Let Rose Eat Cake

Our beautiful little baby girl who made me a mom turned TWO a few weeks ago! It probably doesn’t seem as crazy if you aren’t her mom, but it seems crazy to me that she could possibly already be two years old! I’m pretty sure I just had her yesterday ( or maybe that was Lucy 😂).

Rose is just as sweet as her name sounds. I’m pretty sure that God gave me a practically perfect daughter in order to convince me to have more children after her. I’m not saying she is perfect, because she definitely has her two year old moments. But I just feel like I lucked out in the daughter department big time.

About Rose at Two:

• She loves books. She doesn’t like to sit still but read a pile of books to her and she will be content for an hour. 
• On that note, she will also sit still for a while if Daniel Tiger is on. She loves Daniel Tiger, he’s one of her best friends. 
• She loves to help me with anything I’m doing (cooking, dishes, laundry, changing diapers, getting a blanket for Lucy, etc. Picking up items of clothing and saying “dirty?” And taking it to where the dirty laundry goes (even if it isn’t dirty).
• She loves to say “Bless you!” When someone sneezes. It sounds more like "mess you!"
• She loves being around people. She loves listing off the names of everyone she knows and talking about them. (For example, Ryan’s friend Preston who she thinks is SO cool. He rides a motorcycle and whenever she sees a motorcycle she says “Preston? Bike? Preston backpack? Preston’s puppy?") For her birthday I made her a book with pictures of everyone in our family so she could flip through it and say everyone's names.
• For a while she loved giving "big hugs" and "nose sisses" (kisses), but now she’s just a little too busy doing important toddler things to stop and give hugs. 
• She loves to go outside. Her favorite thing is walks when she can walk and be free, but she will settle for the stroller or being carried if it means going outside. Her favorite item to find is rocks and flowers are pretty cool too.
• She likes being able to look out the window now that she is finally big enough to be in a forward facing car seat. On a drive the other day we passed a semi truck and she said “woah! Das a biiiiig tuck!” 
• Her favorite food is sauce (preferably in the form of ranch dressing or fry sauce but if she can dip her food or fingers in it, then she loves it, she has also been known to drink it.) Other foods she loves: chocolate, candy, broccoli, salad, yogurt, and all fruit. 
• She loves hats and shoes. Hers and other people’s. She can often be found trying on both. (The funniest is when she wears Lucy’s hats and mom’s shoes, the cutest is when she wears dad’s hat.)
• Rose prefers to do things on her own. "Rosie do it!" is what she says when I try to help her.
• Rose loves when people laugh. She says "Is that funny?" about a million times a day. And it's super cute.
• Rose is pretty easygoing and sweet about 95% of the time, but what really turns her into a typical two year old is her dad. There is like this switch that flips when Ryan is trying to get Rose to do anything verses when I try. It's actually pretty hilarious because she turns into this teeny tiny defiant human being that she isn't normally. One thing that really cracks me up is when Rose is doing something she isn't supposed to and Ryan says "You better stop before I count to three! Oooone." and then Rose says "twwwoooooooo" in her little high pitched voice, proud of herself for knowing the next number. haha and not even a little bit afraid of her dad. 
• Rose knows and can recognize the letters "A" "S" "R" "E" and "W" and sometimes she remembers "V for Vorkink"
• Her favorite song is "Your Welcome" from Moana.
• She loves "treats" meaning anything sweet, taking after her mom she seems to expect dessert about 300 times a day. 
• She gets very upset when life takes away from her very important work of playing with her toys. The other day I gave her a bath and when I tried to put her diaper on afterward, she ran away yelling "pay toys!!!" ("play with toys") and was playing with the magnets on the fridge while completely naked. I got a picture for the scrapbooks... but not for the internet.  
• Rose is a little bit cautious compared to some of her cousins and friends the same age. She's never liked being thrown into the air, however, climbing on top of things has never been scary to her. So, she's just choosy with the kind of adrenaline rush she likes to have.
• It took us ages to teach her the number 3. For the longest time she would count "One, two, six, seven" and then one day I was trying to get a video of her counting like that and she decided then to count to three. 
• She loves when we say prayers. Every night when we tuck her in she reminds us to say a prayer and sometime after we say "amen" she says "again?" and like the heathens we are, we say "no more prayers tonight, we'll say another one tomorrow." haha
• At her 2 year check up she was 23 lbs and 35 inches tall. She's in the 86 percentile for her height and 13th percentile for weight. So, tall and skinny. We've been trying to fatten her up so that she can fit in her life jacket this summer. But considering it's taken 6 months for her to gain 2 lbs, I'm thinking the 7 lbs she needs to fit into her life jacket just isn't going to happen this year... she is healthy and happy though. It's just the way her body wants to be. 
• A few days before her birthday we tried to get her excited about it by telling her it was almost her birthday and that she was going to be turning two. We also started saying we would open presents and have cake. The big thing she took away was that birthday = cake. So, when we said "Rose, it's almost your birthday!" she would look at us with her beautiful giant Vorkink eyes, tilt her head, and say "caaaakkkee?" With a big grin on her face. and since her birthday that's also what she remembers the most. When we went to the pediatrician for her 2 year check up he asked her how her birthday was and she just said "cake" haha She has her priorities straight, that's for sure. 

For Rose's birthday I made a chocolate-y chocolate cake with chocolate sour cream frosting and strawberries on top. She didn't like the idea of blowing out the candles. She was excited about the cake but then acted like we were punishing her by trying to show her how to blow them out. When we took the candles out she was happy about the cake again. We celebrated with Ryan's family who were in town for the weekend. And Rose got some clothes, a pair of sandals, a baseball hat so she could match mom and dad, a life jacket, a backpack to carry her toys, a little car, some alphabet fridge magnets, and two books (the family pictures one and one about Jesus.) 

We just love this sweet little girl of ours. She's spunky, fun, kind, a little naughty, silly, helpful, and oh so cute. She's my little buddy and I just know that as she get's older she is going to be one of my best friends. I can't wait to see what the rest of her life has in store for her. <3 

We Have a ONE YEAR OLD!

On May 24th, a week ago, our perfect, sweet, sassy, and slightly independent baby girl turned ONE. I can't believe it! We met our friend's new born that same week and I could not believe that Rose was that teeny tiny a year ago, or that she has actually grown so much!

Being a Mom is such an interesting experience. My heart is fuller than it's ever been, my eyes are wetter than they've ever been, my body is more weary than it's ever been, and my brain has never been able to come up with as many worst case scenarios ever before. I'm happy, exhausted, anxious and proud like never before.

Rose can be SO exasperating sometimes! Like when I cook an egg for my breakfast and she yells at me until I give her some, and then she spits it out and ALSO has to throw it on the ground. And then proceeds to throw everything else I give her to eat on the ground. *Insert eye roll and a sigh*

Rose makes me so nervous because she intuitively knows where all the most dangerous parts of the apartment are and makes a beeline for them all day every day. She thinks it's a game to race me to the top of the stairs or to reach out to touch the electric sockets.

Rose is adorable when she sits in the backseat of the car talking to us, and giggling to get our attention. She hates being left alone back there, so she giggles because that's a sure way to get us to look back and smile at her. :) But if we aren't fast enough, the giggles turn quickly into shouts of displeasure that she is being ignored.

I am full of love as I watch Rose learn and explore. It's amazing how exciting little things like learning how to point, or use a sippy cup on her own or put blocks in a box or how to climb up the stairs are to see. Little things that I don't even think about doing, are big steps for her and it is so incredible to get to watch her go from a helpless little newborn to the independent, energetic, has to be everywhere at once, one year old she is now.

Being her Mom is the best job in the world. I can't wait to see what amazing things she accomplishes throughout the rest of her lifetime.

Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Also, these cake pictures are a little bit deceiving. I thought she would be thrilled about having a chocolate cake all to herself, but she seemed kind of hesitant to touch it at first, like she thought it was a trap. We had to take pieces of it first to convince her to eat any of it. She only ended up eating a small amount and then just played with the rest of it.

Oh, and we had a fun birthday party for her with lots of friends and family. She loved opening presents and all the attention. It was a very exciting, and slightly exhausting day for her.

DONE!

Today is a historic day. I took my very last final of my undergrad! (I would say ever, because as of right now, it is NOT in my plans to get a Master's degree... but if I say I'm done for GOOD then I can see God just laughing up in Heaven at me because He thinks I should get a graduate degree... so there you go.) It's a really wonderful feeling to know that I don't have any homework, papers, tests, assignments, ANYTHING left to do! Except, now it is time for every unpleasant thing I have been putting off thinking about until after school is over to be thought about.

For instance, the sink is full of dirty dishes. Sigh. And having finals to study for and papers to write has been a really great excuse for not doing them. Now, I'm sitting at home with nothing on my to do list... so it's probably time to do the dishes.

Another example, for the last 8 months I've been making dinner maybe once a week (if Ryan is lucky). But today when he left he mentioned eating dinner and I asked him "I suppose that means you want me to make dinner, huh?" and he said "yes." No excuses now. :(

Also, when people ask me if I'm ready for the baby to come, I tell them I don't have time to think about it. I had to finish school first, then I could worry about that. So, I suppose that now is probably the time for me to start worrying about that big life change that is coming up. And making sure I'm ready for her arrival.

However, since today is my first day of freedom, I'm going to continue to put off worrying about those things. Instead, for this blog post I'm going to tell you about  my past week. Because it was a good one. :)

I turned 23 on Tuesday. :) And Ryan spoiled me, like the wonderful husband that he is. :)

I was a little grumpy to begin the day. I prayed and prayed that it wouldn't snow like the weather forecast was saying it would. However, somebody more faithful than me must have been praying harder FOR the snow, because snow it did. (And not ONLY did it snow. it was supposed to snow all night and be done by 10 am, when I woke up there wasn't any snow so I prayed a thank you prayer for not letting it snow and literally 10 minutes later it started snowing buckets!... -_-)

Luckily, Ryan bought me cinnamon toast eggo waffles (delicious!) for my birthday breakfast. And then he filled my car up with nerd ropes, which I love. So, my little shoulder Negative Nelly and Positive Pollyanna were fighting to see who would win my emotions. (Would I succumb to the grumpiness the snow was causing me ON MY BIRTHDAY IN APRIL? or would I choose to laugh because my husband got me 24 nerd ropes and scattered them all over my car?) They tussled back and forth. My emotions are a little wacky these days so I was torn between crying and laughing.

Walking to my first class of the day, I was a little sad and gloomy. I tried to be mad at God. I told Him that I wanted to be mad at Him for making it snow on my birthday, (I was also late to class, so I was feeling a little stressed) and He didn't make the snow stop but He did sort of turn back time because even though I was 5 minutes late to class, I got there just in time. He also had the bell tower start playing a hymn that reminded me of how much God loves me. (The bell tower hasn't played a song at 9:30 once this entire semester, but God knew I needed it that day.) So, anyways long story short, even though God made it snow on my birthday, and didn't make it stop despite my many prayers, He did let me know in other small ways that He was aware of me and loves me. Which was a nice little birthday present.

Ryan came and took me out to lunch during my break between classes at the BYU Creamery. Then I went to more classes, got ice cream with my brother and sister, and went home. Ryan and I watched a chick flick, Hitch, and then went out to dinner and then came home. He was going to take me to the Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival, but because of the snow that morning (which, by the way was gone by this point), it was pretty chilly outside, so we decided to go on Thursday instead.

The Tulip Festival was really fun, Ryan makes everything fun though. :)

I'm not pleased with how much it costs, ($20 a person just seems like too much!) The Tulips were beautiful but there weren't nearly as many as I was expecting. (Is it unrealistic to expect Holland's fields of tulips here in Utah? haha) It was still lots of fun though, we got to feed some fish, see a couple antique tulips, look over a crazy tall waterfall, and wander through an exhibit of incredible statues of Christ and different scenes from His life. (That exhibit should be free because I think everyone should go see it!) We finished off by stopping at a concession booth for the most horrible frozen lemonades ever. I'm pretty sure it was straight sugar. We both lost our desire for sugar anytime soon (which is really saying something! We both LOVE sweets!) ((If you go to the Tulip Festival do not be tempted by the concession stand. It's not worth it! by that point you're almost to the end, just get real food instead!))

The rest of the week I just finished my finals. I took two tests on Friday, one test on Saturday and my last test today.

On Friday, I was really excited to come home and not do anything, but I got a migraine while at the grocery store on my way home, and I don't know if this is normal for other people, but when I get a migraine, before the actual headache comes my vision goes funny for about half an hour. I don't get migraines very often (in fact, just that morning I was thinking how nice it was that I hadn't had a headache in a couple months! There goes God with His sense of humor again!) I promised Ryan that I wouldn't ever drive while my vision is weird before a migraine, so I had to wander blindly through the grocery store picking up everything I needed and then took a nap in the parking lot until my vision came back to normal. Then I drove home and wandered around the house with all the lights off like a weirdo and took a nap until Ryan got home. I did at one point get up to make dinner for him. (I don't know why he wants dinner tonight! I already made dinner TWICE in the last week! ;) ) but for some reason, pregnancy just makes me abnormal because I ended up throwing it all up. I only cried a little bit. Not too much. It's just unfortunate that I was able to go 13 years without ever throwing up, but here I am 8 months pregnant and throwing up again. (It's been a few months so I shouldn't really complain, but who likes throwing up???) Anyways, that's probably tmi, but I was bummed about it, so I'm just going to tell the world that pregnancy is not kind to the human body, (physically or emotionally) so I'm thinking we should vote to have men and women take turns. Is anyone with me?

Enough of that, besides my birthday, finishing classes and finals, and throwing up, not much else is new. I'm 36 1/2 weeks along in my pregnancy, so it's getting really close. Don't ask me if I'm ready yet. I probably won't be until she's a teenager (who knows if I'll be ready by then either!)

I'm feeling huge these days.

Also, another fun fact that I wanted to share with the world that means absolutely nothing to you, is that I added up all the papers I've written since getting home from my mission (in August 2016), and I counted 52. So, feel free to let me know how awesome I am if you get the chance.

That's all I have for today. Tomorrow I'm going to wander around campus and have my sister take pictures of me in my cap and gown. I'll post those at some future point in time.

Until then, enjoy the pictures from this last week, and enjoy my totally unimportant thoughts about life and school and pregnancy. This blog is mostly for posterity, so if you read these every time I post them and wonder why you put yourself through them every time, feel free to stop reading my blog posts, it won't hurt my feelings. For those of you who for some reason enjoy reading them, thank you! :)

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Also, here are a few other photos that have nothing to do with what I talked about, but because it's been two weeks since I last wrote a blog post, I need to put them somewhere.

I made these beautiful cinnamon twists for breakfast the other day, and I was so proud of them that I had to take a really good quality photo of them. 

It snowed the week before my birthday and I was mourning the sad little tulips that were being crushed by the horrible snow. 

These pictures are from an adventure that Ryan and I went on a few Sundays ago. We found a charred stick and I was trying to find a spot to draw on the ground when Ryan decided to just draw on my face. This is the aftermath. 

And last, I tried to sell all of these textbooks back to BYU today, but they only took half of them. I lugged them forever and a half to get to the bookstore, and only one person offered to help carry them (one of my past roommates), she is way more gentlemanly than ALL of the guys at BYU.