18 Months

How can it be that our little chiclet is now 18 months old and officially a toddler? Well, she is as of July 31. She had her well-baby check up a little early and here are the stats: Height: 30 inches - 5th Percentile Weight: 20.1 lbs - 10th percentile Head Circ: ???? I think the height is a little off since I can't see how it's possible she hasn't actually gotten taller when her pants are all too short. But look at that -- she's hit the 20 lb mark FINALLY! Whoo hoo! She wanted nothing to do with that head measuring nonsense (kept telling the nurse "Ooow!" as though she were sticking her with pins) nor would she allow the nice doctor to look in her ears. Other than that, she was pretty sweet and no shots were needed so that was nice. Now we don't go back until she's 2. Crazy!! Way to grow up Little Button!

Baby Goes Hollywood

Ruby and I and Auntie Christine took off last weekend for a trip to Los Angeles to visit our dear friends, Susana and Antonio. S and A are from Spain and living in LA this summer. They've got two dear little ones, a 5 year old girl and a 16 month old boy -- both aDORable! It was a delightful and relaxing little trip for us and we had lots of fun!

.

We arrived on Thursday evening around 11 pm. Ruby did GREAT on the plane with the exception of about the last hour. She had a supreme melt down due to being completely over tired and up waaaay past her bedtime. We were sitting directly behind the curtain dividing us from the fancy pants in First Class so they got to experience her cries right up close. All I could do was laugh because nothing seemed to be working. Luckily, this darling flight attendent (Holla Daniel!) who had bright white teeth and curly black hair, was very good with children all he had to do was look at Ruby and she stopped crying. He even made her a little shaker with two cups, some tape and some stir sticks. Of course, as soon as he walked away, Ruby was off again. I took her for a walk down the aisle to the other end of the cabin and with the change of scenery she calmed down enough to completely pass out for the rest of the flight.

.

On our first day, we went to the beach in Santa Monica and walked around, had a coffee and rode the Carousel. Ruby did not enjoy the ride so much and kept trying to jump off the horse. However, she did give the horse lots of kisses when we got off and she loved watching the merry-go-round from afar. After our siesta we went to the Santa Monica Promenade and walked around, seeing the sights and people watching. Ruby looved the music and all of the bright lights.

.

The next day we put on our tourist caps and went over to Hollywood to check out the stars and the theater. It was really cool to see the stuff that you always see on tv! I now feel fulfilled as a human being - ha ha ha! We then all piled into the cars and headed over to Orange County to visit Auntie Christine's sister, Sindy and her husband Tom and their adorable german shorthair pointer puppy, Maynard. Ruby luuuuurved Maynard even though she didn't not enjoy the licking part so much. Also, she was a little bummed out when he body checked her in the backyard...but she recovered with no trouble. In fact, following that incident, the next time Maynard came barrelling towards her, she crouched down, preparing to brace herself. No fear!

.

We left on Sunday after a scrumptious breakfast and Ruby had a nap on the plane and we were home again. It was super fun travelling with Auntie Christine and we thank our hosts, Susana & Antonio and Sindy and Tom for making our trip so wonderful!

And now the pictures!

At the beach

Ruby and Mario

Ruby tries to blow bubbles with Malena (but really she was eating the soap)

Ruby giving Maynard some lovin'

Ruby & Daddy

Fun with Watts

Our dear friends Laura and Shawn were here with their boy Watts. Unfortunately, little Watts wasn't feeling all that well during his visit here. However, he did manage to rally and have some fun with Ruby and Hank.

Hank and Ruby

Laura with Ruby and Watts - Double the fun! Shawn giving the kiddos a push

Watts enjoys some snacks

Ruby has snack all over her face. Sticky.

Caca

No, not the same as Ca-CAW that I posted about earlier. This has nothing to do with birds and everything to do with poop. Ruby has learned this word and uses it for a variety of things. It has a slightly different inflection when she is using it in reference to birds so it can be confusing. Last week, after getting our girlies off on their airplane, Ruby began saying "caca" over and over. When I got back to the car and got her out of the Ergo, lo and behold, she had a FULL diaper. Wow - she can now tell when she's got a dirty diaper AND she tells me. Cool! Potty training may be closer than I thought. The downside is that I have to figure out when she's saying caca in reference to her diaper, about birds or about something that's yucky. Through complete fault of my own, I have confused issues by saying something is "caca" to let her know she shouldn't touch it....like the trash and diaper pail. She also knows that the toilet is where the caca goes so she says that when she sees a toilet too. A couple of days ago I had thrown away about 5 pieces of stale Pirate Booty (aka baby crack) into the newly emptied (thank goodness) kitchen trash. I heard a delighted crow of "Caca!" and turned around just in time to see her shove the aforementioned pirate booty in her mouth. Sigh... clearly the word does not serve as a deterrent. Time to use a different word and clear this up. And in a related story, I am told that yesterday she doing the caca routine to her dad and he said, "Do you have some poop?" and lifted her up to do the sniff test (come on, we all do it) and just as he got her up to his face she exclaimed, "Oh yeah!" Looks like she's got our sense of humor too. Good grief. What are we in for? This could get interesting!

House Full of Girls

We have had a house full of girls for the past week and it's been fun! Estelle and Sienna (our nieces) came home with us from Idaho to stay for about 10 days. It was definitely too short of a stay especially since I had to work for several of the days. However, we managed to pack in a LOT of good times in that period, the girls got to hang with Magy and her sweet kids and we had more than a few good laughs and minimal craziness. Ruby had such a good time with her doting cousins and I think she really misses having them around, as do Dustin and I! Here are some photos of our Week of Girls!

Ladies Night at the baseball game

Sharing an ice cream cone at delicious Molly Moon Ice Cream

I read somewhere on the 'internets" about making fingerpaints with vanilla pudding. Good thing I used something edible because the first thing Ruby did was taste it. Unfortunately, it tasted too good and all she did was eat it and did very little actual painting...other than her face and belly that is. Still, it was a fun activity!

We went to family game night at our local library. This is Ruby coloring on the wall for the few seconds she didn't just walk around with the crayon in her mouth.

We got pedicures! Well, I got a manicure and the girls got pedicures. They had gone in earlier in the week with Auntie Danielle who got them manicures so we went back for the pedicures. Ruby even got star treatment with a pedicure (hot pink polish!) of her own. Ooh La la! Fancy Nancy's got nothing on us!

Oh yeah, and we got some cupcakes too. Decadent!

Estelle got to hang with her pal from the 2nd grade, Kaitlyn and Sienna went to visit her preschool teacher Shelly. Unfortunately, we weren't able to connect with her friend Ryan but next year we will! We also had a lot of down time, just hanging in the yard, reading, crafting and playing cards. The girls were both amazing and helpful and just plain enjoyable to be around.

Now, we've got Laura, Shawn and Sir Watts in town so we'll have some more updates soon!

Trip Part III

So, we were in Idaho for my sister's wedding but since I was actually in the wedding I don't have any pictures of it. I mostly just tried to get pictures of the nena with as many people as possible. It was a little difficult since Ruby just wanted to be held by me if I was in her line of sight at all. This is why she looks sad and/or crabby in many photos. Poor monkey. She's away from her mom for a week and then her mom makes her hang out with a bunch of people she doesn't know. Well, Ruby, my dear! You need to know and love these people as they know and love you!! She spent lots of time with Auntie Marie at the wedding reception....after she gave Ruby angel food cake they were totally bff. Anyway, the wedding was very lovely and nice and even though it was wretchedly hot, we all managed to enjoy ourselves. It was so great getting to see so many people who I haven't seen in a while and it was also nice to see people when it wasn't a funeral! I spent a lot of time visiting with my pal Courtenay and her two sweet little kids. Courtenay tells me she reads my blog a lot- Hi Courtenay! So here are a few more pics:

Here she is with Grandma Rita

As an added bonus, I got to spend part of the day with my friend, Nicole and her two kids.

Here's Ruby with Auntie Nicole

LOVE this picture of Ruby in the playhouse at Nicole's

And here are a couple of pictures way out of order but cute just the same:

Ruby and Auntie AmyRuby playing with my old tricycle (no, we NEVER EVER throw anything away!)

Trip Part II

One of the sadder parts of the trip was that I discovered that the drive-in theater in my home town has burned up. So sad! I am SO glad that we went to a movie there last summer!

Anyway, here are some more pictures and stories from the trip.

Here are Amy and Ruby and Jack reading together.

Ruby and Uncle Christopher:

Ruby and Aunt Sunny Sage

Ruby and Grandma Genie reading together

Oh and more to come, more to come! There are so many pictures that I didn't get that I wish I had. Sigh..isn't that always the way!

Trip Part I

Ok, sorry so long since the last post but it's been a whirlwind so there's lots to tell! Ruby had a WONDERFUL time with Grandma and Papa back East. She had her first trip to Fenway, ate lots of strawberry ice cream and learned a couple new words. Word on the street is that the folks back there thought she was pretty darn fun too. Dustin and Ruby left Boston at 6am Eastern time and arrived in Seattle at 3:30 Pacific Time. I arrived at the airport and Dustin handed me the diaper bag, Ruby's suitcase and of course, Ruby. Ruby gave me a huge smile and just wanted to snuggle me for like 15 minutes. So sweet! After we said hi to each other, visited for a bit and checked me and Ruby in, we said good-bye to Dustin and Ruby and I headed off to Idaho. Whew! Needless to say, the girl was a tad knackered. Even so she was in pretty good spirits. She would say "HI!" and wave everytime one of those airport cars drove by. I found out that she says, "Wa wa" when she wants water. She slept for the first leg and was awake for the 2nd. She only had about 15 minutes where she was just done and over it. Amy picked us up at the airport and we got to her parents house at around midnight. Instead of just going to bed, we had to stay up and visit for a bit. After being on airplanes all day, girl was ready to play! But we finally got her to bed and that's when I discovered that she had a new word: "Night night!" That was just the cutest thing ever! The next day, Amy and I took the kiddos to a Terrific Twos storytime at the library...the same library that Amy and I raided week after week when we were kids. It was fun getting to experience storytime from the other side :-) Here they are enjoying themselves:

It was super hot over there in SE Idaho so later that afternoon we headed over to the mall (gasp!) where they have a little playground in air conditioning. Delightful! Here are the kiddos in their matching carseats. How cute is that? Amy and I spent the whole day together, catching up and watching Ruby and Jack play. Ruby was pretty tired still from her journey the day before so she was more clingy than normal. She was also very intent on what she was doing. At one point, Jack tried to give her a hug and she gave him the backhanded shove. Busy busy girl, too busy for hugs. Don't worry Jack, she does the same thing to me! It was so fun watching them play! Then, I headed over to my parents' house and caught up with everyone there. When Estelle and Sienna got there, it was like the scene in Gone With the Wind where Scarlett is surrounded by suitors....only in this case it was Ruby surrounded by adoring cousins. Even Uncle Cooper got in on the action! Ruby and I slept in the back bedroom and Ruby insisted on playing the chimes in the hallway every time. We also went out for Indian food one evening and she grubbed it up! Who knew the girl would like curry?

More to come! Stay tuned......

I Picked This One For You!

Sshhh!

Like a good librarian spawn, Ruby has learned to shush..

Though she didn't get the hang of it right away as you can see. I may have to start doing it this way at work. Might be more effective that way....

Ca-CAW!

Whenever Ruby sees birds she says "CaCAW!"