Actual Conversation

Brad: It feels warmer today
Me: Yeah, it does. I bet it's like...23 degrees.
Brad: I guess 20.
It was actually 13 degrees, a whopping 3 degrees warmer than yesterday! They weren't joking when they said it gets cold here. (Last night it was -4 degrees.) I don't like the cold.

Thanksgiving

We had a really nice Thanksgiving this year. My entire family got to come to Twin and it was so nice! Here are some pictures of our outings.

Ruth's B-day!

She's one year old! We had a great time yesterday opening presents and playing with the wrapping paper. Some things about Ruth at 1:
*She has been walking for a couple weeks. She ventures out on her own without any prompting. It's so fun to watch her do her open-mouthed zombie walk from the coffee table to the desk...or wherever she's headed.
*She has become a pickier eater. She no longer eats apples or bread! She loves raisins, fruit leather, spaghetti, mandarin oranges, cottage cheese, bananas and yogurt.
*She loves to bang things. Whenever she can snag silverware she bangs it on every surface possible.
*Ruth loves books. We sit and read books for hours every day. I lay them out on the floor and have her pick the ones she wants. She brings the book back to me, climbs on my lap and if she really likes the book she requests it to be read several times in a row. Current book favorites include "Mr. Brown," "Moo, Baa, LaLaLa," and "The Foot Book."
*She's started to play the give and take game where she shows me something and gives it to me, then takes it back. I always say "thank you" after she gives me something, and she's started to mimic those words.
*I've stopped counting how many teeth she has because she is constantly getting new ones. Last I counted it was 9, but I know she got two more molars and a couple of her canines are coming in now!
*She has become much more social than she used to be. At the store she loves to wave to people (especially cashiers). I always feel sad when she's waving someone down and they're too busy to notice her as they walk by! She also loves to use her little hand to point at things: well she doesn't really point, she uses her entire hand to locate objects. Her favorite thing to "point" at is the clock.
*She's great at drinking out of her sippy now. It usually contains water, so when I'm sneaky and fill it with juice or whole milk she gulps it down really fast!
*She's started groovin' to music now which has made us laugh so hard. She has always seemed to like music, especially at church. We spend time every day singing songs, and if she's upset "Give, said the Little Stream" is sure to calm her down.
We're just in love with her and are so glad we've had her for a whole year. She's got such a personality now that is so fun to watch grow. We love your Ruth!

New Baby

So I thought I was being optimistic by thinking I was 8 weeks pregnant. Today we went back to the doctor so they could do an ultrasound to give us our due date; turns out I'm 12 weeks along! My due date is May 26, 2010. This means Ruth and the newbie will be 18 months apart. We are so excited to be expanding our family and inviting another little one to come play with us. Ruth has been such a joy, we just love being her parents. We think she'll make a great big sister.

The main thing that has been effected by this pregnancy so far: I dread changing Ruth's poopy diapers because of my heightened sense of smell and nausea!

Cute Story Baby

(She started doing this yesterday, not sure why!)

Before I get into the cute story: I won't know when I'm due till we go back to the doctor this Tuesday and get an ultrasound to see how far along I am...we're guessing June. This is because I had a miscarriage before this pregnancy so there aren't any base dates to start from.

Last night I made berry cobbler, I had a major craving for it. Ruth had already gone to bed so she didn't have any. But cobbler is the best breakfast EVER, so this morning Ruth and I both had big bowls of it, sans the ice-cream! While I was dressing her I kept telling her it was the best breakfast she'd ever had, and she believed it. After a few bites I said, "Ruth, is that yummy?" She looked at me and said, "Yea!" Then I said, "Do you like it?" And she said, "I do." Then after a few more bites I asked her, "Are you full?" She responded, "MORE!"

Of course, these are all normal sounds that she makes these days, so I'm pretty sure it was complete coincidence that she happened to make the right noise to my question, but it was still adorable.

This is a picture of Ruth during our ward's trunk-or-treat, she happily played in the trunk while I handed out candy.

Ruth!

Winter

Winter is upon us...IT'S FREEZING HERE! The high has been 38 degrees, but then the wind has also been between 20 and 45 mph so it feels like it's in the low 20's. It's ridiculous! I made Ruth some booties to help keep her warm because she won't keep socks on for the life of me. I found the idea of how to make them HERE, but then turned them inside out so that the seams were on the inside. I also added elastic and folded the top over so that hopefully she'll keep them on her feet. It was super easy and only took about an hour to cut and sew. I used two layers of pink and white striped flannel for each side of the bootie so that they'll be extra warm, and then two layers of pink flannel for the sole. They don't look super cute in the picture but are cute on her tootsies.

Cute Story Baby

This morning when I went in to get Ruth up, she was standing up in her crib as usual. I reached my arms towards her to pick her up and she started to lift her arms to reach me...then suddenly she looked down into the crib and dove back down. At first I thought this was very strange, she's usually so excited to get up and eat and play. But as she re-emerged I understood, she had to go back for her Homba! She couldn't just leave the little guy in the crib, by himself! Once she'd snagged her buddy she happily jumped back up and was ready for the day. This girl is so cute, the things she does just cracks me up! Above is a picture with her buddy the baby fox, also known as her Homba.

I also just have to include some other pictures of her.

Her new winter hat:

And her Halloween costume:

Our apartment complex had a little Halloween party tonight, so Ruth and I went down to get some treats. She was a hit with everyone. I love this picture because it looks like she's doing a plie (sp?). If you can't tell she's a fairy. I made this costume for her several weeks ago, it's a onesie, a pair of tights, a bolero jacket made from one of her old receiving blankets and a bunch of sparkly fabric for the skirt and wings. And you can't really see her hair in this picture but it's in a cute little bun on the top of her head!

Halloween part II

2nd Annual Dirty Viggo Fest

Jack-O-Lanterns and Lord of the Rings. Our favorite Halloween activity. Well...there's always the candy part too...

Teaching Ruth to Share

A Week in Review

(She's eating an apple)

Flu shots (Ruth was a total champ), dental appointments, Brad met with his boss again, Relief Society Super Saturday (which was tons of fun), Ruth is growing two molars, I finished my quilt, and taught a cooking class last night.

These two are crafts we did in the afternoon at Super Saturday:



I know the quilt looks crooked, that's only because I was falling off the couch trying to get a picture of the whole thing!


This is the edge of the quilt:


This is the back side of the quilt. Since the front squares are all birdhouses I thought it would be cute to back it with bird fabric.

Quilting and conference

So, yesterday was conference (Elder Hollands talk/testimony was amazing) and I quilted the entire time; I started around 9 am and finished just after 10 pm all the while listening to conference. It was great. Brad set me up a little station in the living room so I didn't have to be banished in the back room. So now I'm completely done with my quilt squares. It's really weird that I'm all done with it! I still have to bind it all together and pick out backing fabric, but the hard work is done! I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially this last square with the pine tree.

And this is a cute picture of Ruth and Kase this last Friday at the playgroup!In other news concerning yesterday...it snowed! I woke up, casually looked out the window and couldn't believe my eyes...it was snowing! It ended up snowing pretty much all day. This video is Ruth's reaction...

Recently...

I am on a quilting rampage. I finished another square a couple nights ago, and today during conference I cut out all the pieces for my last 3 squares! Woohoo!


This is the other thing I worked on this last week. I got the idea from some crafting blogs I was reading. It's called a "Busy Book" or a "Quiet Book." Lots of these other bloggers use them for Sacrament meeting and other times they want their kids quiet, but realize asking them to sit silently, still, with nothing to do is futile. Here are two of the blogs I got ideas from: craftingchicks as well as Quietbooks. I didn't do an amazingly professional job on these, but it was really easy, really fun, CHEAP ($7.50 total) and only took me one afternoon!

The above is the front and back cover of the book. Everything, unless otherwise noted, is made of felt. The left side is a mail box with paper in it to write notes and the right side is a tennis shoe for kids to practice tying their shoes! I simply cut out the shapes I wanted and then stitched them onto the felt. The letters I hot-glued on.

For some reason this picture came out sideways. But the top page is an ice cream cone that I sewed with different stitches on my machine using brown thread. Then I cut out the felt scoops. The bottom page is Noah's ark. I only sewed the boat along the bottom edge so the stick animals can fit into the boat. The water is made of shiny blue thread.


These animals are my favorite part of the whole thing. I just used googly eyes and small popsicle sticks and cut out fun animal shapes for the ark.

The left page is a little pocket that holds the alphabet for practicing letters. The right page is a felt tree. I sewed the trunk on with brown thread and made the black garbage bag to collect all the leaves in. I was surprised because I didn't know if Ruth would like it or not, but she loves pulling on the pages. She especially likes to shake the animals and listen to their eyeballs shake around.

Playgroup

So I've starting going to the playgroup that my ward has. It's been really nice to have something to look forward to, to have other women to chat with, and Ruth loves to crawl around and watch the bigger kids. This last Friday my friend Mandy Williams snapped these amazing shots of Ruth; she's so talented! I love how simple and beautiful these pictures are.