Just a reminder...

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

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Of course, this means there are now FOUR cheery Os in our family, so the title of this blog, Three Cheery Os, is now out of date.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!

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!

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

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"

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

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)

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!

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

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!

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

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?

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!

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!

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!

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!!