Jessica Blessica Turns 4 -- A Year in Pictures

Happy 4th Birthday to our spunky girl Jessica! Here is the highlight reel of her last 12 months. 

Below we took a picture this morning with new Sparkle light-up shoes and kitty shirt before she goes off to Joy School. I love this year's hairstyle with her bangs grown out and her hair trimmed to shoulder-length. And yes, her pants are too short; she sprouted up this year.

FEBRUARY
For Valentine's she wanted to eat her giant Hershey kiss without getting her hands dirty, and two days later at Spencer's open house she posed with her 7 week-old brother.

JANUARY
We put Jessica in her first activity: preschool swim lessons at the Y. In February, she spent time painting, playing, and sledding in our 8-inch snowfall.

I think she was getting bored, and started sleeping in the rocker, on a pile of pillows on the floor, and on the couch during the Olympics. I love her sleeping face: she's perfectly symmetrical; the dry winter weather gives her rosy cheeks, and her skin is so transparent her eyelids look purple.

She still gets stories with daddy before bed, and we have family night & scripture lessons every Monday. (Below she was dressing up in a "coat of many colors" like Joseph.)

She loves learning about how to take care of her little brother and copy me. The picture on the right is after church.

DECEMBER
Jessica was equally excited about the advent of Spencer and Santa. Good thing she was such a solid sleeper: she never woke up when Spencer cried right next to her in the middle of the night at the hotel. She loves playing in the dirt, so at the beach, she preferred to play in the sand rather than look at the view or the marine life.

NOVEMBER
Since we were saving Dave's vacation days the December adoption, we stayed in Lynchburg for Thanksgiving. We ate dinner with some other families in our church congregation. The next day we went black Friday shopping in the freezing cold, stopping only for donuts and hot chocolate.

OCTOBER
I found this skeleton costume, which she loved for Halloween, and so did her friends when it was dress up time.  You go, you ballerina skeleton luau girl!

We made spider Oreo cookies for a neighbor cookie tag game. (Her favorite way to eat an Oreo is to twist it open, lick out the middle, and leave the cookies lying around.) Dave took her to the apple orchard and played on the hay and with the animals.

SEPTEMBER
This is a perfect example showing how Jessica loves to do her own thing: below I dressed Jessica up summery and sweet for a day of Joy School, but by the end of the day she and her friend have changed it for the pirate hippy look. She always gets an A for imagination.

Here's Jessica at her lowest (crying when the she stuck the baby toilet seat around her neck in the bath tub; which I had to cut off), and at her best (when she learned to draw faces, she drew them everywhere.)

AUGUST
In August we heard from the new baby's birthmom that she was expecting a boy, (yes!) We celebrated with "mice cream", and Jessica and I went the next day to buy some baby boy clothes. That month we also laid out 50 feet of plastic sheeting on our steep front lawn for a giant slip-n-slide. Add a little baby shampoo and some friends, and it's a fun summer diversion.

When Dave left for his annual work training week in Texas, I decided Jessica and I were going to have the funnest week possible. She did bungee jumping at the mall, cosmic bowling with friends, got a free meal out for summer reading, play dates with friends, painted a bird house, and shopped with me. (During one trip she climbed into this storage ottoman, and I suggested it was just the right size for a kid's coffin--great, since she loves playing dead.)

JULY
To celebrate Independence Day, we drove to the other side of town to Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson's summer home. Jessica got to ride a pony, dress in period clothes, play with old wooden toys, and the cutest thing ever: drill with Revolutionary war reenactors. I loved the period music, lace making, and formal dancing demonstration, and Dave & I both liked the silversmithing & blacksmithing.

At the end of the month, I organized a family night near July 24 in honor of Pioneer Day. Several families traveled through a short forest trail. We "buried" and "cried" over a dead doll, churned butter, played stick pull, heard stories, carved names, hauled people with "broken" limbs, "shot" animals (rubber band guns and stuffed animals), waded through "rivers" (ice cold kiddie pools) and ended with fried scones & watching Legacy. It was fun.

JUNE
On our first overnight trip to Shenandoah National Park, we did three hikes, including Blackrock, pictured here. Jessica acted invincible with her new tennis shoes. She loved that we randomly camped next to a family with another little girl named Jessica, and has never forgotten me showing and hearing her first cat bird, (a shy gray ground bird whose song sounds like a meow.)

Dave & the other dads at church all took their kids to a minor league baseball game here in Lynchburg. Someone retrieved a foul ball and gave it to her.

Jessica & I drove an hour one day to a lake beach, and Dave brings home extra dry ice from work projects to show us how to make instant ice cream.

MAY

When my parents came to visit, we toured Natural Bridge, a beautiful stone arch, a butterfly room, and a wax museum. She posed under the arch like so. Dave frequently plays with her when he comes home from work and I'm cooking dinner; I think this fuzzy rainbow yarn kept her busy for hours.

Jessica's bedroom is loosely a woodsy theme, what with all the Virginia forests here, and her love of animals. She also loves gardening; here she holds our first produce of the season: French breakfast radishes, which are not more mild that regular radishes, but look cool.

In May, my mom's mother passed away. Jessica and I flew to Utah for the funeral and a week's stay. I learned so much from her & will miss her so much, but I am grateful I still have my Grandpa Bosen.

One day we visited my dad at work for lunch at the Church office building, where he is a natural resources manager. Nothing is more cheering than the gorgeous spring flowers on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

APRIL
Jessica helped me paint this sign for Dave's 36th birthday BBQ. And she took this random picture of me during a shopping trip in Walmart. I keep her occupied in stores with phone apps like Baby Dress Up and Doctor X. But when that gets boring she switches over to the camera...

MARCH
Here Jessica is eating "glass" noodles (clear bean noodles) in an asian dinner, and she samples flatbread & veggies for our Jerusalem dinner, our sit-on-the-floor Good Friday meal. When she's hungry & food is out, she has no restraint in helping herself.

Of course she loved dying Easter eggs and enjoying a formal Easter Sunday dinner with friends. It's good to be three and an only child. She is full of imagination and independence and silliness and love. She talked our ears off, and was full of questions and little kid curiosity (read: mischief), and we love her a million billion. Happy fourth birthday, pumpkin!

Robertson Christmas Newsletter 2013

Dear Friends and Family:

The biggest news of 2013 is that on Dec. 22, we adopted a son, whom we named Spencer David. He was born in Jupiter, FL on Friday, Dec. 20 at 4:34 a.m., healthy, at 6 lbs. 14 oz. and 20 inches with strawberry blond hair. A wonderful young lady we knew back when we lived in Florida had called us in May, (just 2 months after we finished our adoption home study,) and told us she was pregnant and had selected us as adoptive parents. We were cautiously thrilled, and kept in constant contact with her until we drove down to Florida Dec. 18. We should have paperwork to leave the state around the New Year. We will finalize the adoption in a few months, and look forward to continued contact with her & her family. He is our most wonderful Christmas present.

Impromtu family picture on Christmas Eve at our
Homewood Suites Hotel in Jupiter, FL.
Spencer is five days old, and we are thrilled
to have him and enjoy a warm holiday.

This year we didn't travel much, partly to save up 2 weeks of vacation time for the adoption. My family cancelled our summer reunion, due to unplanned reunions at the funerals of our Grandma Bosen and Grandpa Eyring in the spring, and the coming births of two new nephews in October. My parents visited us in May, and we met in Denver for my brother's wedding in November, so I've seen my family a lot.

My grandma Bosen gave me her organizing gene and sewing legacy. Jessica  came with me to Utah.	I loved seeing my Eyring  grandparents' house and hearing stories of  California.	My brother Jeff married a smart, cheerful Chinese student, Ellen, on a beautiful fall day in Denver.

My dad and mom with Jessica and Dave in Natural Bridge Caverns, VA.

Spencer has four new boy cousins: two on the Eyring side, and two on the Robertson side. Three amigos both ways!

Dave's job is going well; he installed 6 new test stands for Flowserve. He likes his assistant and all the capital they throw at him. He flew to Austin in August for his yearly Labview training, and he and all his siblings met in San Antonio in June for his Dad's 60th birthday surprise. He ran a 4-miler, swims and plays racquetball with his friends every week, and made his first pilgrimage to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. He really enjoys his 500 sq. ft. wood shop and all of the free hardwood Virginia can produce.

Dave used his job skills and equipment to time the local Pinewood Derby Race. Everyone was impressed with the automatic timing and margins measured in .0001 seconds.

Dave uses his new sawdust collection system with his table saw. About a third of the shop is shown here.

Dave's dad, mom, niece, and brother outside the Alamo in June. They also went to Sea World - San Antonio.

In February we went to Washington D.C. We spent almost 2 days at the Air and Space, and I taught Jessica how to use the phrase "It's cold enough to freeze your lips off!"

Jessica is 3 1/2, has a head of hair down to her elbows, and loves cats and singing. This year she was potty-trained, corrected all of her mispronunciations, learned to use a mouse and navigate computer games, and sprouted up into size 5T clothes without gaining any weight. She is taking Joy School again, since she is still too young for preschool; (I like to joke that she flunked her first year.) She can be very charming and very demanding. She loves gardening, drawing, play-acting with her toys, and our neighbor's kids.

Our cat Smokey is sometimes tolerant of Jessica's love, but sometimes uses his sharp ends to assist his escape.

Jessica's third year included declaring her independence in every area from cooking to gardening.

Jessica plays on a library computer.

For her 3rd birthday, Jessica asked for a kitty party, and we invited a whole litter of girls.

We share backyards with our Mormon neighbors, which now includes a swingset, trampoline, climbing dome, 2 swings, a sandpit, two gardens, and lots of dirt.

I was happy to start teaching another year of Joy School in rotation with another great group of moms. I worked in my vegetable garden, which was full of big successes and big failures. For church I taught children, organized a quilting project, and was music director for the Christmas play. We arranged our house so I have a craft space, I attended scrapbook groups, failed to find much tennis to play, and happily prepared for a new baby.

Jessica was the youngest of 5 in the '12-'13 Joy School. I learned the same curriculum when I was a toddler.

Jessica is the tallest of 7 in the '13-'14 Joy School class.

Our garden produced lots of lettuce, radishes, zucchini & yellow squash, basil & cilantro, sunflowers, and marigolds. Because of my inexperience and a bad batch of manure, we didn't enjoy tomatoes, peas, pumpkins, peppers, melons, or onions.

Lots of church ladies & kids came together to make quilts for a family whose house burned down. This is a strip quilt, done with scrap fabric in sections, in which the back is quilt as the front pieces are sewn together. Theoretically, it's faster.

Our Lynchburg 3-ward "Brassernacle Orchestra", including Dave on trombone far left, who played for an original, 2-night play 'Picture A Christmas'. I choose music, coordinated the 3-ward children's choir with percussion, arranged violin & flute parts, a double quartet choir, and a few solos. It was a lot of work, but I justified if I did this, I wouldn't have to make cookie plates for anyone. In my defense I was smart enough to say 'no' to being director.

We are still enjoying Lynchburg, VA. Not the hilly terrain or cold weather; but the seasons, conservative town, the YMCA, and nature, including Shenandoah National Park. We are renting a new house from great landlords, and our church congregation is full of young friendly families.

Standing in front of Natural Bridge, VA. There is a highway going over the top; apparently George Washington hiked through once.

A Jessica in her natural habitat: water, at Doyles River Falls in Shenandoah National Park in May.

Three families joined us for our Easter Sunday dinner.

Four families celebrated Pioneer Day with us in July by pulling pseudo-handcarts from one house to another through the trees. The kids pretended to cry when a doll "died", and we played stick pull, "shot" stuffed animals, and ended with scones.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Love,
Dave, Liz, Jessica, Spencer, and Smokey