another video

Rose entertained herself for about 20 minutes last night. Then she fell and started crying, but when I picked her up to comfort her, she cried even louder and pushed me away! She was still crying as she crawled right back to the gate to continue walking back and forth through it for another 10 minutes or so.  :)

long time overdue update

Well, Rose got over her pinkeye pretty quickly. She got the drops the rest of Friday, then all day Saturday and Sunday. Monday she seemed back to normal, but Tuesday she woke up super early, didn't eat much, and was running a low grade fever. Sigh. I can't wait until her sicknesses are past!

In other news, we had HUGE storms in the on Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night. I am so thankful that we lost no trees and had no damage to house, vehicles, or loved ones. I'm also thankful that we only lost power for about 8 hours on Friday night - some families at Rose's school still didn't have power as of this Tuesday morning!

The real excitement of the weekend was that Rose turned 14 months old on Saturday! Naturally, we celebrated by taking some photos. :)

"Hmmm ... do I prefer raspberries or blackberries?"

"Airplane!"

Rose is getting to be a rockstar at using her spoon:

(Yes, I know the video is a boring 13 seconds of her eating, but isn't she coordinated?!)

On Saturday, we also went to Milkapalooza! Rose LOVED getting close to the cows.

(We have more photos of Rose and the cows, but I'm having trouble uploading them right now.)

On Sunday we spent some time outside and grilled out for dinner. Mike made me the most delicious mojito ever, and Rose had a great time chasing the cats around the yard.

(Ugh - and now I can't upload those photos either! Boo!)

Well, to take a break from uploading photos, let me share my exciting about Mike earning a grant to partially cover his tuition in the teaching program! Congratulations, Mike!!! You are going to be an amazing chemistry teacher :)

Hope you're all having a great week!

we have a walker!

(please ignore the messiness of our house and focus on Rose's walking abilities instead!)

More sickness

Yep, less than a full week has gone by since Rose returned to school after her 5 (illness-free) weeks at home with her daddy. Sigh. At least she has been super excited to be back with her friends again. And she's starting to get to know the toddler room in preparation for her transition in a few months. Now let's just find a way to keep these sicknesses away!

Weekend fun

My parents loaned us their pool since Rose loves water so much. We finally had some warm weather today, so we filled it up and let it sit for a couple hours to warm up. At first, Rose was so excited!

But when she touched the still-frigid water, so was no longer thrilled! (I'll spare you the photo of her crying!) So instead we just let her play around in the yard with her swim diaper on for awhile. Someday she'll start walking for real, I'm sure, but for now she's still very tentative.

She was playing some really cute games with Mike, like "I'll put your hat on you then give you a big kiss when I get it on right!"  I kept trying to take a picture, but each time she got distracted by my camera. Oh well. Just take my word for it that she's super cute and fun and creative. :)

Father's Day

In other news (aka, now that I've publicly admitted to my private chin loathing, and had a pretty cathartic cry over it), today was Father's day! I'm blessed to have two incredible men in my life:

Happy Father's Day to my dad and to Rose's dad!

Who does Rose look like?

I know I'm not supposed to hate my body. And, in fact, for the most part I don't. My stretch marks and flabby belly? Pregnancy and oreos - c'est la vie! Whatevs.   But my chin? Well, that's another story. I hate my chin. Truly hate it.  I know I'm not supposed to, and so I guess you could say that I hate that I hate it. But that doesn't change the fact that I do.

I remember when I first learned what rhinoplasty was, and I immediately wondered if there was some sort of chin implant that I could get for my 16th birthday, just like some girls apparently got nose jobs. (No one I knew, of course, but I had read about such things and I was intrigued!) And, speaking of books, have you ever noticed how many "bad guys" in novels have a "weak chin"? The evil villains and stupid criminals are generally afflicted with my hated facial feature, which certainly hasn't helped my body image at all over the years.  And, as if a single weak chin wasn't bad enough, my recessed chin often leads me to have TWO of them -  whenever I'm caught in profile, smiling, and/or looking down. No wonder I try to delete/burn all photographic evidence of my chin.

This is the trifecta of chin ugliness: profile, smiling, and looking down. Good thing there's a cute baby to distract you!

Asking people who Rose looks like has to be one of my favorite activities, yet now I'm started to cringe at the responses people give. Not only do people say she only looks like me when she cries (which I find somewhat endearing, oddly enough), but more and more people are saying that she has my chin. Yes, my ugly, recessed, stupid, villainous weak chin. Of all the features she could get, why did she lose the genetic lottery and get MY chin?!

But it makes we want to cry when I think of her hating any part of her body as much as I hate this part of mine.

Rose has a lovely chin!

Sigh. I had heard that parenting can amplify all of our worst insecurities, and I'm starting to see how true that is. Yet Rose is so cute and adorable and lovely (not to mention funny and talented and smart and hard working!), so how could we possible have the same chin? Her chin is nothing like mine! Nothing!
 
And yet, in a way I almost hope she has my chin, because maybe she could help me learn to love mine...or at least just hate it less.

getting brave!

Rose is starting to get really brave with her walking!

Pretty soon we're REALLY going to have to child-proof our house! :)