One Year Down

 

I'm a little late, but Rubi's one!

 

 

 

Our home has been so much brighter this past year. She is a joy and a dream. Perfect newborn - slept, slept, slept. Super content and quiet baby. Sweet, loving and sharing. Curious, enthusiastic, happy.

 

She's got red hair from my grandfather. And an incredibly talented tongue.

 

 

She's the tallest in her class. But...you can't tell because she doesn't walk. Or stand.

 

 

And, recently, her developing personality has included quite the drama. Just for kicks, since I caught it on camera, I'll show you a demo. I was trying to get her to look at me, so I took her sucker. Here is what happened. This next progression of photos is a typical Rubi reaction. It took less than 20 seconds to go from this:

 

To that. No joke. She's hilarious.

 

Now that she's crawling, she is all over Gabe's precious bubble and takes anything and everything right out of his hands. Sometimes he whines and comes to get me, but usually he just gets up and walks away. Just fueling the fire.

 

She's always been a dedicated daddy's girl. Just a week ago, while Phil was at the desk studying, Rubi sat on the carpet looking up at him, waiting. As soon as he turned to look at her, she smiled and said, "Hi dada!"

 

We love this little girl so much!

 

Bearded and Brawny

These two were lumberjacks for Halloween. Not that their costume-wearing extended beyond this bench and our small sidewalk. They spent the day throwing up, so we kept them in. No trunk or treating. No trick or treating. No Walmart candy raiding. Just inside. But...Rubi did enjoy her ax. And, Gabe actually wore his beanie for more than three seconds. And, I think red flannel just might now have a permanent place in their closet.

10 Months

This little lady is only two months shy of a year, and I can't believe it. She cracks us up with her budding personality. She's shy but fierce, demanding but sweet, firm but gentle, and always ready to smile. Here are some things you might not know about Rubi:

1. She has the best legs. And by best, I mean the most soft, gushy and floppy-loose legs ever. I swear there is no collagen in those limbs because she can bend them in every direction at the same time. When she gets tired and just needs a little break, she'll spread them into the splits and then lay down face first in between.

2. She thinks Gabe is the shiz. Anytime he whizes by or goes in for a kiss on her head, she explodes with the giggles.

3. Her hair. C-R-A-Z-Y. However it dries after her bath is how it will stay until the next bath. Straight up on top, fuzz ball in the back, curly swirly on the sides and ever more red.

4. She loves to wave hi and bye.

5. She will only take her binkie for sleeping. And only if she knows that she's ready to sleep. Imagine this: You are snuggly warm and pretty solidly asleep around 4:00 am. All of a sudden, you hear, "Aaaaaa.  Maaaaaa. Maaaaaaa. Maaaaaa!!!!" Not much of a build-up, you think as you stumble around in the dark. Literally. It's very dark since you have to flip the breaker at night to keep Gabe from turning the lights on all night long. You enter the kids' room and catch a whif of you-know-what. You try to sneak Rubi from her crib swiftly enough so that Gabe doesn't wake up too. Because that would mean another diaper change and a drink of milk and probably whatever pieces of fruit he can kife from the fridge while you are trying to make Rubi a bottle and dispose of her waste. But, alas, since Gabe doesn't sleep in his bed, but on the floor (and in a different spot on the floor each night), you accidentally kick him on your way to Rubi. So...after two diapers, a bottle, some milk and strawberries and "find your blankie and get back to bed!" later, you finally lay Rubi down and try to put the binkie in. Usually this is a simple process. Her head hits the pillow and her mouth forms an 'O'. Not tonight (or this morning, if you will). She just giggles and kicks her legs and throws her blankets and rips the binkie from your hand and throws it as well. Ok, you foolishly assume in your still groggy state, I guess she just doesn't want it. Maybe she's done with it for good. You leave the room and go climb into bed only to hear "Maaaaaa!!" as soon as you curl up into your favorite position. So, you stumble to their room again, open the door and Whoosh. You smell it again. Stronger this time. Quietly and quickly change the second diaper while fending off Gabe from the door, and eventually the fridge, lay Rubi down, stick the binkie in the 'O' and leave. See what I mean. Needs the binkie and knows that it means "sleep." If she's not ready to sleep, no binkie. Get it?

6. No crawling yet. We keep thinking she's just on the brink, especially as she's reaching for that chocolate granola bar, but her flexibility can usually get her whatever she wants.

7. She loves baths. And she loves loves to eat bubbles. What is it with my kids? One likes to eat soap (still to this day) and one likes to eat bubbles.

8. She is a smacker. The whole time she's eating, she smacks her lips and says, "omm-yomm-yomm."

9. She looooves being around people - being talked to, smiled at, played with. But, I've sensed a bit of timidness in her too. Maybe it's from the whole not crawling thing, but she tends to just watch all the other kids play. Unless it's Gabe. Then she wants in on the action, and whatever he's playing with belongs to her.

10. Don't ever ever, in any circumstance, wipe her mouth or her hands. Oh the hands! The hardest she ever cries (this is not an exaggeration, for those who might be thinking that I'm stretching the truth) is when you wipe her down after eating...or put her arms through the sleeves of her shirts. Yeah. Just don't try to move the top half of her body at all. Leave her alone!

11. She brightens the mood wherever she is.

Love you Rubi!

the last vestiges of summer

Oh, hello there Blogger! We've been soaking up what little sun is left and staying busy these last few weeks. Wanna peek? I was only going to post two pictures. Two. And then, as I was going through my phone, I started reminiscing, and...I couldn't stop myself.

Farmer's Market Saturdays. 

Late nights. Really late nights. We hear ruckus from their room every night. Giggling, pounding, bouncing, crashing, the infrequent cry. We often open the door to something like this. Currently, Gabe stays up a good 2-3 hours after we put them to bed, he only sleeps on the floor (and occasionally under his bed), and early this morning I was blissfully awoken to the shrill, blood-curdling screams of a night terrored 2-year-old (well, I guess since it was early morning, it was probably a day terror).

Visits to the school to drop off dinner to Phil. Twenty seconds after this was taken, Gabe was climbing in the fountain.

Parkin' it up! Look at all these baby girls! Well, ok. There are a couple boys in here too. :) Snacks and wading pools and playgrounds and friends. Every other day.

Getting warm and dry after falling head first into the wading pool. No worries - he was running back in after a minute or two.

 The rare self-portrait. Rubi loves looking in the mirror!

Exercise group mornings. I swear Rubi didn't steal this ball from him!

A little leg training. Rubi's had some trouble putting weight on her legs, so she needs lots and lots of johnny jump up and exercaucer time. Now we know why it hasn't been very effective :) He shoves everything he can find down behind her back and then tries to climb in with her.

Church. Nothing's cuter than a dozen little 2-year-olds eating goldfish crackers on mini chairs at a mini table.

Cheesin' it at the park.

Cooking club. And book club. And a handful of other clubs and activities. We had an ice cream recipe identifying contest here.

Double the baths. Summertime is dirty time. They crack us up in the bath. Gabe's always laying on Rubi, and she is always grabbing his back and trying to kiss him.

More of the park.

Throwing rocks in the lake. For Gabe, life just doesn't get any better than this.

Waiting for the pool to open...at the park. Sad note: the pool is already closed until next May!

Eating baby wipes at the park.

Playing at the beach. The lake beach, just to clarify. I'm pretty sure you can't get any further from the ocean than Kirksville, Missouri.

Back Home

Wonderin' where we've been the past two month? 

Utah! and California! and Northwest Missouri!

And now we're back. 

This was the majority of our plane trip home. I'll spare you the details about the un-majority.

I won't bore you with long lists of pictures of what we did and played and ate and visited. Just suffice it to say that we had a Blast! Instead, I'll give a quick relay of what we've been up to since we got home.

Indoor Camping

Fake Potty Training

Post-Hospital Resting

and lots and lots of Fruit Loops

Pool Party

Last week the kids and I were invited to a friend's for a little pool party. They are renting like us, but have a GIANT backyard!

The kiddie pool was filled up along with some water balloons. There were three boys - Gabe, Elliott, and Raleigh - all within a few months of each other. And they all have sisters, also within a few months of each other.

These three are absolutely adorable.

Gabe just nursed his balloon the whole time. He did pop a couple on accident, but for the most part, he just held it by the tail and toted it around.

This is Raleigh. He is a talker and puts most other boys his age to shame with his vocab.

And here is sweet Elliott. He looooves trains.

And here is Gabe. He likes to mooch reeses pieces off of other moms.

And, lately, he's been really into squinting. I have no idea why, but he does it all the time.

Oh, and don't forget Rubi. She just hung out in the tent for the most part. Napped a little. Did not like the pool, though.