Merry Christmas!

Someday, we will send out Christmas cards. Until then, here is my usual blog post Christmas card. 

We had quite the year, just like everyone else. 

Ryan started working at The Heritage Community at the beginning of this year, on top of his full time job in the Tire Shop at Sam's Club. He's been working a lot and has taken a few classes at UVU, but has decided to take a short break and switch directions starting next Fall. He's the best husband, and the best dad, despite getting ridiculously small amounts of sleep this whole year and having 3 girls to keep up with. 

Kinsey (that's me, in case you didn't know. haha) stopped working at The Heritage Community last Christmas so that she could spend some time focusing on Rose before adding another addition to the family. She and Rose went on a trip to Florida just before the pandemic hit at 7 months pregnant to see family and be a bridesmaid in a childhood friends wedding. She had a baby in April, and has mostly been killing it at the stay at home mom to two kids thing. (Haha, just kidding, it's a struggle, but it brings me so much joy and I'm so grateful that it is possible for me to stay home with the girls.) She is also working on her photography business and slowly (verrrrryyyy slowly) growing it into something great! She is very excited that she made more money this year than last year even though she had a baby, spent a month in Alaska, and most of the year was spent in a global pandemic.

Rose is two and a half now. She is a ball of constantly distracted energy, but is also sweet as can be. She loves spending time with Mom in the mornings reading books, coloring, and eating breakfast. She loves being a big sister and loves to help cheer Lucy up when she is sad. She's learned about a million words this year, and can now jump an inch off the ground with BOTH feet. She also learned how to run. She's also learned lots of songs and the words to go with them. 

Lucy was born in April healthy as could be. She's been growing steadily over the last 8 months because her one true passion in life is eating. She was very excited to wake up to some new snacks this Christmas morning. She has 5 teeth now, can sit up, and is a very skilled roller. She loves her big sister, and can't help but smile when Rose is around. 

As a family, we've mostly been around home this year, but we were able to spend a month in Alaska with Ryan's cousins this summer during his paternity leave, which was SO fun and definitely a highlight of our year. We went on lots of walks, more hikes than ever before, and hopefully will have an even better year next year! We are grateful for all that we have been blessed with including good health, plenty of food, a safe place to live, good jobs, beautiful daughters, and a Savior who makes it all possible. 

Merry Christmas to you all, and a Happy (and hopefully healthy) New Year! <3 

Love, The Vorkink Family 

 

Lucy: 8 Months

As promised, here is a more timely update on Lucy at 8 months! We just love our Lucy Loo! She is such a fun and sweet addition to our family! 

Miss Lucy has 3 new teeth coming in (in addition to the two bottom teeth she already has). She loves eating. SO much. So far, she hasn't met a food (edible or not) that she doesn't like. She sleeps really well, thank goodness for that, those months that she didn't sleep were rough. She really wants to crawl but just can't quite figure it out, but she is an excellent roller and can always figure out a way to get to what she wants. 

Lucy's favorite things are: her big sister Rose, any and all food (eggs, oatmeal, bananas, baby food, peanut butter, bread), cool toys like candy wrappers, keys, water bottles, and dirty diapers (which I don't let her play with when she finds them, but it doesn't stop her from trying.), rocking together in the morning with just the two of us, and when Rose and I sing lullabies to her. She loves her dad, but doesn't love his beard so much when he kisses her. 

She's perfect for us. <3 

Christmas Photoshoot

Here are some more pictures I took for my photography business. This time obviously with Christmas in mind. 

Our apartment doesn't get much sunlight in the winter, so this was the best I could do with my camera at the brightest time of the day. (Which you can see is obviously isn't very bright.) 

I brought the Christmas lights in to try to brighten their faces, which turned out to be pretty successful... minus the fact that Rose poked herself in the eye, was shocked that it hurt, and then did it again. haha. And the other fact that Lucy kept trying to eat them and poked the top of her mouth and started crying towards the end of her session too. #momlife 

Some thoughts: if you want to take pictures of a toddler, give them something to do like reading books, holding their favorite stuffed animal, or getting to look at Christmas lights. And isn't Rose cute???

Another thought: does Lucy have the most beautiful eyes or what?????? <3 <3 <3 

Enjoy! 

 

Makeup Cat

Here's another "pretend it's..." blog post... so for this one pretend it is October 30, 2020. We were keeping our Halloween costume a surprise from Ryan's family because we were going to have a costume party a few days after Halloween, but Covid cancelled that so this wasn't actually necessary, BUT for my photography page on instagram I wanted some Halloween-y posts to share so I used my eyeliner to draw little cat whiskers and noses on Rose and Lucy, and dressed them up in cute black and white clothes and grabbed all of our pumpkins (correction: Rose's pumpkins. She picked all of these out.) for a quick photoshoot that ended up being SO cute that I took a million and one pictures of the two of them. 

So, that's how these adorable pictures came to be. And I'm just obsessed so I can't let the year end without posting ALL of them onto a blog post to share. 

But, like I said, pretend it isn't less than a week until Christmas and for just a moment, it's still Halloween. We'll just go through all the holidays in one week. (Except I didn't actually take any pictures on Thanksgiving, so don't expect a late Thanksgiving post.) 

Oh and to explain the title: Rose thought it was SO cool that I drew a little cat face on her, so she found a paintbrush and gives me a "makeup cat" whenever she feels like my face could use some work. haha Just kidding, she just thinks makeup is called "makeup cat" now. Have I mentioned how obsessed I am with these girls? They are so cute and entertaining!