16 months!

16 months old!  Time with Rose just gets more and more fun every day. Right now she LOVES playing in the dirt (way more than I would have expected a daughter of mine to enjoy such things!).  :) She also loves bringing me handfuls of dirt. Ha!

Happy birthday (party), Rose!

Oh, blog, how I have missed thee! I can't believe how long it's been since I last had a chance to post an update. I blame the craziness of last-minute birthday planning, international travel (!), craziness at work, and a temporary incompatibility between Firefox and Blogger which left me unable to upload photos for a couple weeks. So, without further ado, here's a little update - with pictures!

Rose's birthday was on April 22nd (a Monday), but we postponed her birthday until the following Sunday so my parents wouldn't have to come out for two consecutive weekends (since they were planning to take care of Rose the week of the 29th - more on that in an upcoming post!). It turned out to be very good planning since the weather on the 21st was gross (snow!) and we were all sick in the house, whereas the weather on the 28th was lovely! Here are some photos from Rose's wonderful birthday party. Thank you to everyone who was able to attend, and thanks to everyone else who sent cards/gifts - I promise to send real thank you cards out as soon as I can!

Saturday I stayed up late to decorate. As you can see, we had a little ladybug theme. 

The highlight, IMHO, was the photo collage I made of Rose's weekly portraits!

The weather was perfect - basically the first nice day of the year.

Rose didn't know what to make of eating outside!

We're a little short on outdoor furniture, so we made do. :)

My cousin Ben and his wife Heather were even in town for the party!

Me and the birthday girl :)

Rose did not like her first bite of cupcake!

But she quickly came to her senses and gobbled it up.

Mmmm, chocolate cupcake and milk. Yum!

Rose gots lots of time with her grandparents.

All of her grandparents!

She got lots of fun gifts.

And her cousins help her to play with all her new toys!

Happy birthday, Rose! Can't wait to see what adventures the coming year brings. I love you!

Birthday Girl!!

The last 52 weeks sure have flown by!  It's hard to believe that a year ago on Friday night, I went into labor. Then was in labor all day Saturday. And into Sunday. But then she arrived!! Finally, she arrived. Oh, glorious April 22nd!  A wonderful birthday for Rose, Mother Earth, Great Aunt Louise, and co-worker Angie!  Happy birthday to all! But before we get to the celebratory goodness of this post, let's quickly review the events of the last few days...


Last Thursday I made the incomprehensible error of saying to Mike, "Gosh, Rose hasn't been sick in about two weeks!"

Are you done laughing yet?

Now are you done?

Yes, as you probably predicted, Rose was awake for several hours on Thursday night, and had to stay home on Friday due to vomiting and diarrhea. Yuck!

On Saturday we tried to feed her bland-ish foods, like cheerios for breakfast, nutella bread for lunch, and cheesy bread for dinner. At lunch Mike and I joked about who would get the most nutella on their face.

Mike "won."

Then after dinner I got hit HARD by the virus Rose had had the day before. I'll spare you the sordid details, but I'll just say it was bad enough that I was debating going to the hospital for dehydration treatment. Thankfully, Mike found some ondansetron in our medicine cabinet and I'm so incredibly thankful for that miracle drug! I was finally able to keep some water down after that. (And, yes, looking at those pictures above is making me feel ill now, even as I type two days later!)

Sunday was a day of recovery for me, and of increasing nausea for Mike. That's right, he got the bug too. Meanwhile, Rose was basically recovered and was bored silly in our house. Huge thanks to Jack, Marsha and Anne for coming to visit (instead of the dinner we had had planned at Jack and Marsha's). Rose greatly appreciated the entertainment and Mike and I greatly appreciated the rest! Thank you!

As a result of my extreme nausea and fatigue yesterday, we had VERY few weekly pictures to choose from. But here are a few to commemorate her last week of portraits in her "weekly onesie" outfit:

As of this morning I had only eaten about 5 frosted mini wheats in 48 hours, so I decided to use some of my much-valued PTO in order to continue to rest and recover at home today. Rose was excited to have me home (normally I'm leaving for work by the time she wakes up) and gave me LOTS of kisses to prove it. (As you can see, we're switching from lip kisses to cheek kisses now. I'm pretty sure lip kisses last week had some role in our household virus sharing!)

I then had the opportunity to drop Rose off at school (and take some pictures), since Mike was still feeling "off" this morning. (But I must apologize to all her teachers for subjecting them to my stench - after I got home, I realized it had been 72 hours since I last showered. Ew!) Here's Rose in her classroom:

When I went back to pick her up at the end of the day (after several hours of rest, answering work emails, and folding laundry), this sign was on the door:

Looks like she and her friends had a great day celebrating!

For dinner we got special birthday sushi!

"Yummy avocado rolls!"

Which was then followed by something, judging from the look on her face, truly disgusting:

Yes, it was Italian dessert custard. Oh, the horrors! And then the whipped cream got on her wrist, which was truly awful!!

At least Mac was willing to distract her from the misery her parents had subjected her to.

Then it was time for present!  Formal thank yous will definitely be sent at a future date. In the mean time, let me summarize by saying that she got a fun vintage card:

And a fun pop-up card:

(Rose started clapping each time the pop-up card opened)

 Even mother nature sent some confetti (aka snow) to help celebrate.

Please let it be warm and sunny soon!!!

Happy Birthday, Little Miss!!! We love you so much. Hope you had a wonderful first birthday, Rose!

51 weeks - standing!

This is going to be a relatively short weekly update. I had a LONG week at work and I'm still not entirely refreshed to face another week. Plus, I want to conserve my energy since Rose's first birthday is only a week away!!!


This week, Rose has continued to ask for opportunities to sit on the potty:

But only for tinkles, not for toots.

(Keepin' it real.)

As you can see, she also has been enjoying her wooden ring stacker:

She has started sticking out her tongue when she's excited (like, to be crawling toward Mommy):

She has also begun giving her stuffed animals and the cats hugs!

She LOVES reading.  This morning she kept bring me books to read:

Then this happened:

Yes, it's the Big Red Barn book. Again.

Wait a minute...are you...standing???

OMG! Rose is standing!

I'm so proud of you, Rose!

Isn't she brave and strong and well-balanced?  Yes, I'm a proud mama.

Have a great week, everyone!