Three Cheery Os

Just a reminder...

2010-04-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

I have actually started posting (finally!) over at the new blog, Four Cheery Os. So if you want to continue reading about our adventures, you need to go follow that one now! :) I won't be posting on this one any more.

A New Chapter

2010-02-15T00:10:00.000-08:00

Teddy is here! Theadora Joy Olsen was born at 9:44 am on February 7th, 2010. She weighed 8 pounds, three ounces, and was 21 inches long. Technically she's a preemie as she was three weeks and one day early, and anything earlier than three weeks is premature. But it was only one day, whereas Ru was 6 weeks early. What a difference those three weeks make! Teddy is fine and healthy and didn't need any assistance breathing, swallowing, etc. It appears she'll be able to nurse just fine, and we were all able to stay together in our room in the Newberg hospital. Except Ru of course, she went and stayed with Grandma Judy for the three days we were in the hospital.

Of course, this means there are now FOUR cheery Os in our family, so the title of this blog, Three Cheery Os, is now out of date. So I have decided to close this chapter and this blog, and begin a new one with the more appropriate title. If you're a follower here, you may want to jump on over to http://fourcheeryos.blogspot.com/ and begin following that one. If you generally get this because I email it to you, don't worry, I'll send posts from the new blog as well. Cya there!

Toys!

2010-02-04T14:44:00.000-08:00

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!

A beautiful day!

2010-01-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

It was really nice out today, so Ru and I bundled up and went outside to play. She mostly played in the garden, here she's (of course) showing me a cool rock she found.

She also loves playing with the "duckies" in the garden. They are resin so a bit heavy, but not so bad as stone or cement. We only let her play with the babies, and she enjoys carrying them from the garden to the porch, and then back to be with the mama and daddy ducks.

Note the baby duck on the porch behind her, she's headed back to the garden to get the other one.

Those of you that know Ruthie well at all will recognize an odd phenomenon in this set of pictures. Ru is wearing a hat! I haven't been able to get her to keep a hat on her head since last winter. I'm not sure if it was just cool enough, or if she liked the color, or if it was just because I told her how cute she was with it on about ten times, but for whatever reason she kept it on this time. We played in the van for a while and it was warm enough in there that we both took our hats off, but she didn't want to put it back on afterwards. I figured I'd take what success I could get. :)

Christmas Eve with the Maxwells

2010-01-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

For the first time in many years, we actually got together with my family within a few days of Christmas. Actually, we got together Christmas eve. It was Ru's first big Christmas present opening celebration, and she had lots of fun tearing the paper off!
Sammy guarded the wrapping paper while Ru and I investigated her new Duplo bus set. (John's girlfriend Misty is sitting next to me)

Ru says opening presents is "fun!"

She also thinks just about anything with a lens should work like our camcorder, with a flip out view screen she can use as a "meer" to see herself. We had a hard time convincing her this particular camera doesn't have a flip out screen.

We just did finger food type stuff for dinner, which was nice because I didn't have to cook. It also helped me to not overeat, as this pregnancy I'm having more trouble with my feet and ankles swelling, and a lot of our snacks were pretty high sodium. The chocolate covered mini cream puffs from costco were pretty yummy tho! Ru enjoyed the cheese and crackers, and the grapes off the fruit tray.

We got lots of good gifts, and hopefully everyone liked the gifts we gave them, too. Ru and I did miss the Church service, But Daddy went and ran sound and said the service was nice, hopefully we can go next year. In the meantime we'll use our nativity sets and books to make sure Ru knows what the real meaning of Christmas is: God's gift of his son to mankind.

The "Big Girl Room"

2010-01-01T02:20:00.000-08:00

In anticipation of our fourth "Cheery O" joining us, we're trying to get Ru moved out of the nursery and into a new big girl room. Since I know she's quite the girly girl, but I can't hardly stand to paint an entire room pink (I, personally, amd still not not a girly girl) I compromised and painted a mural on the wall.

Two, actually, altho the big tree isn't done yet, I haven't decided if I'm going to paint more, or do something a bit more three dimensional. Right now there are silver and hot pink glittery snowflakes hanging from the branches, altho I hadn't put them up yet when I took the pics.

I hope to eventually add some animals or something, but I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out as is. :)

Letter to Santa

2009-12-07T15:39:00.001-08:00

Ru is really getting into the whole Christmas thing. She loves the lights, the trees, and she REALLY loves Santa. Well, mostly, she kinda thinks most snowmen at the stores are Santa, too, but it's the same idea. ;) She gets excited when she spots him in the store windows or the big inflatable ones in ppl's yards.

We've been watching the Father Christmas video with her sometimes, and the other night she was sitting on Brian's lap, watching it for probably the third time. If you haven't seen it, it's really cute. Santa tells us what he does for the rest of the year. He goes on vacation, then comes home to piles and piles of letters to deal with. While she was watching, she grabbed a notepad from Brian's desk and wanted to color. Brian handed her a brown crayon and she proceeded to

scribble back and forth while she watched. This isn't anything particularly unusual. the surprising part was when Santa came home from vacation and started reading the kids letters, Ru took her scribbled paper and stood up on Brian's lap, reached over to the monitor and started batting the paper against the screen. She kept repeating "Santa, Santa, Santa" as she did this, so Brian and I concluded she has written her very first letter to Santa Claus, and was trying to get it to him thru the screen. I had the camera handy, so I snapped a quick picture. Because of the nature of flat screen monitors, you can't tell it's even on, so you'll just have to trust me that she was banging it against the poor Santa's face trying to get his attention.

I was all set to "engineer" the letter to Santa thing, I have a postcard I picked up at Macy's already addressed to Santa I was going to let her color on. This letter is obviously MUCH more authentic, I just hope the good St. Nick's language understanding magic extends to reading scribbles from toddlers. And don't worry, I already included a note to him asking for the letter back, because this one obviously needs to end up in the scrapbook!

Rain, rain, go away! (just leave the puddles, please)

2009-11-16T10:51:00.000-08:00

Our Oregon weather is well into the rainy season. Ru loves to play outside, so I got her a raincoat and some boots so she can still get out and have some fun. This was our first trip out with the jacket, altho she likes the boots so she's worn them several times before.

The jacket is a little large, but she got tired of me fussing with the sleeves so I quit rolling them up. At least her little fingers can still grab important things like rocks if necessary.

The sun was fairly bright when I took the pics, but you can see the fun flowers and such on her boots as she splashes in the puddle.

We had lots of fun, she only sat down in the puddle once, which seemed to bother the mama a lot more than the kiddo. :) (I did plan ahead and had her in some pants that already had a small stain, so even if the mud doesn't wash out, no harm done). She also had fun interacting with Sammy, who was inside the fence safe from any major splashes. We walked partway around the block, but she wasn't in an exploring sort of mood, as we ended up just playing inside the car for a while before heading inside to warm up.

It's not Halloween without a costume!

2009-11-01T15:25:00.001-08:00

We bought Ru a Halloween costume a month or two ago when I found one on clearance at a website I shop at frequently for baby-proofing stuff. It's a good thing Ru didn't grow anymore than she did, as it only just barely fit her. It came with a cool headpeice that looked just like a doggie head, but Ru doesn't like hats and wouldn't wear it. But she doesn't mind hair bands, so I made some ears out of white felt and hot glued them to a black hairband. It worked great and she even got a couple of complements on her ears. :)

Here she is in all her canine glory! :)

She didn't care for the mittens. She usually just holds her hands up and looks at them when you put mittens on her, and we thought that would be a bit awkward for trick or treating, so we just took them off. She was much happier then. I also decorated her face a bit. We didn't have any face paint (and I didn't think of it til after the stores were out) so I just used a washable magic marker. It worked great, and came right off with a wet wipe later.

This isn't the greatest pic ever, but it's the only one I got of the back of her, with her cute little puppy dog tail showing.

And here's one of my costume, it's a play on words. (and the P doesn't actually have anything to do with me being preggers. ;)

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween, we sure did! :)

Ru's first Jack-o-Lantern

2009-11-01T14:45:00.001-08:00

Since we didn't have to spend any money on the experience (grew the pumpkin in my garden) we decided it would be fun to let Ru help make her first jack-o-lantern. We suspected she would really enjoy the pumpkin guts, and we decided we would carve something cute that she would like.

We were wrong about the pumpkin guts, while the scooping action was fun, she wasn't really into touching them at all. She preferred to use a spoon and help me remove them from the pumpkin.

Or, as the case may be, put them back in. For a while I was fighting a losing battle as she scooped them from the bowl back into the pumpkin. It was fun tho. :) She also liked to stir them in the bowl, and I did manage to catch the bowl both times she tried to dump it on the living room floor.

Of course, after touching the pumpkin guts it's necessary to wash our hands, which happens to be another of Ruthie's favorite activities.

Ruthie LOVES animals, so we decided to do a kitty jack-o-lantern. She seemed to approve, as every time she looked at it she would say "meow-meow." We took it with us to G-ma Judy's house since we don't get much (if any) trick or treat traffic at our place.

Happy Fall, Y'all!

2009-10-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

We took Ru to the French Prairie Garden's Pumpkin patch yesterday. We had a great time! Grandma Judy came along, and we watched pig races, went on a hay ride, picked out a pumpkin, and saw lots of cool animals.

Brian's family has always had the rule that you can only have a pumpkin as big as you can carry. Since we have some in our garden already, I was happy Ru bonded with this small, bumpy one since it's different from any we already have.

Of all the animals, I think Ru liked the goats the best. The chickens were cool, and the llamas held her interest for a bit. But the goats were small and cute, and she really liked watching them. This goat was quite friendly, and Ru got to feed him a few bits of goat food.

They had a nice display of pumpkins in the greenhouse, so we tried to get some pics with them. Here's my preggy self trying to keep Ru from jumping off her pumpkinny perch.

Ru wouldn't just stand in front of the pumpkins for long, she wanted to bring us the fun squash we were trying to use as props. But we got a couple decent shots. :)

Professional pics

2009-09-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite pic of Ru ever! This was another set of way overpriced prints from a really cheap sitting fee done at a local hotel. They give you one really cheap large print, and then it's way overpriced for any other prints. But I did go ahead and order the smallest package so I could have this one of Ru. In addition to the old fashioned cuteness, she really does just adore stuffed bears. so it caught a nice bit of her personality as well. (note all the other bears tossed behind her... ;)

They talked me into dressing up for pics, too. I hadn't planned on it, but decided why not, I haven't had my pic done professionally in ages. The first pic was the one 10x13 I got, the second was just fun, as Ru does like sitting on my lap and reading books, too.

I love this last one because it shows what a girly girl she is. She loves wearing necklaces and playing with her tea set. (altho hers is plastic, not ceramic like the one in the pic) I'm pretty sure I never touched a tea set in my entire tom boy childhood. I think I played dress up once at Aunt Ruth's, but I didn't own any dress up clothes myself and certainly didn't play on a regular basis. Ru does tho, she's just waiting for me to buy her something other than her one sparkly skirt (thanks Lory!) that she wears all the time, and her many beaded necklaces. Hehe, and I also like her little toes peeking out under the table...

Ravioli and black beans?

2009-09-04T19:07:00.000-07:00

It's a kind of odd combination, but that's what Ru and I had for dinner one day this week when Brian was late coming home from work. I didn't have the energy to cook anything for just the two of us, so I heated up a can of black beans, and some chef boyardee ravioli. Ru loved both, she almost always likes beans, and the ravioli was a big hit, too!

Note the beans are gone, still one ravioli bit to go tho. BTW, she's wearing her pj shirt from the night before, since we were playing in the water outside before dinner and she got her t-shirt all wet. So I decided rather than put it back on, I'd just toss this other shirt on for dinner and take it off for bathtime. (she was chilly or I wouldn't have bothered with a shirt at all. ;) anyway, that's why she doesn't have a bib on.

One slightly grubby, but quite happy and well fed little girl! ;)

We love the baby!

2009-09-01T21:49:00.000-07:00

Ruthie got a new baby doll from her Nana a few weeks ago. (Nana also bought the outfit she's wearing in this pic, I love owls!) She LOVES it! She just calls it baby right now, maybe when she's talking better it will get a real name. It's about 12 inches, I'll have to keep an eye out for 12 inch baby doll clothes now. ;) It also can go in the bathtub (altho we don't really plan to play with it in there) it's nice that it is quite washable. It also smells like vanilla, altho I haven't decided if I think that's a good thing or not. ;)

She likes to put the doll in her little stroller (which, now that I think about it, Nana ALSO bought for her...), sometimes she even gets it in there facing the correct way. At least the feet always go in first...

Ru also likes to feed the baby. Here she is sharing her cheerios.

I love that she is learning to love and take care of other little people (as well as her stuffed animals, she feeds them too) and that she's got a little friend she really likes to play with. :)

Stylin!

2009-08-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

We ordered a Robe for Ru a while back, since it's a kinda chilly trip from the bathroom downstairs to the bedroom upstairs. It was much to big for her tho, so I put it in the closet and forgot about it.

However, she's been growing like a summer weed, and when she found it the other day I let her try it on. It fits! (kinda) She had great fun modeling it, she really loves how soft it is and hugs it when she's not wearing it. Of course i took some pics since she was so proud to be wearing it.

The shoes, however, do NOT fit. (those are my gardening clogs)

this is gonna be great come time for Christmas pics!

OK, so maybe it's a little bit big. But that will make it great for taking more pics in a she grows, right? (and that's a hair clip in her hand, apparently she decided if it was a fashion show she ought to accessorize! :)

Finally, a veggie we can agree on!

2009-08-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

So far, I can't get Ru to eat more than a few bites of just about any veggie. Other than potatoes anyway, but those are awfully starchy. Sweet potatoes are at least a little better, altho she prefers they be in french fry form. (same with regular potatoes for that matter, altho I don't generally feed her french fries!) At home, she turns up her nose at carrots, cucumbers, green beans, peas, broccoli, and cauliflower. I'm not actually a huge fan of cooked veggies either, so I'm hoping once she gets all her teeth and can eat them fresh things will go better. At least she loves fruit.

Anyway, I stumbled upon a veggie she seems to love! Black beans!

Ok, so I don't actually know if beans count as a veggie or a protein, but I know they are really good for you so it doesn't matter. I impulsively mixed a can in with some mac and cheese (gotta get that stuff at least a little nutritional value) and was surprised when I let her feed herself. I spoon fed her both beans and noodles on the same spoon. When she fed herself, she ate the beans, and not the noodles! Cool!

They are kinda messy. I can deal with that. She does seem to prefer the "seasoned" ones rather than the plain, altho I generally rinse them unless I am adding them to something already messy like the mac and cheese.

Besides, we kinda like messy faces. They make for fun pictures.

We want YOU to eat your veggies!!

park pics

2009-08-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

I am falling WAY behind on posting on here! I blame the new little one sucking out all my energy. Ah well, we'll be thru the first trimester in just another week or so, hopefully I'll have more energy then. In the meantime, I just pretend I have energy and keep going so I can keep up with Ru! here's som pics from one of our recent walks, we stopped to play at the park.

Ru had sunblock on her legs, and thought it was pretty cool that the little pieces of mulch stuck to her.

Yay! Mulch on the slide, too!

Ru still loves to swing!

While I've got your attention, recent developments in Ru's little life include: a much improved ability to run, and run, and run...; the comprehension skills to usually answer a yes or no question with a nod or shake of the head; the ability (or maybe inclination) to actually nod yes and mean it if I ask if she's ready for a nap or bedtime! ; 4 new teeth (the last two incisors on the bottom, and two molars on the top, those have been GREAT fun ) ; and the ability to put on and take off her beaded necklaces she got at the old fashioned festival. She also will leave hair clips in now, so we are letting her bangs grow out for now. Fun times in our Cheery-O household! :)

The rest of the camping pics

2009-07-21T21:15:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple of totally cute beach pics. I was buttoning her jacket in the first one (another Thank you, this one to Annette for the hand me downs!) and the other just shows a nice close up of her in the wind. It was chilly enough she even left her hood on, which she HATES to have up normally.
Having fun with her Daddy, a nice snuggle between trips to the ground to find rocks! ;)

Camping

2009-07-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

A word of caustion, I wanted to catch a lot of memories here, so it's pretty text heavy. If you want to just skip to the pictures I won't be offended... ;)

Our Church has an annual camp out every year, where we reserve a bunch of spots together in a state park on the beach (used to be South Beach, now we do Nehalem Bay) and have a grand old time with organized campfire events, a sand castle contest, organized games, a potluck, and of course a fireside worship service. We've gone every year since we joined the church, altho last year with little Ru we just ended up making a day trip out of it. So this year was officially Ru's first camping trip. She had a great time! During the days...she was teething and the nights were fairly tough on all of us. Thankfully some good friends (who weren't able to go, and we did miss them--but Thanks Rose and Bob!!) loaned us their pop up trailer, or we may have bailed after the first night.

Of course, even that didn't go without a hitch...literally. We couldn't get one put on our van in less than a week, so at first we told them we couldn't do it, then some other friends offered to pull it for us. (Thanks Don and Judy!!) So we were able to work it out. Ru actually LOVED the beds. She thought it was totally fun that they were mostly encased in canvas, and she could stand up and touch the ceiling and bang on the walls, etc. She got excited every time it was time for bed. You may notice a problem with that situation there... Anyway, we put her on the outside edge with one sleeping bag laid out flat under us, and used another for a cover. I slept in the inside edge so she couldn't roll off the bed and into the trailer. the first night was ok, the second she woke around midnight crying and crying, it took us 20 minutes to get her calmed down enough to take some tylenol and get her back to sleep. And then she insisted upon sleeping ON me. I still have a sore neck three days later. But enough whining...

Friday night was the campfire songs and story telling, which eventually broke down into telling blond jokes and making endless smores and marshmallows. There was no way to put Ru down safely at her regular bedtime, so she stayed up (after a brief nap in the wrap) and enjoyed the party, too.

Saturday's events started at 10:30 with the sand sculpture contest. (while I'm thinking about it, our neighbors provided us with three meals at their table, including sat breakfast of pancakes with homemade raspberry sauce. Thanks Sharon and Bill!) I walked down with Don and Judy, and we took turns carrying Ru. She's getting heavy! She ended up spending quite a bit of time on Don's shoulders. She wasn't actually sure she liked it up there, he's pretty tall, but she didn't cry or protest, either. As usual, she mostly just played with the rocks. I'll post the beach pics separate because this crazy thing only lets me post 4 pics each time.

After lunch we did games near the playground. I was beat after that first night, so I actually napped thru the games and Brian and Judy took care of Ru. The playground had pea gravel as the cushioning. Little, tiny, ROCKS!!! Ru likes rocks. She played with them, grabbing handfuls, pushing them around, and stacking them on the swings. Yay, rocks!

Saturday night we had the potluck. Judy took Ru for pretty much the entire time, fed her, etc. So Brian and I got a much needed break to relax and eat. I managed to bang my head pretty good on a low tree branch, and had already had a headache all day. So i snuck out after dinner and took a shower (man did that sting, I obviously broke the skin on my head when I hit it!) and then laid down in the trailer til the tylenol kicked in. I caught the last bit of the worship service (I actually listened to much of the rest, since the extra campsite we reserve each time for a meeting space was across from ours) and took communion. Our little family didn't stay up much past that, we were beat and ready for bed. Thank goodness for Judy!

Sunday morning Brian took Sammy out early, and without his morning restlessness Ru and I were able to sleep in til 9. Yay for much needed sleep! (altho that's when I was off the pillow and tweaked my neck) Anyway, I kept Ru busy visiting folks while Brian broke down camp. We had the usual organizational meeting where we discussed ideas for improvements the following year, with a couple of great suggestions we'll follow up on. We didn't stick around for lunch. We were exhausted, Ru was fussy, Brian sunburned, my head still hurt, so we headed home. The good news is the drive home went much better than the drive there (we stopped twice on the way there because she was so upset. On the way back she actually slept the last hour) and we arrived home safe and sound Sunday afternoon.

Overall it was an ok trip. camping with an infant is a LOT of work. I am fairly certain Brian and I have no urge whatsoever to borrow Bob's trailer and go do it again next month. However, with the support of a loving church family around, it was quite doable and certainly had many wonderful moments, so we do plan to try it again next year. Even tho we may be back in a tent...

More birthday suit pics

2009-07-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

We didn't stop to put our clothes on (well, hers, I had a swim suit on, if that counts) when Ru decided she was done playing in the pool. Instead, we moved to the front porch where she has a sandbox to play in. Of course, she didn't play in it. She preferred to climb up onto the Adirondack chairs all by herself. she is just getting into the whole climbing thing. She keeps me busy following her around with my hands stretched and ready to catch her if she falls, or give her a boost if she needs it. She's pretty much mastered getting on the chair...now if only she could figure out how to get back off...

I love this pic of her, she looks so serious. No smiling and clapping at her accomplishment, she's busy trying to memorize what she did to get up there...

When she tired of the chairs, there was the dog's water dish to play with. With water! I had to use a bit to splash on the porch when she peed (which was also pretty cute, she just stood there and watched somewhat fascinated as the liquid came out...but I did NOT decide to catch that on camera ;) and so then she decided it must be ok to haul it around and dump the water... She's not actually dumping it on purpose I don't think, but she is splashing it all over herself.

Playing in the bowl afterwards, Sammy seems a little saddened by the loss of the use of his dish.

And of course you gotta love the cute little baby buns. Not sure that you can tell from this pic, but they are quite grubby from the eternally dusty chairs she was climbing on. (I do hate my gravel road)

More to come, I've got camping pics to post, and today I took some fun ones of her attempting to feed herself, let's just say it got a little messy...

more pool pics

2009-07-15T21:08:00.000-07:00

Look at me, two in one day! Ok, so I'll let you in on a little secret. Everything I've posted the last two weeks has been older pics. Not ancient by any means, but I lost my camera after we got home from mom's wedding, so I've just been catching up on some pics I had already taken and not posted. I called all the places we'd visited, searched every room in the house, and emailed all my relatives to ask if they knew where it was. I really liked that camera. Last night we finally admitted defeat and I went and bought a new camera. I'm really happy with it, it's an ultra compact (Canon powershot SD 780 IS for anyone into that sort of thing) so I can carry it around in my pocket everywhere and never miss a cute pic of Ru again. At least that's the idea. Anyways, I like it pretty well and I'm keeping it. Despite the fact that I found the old one this morning. Yes, less than 18 hours after purchasing the new one the old one showed up. Either Brian or Ru hid it in my laptop bag, which was sitting unzipped in the corner on the living room floor.

Anyway, this evening I set up another new toy, a patio umbrella I scored at a garage sale saturday, and the new hard shell kiddie pool (which, btw, already has a hole in it. Oh well, it's a slow leak). Since we had shade, I was lazy and didn't bother with a swimsuit for Ru. And since I have a spiffy new camera, I took some nakey baby pics that turned out supercute.

No, the camera didn't provide the daisies, I did those myself since I don't want creepy ppl frequenting my blog. (or at least not any additional ones... ;) She has rocks in her hands, because those are her all time favorite toys. She's not picky, so it works out well whenever we are outdoors and bored.

Banging the rocks together for the clacking noise.

Isn't this the grooviest umbrella ever!?! I totally love it! And it is in excellent shape for its age, and a score at $15. Most importantly, it works great to shade our pool.

She's so cute! I love all her little folds and wrinkles; it was all I could do not to attack her tummy with zerberts the entire time we were playing. She did slip and go all the way under for the first time tonight (fear not, my obsessive picture taking didn't keep me from catching her, but she squirmed the wrong way and there wasn't anything I could do but haul her back out right away) and she handled it like a champ! She didn't even cry, just seemed a little shocked and appalled, and I told her what a good girl she was and reassured her she was ok, and she was alright to continue playing with her rocks. :)

Sexy Mowing Mama

2009-07-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'll admit, while I am not like my friends in gushing out loud, I don't mind watching a muscular young man out mowing the lawn with his shirt off. I am generally quiet and reserved about such things, but I'm human, too. Of course, some of my friends can be downright embarrassing with the whistles and staring.

Recently our power lawn mower has gone on vacation (my mom needed it back when hers was kinda stolen), so I've taken over the lawn care with my little push-reel mower. It's been a while since I've mowed, since the power mower stirs up my allergies so much. However, now that I'm out and about, I've discovered _I_ am a sexy mower, too! and I must be REALLY hot, because both men and women stare while I'm out there doing my thing. I'm not imagining it. Cars slow down, neighbor men come out to chat with me (never mind that the majority of my neighbors are men), it happens too often to be my imagination. I do try to be humble, but obviously I am fairly irresistible despite the fact that I am fully clothed. I'll try not to let it go to my head. I had Brian take some pics so y'all could ogle me in the privacy of your own home.

Of course, I suppose it could be that folks have never seen a woman mowing the lawn with a baby strapped to her chest, but I doubt it.

Ru likes helping, and I'm all about getting her started on the chores early. Not that it saves me any effort, it actually takes a bit more with 24 lbs strapped on. Altho I suspect the more effort thing will hold true for all chores for a few years...

Baby's blue dress

2009-07-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

Ru's Aunt Liz in KS sent us this pretty blue dress. I kept waiting for nice weather to put her in it, and finally after a lot of cool sundays I just put a sweater with it. It's totally cute tho, and hopefully next time it gets warm again (raining as I write this) we'll wear it again! :)

I love her expression in this pic! (even tho you can't see the dress at all)

Yay, happy baby! :)

wedding pics

2009-07-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should actually post some wedding pics to prove I wasn't just messing around down there in Coos Bay.

From left, Me, Brian, Ru, my nephew CJ, SIL Nikki, older bro Chris, mom bonnie, younger bro John, John's girlfriend Misty, and Grandma Covey. (notice my daughter is again playing with a rock... ;) Misty was awesome at the wedding, mom just kinda gave us the stuff to decorate and said go to it. Misty jumped right in and decorated the arch, made an aisle, and just generally made the place look great with little or no direction from anyone. Thanks Misty!

This was an attempt at the four generations pic, altho it didn't turn out all that good. I have another one from after the wedding I'll post later.

The lovely Bride and Groom. :) They were both quite nervous, it was pretty cute. The ceremony was VERY short, prolly 5 minutes from the time the music started til the time they headed back down the isle as man and wife. But it's all about the party afterwards, right?? ;)

Speaking of parties, a couple other memories from the trip I want to make sure I remember that don't have pics to accompany them (so I'll jot down here): We had a grand time one evening at the hotel playing apples to apples. John, Misty, Chris, CJ and I played in John's room. It's a hilarious game if you haven't played it. I shall always treasure the spunky zucchinis and friendly kilts, along with all the things Misty finds "comfortable." With all his reading problems, CJ still did better playing without his dad, so much so that he wouldn't let dad help after and we had to deal Chris in his own hand.

Ru also enjoyed Mom's giant dog daisy, who we accidentally fed pine cones. (we were trying to play fetch. who would have thunk she would just eat them?? no harm done I guess...) Brian tried to catch mom's kitchen on fire while cooking hamburgers (ok, not really, but we did have some serious flames on the jenn air grill for a few seconds!) and john actually ate the mayo! The cranberry factory was fun, John ate the bright orange cheddar cheese fudge, too. It was like a buffet line of candy samples, dangerous!

That's prolly enough randomness to keep me from forgetting those good parts. All in all it was a great experience, primarily for the family time spent with Chris, John, and our families. (Marv was a bit "under the weather," so we didn't spend as much time with him and mom as we would have liked, but we had fun with them, too!)

drinking fountain video

2009-07-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

Pool fun

2009-07-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

My brothers and I chose to stay at a hotel with our families, primarily so the kids could play in the pool some. We didn't end up hanging out at the pool as much as we thought we would, but we did spend one evening seeing how Ru would like it. Most of the pool pics didn't turn out well, as my mom was taking the pics and was sitting too far away, with the windows behind us so we looked very dark. Brian took some while we were in the hot tub that turned out fun tho. Ru liked both the hot tub and the pool, and the temp was pretty good in both places so I didn't have to worry about her overheating or getting too cold.
Daddy caught Ru mid splash in this pic!

Almost as much fun as the pool was this cool contraption they had mounted to the wall there. You push a button and a little stream of water comes out! Even better, mommy even let Ru drink some of this water! Altho really, Ru had more fun playing in it than drinking it.

Playing with family

2009-06-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

Ru got lots of practice this week on her throwing skills. Both Uncle Chris and CJ played ball with her in the hotel room.

hehe, no family resemblance in this pic, either... ;)

Good throw kiddo! :)

a couple of beach pics

2009-06-27T20:41:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple of Ru, she SOOO loves rocks it's not even funny. It is cute tho. ;) She loved how easy it was to find nice, smooth rocks on the beaches. In the top pic she's enjoying banging two together. (she also like the convenient "shelf" my chest made when she was ready to put one down and insepct the other more closely)

Here's also a couple pics of my family and I. I'm sure I don't look anything like any of them... ;)

The first is my older brother Chris, me, and my younger bro, John. There's 2 years between each of us.
This one is Marvin (mom's fiance), my Mom, and Me and Ru.

More to come...

Mommy's helper

2009-06-21T09:28:00.001-07:00

I helped Robin set up for the wedding, and one of the jobs I had was to put the sodas and waters into the half barrels. Ru has recently been working on "in" and "out", and "open" and "shut". She enjoyed putting the water bottles "in" and often clapped after she achieved her goal.

She also enjoyed taking them back out of course. And when it was time to clean up and take our leftover waters home, she had a great time closing the cooler after each bottle I put in. (which didn't exactly help speed the process along, but was really cute! :)

Dancing!

2009-06-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

I LOVE this shot of Ru! She's so funny! She was dancing with daddy and I'm not sure what was going thru her little head at this exact moment. Boogie down, girlfriend!

This next shot was Ru's first time dancing with a boy. Not that it was a real "dance" or anything, but it was funny that they were dancing together, esp as Holden wasn't willing to put down the candy long enough to dance without it. :)

All girls know the best guy to dance with is Daddy. You know he has no hidden agenda or expectations for after the dance, he's just dancing with you because he loves you. Aren't they cute together?

Family pics, Renaisansse style

2009-06-21T08:43:00.000-07:00

Maybe by the end of this set of pics I'll have learned how to correctly spell Renaissance. Thanks goodness for spell check. Anyway, not much to add to these other than share that she would NOT smile for the camera until we let her start playing with the flower. All the pics taken before the flower have her looking solemnly at the camera as if she hadn't been more bored in her life, ever. Maybe I should share one of those, too. Maybe later, I've still got the dancing and helping posts to go! (and yes, now that I see them I know I should have had Brian take his glasses off. I'll blame the photographer. ;)

Our little peasant girl!

2009-06-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Isn't she the sweetest??! We went to my high school buddy's wedding this weekend (congrats Robin!) and she had a Renaissance theme. I was a bridesmaid so my dress was chosen for me, but we took some time and internet searching to find outfits for Brian and Ru (BTW, if you need a shirt like Brian's or an outfit like Ru's, we were very pleased with the prices and service here, he custom made the shirt for Ru to match my dress.) She turned out adorable!

If you know my little girl at all, you know she loves to play in the gravel and find her favorite rocks. She's showing me a particularly wonderful one she found. (which, btw, looks exactly like all the other rocks to me. Obviously she can see something I can't... ;) This was between the ceremony and the reception, we were walking to the grange and decide to wait for Daddy to finish packing up the pack-n-play rather than walking without him.

Ru also really likes flowers, and was thrilled when she scored this GIANT flower from mommy! I'm fairly certain she's never really noticed sunflowers before, and I know she's never touched one.

More to come, and they'll prolly all come in a rush as wedding number two for the summer (my mom's) is on friday so we'll be off galavanting around the coast with my big bro Chris and his family all week. So I'll try and get the rest of these pics up today so you have something to look at all week. :)

Mama's helper

2009-06-08T20:46:00.000-07:00

Ru is well on her way to being a master gardener. She's watched me plant, tromped around in the pathways between garden beds, and sampled the glorious bounty of the harvest. Ok, well, she's eaten a couple strawberries fresh off the plant. We are a long ways from harvest time, but hopefully she will enjoy eating the fresh veggies as much as she loves to be outdoors while I'm growing them. Brian snapped some pics of her helping me water.

(and for the record, the jungle behind me is the neighbor's yard, not ours! :)

She helped me hold the hose while I watered.

But really, the hose is only as interesting as what's coming out the end.
Dunno how the veggies will go over (she's wishy washy with tomatoes right now, I'm hoping homegrown will win her over) but she LOVES strawberries, and most other fruits. She eats about 3/4 of a banana a day, and as many grapes or strawberries as I will let her have. Here's she's taste testing the first (tiny) crop of strawberries. Yummy!

Acouple of ugly critters!

2009-06-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

For those of you without kids, there is a trend now for these dolls called Ugly dolls. Ru even has one, she picked it out herself at the toy store, and I couldn't convince her any other stuffed critter was good enough for her once she found him. Anyway, they looked simple enough to make, so since Brian was in charge of Ru on my b-day, I hid out in my craft room and made one. It turned out so good I decided to make another for a friend's b-day party. I think they are pretty cute!

They are made from fleece I had leftover from another project, and the eyes are t-shirt fabric I also had left over. I stuffed them with their own scraps, so they didn't cost me anything, and are pretty "green," too. :) I may have to make some more for our upcoming pig war celebration, there are 4 babies that will be at that party, too. :)

how about another video?

2009-06-02T21:41:00.001-07:00

Brian was taking clips of her walking. This one is fun because you get to hear her "talking", too. And it's just cute. ;)

Kiddie pool pics!

2009-06-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

I finally remembered to have Brian take some pics while Ru and I played in the kiddie pool! They are pretty self explanatory, remember you can click on the picture to make it bigger if you want to see her facial expressions better. :)

Ruthie: the swimsuit edition...

2009-06-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

We were getting ready to go play in our kiddie pool, so I took some pics where I could without worrying about her drowing while I was busy focusing or some such thing.

I love her funny little "wings" in her hair behind her ears right now. :) Gotta do something about those bangs soon.

Gotta get hydrated before going out in the sun. :) This body suit style suit has it's own built in sunscreen so I don't have to worry about much other than her face and wrists, ankles, etc. It does have matching swim socks, too.

What? There's nothing in my mouth mommy....really.... (fear not, it was just a larger than normal handful of cheerios)

pool pics coming soon... ;)

Music Maker

2009-05-30T18:21:00.000-07:00

Ru and I are getting good at remembering to take the stroller on our morning walks on Fridays (she prefers the wrap, so I do that most other days) so we can hit the garage sales! Today we scored big time, in addition to some little toys, canning jars, and a stuffed kitty, we got this wonderful keyboard! It fit on her stroller so she could actually play with it while we continued our walk, and she had a great time playing with the buttons, including the "demo" that played music. We sounded much like the ice cream man as we strolled the neighborhoods.

It is on a stand, but came with a bench as well, so when Ru starts using chairs she can play sitting down. For now she is quite happy to walk up and play a few notes every so often while she plays with the other toys in the living room, too.

Oh yeah, it has lights, too. And has some built in rhythms she can play along with. Right now she just dances to them when she finds one. She's not playing any tunes yet, but she sure looks like a natural in these pics! :)

Little Picassette

2009-05-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

Ru and I recently had our first art experience. I stripped her down and set her up with some paper and finger paint. I didn't really care too much about the final product, but figured she would have a lot of fun just squishing the paint around. It was pretty fun for both of us!

I drew her a heart and then she squished it around til there was none of my original line left.

This is when she realized there was paint on her hand. (note the other hand, unconsciously applying paint to her tummy. :)

Brian wants to title this photo: "Canary? what canary? I didn't eat any birds..." she didn't actually eat any pain, either. She didn't care for the taste (thankfully, altho it is non-toxic, that doesn't exactly mean edible) Overall the mess wasn't too bad, we went straight from our art time to bath time and the paint wiped off the tablecloth, high chair, and floor quite easily even after it dried. I'm sure more art is in our future! :)

With my Father I can go anywhere!

2009-05-12T12:52:00.001-07:00

Ru is at a fun stage right now. She is soooo almost walking. At first she would let go of the chair and walk to me, now in the last few days she lets go of the chair and heads off in some random direction on her own. Of course, she falls down after 6-7 steps. Then she has to crawl to another place where she can pull herself up, get up her courage, and take off once again. She wants to be so independent, but just can't quite do it on her own yet. Of course, if one of us holds her hand(s), then the sky is the limit! She takes off (running even!) with total confidence that if she stumbles we'll support her and get her back on her feet so she can pick a new direction to explore.

I was cogitating on this a bit and realized this is much like me and my Father. I am pretty stubbornly independant most of the time, and I often head off on my own in some random direction. Inevitably I fall down, have to pick myself up (sometimes even crawl a little), dust myself off and figure out what direction to try next.

However, if I just remember to ask God for help, my journey goes so much smoother. He'll pick me up and dust me off, and support me as I make my way thru the world. If I stumble he'll catch me before I fall and get me off and running again. If I just remember to hold his hand and allow him to guide me just a little, then the sky is the limit for me, as well. :)

Let's try a video...

2009-05-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

My internet connection has made uploading video impossible, but I'm hoping the visit from the cable guy last monday may have fixed it. So here goes, this is from a few days ago. I had to stop it at the end because she let go and started walking to me so I needed to be able to catch her!

More tomboy pics

2009-05-09T19:40:00.000-07:00

Altho for the record, I don't think she's leaning any more towards tomboy or girlie girl. But I want her to know she has the opportunity for either. :) She wears dresses every sunday, and plays with rocks on weekdays... ;)

Girls like trucks, too

2009-05-07T19:27:00.001-07:00

They are replacing the main sewer line along our street over the next few days (weeks?) and it's been pretty noisy around here. Since the corner across from us doesn't have any buildings (too close to teh tracks) they are using that to store all the equipment they need, so even tho they are currently working two blocks away, they are always coming back to the corner and moving giant chunks of cement and such around.

Tonight I decided if they were gonna park their big construction vehicles and junk in front of my house all night, that gives me the right to go play on them. Well, within reason anyways, we didn't actually climb anything. I just took some cute pics. I also took some other "industrial" type pics, but I'm gonna space out my pics so I have something to post over the next few days... :)

This one is my fave, we set her inside the wheel of the loader thingie. (just because we like trucks doesn't mean we know the proper names for them...)

Sammy

2009-05-06T16:21:00.000-07:00

I'm recruiting a doggie-sitter for Sammy, and thought I'd post some pics so they can see how big he is, etc. And as long as I'm posting, I may as well share cute baby pics, too. so here are three more from her first b-day party. She would hand the paper to Sammy as she unwrapped, then he would procede to shred it for her. Or for the recycle bin. Whatever. I'm sure he thought he was helping...

1 year pics

2009-04-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

I'm late, again. Whatever. Here she is leaping off her loveseat we always (try to) take her pics on...

These other two I just love her facial expressions... :)

First steps

2009-04-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

First you have to pull yourself up, since silly mom prolly put you in the crib lying down.

Strrreeeettccchhhh for the rail on the other side.

Let go and make a break for the other side!

Safe on the other side, she's so proud of herself!

Cute and Cranky...

2009-04-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

So the cute first: This afternoon, I took Ru upstairs and stood her in her crib. She's really enjoying her crib right now. Not for sleep (of course!) but she's discovered she can hold on to one side, stretch out towards the other, then....LET GO! and take a step or two and grab the other side without falling! So she was bouncing from one side to the other all over the place practicing her walking skills.

Then we went downstairs because I realized _I_ was cranky, because I didn't really eat enough lunch. So I finished off my mac and cheese and let her run around in the walker a bit. When she got tired of that I pulled her out and could tell she was poopy...and she was leaking thru the side again. (grrr, dunno what's up with this new trend, maybe the walking/crawling is stretching the diaper differently?) Anyways, I took her upstairs and put her on the changing table and she immediately started to fuss and wiggle. I told her she needed to hold very still so I could change her. I got the diaper off and had her messy bottom dangling and she started to wiggle (the onesie was a goner already so I wasn't too concerned about it really, but didn't feel like changing every linen in the bedroom) then she flat out rolled over while I was attempting to keep her suspended by one leg. So I told her to STOP. Then I told her wiggly babies have cold showers and flipped her back over. She thought it was funny when I told her firmly to stop. She rolled over again, still giggling, so I picked her up (dirty onesie and all) and headed for the shower. I turned it about to where it should be, and went ahead and hosed her back off while it was still cold. She didn't care for that one bit!! I told her over and over it's the only way to get clean if you won't hold still in the changing table. Of course, I moved the water away and got it adjusted appropriately and then finished the impromptu shower and got her dressed and everything afterwards, and she was fairly calm after that. Now she's in her crib, supposed to be napping (I actually thought she was) but now I hear her chattering away in there. Is it 5 yet?

Mama's got a new set of wheels!

2009-04-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

I finally got the stroller I've been drooling over for a year now! It's an expensive one, but we're getting a decent tax return, and more importantly I'm not happy with my current stroller. It gets the job done, but after being parked on the front porch on a somewhat regular basis this winter it has started to mildew. So I finally was able to justify my new jogging stroller.

I got a Phil & Teds brand sport buggy. The really cool thing about this stroller is it easily converts to a double, and as a double doesn't take up any more space than it did before. And when I say easy, I mean in less time than it takes to count to ten. The hardest part will be remembering where we put the doubles kit. You can read a review of the stroller here, with pics of how you can arrange it, two different ways to ride doubles:

http://www.bobbysbest.com/phil-and-teds-sport-buggy-stroller-double-review.html

I bought mine slightly used on ebay, and it came with the travel bag and some extra parts, there's an extra main seat with a tear in it (apparently it started tearing shortly after they got the stroller, and Phil and Teds sent them a new one.) and two extra tires, and one extra inner tube. It also came with the doubles kit. Brand new the stroller would cost $450, the doubles kit another $90, and the travel bag around $60. I got it all (plus extra seat I'll never need, and the tube and tires) for $355. It's in great shape, and I'm looking forward to a test drive with Ru tomorrow! (she was with Auntie Judy today, who is keeping the old stroller at her house now so we don't have to move it back and forth between our cars all the time.)

Here it is with the doubles attachment, which we'll keep handy for when we are out with friends, too! :)

Baby is One!!

2009-04-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

I skipped the traditional cake and went with cupcakes. I made chocolate (Brian said it would make better photos) and used a cute little frosting gun I bought on Easter clearance to decorate them. I really like how they turned out, and you could choose the level of sugar overload you wanted. The metal stand and silicon flower cupcake wrapper thingies were an impulse buy at Joannes, but I think we will get a lot of mileage out of them, I think this turned out really cute!

We didn't have a big crowd, we only invited family. John (my brother) and Misty had to work, as did Kelly, our brother in law. Larry (aka Papa, Brian's dad) was sick. So Nana and Leslie came in one car with Aurora and Zachy. Mom and Marvin came, and Auntie Judy also attended. Zachy wasn't really up for hanging out with a crowd, so poor Leslie had to hang out upstairs with him for most of the party. They left pretty soon after we finished with the cake and such, too. Mom, Marv, and Judy stuck around for another hour or so and watched Ru play with her new toys.

Ru was a champ at opening her presents! I got them started and showed her where to pull, and she tore away! Sammy wanted to help and kept getting in the pics, so we had to put him in his crate for a while. (altho I have some cute pics of him "helping", too) Ru loved all of the gifts she got, and enjoyed playing with them all afternoon. Altho, we did make her stop for her birthday cupcake...

She didn't get too horribly messy. I think the lack of great globs of frosting helped with that. she had never eaten anything quite so fragile before, and most of it ended up smooshed into crumbs and dropped on the floor. (ensuring Sammy's escape from the crate, so he could do his clean up duty) She maybe ate a third of a cupcake before she was ready to head back to her toys. She did think it was pretty tasty tho!

Happy Easter!!

2009-04-12T18:33:00.001-07:00

We had our friends Doris & Clayton Foss from church over for Easter since they don't have any relatives in town, either. They are almost the exact same age as my grandparents (whom I miss greatly!) and are great ppl, and had a ball watching Ruthie's antics as she figured out this Easter egg hunt thing. She is army crawling like a champ, and if the skirt of her dress wasn't in the way she would have practiced it with her tummy off the ground more, too.

Walking is way better than crawling tho, and this week she has transitioned to only holding one of my hands. This makes it much easier for her to touch the wall as we walk by, or grab the chairs, etc. She also has better access to all the fun stuff on the tables, in bags, or generally in areas mom isn't used to having to protect from baby's curious hands! But most importantly today, it frees up one hand to pick up the funny colored plastic things mommy threw all over the ground and put on the chairs. :)

We had her favorite yogurt drops (freeze dried whipped yogurt made specifically for toddlers) and some fruit loops in the eggs. She much preferred the yogurt drops, which is fine with me since the fruit loops are pretty sugary. We had four new board books and some stuffed animals in her Easter basket before we got started, along with some Easter grass, which she thought was yucky. (and really, that plastic Easter grass stuff IS yucky...dunno what I was thinking when I bought it...)

The worst part about her first Easter is she's getting a cold, her poor little nose is just running and running. It's not bothering her too much when she's distracted by toys and such, but when it's nap time or really running, she's been fairly fussy. She seems to be feeling worse as the evening continues. Brian's putting her to bed right now, hopefully it will be better tomorrow and not worse!

Hope everyone had a happy Easter!

Walking??

2009-04-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

Ru took two steps without holding my hand yesterday! We were playing in the living room and she was holding on to a chiar. I turned around to throw the ball for the dog, and when I turned back around to her she smiled, let go of the chair, and wobbled towards me! Of course, two steps was all she did before she fell forward (I did catch her of course) but she's getting there! :)

And of course, here's a couple photos for ya, just because I know you love them!

We got a bunch of cute summer dresses off ebay for dirt cheap ($40 for more than 15 dresses) and this is one of them. A long sleeved white onesie made it a bit warmer for our cool spring weather.

Ru loves her Teddy bear! She sleeps with him every night, and during naps. When we're awake, he never fails to bring a smile to her face when I offer him to her. He likes to sneak up on her and steal kisses, and pounce her for hugs. She loves to hug him tight and bury her face in his...and bite his nose. ;)

My life in words...

2009-04-07T18:57:00.000-07:00

I took my last couple of blog posts and made a "wordle" out of them. Here's the same text with different settings.

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/733229/My_life

You should go play at www.wordle.net It's good fun.

I'm not one to brag but....

2009-04-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, so maybe it's not the sort of thing you brag about. But I've got some HUGE dandelions in my yard! You can't really tell from pics of just the flowers, so of course I had to have something in there for size reference. I have a pretty big kid, too, but I think you get the idea... Especially on the last pic with her pudgy little hand!

Don't tell Auntie Judy!

2009-04-04T18:44:00.000-07:00

Auntie Judy is a girlie girl. That's not a bad thing at all! But when she finds out I let Ru play in the mulch at the park, I'm sure she's gonna scold me. It's dirty! But she really, really wanted to play in it, and I was tired of walking her endlessly around the park. So when she plunked herself down, I decided to go with it. It's not like I can't wash her clothes...and she was a really good girl and didn't put any in her mouth at all! ;)

She was very focussed on what she was doing. Usually when I get out the camera she gets distracted a lot and looks up at me all the time. But the mulch was much to interesting. I could hardly get her to look up, smiles were certainly out of the question.

Not too bad for pics taken with my cell phone, huh? I need to get a good little ultra compact digicam for my diaper bag, because you never know when "cute" is gonna happen! (and the camera phone doesn't work indoors since it doesn't have a flash)

11 months!

2009-03-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

You might be surprised that I'm a week behind in taking her 11 month pics. If you are (surprised that is) than you're just silly, because I'm always running about a week behind these days.

This adorable crocheted dress is a 2T. It's a bit cool for our current March weather, but our Great Grandpa Maxwell's birthday is this month, and he loves white dresses. This one came from Baby Gap, which I have shopped in once, to spend a gift certificate I got at a shower (thanks Dave!) They are pretty pricey, but have some very cute stuff. I remember when I bought it (on clearance) I remember thinking it would be SUCH a long time before she could wear it. HA! Now I'm really glad they didn't have it in a smaller size.

Ru is getting good at standing if she has something to hold on to. Her crib is the only place she feels really secure, the rail is at a good height. And of course we always take a pic on the little red loveseat. When I first did this, I had to take the pic quick, before she fell over. Now I have to take it quick, because she thinks she might be able to slide off and go somewhere... :)

Ru's starting to try and crawl, FINALLY!

2009-03-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

Maybe she's finally realized walking is going to take a while. Or maybe she finally found something worth struggling for. (Sammy's toys, figures) But today, she actually learned how to make some very slow, noisy progress towards a goal. :)

Bah, this is supposed to have a video attached. I'll try again....

On the swings again

2009-03-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

This trip to the park turned out to be quite the adventure. When we started, I almost took the rain cover off the stroller, as the sun was shining and it was so warm. I left it on tho, and took off my hat and jacket and tossed them in the stroller basket. By the time we got to the park (about 6 blocks) it was sprinkling. I decided to go around the block and wait for that cloud to pass, rather than get Ru wet. As I finished my second lap it was still sprinkling, and picking up speed. So I decided maybe I should head for the cover of the entrance of the nearby community center.

By the time I had the stroller out of the park area it had started really raining! I jogged to the library (half a block) and Ru and I hid out in there for quite some time. She picked out board books for me to read, asked if she could pull all the books off the shelf (I said no) and then just practiced our walking skills up and down the isles. I picked out a mothering magazine, she picked out a picture book (not sure what attributes she uses to judge the spines, but she was pretty decisive when picking it out) and I also checked out a set of baby sign language books.

It was still sprinkling when we left, so I headed home. By the time I was a block from the hosue, the sun was shining again! So I kept going the three blocks to the armory park and we played on the swings there. I took lots of good pics, these are three of my faves. The last is a bit blurry, but her expression is priceless! (click on it to make it bigger, it's a funny pic! :)

She does generally love the swings tho, and is usually all smiles!

One good night.

2009-03-19T20:52:00.000-07:00

Last night Ru only woke Brian up once! She generally falls asleep eating, then wakes up a few hours later to finish the meal, so he didn't count that one as he hadn't gone to sleep yet. She slept from 11:30 til 4:30, and Brian said he felt so refreshed! She woke me up around 6:30 and sucked down almost an entire other bottle. She woke up again at 7:15, but I count anything after 7 as bonus time. So I pulled her into bed with me and she snuggle-slept with me for another hour or so. She's pretty cute when she wakes up, when she is in bed with me. She doesn't always make noise, just rolls onto her tummy and lifts her head up and starts looking around. I often wake up to her playing with my face, if she could reach it without rolling over. She was REALLY cute this morning when I took over at 5, I almost went and got the camera (I would have if it had good batteries in it) and tried to take a pic. She was mostly on her stomach, rolled just a bit onto her side, with her bum sticking up in the air a bit more than you would expect. She had her teddy bear upside down but her arm securely holding him by his poor little neck, so the back of his head was against her side/tummy. It's kinda hard to describe, so you'll just have to take my word for it that she was very adorable. :)

Funny google game

2009-03-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

Those of you on facebook will recognize this sort of game, as that's where I got it. But I thought it was funny enough to share here. (adding the comments in parenthesis isn't necessary, but I usually do it for fun. You know me, can't keep my mouth shut..)

A silly little Google search game. Basically all you need to do is go to Google and type in what it says to type in. Try it. You'll get a kick out of it!

1. Type in “[your name] needs” in the Google search:
Jennifer needs a cold shower (it IS about shower time, but I like them hot)

2. Type in “[your name] looks like” in Google search:
Jennifer looks like the cutie-pie girl down the street who works at the corn dog stand at the mall. (ha!)

3. Type in “[your name] wants” in Google search:
Jennifer wants us to build a doghouse for Homer. (heck yeah! poor, cold, Homer...)

4. Type in “[your name] does” in Google search:
Jennifer Does Thailand. (yeesh)

5. Type in “[your name] hates” in Google search:
Jennifer hates the homeless (I don't, really!)

6. Type in “[your name] asks” in Google search:
Jennifer asks loaded questions. (busted...)

7. Type in “[your name] likes ” in Google search:
JENNIFER LIKES ME!!! (of course I do! :)

8. Type in “[your name] eats ” in Google search:
Jennifer eats her rare steak with Atkins-like enthusiasm (this one was funny, the second one deserves being listed, too: "Jennifer Eats 3/5 Of The 25 Biscuits. How Many Does She Eat?")

9. Type in “[your name] wears ” in Google search:
Jennifer wears the trousers. (yup.)

10. Type in “[your name] was arrested for” in Google Search:
Ok, I'll be honest, this was the first one: Jennifer was arrested for... beating up another girl living in her apartment building.
But the second was priceless: Jennifer was arrested for allegedly stabbing her 72-year-old male lover on February 1st and then again on February 16th.

11. Type in “[your name] desires" in Google Search:
Jennifer desires an intellectual rapport or spiritual bond with her love partner, but deep intimacy and emotional bonding do not come easily to her. (first part is accurate, not so much the second part)

12. Type in “[your name] loves” in Google Search:
Jennifer Loves the Robot! (a good one to end with! :)

Pics, as promised...

2009-03-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

The good news is I had already put away all but the skirts and leggings.

There isn't really any bad news, except the camera battery died! :)

Overdue for an update...

2009-03-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

Hey, this is my 101st post! Wohoo! We should have a party or something. ;)

I'll have to upload a pic later, I finally remembered to take some new ones, but left the camera in her room and I'm hoping she'll fall asleep in there. Right now she's still making noise in her crib, but she's not crying so I guess she's just playing in there or something.

Anyway, the most recent updates...she finally caught her first cold March 1st. For the most part it was just a runny/stuffy nose accompanied with major clingyness. She does have all 4 front teeth in now, so I know it wasn't teething, nothing new seems to be popping up in the teeth dept. just yet. The cold went away after just a few days, then came back for a few more, and is all gone now. The clingyness is still alive and well tho. She's pretty silly, I'll be holding her and someone will reach for her, she grabs onto my shirt and buries her face in my chest. Never mind that the person reaching for her is DADDY! If I peel her off and hand her over she is fine, and then will sometimes do the same thing on daddy when I reach for her! We both appriciate the extra snuggles anyway, even if not being able to hand her off to just anyone isn't as convienient as before.

She still loves the swing at the park, and she loves to walk around holding our hands. She still doesn't crawl, and doesn't show much interest in the idea of learning. She has held herself up standing using her crib or a large toy a couple of times now, but she still doesn't pull herself up to standing by herself, and won't try to take steps without holding someone's hands. She loves to pull things out of boxes/baskets/bags and has learned how to feed the dog.

It is great fun to watch her brain develop, too. She is getting pretty clever, she was trying to steal a placemat at Judy's house and of course Judy was holding it in place. So Ru reached over and pulled at Judy's hand, she knew what the problem was! That same lunchtime Judy got her to eat probably an entire ounce of baby food (peaches) which is the most she had ever eaten. I've kept trying, and today she ate another ounce or so, plus she has stopped making that disgusted face when she eats. She definitely won't eat babyfood if she's not fairly hungry, so timing is everything. just a little hungry isn't enough to make the squishy stuff palateable. She can eat whole crackers by herself now. (her little bites are so cute!) I've also been giving her some dairy (carefully, there's lots of dairy allergies on Brian's side) with no ill effects so far. Altho I guess three tiny bites of cheese isn't likely to cause a reaction in anyone... ;)

Photos later...

You're never too young...

2009-02-26T19:03:00.000-08:00

...or to old for that matter. I actually thought taking Ru to the front at ash wednesday would get her the same sort of "blessing" she gets at communion, but apparently you are never too young for the imposition of ashes. It's not exactly the sort of event you "celebrate, but I thought I would take some pics anyway.

Our first time on the swing!

2009-02-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

It was kinda our first time at the park for that matter, altho when she was just a few months old we went and stood in the grass once. the playground equipment is kinda useless since she can't walk without holding my hands, but she did love the swing!

Daddy's helper

2009-02-19T10:37:00.000-08:00

Ru is getting better all the time at making messes! Her newest trick is to pull everything out of the recycle bin upstairs. Since the first time she did this was right after daddy did bills, I refer to the activity as "helping daddy".

Busy Busy Girl!

2009-02-19T09:10:00.000-08:00

I remembered last night why I haven't been posting much, the stupid internet connection is wacky, my pages are always "timed out" and since we have broadband, something must be messed up. Maybe Brian and I can fix it one of these evenings. (gotta call tech support, he's messed with it already)

Anyhoo, here's some pics of my busy girl as she was very focused on playing with her socks. She even figured out how to pull the pairs apart. (yay?) I just love the facial expressions as she is so intent on her task. (whatever that might be in her little head...)

I think if you click on this last one to make it big, you can see her cute little bottom teeth. (top right is thru also, and top left is on the way, altho you can't see them in any pics yet)

I know, I know...

2009-02-18T22:27:00.000-08:00

It's been forever. So I will stay up late and toss a bunch of cute baby pics at you. I'll start with Ru's ten month pics, she turned ten months old on valentines day. Her Nana bought her this totally cute outfit!

She's ALMOST able to stand up while holding on to something.

I love her little sweater!

Baby food

2009-01-30T12:29:00.000-08:00

Ru still doesn't eat much more than breastmilk. When you feed her babyfood with a spoon, she always makes that same face as when she first had her first bite. So this week I experimented, and let her try to do it with her hands. She can pincher grab cheerios and such, and when I approached her with a spoonful of applesauce (one of the few baby foods of which she will eat more than one bite) she reached out to grab it as if it were a nice, solid cheerio. She seemed to be enjoying herself, so I let her go at it. :)

She got a little messy, but what fun she had! (and she DID continue putting it in her mouth!) It wasn't a very efficient method of eating tho. Oh, and on this bottom pic, you clearly see her first tooth. (the second is there too, but it's blocked by her thumb)

9 months old!

2009-01-20T18:13:00.000-08:00

I love this dress! I guess I'd better do her height and weight, she's right around 22 lbs, I'll have to get her to hold still for her height! She is getting very good at rolling around, and walking if you hold her hands, etc. She's ready to be mobile!

She still doesn't like baby food, so we give her cheerios and other little bites of fruits, veggies, and crackers. We're still a LONG ways away from her being weaned.

Her sleep patterns are still a long ways from ideal, but we get by ok now. She's got two teeth on the bottom, and I suspect a top one is causing her trouble as we speak. (fussy fussy!) No words yet, but lots and lots of babbling! :)

Nope, not progress.

2009-01-12T12:40:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update, the long sleep time was a fluke. The next night she also refused to go to bed until midnight, but still woke up every 2-3 hours. We're not letting her take naps after about 5:00 now, so we managed to get her asleep by 10 last night. Ugh.

??? Progress ???

2009-01-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

A recap since it's been a while since I discussed Ru's sleep patterns. REcently the trend has been to take 2-3 naps each day, usually at least two of which are only 1/2 hour. Altho sometimes she sleeps for two hours. She's pretty inconsistant.
She goes to bed between 8 and 9 most nights. She fights sleep for anywhere between 5 minutes and 1.5 hours. Daddy has great fun on those 1.5 hour nights.
Then she sleeps for anywhere from 1/2 hour to 3 hours. (usually depends on how much she ate, if not much than 1/2 hour later we feed her more and then she sleeps longer.) She generally sleeps anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours at a stretch all night, and wakes up to be fed breifly, then goes back to sleep. She does know it's night time, altho occasionally she thinks a 1 am party might be fun. She's usually only up for an hour if that happens, since we keep it dark and boring in her room all night long.
By 6 am she is usually waking up every hour or so, maybe every half hour. I usually climb in the twin bed and snuggle after 7, my goal is to get to sleep in until 8.
We usually get up for the day around 8:30.

Still reading? I shall reward you with a totally unrelated but very cute pic of Ru.

So the first set of question marks is for the beginning of last night. We had choir practice last night, and Auntie Judy is out of town so I figured I would have to handle Ru mostly by myself. So when she was fussy and looking like she really needed a nap around 5:45, we decided to give it a go even tho we usually don't do naps after 6. She did go to sleep right around 6, and stayed asleep until right around 7. We did go to choir, and she was very good, she sat happily on auntie sharon's lap the whole time. (the kid has a jillion aunties at church... ;)
We got home around 8:30, and Brian went thru the standard bedtime routine while I caught up on my email and played on the computer.
Sometime after 9:30 I noticed the noises from Ru's room were getting louder instead of quieter. So I went to pump so I could relieve Brian, as he gets very frustrated when she refuses to go to sleep. By the time I was done she was yelling pretty constantly. Not crying in distress or discomfort, just yelling/crying because she's bored and refusing to go to sleep.
So I let Brian go to bed, and I turned on a lamp and got into bed with her and played my nintendo DS and chatted with her. She quieted down and watched for a while. When she got bored and started fussing I gave her a toy, and when she got bored with that I switched to another toy, etc.
Soon it was after 11:30, so I decided to change her diaper, and maybe spike her bottle with some rice cereal. We had to go get the rice cereal, and then the dog wanted out, so we finally got back into bed, lights off, at midnight. She went to sleep pretty quickly. Finally. So bedtime was not a good time last night.
Fast forward to about 4:30, when Brian came in to wake me up to pump. I was aware Ru had woken up enough to wimper and shift around a bit, but she had not cried or needed me all night! I pumped and went back to bed, she didn't wake up and need to be fed until 6:00. She didn't eat much, so I wasn't suprised when she woke up again at 6:30. I was a bit more pushy with the bottle when she started to drift off and got her to eat a bit more.
We woke up again (and for the day) at 9:30. So in 9.5 hours, she only woke up twice!!! That's a record for her!

Here's another fun, totally unrelated pic.

So the second set of question marks are for my wondering: If she did this 9.5 hour stretch consistantly, would it actually be an improvement over our 12 hours of broken sleep? Was it the late nap that made her stay up so late? Was it the staying up late that made her sleep so well? Should I wear my lucky socks more often??

Tune in next time for more nighttime adventures of the Olsen kid....

Christmas pics up

2008-12-31T23:40:00.000-08:00

There's too many to post here, you can see the album here (I think). I forgot to include this one in the album tho, so here's one to enjoy on the blog!That was my gift to Brian. :) He commented it's almost life size! :)

Grandma's Cabbage roll (Bierocks) recipe

2008-12-31T09:41:00.000-08:00

This was a tradtional christmas staple in my family growing up. grandma made these every Christmas eve, which is when that side of the family got together. Sadly, grandma passed away this year. Fortunately a few years back I got the recipe from her, so now I'll share it here. (my older brother requested it, so that's my main motivation for typing it up)

UPDATE: Before you jump right in, a few notes since we tried it.
--don't use an old box of hot roll mix. unless maybe you use fresh yeast instead of whats in the box.
--this makes WAY more cabbage mix than you need. I would prolly cut it down to just one, small cabbage. Aim for about 4-5 cups. I'll be eating coleslaw for a while now.
--roll your dough pretty thin

Grandma Brodhagen's cabbage rolls. (or Bierocks, pronounced beer-rocks)
1 box pillsbury hot roll mix
1 1/2 heads cabbage, shredded (more like one, small cabbage. 4-5 cups worth)
1/2 onion, shredded
1 lb hamburger meat

Prepare hot roll mix according to package, set aside to rise.
Brown hamburger.
Add cabbage and onion and simmer until cabbage is tender, remove from heat.
Roll out dough and cut into triangles, (around 3-4 inches per side I think)
Place a "decent amount" of cabbage mix on the middle of the triangle, then fold all sides up and press edges to seal. (one heaping tablespoon seemed fine, more would be good but hard to work with)
Bake in oven according to hot roll mix instructions.

These also freeze well, I know the last several years at least g-ma would make them up ahead of time and freeze them, then let them thaw and reheat them in the oven. The guys in the family liked them with hot sauce on them, I always just liked butter on mine.

Brian and I are thinking we might try making these on new years day, if we do I'll update the recipe as needed, I wasn't much of a cook when I wrote it down, so didn't catch the details such as the thickness of the dough when you roll it out, exact sizes on the triangles, and the amount of mixture to put in each triangle.

Christmas Eve PJs!

2008-12-24T23:19:00.000-08:00

I decided our family PJs need to at least be in the same color family on Christmas morning. That way it will be easier for me to scrapbook the photos! This year I had matching monkey pjs for me and Ru, but then hers didn't fit right, and we couldn't find any for daddy. So we just went with Red as a common theme. I've got my monkey pjs, Brian just has new sweats and a red shirt, and Ru has these adorable stripey Christmas pjs. Merry Christmas everyone!

Newsflash--first tooth!

2008-12-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

Just one more quick post before I pump and go to bed tonight. Ru was seriously fussy today, she wouldn't even go to her Auntie Judy at choir practice. (who handled it well, altho I know it was killing her not to get to hold her!) Tonight Brian and I were handing her off every 5 minutes because we were sick of the fussing. She didn't sleep well last night, either.

Just before bathtime I was hanging with her and noticed her cheeks were really red. So I managed to convince her to let me move her tongue out of the way to check her lower gum. Sure enough, there it was! Her lower right front tooth is just barely thru the surface! It's about time, she's been teething off and on for the last 4 months, it's nice to finally see some real progress!

SNOW!!!

2008-12-20T20:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you that don't live local, Ru's first snow is turning out to be a doozy! We took those pics last sunday. It has snowed again off and on all week. School was cancelled all week, and Brian only made it in to work twice. Now it's saturday night, we have 6 inches of snow, and it hasn't stopped snowing all day. (or night) The town is starting to shut down. They've cancelled church tomorrow (at our little church, maybe not the entire town). Even worse, the teriaki place closed JUST as we were gonna walk over for dinner!

Anyway, I went out and took some pics tonight. It was tough to take pics of the house/trees/anything big because the snow reflected the flash. I did get one good one of the house without the flash. Too bad we didn't get to the christmas lights this year!

Here's the cars covered in snow, and the van was cleared off when we went to choir practice, then again when we came HOME from choir practice...so that is all just from the afternoon.

The house--I took this with no flash (pesky snowflakes were reflecting way too much.) The level in the foreground is 7 inches deep. (I was using it as a ruler)

I took this one just because it's a great shot of sammy loving the snow. If you can't tell he's about 2 feet in air (he was 3 at the top of his jump) trying to catch some snow I kicked at him.This much snow sticking around this long is just about unheard of up here. Maybe we'll get a white Christmas! :) (altho I sure hope the roads are clear by then!)

Some sitting (not spitting!) up pics

2008-12-20T19:13:00.000-08:00

I'm making up for lost time this weekend! :) Here's some pics of Ru sitting up on her own.

8 months old!

2008-12-20T08:18:00.001-08:00

I've finally got a minute to post her 8 month pictures! (It takes a while because I have to go thru the jillions we took and pic the best three) We took these on the same day as the snow pics so the outfit might look familiar.

She can sit by herself now, altho if there's any distractions (like me with my camera) she'll usually topple right over. She also has started babbling a LOT during the day, she's working on her "b" sound now... blah blah blah blah... I told Brian last night it will be fun the first time she says that nice and loud during the sermon at church...

She also has FINALLY decided it would be cool if she could move herself around. Of course, she hasn't a clue how yet, but rather than immediatly flipping off of her stomach she finally has starting reaching forward....and then getting frustrated and yelling about it. ;) She also will walk around if we hold her hands so she can balance. (and occasionally shift her weight so she remembers to take the next step)

A bath in the big tub!

2008-12-19T21:38:00.000-08:00

Daddy and Ru decided to try a bath in the big tub. Ru didn't seem to care so much, she likes the shower as well. She can splash in either one. Mommy had fun taking pictures tho!

We prolly won't bath down there too much just yet, until she seems to actually have a preference. It's a long ways away from the bedrooms and there isn't a convenient place for drying her off and dressing her downstairs. Maybe in the summer when we aren't as concerned about her getting too cold. :)

Brodhagen family peffernuts recipe

2008-12-15T15:16:00.001-08:00

My brother asked me for the recipe as he lost it several years ago. Since I typed it up for him, I figured I'd share here, too. :)

3 cups sugar
3 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter, melted
2 eggs, well beaten
1/2 cup HOT water
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp clove
1 tsp baking powder
5 cups flour
2 tsp anise oil (or 4 anise extract)
1 cup finely ground pecans (other nuts will work)

Mix together both sugars and butter. Add eggs and water, mix well.

In separate bowl sift together spices, baking powder, and flour. slowly stir into sugar mixture.
Add anise and nuts, mix well. Dough will be thick.

Roll dough into 1 inch (or smaller) "snakes." slice into small cookies. Bake at 325 for 10 minutes. (original recipe said 350 "until done" but we kept burning the bottoms with raw insides so we turned the oven down. Acutally the original recipe called for way more flour, and you were supposed to refridgerate before rolling into snakes. But this works better for us!)

Ru's first snow!

2008-12-14T13:04:00.000-08:00

I think technically it snowed/hailed once after she was born, but while she was still in the NICU (it was a kinda freak thing in late april) but that doesn't count because she didn't get to see it.

She needed a nap after church, so she might be more excited after she wakes up from her nap. This is how excited she was when we took a couple pics before putting her down.
I do LOVE her little letterman's jacket. Strawberry shortcake, and the hood zips up if we wanted it. But we were only outside for a few minutes to take some pics, and her santa hat is pretty dang cute, too. (it says "I love santa" on it, we gotta start buttering the old man up early! ;)

I also love her green stripey legwarmers. I LOVE baby legwarmers. I tried tights once. We didn't even get to church before I'd decided I was done with them. If you're thinking about a christmas gift, babylegs brand makes some adorable ones, but I'm not stuck on that brand... ;) bonus, she won't outgrow them next week! (or ever, really, altho the won't work as tights forever! and they will have to switch to armwarmers someday...)

More pics later this week, today is her 8 month b-day plus I took some great bathtub ones last night when she had her first bath in the big tub. :)Happy Holidays!

More milestones

2008-12-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

Ru can sit in chairs pretty well now, as long as they have arms....and she doesn't see anything else interesting she needs to nosedive for....

She also has been more and more vocal this past week. Her first word has become quite clear, and I'm quite happy to report it is "mama!" Well, more accurately it's "ma ma ma ma." Close enough for me! She only uses it when she's sad or upset, but I'm sure we'll expand that later.

her second word will most likely be "hi" as she has the h sound figured out. I'm sad to report the d sound is not one she has played with at all, so we'll keep working on dada.

We tried on our christmas eve pajamas today, I haven't taken any pictures so no sneak previews--yet! :)

Check out Ru's Choir Robe!

2008-12-03T18:21:00.000-08:00

One of the ladies in the choir made this for Ru! We'd been joking she should have one since we process down the isle at the start of church some weeks, and she's the only one sitting in the choir loft (at the front of the church, and we sit in the front row) not wearing blue. So Bonnie "whipped one up" for Ru, isn't it adorable!?! And the color matches our robes just about perfect. I love the built in Stole. (sp?) Of course, it's just the right size...right now. Bonnie will prolly have lots more sewing to do in the future.... ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-29T19:46:00.001-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving, with blessings too numerous to count! Here's some fun pics of our little "turkey"

PS--she really liked sitting in the pan, I think because it support her sides and made it easy to sit. We may have to keep it out so she can play in it again. But prolly not on the kitchen table...

I've been squashed!

2008-11-28T18:46:00.000-08:00

We decided to try solid foods while we were at Brian's folks outside of Springfield (Oregon) they had squash on hand that they feed Zachy, so that was Ru's first food! She wasn't all that impressed tho. That was the saturday before thanksgiving (Nov. 22) and I'm writing this the friday after, and she still hasn't been very enthusiastic about it. Tomorrow we'll see if she likes rice cereal any better!

I gotta admit, it doesn't look too appetizing to me, either. I made my own baby food with a danish squash (looked like an acorn squash to me) when we got home. I actually think it's pretty tasty myself. Maybe she'll decide to like it later when she's more used to the texture.

pics from the last post

2008-11-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

not sure what happened last time, let's try again!

Fresh photos!

2008-11-16T15:15:00.000-08:00

Fresh and squeaky clean I should say! Ru is getting big enough it's challenging to give her a bath in her tub without making a huge mess on the counter. But she can't sit up on her own to take a bath in the big bathtub downstairs. So our solution was to move the tub into the shower stall and wash her with the handheld shower head. I would put the handheld in a cup while I soaped her up so it didn't spray me. Brian was smarter and just turned the water pressure way down. Then Ru can play with it, which she thinks is great fun!

Yummy! Water is good for us!

Cups are fun...can I reach that?

Yummy! Washcloths are tasty, too!

Happy Friday!

2008-11-14T12:46:00.000-08:00

I still haven't taken any new pictures. I know, I'm a slacker, but I will get some tomorrow since she's 7 months old now! (It's possible I'll find time today...I make no promises!)

So to tide you over, here's a fun story and some totally non-related pics.

Today Ru was playing in her activity center and I was checking my email. She started yelling like she was mad at me, so I turned around to give her some attention. But she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at Sammy. With her teething ring in HIS mouth. And she was yelling at HIM! ;) Which is good, since I hadn't heard him steal it from her, he might have got away with it otherwise.

It's good to know she realizes that while he is her best bud and he's funny and can already walk and jump and all that, he still has to keep his jaws off her toys! :)

I dunno what's up with the stupid easter inflatable in the background. You pretty much couldn't avoid getting the inflatables in the pictures (I cropped them out of the cornstalk one) because they had so many of them set up.

Uncle John

2008-11-07T19:44:00.000-08:00

Continuing with posting some old pics til I get around to taking some new...

My not-so-little-anymore brother and his girlfriend came to visit a few weeks ago. (only saying the not so little part because when I referred to him as my "little brother" than revealed his age to my youth group kids, they all were annoyed that I would call anyone older than a teenager "little") I went upstairs to grab something and left Ru on the floor with them in the living room. When I came back down Misty was in the process of settling Ru on John's lap. After an awkward moment of trying to hold her reclined (because she hates that right now and fights to sit up) we got them comfy with her on his knee. I love the contrast of John-boy's usual black/dark clothing and Ru's colorful stripes! :)

My apologies for that one, not the best pic. At least I fixed the red eye.

I guess with having a truly little girl now, I should prolly stop calling him my little brother. Some habits are hard to break! ;)

Happy Fall, Y'all!

2008-11-06T11:54:00.000-08:00

Pardon the title, sometimes my Oklahoma roots slip a bit. (especially when it rhymes... ;)

I haven't posted in a bit, but I haven't really taken any pics in the last couple of days. So here's some from a couple weeks ago, when we went on a walk with our friends Andrew and Sarah (also new parents) and Mitch, who was the best man at our wedding and now is career military so we don't get to see him much.

Ru got fussy in the stroller, so we ended up putting her in the snuggli (always on hand for such emergencies) and Brian carried her most of the way. In this pic Andrew is pushing his little girl in her stroller, I love the pic of the daddys (and Mitch) with the fall leaves above them...It's worth clicking thru and seeing it blown up bigger.

One disadvantage of the snuggli is it hikes Ru's pants up quite a bit, and you also can't really cover her with a blanket or anything. It was a bit nippy out and we left our hats in the diaper bag in the car (doh!) so we had to borrow a sun hat for her. We also didn't have any legwarmers with us (I LOVE legwarmers for Ru, but that's in an older post somewhere) but I did have an extra pair of my socks. So we used those instead. Here's a couple pics of her in one of her not-so-fine fashion moments.

Hehe, she's still pretty cute tho!

Bigger pictures

2008-11-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

BTW, if you didn't already discover this trick, you can click on any of the photos on the blog and see it much larger. (also more useful if you want to make one a desktop background or save it to your own computer for something)

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

She picked her own costume, I held up several different choices and she went for this orange polka dot witch's dress every time.

Ru didn't really care for having the hat actually ON her head, but that doesn't mean she didn't like the hat...

Olsen Look-alike Meter

2008-11-01T19:26:00.001-07:00

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Draw family tree - Family photos

Like Father Like Daughter

2008-10-31T13:09:00.000-07:00

I bought this cool toy that's kind of an interactive story teller thing. We finally got to Coscto last night so I bought some batteries, and this morning fired it up while Ru was in her activity center. I balanced it on my legs and the edge of the activity center so she could look at it, then started looking thru the manual to see how to get the touchscreen feature to work. In the meantime th toy is talking, scrolling thru pictures, blinking lights, and all sorts of cool things designed to attract a baby's attention. Ru was facinated at first...but then she saw something she wanted to look at even more!

Yeah, that's right, she's reading the instruction manual. As if it isn't weird enough that her daddy actually does that...

Ok, maybe not she's not quite reading, more selecting the best page to chew on, (note the book is upside down) but still, I fear I may have another engineer in the house already...

I had to take it away from her before she did any damage tho, as it appears the touch screen doesn't work so I'll have to take it back and swap for another one.

PS...I'm so glad I had the camera handy, as how cute is this pic?!?

Fun little flash games.

2008-10-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

I ran across a fun little website with cute flash games, all family friendly and simple to learn. (altho most are pretty challenging to play once you get going on them!) The site is called Orisinal and has a bunch of them, I like the winter bunny and the piggies one...

Go play here!

Big Blue Eyes!

2008-10-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

I just love her big blue eyes!

The green onesie was our emergency back up (did you know Dollar Tree has onesies? they are actually very soft and stretchy, and for a buck they make excellent diaper bag back-ups) and actually ended up looking totally cute with the pink overalls. (I'm sure you can guess what happened to the white one she was wearing before...she's been saving up all day...)

Our bestest girlfriend!

2008-10-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

We have some dear friends who had the courtesy of getting pregnant shortly after us to provide a playmate for Ru. (actually, they weren't the only ones, but so far everyone else has had boys so my title works) We spent some time with them this weekend, and were pleased to see the girls interacting a bit. Since I haven't ever asked the parents how they feel about their kid's pic on the internet, I'll simply identify her as "E" for now.

Anyway, Ru and E have met before, but in the past they were both too young to really care much about another baby in the room. They did look at each other last time, but this is the first time they were reaching for each other, and the holding hands is too cute! Of course, we hope to have lots of fun play dates in the future, too!

Oh yeah, and E is about 3 months younger than Ru, altho she is also pretty big for her age, too.

Keep praying, it's working!

2008-10-25T04:30:00.000-07:00

I'm tenatively reporting good news on the sleep front. Ru has taken at least one 1.5+ hour nap every day this week. She also has been sleeping a LITTLE better at nights, with a few more two hour stretches, and a few more times when all we have to do is shush her back to sleep rather than use the bottle. We're still a LONG ways off from sleeping thru the night, but I'll take whatever improvements I can get!

Obligitory Ru pic:

Happy Wednesday!

2008-10-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

A Resolution

2008-10-15T17:49:00.000-07:00

Not for new years obviously, but an important one in my head that doesn't need to wait for January.

One of my big pet peeves is when people complain about something, but are not willing to do anything to change it. (particularly when someone has a problem with another person, but goes around complaining behind their back rather than go talk to them directly) I suppose it's a good time to toss in that I don't think it's fair to complain about the government if you don't vote, on the same principle. I try and pass that value on to my middle school students as well, especially when they complain about whoever is sitting next to them. I offer them the option to move, when they insist the other (annying) person should have to move I point out they are the one with the problem, so they should take control and fix it.

Anyhoo, I realized at my bunco group this month that I am doing the same thing! To a point anyway. My one "complaint" about mommyhood is the lack of sleep. Of course I knew this would happen to a point, but I also did not expect to have a 6 month old daughter that only sleeps for an hour at a time all night. We've tried all sorts of things, but I think it just comes down to her being hungry. She is still growing so fast, it's like a constant growth spurt. She drinks up to 18 ounces a night. Add to that both Daddy and I are light sleepers (and therefore she prolly is too) and we have finally given up.

She sleeps in the twin bed in the room with one of us, and NOT in her crib. That way we don't have to get up to feed her when she wakes. We keep the room dark, quiet, and feed her as much as she'll drink when she wakes. (all sorts of stuff I said I would never do...particulalry during nap times!) We are NOT willing to start solid foods yet because of the family history(s) of food allergies. We also are NOT willing to make her "cry it out." She does know how to go to sleep on her own (she did it today) without the bottle if she's not hungry.

So, if I'm not willing to make her cry it out, and I'm not willing to feed her solid foods, then I guess I'm not all that dedicated to make a change, huh? I'm open to other (reasonable) suggestions, just not those two. So...I guess I'd better stop complaining about her sleep schedule. I have a great hubby that takes a good portion of the night duty so I can sleep some, so we're still functioning and not too cranky most of the time. So I will be happy with my (usually) sweet little light sleeper and only mention her sleep schedule when someone asks. (and follow up with a kudos to daddy for helping so much!)

Oh, yeah, and here's another picture just 'cause I know you all like them. Of course, you don't get one of her sleeping because...duh....like I'm gonna chance the flash waking her up!

Two more pics...

2008-10-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

Apparently i can only post four at a time.

Ru is by no means ready to walk, ore even stand by herself. But she's been standing and sitting with help for balancing for a couple months now. Once she gets the balance part down she'll be good to to, as she certainly can support herself just fine.

On her little red chair... I should do a post with all her little red chair pics...

Ru is also teething hard, she gets REALLY fussy about 8 pm and is only consoled with a frozen teether. We only have one, so I'm off to the store tomorrow to get a couple more. (that would be why her hands are shoved in her face in the pic)