Roth Randoms - April

McKinley
- Technically, she's 23 months now, but we've started telling everyone who asks how old she is that she's 2. It's just easier that way and she looks and acts older anyway. She's wearing all 2T clothes with some 3T thrown in. She's still in a 4 diaper and is now in a 6 shoe. She's taller than most kids her age, which makes sense since Jordan and I are both taller than average.
- Speaks in full sentences and picks up on everything we say. I feel like her language has developed really fast and is more ahead of others her age. I mostly attribute this to Madison's influence. When Madison was a baby, our landlord was a retired pediatrician. One day when Madison was just a few months old, while I was loading her into the car to run an errand, he happened to walk by and heard me talking to her, nothing important, just random stuff about what we were doing. He commented that it was really good that I was already talking to her so much because hearing and being spoken to often really helps language development, and is something people don't often think about doing with a baby. I hadn't really "thought" about doing it either - I always just talked to her because it felt weird for everything to be so quiet during the day when it was just the two of us. Anyway, fast forward to the second kid and of course, McKinley has heard talking all the time from the very beginning because Madison is either talking or being spoken to all the time. And since McKinley worships Madison, she immediately imitates anything Madison says. So, long story short, I think McKinley's language has developed a lot faster because she's had her big sister to show her the ropes :) Of course, there have been a few negative consequences of this, like McKinley now saying "I don't like ..." about every food item we ever put in front of her or the classic "My tookus hurts", which is what Madison says when she's having constipation issues. Silly girl!
- Speaking of learning things from Madison, McKinley can also now count to 6, thanks completely and totally to Madison. For some reason, Madison has made teaching McKinley to count her mission and practices with her a lot! All you have to say is "1" and McKinley will do the rest :)
- She's also starting to learn colors and prefers pink. This is something that has backfired on Madison. From the time she was born, McKinley was assigned the color purple as her favorite by her big sister. However, Madison always talks about how much she loves pink and that it's her favorite color, so naturally McKinley has decided pink is her favorite too!
- This is kind of random, but McKinley recognizes her name on the booster seats. The girls have identical boosters to I used vinyl to put their names on them. McKinley can look at the name and know right away if it's hers or Madison's.
- This girl LOVES being outside. She's always asking us to go outside and tries to sneak out the door whenever she can. We have to keep all doors locked or she's gone - thankfully she can't quite reach the deadbolts yet! If she's playing in another room and hears the front door open, she comes running!
- Her favorite toy by far is her trike. She can't reach the pedals but she uses her feet to push and is fast! We often take walks around the neighborhood or to the park with Madison on her bike and McKinley on the trike.
- Starting to do special projects with Madison. Her attention span still isn't very long, but loves anything involving the markers or glue. Painting not so much. She's developed a loathing for being "messy" and asks for a wipe at the slightest hint of anything on any part of her body. So paint is tough!
- Has become very opinionated about certain things. She and Madison now fight every meal time over who gets the red cup. We rotate through eight sippy cups, only one of which is red, but that's the only one they both want. McKinley is also extremely particular about which pajamas she wears each night ("frog jams", "monkey jams" or "Cinderella jams", which are really the Ariel pajamas) and what shoes she wears. She started wearing her orange sandals a lot when it warmed up at the beginning of the month, but had to go back to her pink sparkly shoes for a few days during a cold snap. When I informed her of this one morning, she threw a total fit complete with yelling "orange sandals" at me several times, stomping her foot and saying "no" when I said pink sparkly shoes and getting her orange sandals out of the drawer in her room and throwing them at me. And she's only 23 months, folks.
- She's made a little bedtime routine for herself of getting kisses and hugs from every member of the family. But it was to be in a specific order each night - first me, then Dad, then Madison. If you try to do it out of order, she turns her head and demands whoever's turn it is ("Mommy kisses", "Daddy kisses", "Madison kisses")
- When we go out on walks, she's picked up on the fact that Madison often picks the wildflowers and gives them to me. So she now picks things for me too. Except she doesn't discriminate - she gives me flowers, weeds, bark, even blades of grass!
- Her big accomplishment for the month was moving into a big girl bed! We decided we didn't want to make too many changes all at one time when we move to Arizona and she moves into bunk beds with Madison (and hopefully potty trains soon after) so we decided to do the big girl bed thing now, which is just a month shy age-wise of when we made the move with Madison. Her crib converts to a toddler bed so all we had to do was take the front grate off and put the half-railing on. She's done great in it and she LOVES it!! We do lock her in when we first put her down and then unlock the door when she's close to waking up from her nap or when we go to bed at night so she can get out on her own once she's slept. And she's had her fair share of nights and naps falling asleep in front of the door. But most of the time, she stays in bed and just goes to sleep. This doesn't surprise me since she's always liked to sleep and still sometimes asks to go to bed or take a nap. She talks a lot about her "big girl bed" and you can tell she thinks she's such a big girl in it. The first few times she slept in it, when she woke up, she would open her door, come out, shut the door behind her and then peek into the living room. As soon as she saw someone, she would run in laughing and saying "big girl bed"!! She still does this to me every morning when she appears beside my bed, usually between 6:30 and 7. It's actually a really cute thing to wake up to :)

Madison
- Madison's month basically revolved around two things - reading and Frozen
- Her reading is getting better and better!! We've started picking up two or three beginning reading books from the library each week along with our normal storybooks. She's doing really well and loves reading, which is no surprise. I sometimes find myself struggling to explain things to her, though. I've never thought about how weird the English language is!! Why does c sometimes sound like s? Why are there 700 different ways to make an o sound? And why the heck do we even have the letter k? Sometimes I can't come up with an explanation for her, and as she reads, I often have to say, "Now in this word, ..." to explain all the different variations in letter sounds. I wish there were more steadfast rules to follow and explain to her! But she can sound out most words as long as there's nothing tricky in them and she's learning to recognize some of the tricky ones by sight and read them too.
- Her obsession with Frozen borders on disturbing. I know there are lots of little girls out there who love the movie, but I promise Madison has taken it to a whole new level. First, there's the Let It Go song. She doesn't just have the words memorized, she has all the actions memorized too, even down to throwing the crown (you seriously have to duck; she just flings that thing). Before she can perform the song, she has to be appropriately attired. This includes her church shoes with fancy socks, a dress, her princess crown and a cape. But the cape has to be just right. I actually made her one, but she hates it. It doesn't "fly up" enough behind her. She's tried various other things tied around her neck, but none have been perfect. She's finally settled on her favorite pink blanket knotted around her neck. But it has to be knotted twice and the knots have to be touching her neck. Ridiculous. I have to admit, though, that it's REALLY cute to see her perform the song. She's very good at it! In addition to our living room, she has also performed it at a Redbirds game and in the middle of Taco Bell when it randomly came on over the speakers. Then there's the names. For over a month now, she has insisted that she is Elsa and McKinley is Anna. This has become so ingrained that even McKinley calls herself Anna and Madison Elsa. If Jordan or I, or her gymnastics coach or her Thursday School teacher or random people babysitting her, try to call her Madison, she immediately corrects us. This has even started arguments between her and one of her friends, who refuses to call her Elsa. She does the same thing if we call McKinley by her real name. If kids at the playground ask her name, she says "I'm Elsa and that's my sister Anna." Every morning goes like this: "Good morning, Madison." "My name is Elsa." Every time we remind her that we named her Madison, she informs us that she changed her name to Elsa and no one knows how to change it back. And finally, there's her frozen powers. She has frozen powers and McKinley/Anna has love powers. She says that all of her shoes turn things to ice (like in the movie when Elsa runs across the water ... sad that I can detail all the scenes in the movie) and walks around stomping so she can turn everything into ice. If she gets mad, she puts her hand out and gets a really mean look on her face and tells us she's freezing us. When she's playing on the playground, she tries to freeze all the other kids and gets upset when it doesn't work. See what I mean?!?! Disturbing. It used to be cute ... now I'm starting to wonder how long I should "let it go" (see what I did there?!) before we start having real mental problems, for her and McKinley.
- In other news, she's wearing all 4T clothes, even bottoms and is the same height or taller than most kids her age. She's still thin, but I think she'll always be that way. She'll love high school. Meanwhile, McKinley takes after her mother and will probably have the joys of going through school as an overweight teenager. Can't wait to relive those days ;) We often joke that if you look at Jordan and I, you know exactly where McKinley came from but are left scratching your head at Madison :)
- Her latest skill is learning to cut. She got scissors for Valentine's Day and loves to practice cutting things. She likes to make cards for us and then wrap them up in wrapping paper that she cuts herself.
- She loves celebrations of any kind and gets so excited for holidays and birthdays!! We had Easter and Jordan's birthday in April so she was in heaven with all the plans and excitement! I also threw a small baby shower for my friend Kelsie and told her she could attend. I even have her an invitation, which she was so excited about. She told everyone she was going to a baby shower in the days leading up to it and was seriously so wired when it came time! She felt like such a big girl going to Kelsie's baby shower! She played the games with us and was in charge of handing Kelsie the presents when it was time to open. Cute girl :)
- Madison: "Mom, there was a bug in my room so I died it. I didn't want to say killed to you because I didn't want you to get scared."
- Mom: "After today, Daddy will be able to take you to school because he has a break from his school!"
Madison: "But if he takes a break, he won't be able to get a job and I won't get my playhouse."

The Rest of Us
- We enjoyed another fantastic General Conference as a family!! I love our tradition of doing treat bags and activity books and it really worked well for both girls. Our "tent" didn't last very long this time since McKinley liked to climb on the couch and jump on top of it :) I went into Conference with a specific issue/question/concern that I was hoping to receive some guidance and comfort on, and I definitely got it so that was wonderful :) I also felt like a lot of the talks focused on being more bold in letting people know who we are and what we stand for. Especially in this age with so much social media, it's so easy to just post things or say things that offer a little glimpse into the spiritual side without really feeling like you're pushing it on people. That's something I'm not very good at but hope to do better at!
- We booked our moving truck for August so it's becoming more and more real! We've been buying five boxes each month since January (We think it will be much easier to pack the truck if all the boxes are the same instead of just a random assortment) and have now set aside Thursday evenings as our packing/cleaning out night. We already have 15 boxes packed and have a few garbage bags full of stuff set aside for a garage sale. I'm excited for my girls to have the opportunity to be closer to family, but I just can't even think about how much we're going to be leaving behind, all the people and places that I have grown to love so much. This has hit home even more this month as spring has arrived in full force with nice weather and beautiful green everywhere. Brown desert is really not my thing. I just keep trying to remind myself that we prayed long and hard and know this is the right thing. And of course, it will be great to be close to family. But I'm really going to miss it here.
- While we still have a year of externs left, Jordan is officially done with school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No more homework, no more nights studying, no more tests, no more finals. DONE!!!! This is so amazing to me. Jordan and I have been together almost seven years, and the entire time I have known him, he has been in school. His evenings have always revolved around what tests he has coming up or what homework is due. But no more!!!! My man is finished!! I'm so proud of him and everything he has done over the past six years. He sometimes gets down on himself that he doesn't pull straight A's, but I think what he does is simply amazing. During his last two years at BYU, he was going to school full-time and working full-time. In addition to just being a student at SCO, which is plenty hard enough, he also participated in the Ambassador program, which was very time-intensive and has a work-study job. And he's the absolute best husband and father we could ever ask for. He does so much for us and with us, even with all the demands of school, church, etc. I can't believe what he's accomplished and am so blessed to be married to him!
- With all this new free time in the evenings, we started a little nightly routine for ourselves where each has an assigned activity. Our scheduled nights include a genealogy night, a reading night where we read aloud to each other (we read Inferno and are now reading Killing Kennedy), a game night, a movie night and our packing night. This has been really fun and has helped us be a lot more productive with our time. It's nice that once the kids are in bed, we don't just sit on the couch staring at each other and saying, "what do you want to do tonight?" The genealogy night has been especially fun! We actually started doing that last fall and have already done work for 12 of my ancestors in the temple. I never thought I would get into genealogy, but I love it!!!
- I also have to brag on us a little bit. At the beginning of the year, we resolved to be better with our scripture study. I've found that scripture study has been very difficult for me since having kids. Mornings aren't really good since it's usually the kids who are waking me up at 6:30, leaving no time for me to read in peace and by the time bedtime comes, I'm ready to drop. But we decided we needed to be better no matter what. So we resolved to read one chapter in the New Testament together every night, and Jordan found a chart online that has the Book of Mormon broken down into daily chunks that, if followed every day, will allow you to read the BofM in one year. It only translates to about 20 verses each day, but it's perfect for where we're at in life right now. We each have our own charts that we mark off but they're right next to each other so we're accountable to each other to read each day. So together, we're into John in the New Testament, and individually we're almost through Mosiah in the Book of Mormon. This has been so good for us!!! It's been especially fun to read together in the NT and talk about things we read and to be reading the same thing in the BofM each day. There have been lots of days when we lay down at night and end up talking to each other about what we read that day in the BofM since we're both reading the same thing. I love it!! This is really the first scripture study routine I've been able to stick to in the past five years.

Okay, onto the pictures!!

She's supposed to be taking a bath ...

Another awesome library event where the kids got to make bow ties and learn about bullying

Madison loves to exercise and often asks me to put on one of my workout DVDs ... she's way better at Insanity than I am :)

M&M fail

We love the library!!

Bad hair day...

 My facebook post describing this picture: So our kitchen and dining room flooded last night when water from the washing machine backflowed out. What a crazy mess!! However, in the spirit of Pres. Uchtdorf's Conference talk last Sunday, we found several things to be grateful for as we mopped up ...

1. I was only washing one shirt, so for perhaps the first time ever, the machine was set to a small load size instead of large, resulting in less water flowing out
2. Jordan and I were in our room cleaning and packing and hadn't looked out in about 30 minutes. When we opened our door and saw the river flowing past, we both sprang into action and stopped the tidal wave about a foot before it reached the carpet!
3. We were at first concerned that it was our old washer causing the problem, which meant we would have to buy a new one, using the money that grows on trees, of course. But after investigating, we discovered the problem is actually a block in the plumbing behind the wall, which means the home owner is taking care of it and it won't cost us anything
4. It was mopping day anyway :)
5. When Jordan was describing the problem to the home owner, he misspoke and said the sewage line was overflowing instead of the plumbing line. I am EXTREMELY grateful the problem had nothing to do with sewage

And that's our adventure for the night, folks!

She's supposed to be frosting the cookies, not her mouth

Kelsie's baby shower (minus Brandi)

Madison playing the diaper game

A random Sunday we actually had a few extra minutes before Church

Fell asleep reading her scriptures ... it's genetic

Coloring bunnies

Just chillin' in Dax's room reading. In 10 years, a picture of her sitting on a bed with a boy will send me through the roof, but for now it's cute :)

Mario Kart

Madison and her friend Michele played dress up one day and told me they were getting married, but first they had to build a temple they could get married in :) Good girls!!

Oh my

Easter basket/hat/whatever

All Madison. She loves her Daddy

Family movie night

This picture is a little blurry, but Jordan has always wanted a child who needed glasses because he thinks kids look so cute in glasses. So I had to take a picture of McKinley when she stole mine.

First night in her big girl bed!!

Last day of school!!!!!!!!!!!

We've been very blessed to have developed a close-knit group of friends in the same year at SCO. We started a tradition of going to breakfast all together after the guys' last final each semester. This was our eighth and final group breakfast. Obviously, there are no more finals, and two of these families have already moved away for externs. It's crazy to think we'll all be going our separate ways soon. I will miss these wonderful friends so much!!!!!

Just because I love them

SCO did a little ice cream social after finals. McKinley quickly finished her own ice cream and then begged for some of Madison's. I just can't get enough of these two!!!