One Smart Cookie!

Cool little web app

Look what I did using my post with Ru's 3 month stats and a cool little java app called Wordle.

Fun, huh? Kinda small and hard to read on here, but go play with it and see what yours looks like full screen or printed. :)

Update, I looked closer and I can post a link to mine nice and big--just click on the little image and it will take you there.

A day at the beach (or the camping trip that wasn't)

Our church has a camp out once a year, traditionally at South Beach in Newport, but this time we tried out Nehalem Bay (just north of Tillamook). We were fully intending to take Ru on her first camping trip, leaving friday night and getting home Sunday.

However, Brian got a call Thursday at work from Julie at church--could he run the sound that night for our VBS program? So we didn't get the van packed up and ready to go until after he got home from work Friday. It was after dark and we weren't familiar with the area, so we decided to wait until morning to leave.

We didn't leave until around 8:30, and we travelled down some seriously windy little roads good ol' google maps sent us down. (for future reference, take 26 to 101 and then head south. Hwy 53 is just a paved goat track...) We got there around 11 and Brian set up the tent and made us lunch while I fed Ruthie.

We were in charge of the sand sculpting contest (thank goodness I can say with a little help from our friends, the Hyltons ended up doing most of the work!) So we wandered around and said hi to folks, then headed to the beach for the start at 2. It was REALLY REALLY windy. You can't really take pictures of wind, but this sculpture was completed less than an hour before this pic was taken.


I guess you can kinda see Susan's white head wrap flapping in the breeze, too. With her italian skin tone and the way she covered herself to protect from the blowing sand, she could have passed for a Muslim woman in the middle eastern desert. ;)

Ru and I bundled up, too! It wasn't particularly warm even back at camp where there wasn't any wind, so we knew to make sure we kept her warm. She is wearing a double layered flannel sleeper, and a sweatshirt type hoodie with a sun hat to protect her face. I'm wearing a tank top. Then I put on my wrap and put her in it, adding three layers of t-shirt type fabric to her, and about one to me. I put my warm jacket on over that so I could zip it over her if needed, and my beat up old dragon hat that Brian bought for me back when we were dating to keep my ears warm. Here we are:

Brian had a t-shirt and jacket, too. But his ears weren't covered, and he didn't have a snuggly baby strapped to his chest. He got pretty cold out there. Ru and I only stayed out for an hour (long enough for me to sunburn my face ;) but Brian stayed the whole time.

Because of the wind Brian photographed all the sculptures at their best time, so the folks that finished early could still have a sculpture left to judge at 4:30. Then he went and put them on someone's laptop, and we all voted back in the camp. By the time he got that done it was time for me to pump, then time for the potluck. Brian was cold after the potluck, so I went back and got some more layers for him (and gave him the baby) and then we sat thru the church service. Brian headed back with Ru and I cleaned up our potluck stuff and got our chairs.

When I got back to camp Brian was in the van with Ru with the van on and the heater blowing. I climbed in the drivers side and joked that we shouldn't leave without our tent and the dogs. Brian said he was seriously considering going home, because he was still cold and worried about Ru getting cold in the night. I was happy either way. So we decided to head home. I got out and started packing up. Our friend Rose came over and took Sammy for another walk (she pretty much had him all day, she loved sammy!) and Mark came over from across the way and helped me pack everything up. He also took down the tent and packed that up for us, too. I love that man, he's good people.

So we rolled out of there around 9:30. We took the main hwys home rather than the goat track, and I was tired enough I stopped at the Sonic in hillsboro to refuel myself. We got home around 12:45 and collapsed into bed. Ru had been asleep almost all day, but fortunately slept too as I dunno how Brian or I would have managed to stay up with her.

So our first camping trip turned into a nice day at the beach. Too bad we spent all that time planning and packing for an overnight!

If you loved me...you would do this

There is an awesome giveaway that I stumbled across that I would SOOO love to win! It's for 12 bumgenius cloth diapers. I have one and love it! But they are 20 bucks each so I haven't bought any more. They are one size fits all (and they really work, they fit Ru fine now and I can unsnap them when she gets bigger) so this would be a great gift for us all the way up to toilet training time.

It's at Babycheapskate's blog I get extra entries for blogging about it here, which is great. But I could also get extra entries if YOU went and signed up to win! Because then if you won and don't have a baby, you would give all the diapers to me!

Ru's 3 month stats

From About.com (link to the calculator below...)

At 3 months:

your child is 13 pounds, and that is
at the 52th percentile for weight.

your child is 24 inches, and that is
at the 58th percentile for height.

your child has a head circumference of 16 inches, and that is
at the 55th percentile for head circumference.

Try our Children's Growth Chart Percentiles Calculator again.

Love those Babylegs!

It was a little cool yesterday morning when I got Ru dressed, but I knew it was going to be warm in the afternoon so I wanted to put something cooler on her. So I picked a onesie type outfit (one of my faves!) and then put some plain white socks on her. But her little legs were still exposed to the cool air. So I decided to try out her "babylegs" socks. I bought them before she was even born, because they were cute. :) They are basically a long sock, except they don't actually have the part that covers the feet. They are just tubes. That way baby can be barefoot if she is learning to walk and needs the traction, you can take them on or off without taking off a bigger kid's shoes, and the size is all one size fits all.
When I got them, I figured that one size fits all wasn't meant to include little babies. And certainly they didn't fit my preemie. But my preemie is a big chunk now so I put them on her. There is PLENTY of room for growth. But the tops did stay up on her little thighs! The bottoms stayed on as long as her socks were on. And they happened to match her outfit perfectly. :)
The best part was when we took a nap around noon. She woke up an hour later and let me know she was much too hot. (boy, did she let me know!) I was able to quick yank off the socks and the babylegs and pop a bottle in her mouth and she was happy almost immediatly. I'm loving the babylegs! Today it's overcast (who knows what the afternoon will bring) so I've got them on her again. We don't have a lot of sleepers in her current size (3-6 months, and they don't have much extra room!) so these may get us thru without me having to buy anymore. (Altho I'm finding I rather enjoy shopping for her. I've never liked shopping for me. But she's way cuter.... ;)
She also had a massive poopy diaper, pretty much every surface of her body that was inside the diaper was covered in the runny stuff. Fortunately none escaped. But it was really nice to be able to clean up the mess with her legs still nice and warm (try that in a sleeper outfit) and the babylegs stayed clean. I'm sold! They've got lots more colors and patterns, but I'll try and keep myself out of trouble with just the two pair that I have now. (these ones are called "jellybean" and I also have some red and pink striped ones called "cinnamon") The nice thing is she can wear them, well, all the way into her teens if she wants to switch and put them on her arms when her legs get too big. Hooray for clothes my kid won't outgrow!

a couple more three month pics