed home with our sick peanut.

Rose fell asleep on the card ride home and then after a bit on the couch, and rocking her, we all settled into mommy's bed for the night. Rose slept on and off, but by about 5:30am seemed much better and slept a few more hours.

Sunday was up and down. She had moments of seeming to feel pretty good and then other moments she looked soooo tired. She did insist on being daddy's little helping in laying some of the tile for our new bathroom.

Luckily I get to stay home until Thursday, so Rose and I have a few more days together. Hopefully she feels better soon!

Out, Out, Out....

We were busy going out this week!

Tuesday Justin decided he didn't want to do dishes and so he took us out for dinner (I didn't complain!). We went to Moe's because Rose said she wanted a quesadilla and kids are free on Tuesday. They also have a clown to make balloons for the kids. Rose seemed interested in the clown and waved to her and smiled, but as soon as she came over Rose was in daddy's lap :( The clown was very kind and made Rose a princess wand very quickly!

Thursday we were again out to dinner for the Bechtel Kitchens Christmas Dinner. We went to Vincenco's which Justin and I have been wanting to try out, but just never made it. It was wonderful and I highly recommend it! Rose ate her weight in food and enjoyed being the center of attention :)

Friday Rose had a night at Grandpa and Grandma's while Justin and I used a Groupon to paint canvases at Busy Bees. Justin was a great sport about it and we really had a fun time painting our canvases and they turned out great (we split the picture between our canvas to have one large picture). Justin also took me out for a later dinner ;)

Saturday we did get some time to relax....

We also decided to give Rose some of her presents early...I'm really messing this whole Christmas thing up, but it's just more fun to spread out some things and play with them now :)

But wait! We weren't done with our dinner out...Aunt Kate came home :) We enjoyed Sunday dinner at Jon's parent's home to spend some time with Jon and Kate. Rose warmed right back up to her Aunt and we stayed until almost 9pm!

 A few Christmas traditions were also kept this week. Nana gave Rose another animal hat and we got our 2013 Christmas ornament

I also *finally* crocheted something for Rose. I have been busy making afghans for all the recently married couples and have been remiss is making something for my own little girl. So, I made her a scarf just in time for the 60 degree weather :)

I am off this week and am so excited to spend the week with my little girl and our families!