Rubley-Boobley

Sweet little Rubles, my happy, (not-so-) little baby.

I love this stage of babyhood. She is growing and learning so quickly.

She is so curious about everything. She's wanting to put everything in her mouth. I love it when she grabs something to shove into her mouth, but in all her excitement, she drops it and ends up with just her fist in her mouth. I'm sure it's disappointing, but it's really cute to watch her try!

She is rolling and moving around and with a lot of effort can get to what she wants. She'll be all over the house soon though, and we'll have to re-babyproof the house. I got a video monitor for Christmas and my birthday from my parents, and I love to watch her roll around in her crib and sleep in all sorts of funny positions.

Ruby loves her sister. Grace can do anything and it cracks her up. She watches her intently and you can see the wheels in her head turning thinking how one day, she'll be able to do all the cool stuff Grace does.

She's getting pretty talkative. She loves to chat. She'll roll around on her blanket on the floor and "talk" to whatever toy she's trying to get into her mouth. The other day I was on the phone and from across the room Ruby started babbling so loudly that the lady I was talking to was too distracted to talk. She is also quite a pro at blowing bubbles and raspberries. What fun vocal cords are!

She is also interested in anything we put into our mouths. I wasn't planning on starting her on solids until 6 months, but I just felt so bad that she lunges at any food I have when I'm holding her. This week we've started feeding her some rice cereal.

She was pretty excited. Can you tell? Just like a baby bird.

She's still figuring out how to work with the food from a spoon to get it down her throat instead of down her front. I would imagine that this is a difficult thing to do, but I don't remember. Once she get the hang of it and starts eating more, I'll really have to start working out just so I can hold her for more than 10 minutes without being exhausted. Kidding. Sort of. Almost 16 lbs of wiggly-ness is a lot to lug around!

Bertha

Meet Bertha:

Ahhhhhhh....{insert singing choirs of angels here}

Isn't she a beaut? She was my Christmas present from my sweet hubs. Looks like we might need more kids so I can get lots of use out of her :)

This morning Grace and I made spaghetti sauce. It's kind of an ordeal to make with all the veggie chopping and work that goes into it, so I like to make a lot of it, then freeze it in family-size zippys for future use. Hence the need for a pot big enough to bathe Ruby in.

Grace was a great helper. She (mostly) peeled all the carrots for me and counted out the garlic cloves, celery and carrots we would need.

I asked her to smile and this is what I got.

Here we are with the finished pot of spaghetti deliciousness. Can't wait for dinner tonight!

Dear Grace,

I know you're only 2, but if you keep changing your clothes a million times a day, I am going to start making you do the laundry. I'm pretty sure that your little clothes account for at least half of the laundry I do. And let's be honest, it already takes me 2 days to wash and fold (3 if you count putting it away...I'm awesome like that), so I don't need any more to do.

Lots of love, your Mama

New Addition

Over the weekend my little green car morphed (with the help of some money) into a BIG green car! Little green Honda Accord turned into big green(-ish, gray-ish, blue-ish...we're not sure what color it is) Honda Odyssey minivan!

Friday night we bought a minivan. I guess this really makes me a mom. You know, because moms drive minivans. :) It was a tough decision at first. I didn't so much want to drive a minivan, but really, they were made for moms with so many awesome features that I ended up loving it.

Sweet mom-ness.

I mean, how could I not love automatic doors that will open with the click of a button so G can get herself in her car seat while I get Ruby in. Or the doors that slide, so my kids can't open them into expensive cars parked next to us. Or the amount of space...this van can seat 8 people! Or the flexibility of seating and cargo room. Or the awesome gas mileage it can get (28mpg). Or the fact that it has 17 cup holders (which I think might actually be a bad idea, I mean think of all the times you're going to have to stop on a road trip if everyone is using all those cup holders!). Or just the fact that now we can all go somewhere with all the luggage and stuff we might need and a stroller. Whew, I love it.

Plus, take a gander at all of this trunk space! With two strollers (one a double!), an emergency car kit, a storage crate and plenty of room to spare!

Wow, I am in love.

You know what else I love?

This little monkey who also loves our new car:

We just have to watch her because she likes to click the push button ceiling lights. One day the battery's going to be dead when I try to start it because the lights have been on.

We're all loving our new car. Even Rob. (Though he sometimes pretends to not really like it. He really does.) (Sorry honey if I outed your little secret.)

Roommates

Grace officially has a roommate now. We moved Ruby into Grace's room tonight for the first time. So far, so good :) But we're still keeping our fingers crossed that we can get some more sleep. I think Grace is excited to not be the only one without someone to share a room with.

They sure do love each other!

Published

As of today I am a published newspaper articler (one who writes newspaper articles, for those of you who don't speak Amanda). Well, I am one if it still counts even if you don't have a by-line :) I had forgotten that I had submitted an annoyance to my favorite section of our local newspaper, so I was happily surprised when I opened it up and saw my Ticked Off rant.

It's there, just to the right of the center fold.

Do you not love the outlaw with the symbols as the Ticked Off mascot?

My little "article"
I had forgotten how ticked off I was about this since we hadn't been to the mall in a while, but a recent trip re-kindled my ticked-off-ed-ness and I had to submit it.

SwagBucks Help

Sorry, last post on this :) I just read these posts recently on how to earn SwagBucks that I thought were a helpful rundown of how to earn SwagBucks: here, here and here (it's a three-part series by MoneySavingMom.com). It took me a while to figure all this out, so I thought I'd share these great concise posts on how to earn SwagBucks quickly. If you haven't signed up yet and still want to here's the link: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/AJC3. It really is a cool site to earn free stuff!

Have a Happy Monday!

St Patty's Day

Tonight for a festive Irish dinner, we had green breakfast for dinner. Since I know you all (maybe not, but at least my mom) wanted to see our festive green fun here are the pictures. I wish I could take amazing food pictures, oh well.

Green crepes with mom's special crepe sauce (made green), strawberries, bananas, powdered sugar and green whipped cream.

With green eggs and orange cheese (who knew that normal colored eggs hid the orange cheese so well?).
There you go. Since I'm sure you all were wondering what the Carters ate for dinner tonight :)

And a special shout out to my little St Patty's Day baby brother, O'Brian!

SwagBucks

If you haven't heard of SwagBucks yet, pull up a chair and let me tell you about the awesomeness of it. It's a search engine like Google that you use to search the web and every so often you're rewarded for your searches with SwagBucks. You can then use those SwagBucks to buy stuff at their SwagStore, like Amazon.com gift cards. It was hard to get used to not using Google as my search engine, but now that I'm used to it (it's not difficult, it was just different), I use it exclusively. So far in the past 6 months or so I've been using it I've gotten $70 in Amazon.com gift cards for doing nothing but searching the web like I normally do. Cool, eh? I've gotten kitchen gadgets, diapers, wipes, baby travel stuff, books, and other stuff all for free with my Amazon gift cards I got for free. Anyway, I just wanted to share with you in case you're interested in getting free stuff too. If you want to sign up click here (it's my individual referral link that helps me earn bucks too): http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/AJC3. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them - email me :)

Happy searching and earning!