Ruby: Pains and Pooping

Ruby's done a doozy on her poor bottom lip a couple of times this week. 3 days ago she was climbing in our bathtub while I was in the shower and biffed it and bit the inside of her bottom lip pretty badly. Then last night when she was supposed to be sleeping she was climbing on her bed to the dresser and fell and this time got the top of her bottom lip pretty bad. Basically her mouth looks pretty gnarly these days. She has had so many times already in her short little life when she's been bleeding pretty badly from some spot on her head...I can't wait for the years to come. Not.

She has also been waking us up for the past few mornings with a nakey bottom having made her morning poop in her little potty with no help! Throughout the day she's not so interested in going on her potty, but it looks like potty training will be happening at our house soon. I just have to work myself up to it....

Circumcision Day

November 28

Most of the pediatricians here in Frisco don't do circumcisions, so you have to go to a urologist to have it done. The midwives suggested having it done holistically by Rabbi Mike, so that's what we did. He was about a month old when it was done. Here's Benji and Rabbi Mike post circumcision. It was really neat because Rob and I were able to watch the whole thing and participate in it. While he doesn't look too happy in this shot, but it wasn't that traumatic at all. I really liked that it was very quick and I got to nurse him right away. It seemed like a nicer way to have a not-so-pleasant procedure done.

Today's outfit is brought to you by the color ORANGE

Grace loves choosing her own outfits and today was orange day. She does a pretty good job of matching, even if her outfits are usually pretty monochromatic. She is even mindful of matching her accessories, if you notice the orange headband.

Grace is such a joy to have at home. She is so sweet with her siblings. She is always trying to help them and I'm often having to remind her to be their sister and not their mom. :) It's so nice to have a fairly reliable helper, since things sometimes get a little nutty with three littles around here. She is so good at singing to or otherwise entertaining Benji if I am needed somewhere else. She loves to snuggle him and to read to Ruby.

She is so smart. I've started teaching her how to read and we're doing a home school program based on picture books and activities that go with them called Five In A Row (since you read the same story 5 days in a row Monday through Friday). She never ceases to amaze me with the concepts that she is able to grasp and when she remembers things that I didn't even think she listened to!

She is also our little family Jiminy Cricket. She always reminds us what we should or shouldn't be doing. We are currently memorizing the Articles of Faith with our nightly scripture study and in 3 weeks has memorized the first 3. She usually has a very sweet disposition.

I am so grateful for my little sweet helper girl!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Ruby!

 Ruby turned 2 on Black Friday this year. She loves Minnie Mouse, so that was the theme. It was so fun to have Brian and Eila here to celebrate too!

Ruby is such as sweet member of our family. She has so much energy and zest for life. She is pretty mellow until she decides that she wants something and then, it is going to happen. Period. She's a little stubborn that way. She loves her big sister and thinks that she is just as big as she is. Ruby thinks she can do anything and she probably can. She tightrope walks on the couch and jumps from piece of furniture to piece of furniture. She also can climb just about anywhere.

She always walks around the house saying "Grace (or Mommy or Daddy), where are you?" in her cute little voice. She loves her Daddy and can't wait for him to come home and play every night. She also is very concerned for the well being of Ben - if he's crying, she'll yell out "baby dying! Baby dying!" to alert me to his crying (she hasn't quite mastered the "c" sound yet). It never fails to give me a heart attack for a little moment! She also can count to 10 and sing most of the alphabet song. She loves to sing and sings a lot in the car, both made up songs and real songs. She also loves Barney and loves to sing along. She also puts everything in her mouth from dirt (whenever she comes in from playing outside she inevitably has telltale dirt around her mouth) to her blanket tags (those poor things are looking pretty nasty these days) to toys. I think she sucks on Minnie's nose and her monkey's tail when there's not a blanket tag around when she's falling asleep. I am constantly reminding her to not put things in her mouth. So far we haven't found anything that's gone through to her diaper and I hope it'll stay that way!

She is so loving and gives hugs and kisses all the time. She thinks it's so funny to kiss Mommy on her ears and all over her face (and Mommy sure does love it!!). She also loves to love on Benji, but we're still working on being soft with him.

She adds so much fun and life to our family. We sure do love our little Ruby!! Happy birthday sweet girl!!

Thanksgiving

 Brian and Eila were able to come down from Arkansas to spend Thanksgiving with us. We all worked to make a delicious meal...even Princess Gracie-Belle deigned to help prepare the royal feast.

The crew at the feast. We had the Hairs, some friends from church, over too! It was a delicious meal. We are so thankful for all of the many blessings that we have received in the past year, including Benjamin, a great job and a new adventure and friends.

Fall Leaves

(I had some trouble with Blogger, then life got really busy with Christmas, so I'm trying to play catch up and keep things somewhat in order)

Finally, the week of Thanksgiving, it started to get colder here and the leaves finally fell. Rob and the girls had a great time making a gigantic pile and playing in it.

 

Snow!!

 Before we went to Utah, it snowed here in Frisco. Grace was so excited, she put her warm jacket on over her nightgown and headed out to the backyard with her little shadow in tow yelling "no! no! no!" (snow, pronounced without the "s" sound). It was barely a trace amount, but they did their best job scraping it off of the table and roof of the playhouse to eat!

Ruby's Clothes

 Here is the laundry basket with Grace and Ruby's clothes in it. Ruby's pile is the skyscraper on the left of the clothes that she's worn just in the past few days, and they're much smaller and more compactly folded than her sister's clothes. Ruby changes her clothes multiple times a day. She will not let anyone help her choose her outfits or put them on, so they are often mismatched and on backwards, but hey, I'm proud of her skills. Just don't judge me, okay? :) Her favorite outfit is a swimsuit no matter how cold it is outside. She'll come out in it with a sun hat on and say hopefully "wimming?!". Poor kid...