Toys!

Daddy was playing with Ruthie in her room, and she climbed into the (usually empty) toy box and decided she wanted ALL of her stuffed animals in there with her.

She loves her stuffed animals, and spends much of the day either hugging or carrying around an animal or two, or caring for her many baby dolls. She's gonna make a great big sister soon! Look at how grown up she is looking these days!

Of course, she paused to hug several of them, and you can see how she ended up covered in animals in this pic:
Here's another hugging pic if you need some help figuring out where the girl is in the pic above. :)
While I'm posting, another fun story demonstrating what a great kid she is growing up to be...

Brian hurt his back last week, and has been trying to get it better for days. One thing that tends to help is if he lies on the floor with his feet up on a chair. He was doing that in Ruthie's room when she was having a rather fussy night (she's sick, he's broken, and I'm 36 weeks preggers. We are quite the pathetic family right now...) and did NOT like Daddy doing that. "Daddy up! Daddy up!" she fussed at him from my lap where I was trying to comfort her and explain that Daddy's back was hurt. She finally understood that he had an ouchy. Of course, the only time she's had an ouchy back was when her excema got so bad.

So her little toddler brain lined up with her big toddler heart, and she slid off my lap to help her Daddy. "Lotion!" she said, and grabbed her lotion off daddy's desk. She took it in to him and put it on his chest, gave him a pat pat on the tummy and said "all better!" Then she came back to me looking quite satisfied with herself. It was the sweetest thing, that's my girl!