Grenada Trip

Trying on Daddy's new shoes.

This week Andy headed to Chicago for a conference, so Ruby and I went down to visit my family in Medford and Grenada. We had lots of fun, and she did pretty good on the drive. She started putting more words together, and I think her first official sentence was "No more cheese" in the car. :)

Ruby has skipped her nap a few times the past week and a half, which is frustrating, but I'm thinking that I'll put her to bed a little later, so hopefully that will help. 

 Watching a jump serve at a middle school volleyball game with Aunt Becca.

 She loves reading. Lately she has really liked the Duck & Goose books from the library.

 She likes when Andy holds her like a little baby and rocks her.

 Abbie came over to hang out with Ruby while I did some house work on Monday. Ruby loves Abbie!

 Andy gave her the huge serving fork to eat with. "Big fork"

 Pumpkin season!

 We stopped at McDonalds for lunch on our trip south. The only reason we went there was because it was raining and they had a play place that Ruby could run around in for a little while... but we got there and the play place was outside and soaking wet. So we just ate some chicken nuggets and ran around inside for a little bit. She mostly just wanted to "dip" her nuggets into the ranch and suck off the ranch.

 We got to my parents' house and Ruby found the stool in the bathroom, which my Dad made for us to take home! It's just like the blue one we had as kids. Ruby loves it.

 The church nursery playground was way too fun.

 Bath toys at Grandma's!

 My mom and I canned our tomatoes after Ruby went to bed on Tuesday night.

 This is the horse we had as kids. Ruby loved it.

 She also loved going up and down the porch steps. She's getting really good at going up and down by herself on the shallow ones.

 Wrestling with Grandpa.

We fed the ducks and geese at Greenhorn park. They all came flying over from across the lake!

 Fun with Grandma.

 Riding the dinosaur!

Playing the grand piano at church. 

 She climbed in for Grandma to rock her.

 Ruby with the flowers.

 We got to Cindy's house on Thursday, and Ruby immediately got dressed up in a clown costume, complete with a hat, by Lia.

 Cousins this morning!

 We went to the park with two of my sister's day care kids.

 Ruby and Kyle. She was pretty good at being gentle with him.

She was so tired that she fell asleep in the car without a paci this afternoon. We had a very fun trip, but we miss Andy!!!!

This is Ruby cooking fish with me.

And this one is her going down the slide at my parents' church.

Power outage

 On Thursday night we had a huge thunderstorm right above us! It rained and poured, and our power went out for about 2 hours. Ruby and I played cards, read stories, and built a blanket fort by flashlight. I'm pretty sure she had fun. The power came on right before I was going to start dinner, so that was great.

Ruby's been talking so much lately. I tried to count all of the words she knows, but I got to 50 and stopped because there are at least three times that many, and it's about impossible to count. She's so smart. She figures things out quickly too, and has very good balance when she climbs on things (which is pretty much all the time). 

 We also made shadow animals.

 We ran into some friends at the park on Friday. Ruby went down the slide a few times all by herself!

 Eating a snack with Daddy.

 We all love our bike.

 Make the bed with me in it!

 Brushing her teeth before church on Sunday.

 She was helping me sweep. Notice her cute pony tail.

 Daddy was mowing, and she wanted to hear his music.

 She also saw her pool and dragged it out and sat in it.

 Rest time.

 We went to Wilco again, and thankfully they had moved all of the heat lamps out of reach. Here's Ruby in a Jessie hat. I would have bought it, but it was $20. Ridiculous.

 On Monday night Andy had his first Seminary class, so Ruby and I spent the evening crafting a birthday card for him.

 Ruby got him Legos for his birthday, and they had lots of fun playing.

 She likes to help me feed extra produce to the chickens. Here she is trying to throw a huge cucumber over the fence.

 Picking things in the garden.

 Fwimming time! It was super hot yesterday, so we busted out the pool.

 Splashing.

 The biggest tomato I have ever grown.

 Here's a slice of it on my hamburger. It was so yummy!

 Yesterday I found a bunch of these hidden all around the house. Andy's so sweet!

 Ruby's first bowl of cereal this morning.

 We went to story time at the library. Ruby wanted to be right up front and kept stealing the books. :) There was also a cute "big doggie"for her to pet.

Goof ball.

Labor Day Weekend

We had another fun week this week. This picture is after grocery shopping on Friday. We bought wipes at Costco, and Ruby wanted me to open the box, and then she proceeded to take out all of the wipes and put them back in. Silly girl. She has really gotten good with her climbing, to the point of where she tries to climb on the arms of the couch or onto the coffee table (both are off limits). So we've been doing time out some more. I still don't think she really knows what's going on with time out, but hopefully she'll figure it out soon.

Andy's starting seminary next week! It will be an interesting semester with him having class on Monday nights, but since it's only one class, I don't think it will be too bad. We're excited for him.

Friday night we headed up to Portland for Andy's friend Matt's birthday party at a park. Ruby loved the sidewalk chalk...

... and drew on everything in sight. :)

We stayed the night at the Pullens because Del's birthday was Saturday and we all went out to dinner. Ruby liked climbing inside this thing.

Chloe and Charlotte got to ride with us to dinner, and they all had fun.

We got ice cream downtown, and went to a park with music. Ruby wanted to dance.

Sliding with Daddy.

Here's the family photo.

And Del and Patty with their grand kids. I tried to get Katie to stick her belly in the picture too :)

A lady bug got in our house, so we played with it for a while. There was a snail inside today and always lots of flies... I think we have a hole somewhere.

On Monday we had a barbecue at the Butenschoen's house. Ruby loved "fwimming" as usual.

They went around and around, trying to do a whirlpool.

Playing with Audrey.

Daddy was tired, but Ruby wanted to play.

So cool.

She wanted to dress Angeles, so we put her newborn sleeper on her. Today she wanted to feed her "strawberry juice" to her Dolly (a bottle that looks like a strawberry). She's starting to play pretend, which is so cute. She pretended something was an airplane, and she pretends things are food.

Spinning in the sari from India.

Helping Mommy make crab cakes. She poured the cayenne pepper in all by herself and then sneezed a few times :)

So much fun.

Helping Daddy feed the chickens our leftover corn cobs.

She always does this when I'm sorting the laundry.

They have baby chicks back at Wilco, so we went to go see them yesterday. They had the heat lamps pretty low, and Ruby reached out and touched it while saying "light". Sadly she burned two of her fingers :(

Watching a movie to distract her. See the bandaids.

She did really well with it and didn't even cry. One of them has a blister now though. I had her play in cold water at home to draw out the heat. She really liked that.

She loves wearing our shoes.