I had a dream of getting a picture of all 3 girls with Santa, but it wasn’t in the cards. Kaya happened upon a Santa while we were in Nashville and I got a nice picture, and then Kaya and Laney went again to see Santa with Baba (although Laney kept her distance out of frame), which meant that no one was interested in a Santa picture for mommy’s blog. I’m a little bummed that I don’t have a baby picture of Maggie with Santa – I think she might hold this against me when she grows up, but I did get a very nice one of us in front of a Christmas tree. Big jowls make for big smiles.

I made a grand total of one post in December, but I accidentally made a new page instead of a new post, so it didn’t show up on the home page. So please excuse January while I catch up on December.

We took a quick weekend trip a couple weeks ago to DC to give Angelica a chance to see the nation’s capital. The security around the White House was nuts – we couldn’t get anywhere near the national Christmas tree even, and there were hideous barricades set up everyone so pictures weren’t even any good. We snagged a couple in front of the Washington Monument though. And the girls were very excited to see so many “Captain America” flags.

November was super busy – it started off with a trip to Miami, followed shortly by 2 weeks on the inpatient oncology service for me, followed 1 day later with a trip to Nashville. My total number of days off that I was in town was 1 for the whole month! So blog posting was very behind. So I caught up this morning and backdated the posts so our monthly email will at least have some appropriately-dated highlights. I hope our loyal website followers will please excuse this internet faux pas.

Here’s a nice pink picture drawn for me by Laney and annotated by Kaya to bring in December.

We up and flew to Nashville this Thanksgiving and left our kitchens behind. It was maybe the best Thanksgiving ever. We took Angelica and Yoya and Dylan and the girls and all stayed in an Air BnB near the (fake) Parthenon. Days were filled with museum-ing, boot shopping and ice skating, and nights were filled with live country music and cheap beer. And we even went cave spelunking (sp?) (maybe more like stair climbing) on the last day at Mammoth Cave. I’m pretty sure everyone had a good time – I know I did. And we even had Thanksiving dinner at least 4 times from a big Thanksgiving day order from Whole Foods. This picture is taken at the Opryland hotel in a Christmas ornament (Note: Ornament is large, we have not shrunk).

My newest favorite Rose family tradition is Monday night Five Guys. The girls have gymnastics and I have clinic on Mondays, so it has proven impossible to make a home cooked healthy meal on Mondays. So we have started picking up Five Guys burgers and fries (and peanuts for Laney) and now I look forward to my bacon cheeseburger during every Monday clinic. And so does Kaya! The 5 Rose guys really like Five Guys.

Two days after Laney’s birthday, we got to celebrate the big 21st birthday of our favorite au pair Angelica! Feliz Cumpleanos! (Edit: I don’t know how to make the squiggle n on WordPress, but you get my drift).

Laney is growing up to be an eloquent, thoughtful little girl – I can’t believe she is already 3! She knows her upper case letters, how to spell her first name, and is the only person in our family that is both a BIG sister and a LITTLE sister. She can really do it all.

We celebrated with a party with all her friends at Notasium, which is a great, both-parent-and-kid friendly establishment. Here’s to mimosas during all birthday parties.

Happy birthday Laney – we love you!

Look who has graduated to the big girl bath! Maggie’s favorite time of day (or maybe favorite time every few days) has always been bathtime, but she is just so thrilled to join her sisters in the bath now.  So exciting!

Kaya has been doing a fantastic job in Kindergarten – she LOVES learning every day and is reading full sentences and hard words. She now reads to us at bedtime! And she is very deserving of the 1st quarter scholastic achievement award she won in kindergarten. Congratulations Kaya!

I know you are all jealous of the beauty that appeared as my late evening snack after I whined about wanting an omelette. Tommy is the best.