16 Month Video

places

found my lotion in the silverware drawer today... then found Ruby's bunny, a couple of books and a hair bow in the trash can. Apparently she's in the "putting things places they don't belong" phase of life.

She's really stinkin' cute, but she's sure keeping me on my toes these days!

Catch-up, or Ketchup

I'm ALIVE!!! After a few months feeling generally horrendous, I believe I've finally turned the corner and this pregnancy will be glorious from now on. Since the terrible life-sucking nauseousness has prevented me from blogging much, I thought I'd take this morning to catch you up on all the shenanigans this fall has offered up.

• We got home from our family vacation in Tahoe and I sprawled out on the couch for a good week... ahem, month... Ruby stood by the couch and patted my arm, (or my head, face, eyeball) offering her condolences. I pretty much felt like the worst mom on the planet, but she did good reading books and playing with her toys on the floor while I was concentrating on not puking and being horizontal.

• We met up with Chris and Amanda downtown to check out the ArtPrize competition. Here are Ryan and Ruby in awe of the winning piece. A pencil drawing of the Cavalry in the 1921. It really was incredible!
• We've spent A LOT of time outside with Ruby. She has thoroughly explored the front yard. She knows where the hole is that the chippies come from, she knows where the ants live, and she can find every dangerous animal/poisonous berry/poke-your-eye out item within a mile. Recently we were outside, I turned around for one second and she was elbow deep in the muffler of my car in the driveway. That's right, she stuck her little arm all the way into the muffler. Not clean folks, not clean!
• I'm the publicity person for our MOPS group this year, so I got to go on the retreat with the other leaders. We had an awesome "kid-free" weekend together. We did a craft... I'm terrible at crafts.
• I got Ruby some really cute cowboy boots at a consignment store up here. She loves them! She carries them around and says "boots boots!" whenever she sees them, but when I put them on her feet, she won't walk. She immediately gets on her knees and drags them around behind her. It's really strange. I can't figure out what the deal is.
• Ryan went to New Orleans with a bunch of Gastroenterologists for a conference, so Ruby and I (not knowing much about Gastroenterology) spent a few days in Granger with my mom and dad to celebrate my mom's birthday. Dad took Ruby hiking and taught her all about leaves, pine cones, meadows, fallen trees, acorns, and deer. She always says "Naaay" when she sees a deer. When you get down to the nitty gritty, deer are kinda like small horses.
• We got a free trial for Netflix and have pretty much watched way too many movies over the last month. We watched movies we never even wanted to see... that's just terrible, isn't it?!? One of the movies we watched was "Gran Torino" and Ryan has been singing in a grovelly Clint Eastwood voice since then. He really cracks himself up. If you want a good laugh just listen to this video and imagine Ryan singing it.
• Ruby LOVES wearing gloves. If she sees them, she says "feeners, feeners" and puts her hand up for me to put them on her.
• I test-drove some double strollers the other day. Would you believe that a double stroller won't fit in the trunk of my Mazda 3? That's going to be a bit of an issue. I told Ryan he might need to get a vansectomy soon. (According to our friends Chad and Kathi, a VANSECTOMY is Chad's term for his loss of manhood due to the purchase of a mini-van).
• We had a Halloween dinner party with a few of our couple friends, so we dressed up as Flo (from the progressive commercials) and Billy Mays. Once I finished drawing on Ryan's beard with eyeliner, he requested to be dead, so we added the dark circles and ashy skin. Like I said before, he really cracks himself up sometimes!

So that's the story from here. I can't believe it's already November! For those of you who are still reading this, I commend you! Especially you, Uncle Matt! I wasn't sure you'd make it past the first bullet point.

Babies Babies Babies

We are so excited to tell you... next summer there will be 4 of us! May 12th, to be exact.

"Where we're going, we don't need roads"

Fall

Ruby is one and a half - and she's such a blast right now. Here she is playing "outside" with her dad yesterday.

As far asother updates go, she's been saying the funniest things lately. In addition to repeating EVERYTHING she hears, she says:

• Hold you? (when she wants to be held. This is the cutest thing I've ever experienced... so I've decided not to correct her.)
• YAY!
• Hot
• Cold
• Outside
• Window
• Kitty
• Doggie
• Fish
• Tweet Tweet
• Glasses
• Ryan taught her to say "Ryan" and "Amber", which he thinks is hilarious, but I think is unnecessary.
• Blankie
• Passy
• Owl
• night night
• Oatmeal
• Cereal
• kix
• shoes
• Baby (anyone 12 years old or younger is a baby)
• Bible (when she wants to sing "the B.I.B.L.E")
• Happy Happy (when she wants me to sing "if you're happy and you know it")
• Bath
• Water
• Pumpkin

We are loving every minute we have with Ruby at this age and stage. She's feisty, she's chatty, she's funny and she's got personality. Our days are filled with joy that she brings.

The Boards

I am so proud of Ryan. He is the most disciplined studier that I've ever known. He has always been good at studying... which comes in handy since he is taking the American Board of Pediatrics certification exam on Monday.

Get this - he's been studying every single day since April! Back in January he mapped out his study plan, figured out how many hours/days/minutes he had before October 18th (test day) and set his start date for April 1.

He spent the first 4 months studying for one hour each day, then bumped it up to 2 and over the last few weeks he's been spending pretty much all of his free time preparing for Monday's boards. He's at the top of his game right now. I'm a bit biased, but it seems to be that he can answer any question about anything medical with great detail right now.

I'm so proud of him - he is going to do awesome on Monday! Pray that he can sleep well and feel peace of mind until then!

Sand Harbor

Every day in Tahoe was a new adventure. We drove up the coast to Sand Harbor for a day at the beach. I LOVED this beach - the water was crystal blue and there were huge boulders jetting out into the lake.

Ruby enjoyed the sand... and loved exploring the beach with her Grammy.

Ryan woke up with the sun each morning to do Tai Chi (jkjkjk)

We finished the evening with AMAZING kabobs on the grill. DeeeeeLISH!

The Most Beautiful Lake

Eagle Lake is nestled high in the mountains south of Lake Tahoe. It's totally secluded, totally untouched, totally incredible. We hiked for awhile to get there, but it was so worth it!

We ate some snacks at the lake - except for Aaron, who fed Ruby's goldfish crackers to the chippies.

I loved that everything about Eagle Lake was so natural, no houses, no people, no buildings, just a pure mountain lake ...and I love this picture of Ruby and Lydia in their floppy hats.

Mt. Tallac

The next day the men (Ryan, Aaron and John) decided to spend the morning and afternoon climbing the 11-mile trek to the summit of Mt. Tallac and back. It was the tallest peak they could see from our place, so they had their eyes on it from the first day.

This was the goal. 9,735 feet up! Not many trees up there... they were pumped.

I was so proud of Ryan for taking our little digi-cam along and capturing all these pictures with the self-timer. He's awesome!

Here they are at the top! Lunch consisted of PB&J sandwiches and some fig newtons on the edge of a shale cliff. Ryan texted me from the summit and said something along the lines of "don't wait up, we're going to hang out up here for awhile," ...and they did.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead, all the lady folk (Angela, Tracy and I) sat around talking about how thankful we are that our husbands love each other so much.

Such great men. Such a great day.