MERRY CHRISTMAS

Dear Family and Friends,

It is has been a busy year for us. Kelsey and the kids have done quite a bit of traveling, including a trip to Georgia at the beginning of the year and a family reunion at the end of summer. Most travel plans were canceled when we bought a house in May. That’s right. We are real adults now, living the suburban life. Now we finally are able to host family (including the grandparents) in better accommodations than an air mattress in the living room. We even are lucky enough to have Kelsey’s sister, Ruth, planning to come live with us after Christmas.

Rosie, 2, is as lively and opinionated as ever. She is thoroughly enjoying her independence as “Riesie do it” and “by self” are her favorite phrases lately. While opinionated, she has the verbal skills to tell us exactly what she wants. She adores her brother and will follow him anywhere. Rosie is our little artist and usually does her art on paper. She is nearly fearless, except when it comes to a few specific stuffed animals.

Jared, 4, is currently learning to write his letters to prepare for kindergarten. As always, Jared is such a kind and sweet boy. He loves helping out and sometimes gets upset if we help him with his chores. Even when he misbehaves, he is quick to ask if we will forgive him. This year he is in preschool and loves telling us what he learns there and also facts about animals from Wild Kratts.

Kelsey is learning to be a homeowner. Lots of cleaning, mowing, weeding, fixing and organizing. She wishes there was more painting, but someone tends to drag his feet. Earlier in the year, she helped out with the local Meals on Wheels program. To keep her brain from being filled with only Sesame Street and Leap Frog, she has been participating in a couple of book groups and now she is an intellectual. She is the primary chorister at her church and has successfully completed and survived her first primary program. Her biggest news, however, is that she is expecting a baby next July.

Ken is as busy as ever. Unfortunately, he has found that working takes up nearly as much time as graduate school did. He has had several work trips this year, but nothing international quite yet. At church, he works with the young men, which means a fair amount of campouts and dances that he gets to chaperon. At home, he has become an expert at horsie rides and hide and go seek. He loves to massage Kelsey’s back and only wishes he could do it more often. Another big change, Ken has a new hot sauce in his life- Sriracha seems to have won out over Tapatio overall.

We hope you are enjoying the Christmas season this year!

Love,

The Ross Family

Low Family Gingersnaps

Jared and I spent a lot of time last Sunday making traditional Low family gingersnaps. It took forever because we tripled the recipe, but Jared was such a good helper the whole time!
He helped me roll the dough in sugar and then set them up in little lines on the cookie sheet.

And now they are mostly gone.

Thanksgiving in Wisconsin

The kids (mine and their cousins when they arrived) slept in my dad's study. They only emptied a couple of shelves.

My dad made a special, colorful waffle breakfast, especially for the little ones.

With matching whipped cream, of course!

Watching my mom work her turkey magic, on very little sleep!

Ken only got a picture of the kids table, which was fine with me!

Lincoln and Rosie playing together

One day, when she should've been napping, Rosie found a highlighter and became artistic all over her doll, her pants, and the rug in my dad's study. Lucky for her, Grandma and Grandpa are nicer than her parents. Then, Jared gave the doll a "bath" in the sink and most of it came out there!

So, she was relegated to a different room, with no pens or markers for her nap!

Reading time with Grandpa

Pie the day after Thanksgiving

Rosie got her own little pie because she loves "punkin pie!"

Collateral learning

So, at the advice of a friend, we bought Letter Factory to help Jared learn to associates sounds with letters. And of course, Rosie does everything that Jared does, so she learned her letter sounds too!

I love that little dance!

Jared in Costume

 Jared came up from the basement in a parade of costumes and needed them to be documented.

Unfortunately he has inherited my inability to keep his eyes open during flash

Fierce

Trying to keep his eyes open

Exhausted warrior

This Girl is Two!

Happiest Birthday to our little Rosie! She is really enchanting and I am so glad I get to be with her everyday. It is hard to believe that this button has grown up so much in just two short years

She has started using the dress up box!

Jared took this picture of her escape with his computer

She loves hiding in these cupboards, usually bringing toys. It is always interesting to see what is accompanying my pots and pans.

She seems to cooperate with most of Jared's games.

She is my little cuddle bug. Frequently, she brings a blanket and a baby and just needs to be held for a while. Mostly, it is not inconvenient!

Rosie is quite the talker. She tells us anything that she needs and will not relent until she feels understood.

She has ventured a bit into the girly lately. She called her parrot tutu a "princess dress." She likes wearing the pony bead and pipe cleaner necklaces that Jared makes. Perhaps, this is coming along with her ability to differentiate between the genders.

She is learning her letters and it is freaking me out.

This happy girl loves to tease, so we are working on diaper changes without chasing.

Rosie, although still more of a momma's girl right now, really loves her dad. When he is gone at work, she says, "missy daddy." It breaks my heart! And she become quite possessive if she knows dad is on the phone.

As a two year old, she has been staking out her independence. She really doesn't like holding hands in the parking lot or not being able to put her own shoes on. If only I could give her those things!

She is an artist and she begs all the time to draw! Construction paper, envelopes, important documents, Jared's preschool projects, walls, dolls and the floor have all been appropriated for her media. So, sometimes she is banned from coloring, which is hard for everyone.

Happy Birthday, Rosie!

Jared is one cool dude

I love this crazy kid.

 With his goggles. (psst- I highly recommend Lowe's Build and Grow workshops.)

 Sunday lunch, nachos. Also, this shirt reminds me of my Grandpa Kindt.

I just love having a four year old. We chat about things. He reminds me to get the vitamins out. We play during Rosie's naps. When I'm not feeling well, he remembers not to tackle me after family prayer. He wouldn't eat very much candy at a time, out of fear of a tummy ache.

I hope he likes me forever as much as he likes me now!

Little Helper

When Jared is at preschool, this little bug likes to help me out. And, yes, she wears three aprons quite often!

Jared's First Haircut, No, Not That Kind

Unfortunately, Jared learned last week that he can cut his own hair.

Equally unfortunate, I can't bring myself to cut his hair so short during the winter, so we are going to have to live with this for a while.

Prayers

Rosie has recently begun praying. She can say the second half of most of the lines by herself.

Dear Heavenly Father,
We thank thee for the day
We thank thee for the food
We ask thee to bless it

Becomes:
Fader
Thankee day
Thankee food
Bless it

It is adorable!
We are working on volume. Sometimes she whispers it, so her prayer is barely audible.


Jared's prayers have been interesting too. We have finally devised a way to keep his prayers from being mumbled into his folded arms. Don't tell him to lift his head up because he wants to bow it. So, you just have to remind him to keep his back straight.
Now that we can hear what he is saying, it is quite entertaining! He scolds his sister in prayer, "Help Rosie be more reverent and close her eyes and stop wiggling."For some reason his is always thankful for, "beds and walls and doors." He always prays for our safety in an unusual way, "Help Mom and Dad not to die." It is a bit creepy, but also sweet.

Project update: October

So, I've really been enjoying working on house projects.
My mom brought be this bench that she found at a garage sale. The varnish and stain was peeling off. It took a ton of work! Everytime the kids were out in the court biking, I was sanding. Finally I decided it was good enough and two coats of stain and two coats of varnish made it beautiful!

I love it!

I painted our front door (I also love our halloween monster). It was beige and just got lost on the front of our house. Ken is a bit hesitant about projects in general, so I did it while he was on business trip! It took me three tries (tips: you can't paint it on the hinges and you can't paint it on a hot humid day). Also, be sure that you don't paint it when you have family coming to stay (and maybe you forgot, a little) because it makes you look slightly irresponsible, especially when you have canvas stapled over your front door!
It was definitely worth it!

I also decided to make a few garlands for every occasion. Here is my felt fall garland:

Most recently, we (yup, Ken helped too!) painted a room. My sister is coming to live with us later this year, so we decided to change the lime green guest room (this is the before) to a elegant slate gray. Now she will be able to really sleep in there! We still have to fix the trim (the lime green is on every single edge of trim in the room), but it is nice being one step closer to having my sister here!

Our Little Dancer

Rosie shows off her great moves.

Jared's View of the World