Oh Rosy

 Rosy refuses to sit in the high chair like a normal baby.  She thinks it is cooler to make sure that one leg is sticking out at all times.  It may be uncomfortable but she is willing to make the physical sacrifices that are necessary be awesome.

In a stroke of innovation she went ahead and improvised her own Legos.  It really is ingenious because she used the one medium that will always be in supply in a house full of girls.

 And here are her "babysitters" that were supposedly keeping an eye on her when I ran out to grab the clothes from the laundry room next door.  Instead they were watching Saturday morning cartoons.  If you look closely you can see that Daisy has clearly had an overload of TV time. 

The Rose-bud has definitely moved into a higher level of rambunctiousness.  Don't believe this face.

She knows what she is doing. 

In an unrelated story:
Last night I was working on a project and I got out our seldom-used iron.  I didn't realize how seldom-used until Rocky came in this morning and said, with kind of disgust in her voice, "Mom, what is an iron doing in our house?"  She thought that some evil elf monster had snuck it in while we were sleeping.  That story was more probably in her mind than that I would actually be doing some ironing.

Turkey Day

 We had a great Thanksgiving full of good friends and delicious food. 

 Rocky was in charge of taking photo documentation because I was too stuffed to bother getting up.  She took close up photos of all the food and several random items around the community room.

 She also took a photo of her puppy who is called Enchanted.  I am a big fan of Enchanted because unlike her human self, Enchanted is obedient.

 We also stuffed ourselves a second time the next day.  Now I'm having an after Thanksgiving hangover that requires that I roll myself into bed for a day-long nap to recover.

My Excuse

 If anyone has any questions about why I can't seem to get anything done I am going to give the same answer which is that I've got a baby dragon.  I tried to clean the oven, which pretty much took the entire day because the time was split equally between scrubbing and using my body to keep Rosy out of the mess.  I tried distracting her with toys, snacks, and I even tried to pay Rocky a dime to keep her out of my hair but it was to no avail.  Finally I just threw in the towel, forgot about baking anything for dinner, and waited until she was in bed to finish the job.  The thing about her is that she is relentless.  She is always in attack mode and no matter how far I move her or what kind of obstacles I put in her way she finds her way back.  It's even worse now that she is walking.  I guess this stubborn focus will serve her well when she is running a Fortune 500 company one day but for now it is causing quite a bit of chaos in our home.

Yesterday we had a great time at Yan's house.  She lives above us and one apartment over so her place is an inverse of ours.  She taught us how to make dumplings.  I definitely got better after some practice but Rocky got sick of trying to improve and decided that she make them her own way.  She started wrapping them up in little square presents.  I tried to tell her that she was doing it wrong but then she reprimanded me by saying that being creative is never wrong.

One of these things is not like the others...

 Rosy and Wayne spent some time getting to know each other a little bit better. 

 Daisy was more patient than her sister and I have to say, hers turned out beautifully.  She does have a way with food, this little girl.

 Although they made a valiant effort, it just wasn't going to happen with the chopsticks. 

 Rosy got into it but instead of using them to eat, she just got some practice drumming, and poking the other kids.

Rocky was in charge of documenting all the exciting moments and out of the 14 photos that she took this is the cutest one.  Anna and Bijoux are two of my favorite friends in the red doors, not to mention that they are awesome at wrapping vegan dumplings.

And after all that cooking we still found energy to hit the Ducks volleyball game.

 They look like they are having the best time.

 Once Rosy caught sight of Puddles the Duck she could not take her eyes off him.  She just kept grunting and watching wherever he went. 

 And with that I must go because I just heard a little attack dragon who has woken up and I am quite positive that her first order of business will be to make it impossible for me to sit at a computer.  Well, that is my excuse anyway.

Daisy with an Old Friend and Rosy with a New Love

 Although it was hidden in the bottom of the dress-up box Daisy has found and resurrected her dragon suit.  As you can imagine our Baby Dragon was fascinated.  Somehow she knew that she and Daisy had a deep dragon connection. 

 As soon as Daisy put it on, Rosy was following her everywhere.  
It looks like it will be a few more years before this costume will be retired.  As soon as Daisy can't squeeze into it anymore, Rosy will be ready to take the mantle onto herself. 

 Our neighbor Link went crabbing and his wife Yan cooked some up for us to try.  Daisy hid under the table but Rocky and her dad enthusiastically dug in.

 Rosy was only interested in it while she thought it was a toy.  Once she realized it was a food she moved on to other things, like eating the Cheerios that she could find on the floor.

Push-Ups for Points

 I have been saving photos that didn't seem to fit with other things but that I didn't want to miss sharing them.  Now they have all added up and I can't hold them back anymore.  These subject-less posts sometimes are my favorite because they seem a good representation of my life.  Seemingly random moments that are thrust at me throughout each day that kind of add up to the reason that I feel like I am nuts.

 
Even though we end up listening to the Duck games on the radio Rocky and Daisy try to support Puddles by doing the touch-down push-ups with him.  Since Oregon is doing so well this year it is pretty great exercise.  They are obviously much cooler when done with vampire teeth.  The teeth came from a birthday party treat bag which, as we all know, is the best part of a birthday party.  The girls were amazed at the teeth.  I guess they had never seen them before and were blown away when they figured out what they were.  They both were wearing them nonstop for a couple of days.  It was a pain for obvious reasons, but was also kind of a bonus Brandon and me because it was the first time we were able to have a conversation without being interrupted.  That is not to say that my little chatterboxes stopped talking, just that it was too muffled to understand and much easier to ignore.

Rocky spent quite a while working on this portrait of Matt's family.  She really got into the details, asking me to find out what the cats looked like.  I'm not sure why she was so concerned because the cats obviously aren't pink and purple.  I also thought it was odd that the cats were the only thing colored.  When I was looking at it more closely I asked her what the dots were on Kristin and she used her most patronizing voice to say, "They are the boobs Mom.  Well, I mean, not the boobs, but you know, the nipples."
I didn't ask about Matt but I'm hoping that I was correct in assuming that he was wearing a tie.
I started to tell her that you can't really get away with drawing boobs in kindergarten but then I remembered that real artists need to have a command on the human body.  I'd better not start censoring her just when she is making so much progress.
I probably should warn her though before she has another awkward moment at school.  She is still trying to live down the day that she came home and said, "Did you know that at school the kids don't take off their shirts when they eat spaghetti?"  That was a lesson she'll never forget.

Owly, Chloe, Kristin, Matt and Joanna

Ethan and Ginny

 Rocky was a little embarrassed about how the teeth came out.  She said they looked a little monstery but I thought they were pretty cool.

Rosy has been helping me with the laundry quite a bit.  For those of you who don't get to see her regularly, this is one of the reasons it is hard to convince anyone that she isn't truly a baby dragon.

 I figured out that she can walk, but it is just too slow for her liking.  I might never have put it together if we hadn't given her a graham cracker for each hand.  Once she had both hands full she couldn't crawl and she had to stand up and walk if she was going to have a chance at getting a third.

 Someone observant (Jill) might notice that she is wearing her jacket inside.  We have officially started the Rigby freeze out.  When the temperature drops our determination to suffer increases and I make my kids layer on the warm clothes instead of turning on the heat for even one second.  We are still at jacket but no hat level.  I do want to point out that no matter how cold it gets it is never cold enough for the my kids to agree that they need to wear shoes (inside or outside.)  When it gets really bad I resort to baking things in the oven and I tell myself that it isn't a waste because it is food.
There is no reason that I won't just turn on the heat except that I am a weirdo.

Rosy likes to watch Brandon out the window when he is doing pull-ups. 

 I just thought it was cute.  She is so, so cute.

 Here I am modeling my new prized possession.  This is the shirt that proves that at least once I opened my stingy purse strings and made a donation for the good of humanity.  Supporting the kick-starter for a Veronica Mars movie is something I'll never regret.

 

And now we can end on a high note because seriously, what could be more fun?

Halloween Comes, and Goes, Again

At the request of two persuasive little blonde girls we dressed like Wreck it Ralph.  We've got Fix It Felix, Vanellope Von Schweetz, General Calhoun, Wreck it Ralph and one very grumpy King Candy.

The costume production started weeks ago and Brandon used his imagination once again in making costumes.  You know what they say, one man's junk is another man's cardboard armor. 

 This year he had to get in touch with his inner tailor. 

 The costume that took the most time to create also took our Baby Dragon the least amount of time to destroy.  The eyebrows lasted about 12 seconds.  I think it was Rosy's first fight with her dad but after a few minutes they were able to work it out and be friends again.
The only part about being a king that she liked at all was the candy.

 For their parts, Rocky and Daisy were darling.  They bounced from house to house and were absolutely thrilled with their treats.

 They did stop for a second to get a photo with their favorite Berenstain Bears.  This photo is great from both sides.

  After a tough night of door-to-door begging Daisy had to endure a very intense hair washing session.  As a reward we let her sort her candy.  She lined them all up and then touched them one by one and said, "This is my favorite."  I could tell that she was tiring out about halfway through but she was determined that she wouldn't leave anyone out.

 She woke up in the morning with a renewed sense of energy and played with her treats all morning.  I let her eat some until she had the obligatory day-after-Halloween meltdown.  She is in her room wailing right now but I'd rather keep this image in mind.

 The dinner in a pumpkin this year turned out the best so far.  I think it is probably because I had such good helpers when it came time to clean out the seeds.

 Rosy was more interested in playing with the pumpkin than eating it.

Now it is time for my own Halloween meltdown.  I think the only remedy is if we all take a nap.