Rubylove

Today officially marks Ruby's half birthday.
Can you believe that a half year has already come and went? It seems as it were just yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital.

She loves to talk so much that she will wake up in the middle of the night just to hear herself and then quickly fall back to sleep. Thus the reason we have lovingly nicknamed her "filibuster".

She adores her big sister and longs for the day that she can keep up with her. She is sitting up all be herself and is in the beginning stages of crawling. Yikes! It'll be soon that I'll really have my work cut out..... chasing after those two.
Her personality so far is lovable, adaptable, and nutty.

*I especially put a lot of pics up to help ease Cathy, Laura, and Heather's Ruby fix ;)

Hey Baby

"Hey baby, come here often?"

"Hey wait a minute!"

"Lemme take a closer look."

"Huh? I don't get it."

Tomorrow Never Knows

This is what we woke up to this morning. Nothing screams spring like a dusting of snow in late April!

Got My Mind Set On You

For the past week Ava has been determined to learn how to wink. Once she puts her mind to something, it seems as though she has to prove it to herself that she can do it.

She"ll put her focus and a lot of her time trying to accomplish her goal. There was the whistle mania, the 25 piece puzzle extravaganza,the balancing on one leg quest , the snapping of the fingers adventure, and most recently eye winking. I am often in the background leading the "never give up" cheers and then in forefront armed with hugs when she just can't seem to get it. It's usually a matter of days before she has got it down and then off to the next thing. This time it's jump roping. But between you and me....this one could take awhile.

Dazed and Confused

Saturday was trash pick up day for our city. It's a very cool service the city provides where you can just put your junk on the curb and the city hauls it off. Well, just the night before, our microwave took a dump and Lisa had placed it out on the curb to be hauled away.

That morning I was up with the girls when they came to pick up. Lisa was taking a little nap. After they picked up, I looked out the window and noticed they hadn't taken the microwave. I said something like, "Crap, they didn't take the microwave." Ava heard me and asked, "Microwave? Microwave in the kitchen" and ran in there to show me where the microwave was. It wasn't there, so she came back in the livivng room and asked where the microwave was. I told her that it had broken the night before and was outside, waiting to be picked up. She said we better go tell Mommy and I told her "Mommy knows." "Oh, okay, daddy" and I thought that was the end of it.

Well, we continued playing or watching TV. When Ava heard Mommy getting up from her nap, she said something like, "We better go get Mommy's nose." I asked her what she said and she pointed to her nose and the pointed outside and said "Mommy's nose." I started laughing and tried to explain that I didn't mean "Mommy's nose," but "Mommy knows." I tried things like "Mommy is aware" and "Mommy knew." All the time she had a smile on her face, but I couldn't tell if she was pulling my leg or not. Either way, I should have started educating her on homophones. Alas, some other day.

Ian

P.S. Don't worry, the microwave was eventually picked up. They must send a separate truck for appliances and whatnot.

Somebody's Watching Me

"I always feel like somebody's watching me...... and I have no privacy." "whoa,whoa,whoa."

Sleep Through the Static

I am happy to report that I am sleeping. Really I am.

I don't remember being this sleep deprived with Ava . Perhaps because I followed the advice to sleep when the baby sleeps. But having a busy body toddler around, there wasn't much zzz's being caught around here. I often felt like I was sleepwalking through the day, just going through the motions of every day life as a mom.

These things may or may not have happened to me:
1) You're on the phone and the receptionist asks you what your name is and you have to look at your incoming mail to find out.
2) You have stubbled across a cell phone, box of cereal, a book, and clean dishes in the fridge.
3) For three weeks straight you used fabric softener rather than detergent when doing laundry.
4)At the end of the day hubby points out that your daughter's underwear are not only backwards but inside out as well. And you've been taking her to the bathroom every time.

You Turn the Screws

Last year when Ava was 18mo old, Papa John and Nana Bonnie had come for a visit. John had brought up some cable parts so that he could run the cable up to our bedroom. Ava immediately took an interest in the mini screwdriver and began trying to unscrew the cable parts.
Since then she has had a fascination with manual hand tools.





So when I was updating our montessori activity kits, I came across an activity called Boards of Education. It consists of three wooden boards with different screws and screwdrivers to take apart and then put back together. Well, it had been on back order since this fall and I almost forgot about it until it came via UPS the other day. Today was the first time I presented it to her and she was delighted. She began unscrewing the screws as though this was a task that she performed daily. She quickly finished and shreiked "This game is fun, I'm awesome!"

Pass the Mic

A lot of times the girls and I like to pass the time by letting our creative juices flow. We make up silly songs, play our instruments,dance like crazy, and listen to different genres of music.
Some of Ava's favorite songs include:

1) Tangled Up in Blue- Bob Dylan
2)Dig A Pony- Beatles
3)Clap Hands-Beck
4)Je Veux Te Voir- Yelle
5) End of the Line- Traveling Wilbury's

She has put claim to these and anytime she hears them, she always has to remind us that the song belongs to her.

Here's a snippet of their performance.

She Said She Said

One of the reasons I finally started blogging was to document some of the things that Ava has said. The things she has said have been funny, overdramatic, and even profound at times. Here are a few:

1) One night we had gone out to dinner with our friends and their little boy. She was sitting in her chair and lost her balance but caught herself from falling. She exclaimed " Mom, I almost died!"

2) Ava: "Mom, I'm having a real rough time."
Me: "Honey, why are you having such a rough time?"
Ava: "Mom, I am trying to read my book but I only know SOME of the words and not ALL of the words. Can you show me how to read?"

This wasn't the first time that she has asked me to help her learn how to read. I've been apprehensive starting so early and had discussed this furthur with the parent educator at the school that Ava attends. She suggested that I hold off to see if it was something that Ava really wanted to pursue. Well she keeps pestering me about it, so I ordered a reading curriculum and we will start it this summer.

3) "I have one more idea." - This usually entails the use of either a chair, scotch tape, a pair of scissors, and/or the cat.

4) "Mom, don't see me!"- She will yell this if I am in another room and she doesn't want me to catch her doing something that is not allowed. Nothing like setting yourself up for the fall.

5)"Mom, thank you for coming into my life." - No honey, THANK YOU for coming into MY life.

Joyful Sound

Now that's some funny.
I'm not sure if Ruby is laughing at Ava's kazoo playing skillz or at the game of peek-a-boo but she thinks it's pretty hilarious.

Razzberry fields forever

Listen for her answer when I ask her if she is making razzberries. At five months, Ruby has already begun talking our ear off. I am sure when she was in my womb, all she heard was Ava's constant chatter and now she is just trying to keep up. And boy, she has lots to say!

Down with disease

We found out yesterday that Ava has Mononucleosis (the kissing disease). She had been running a high fever for 24hrs and complaining that her tummy was hurting her real bad.She had to go to the hospital to get her tummy x-rayed and her intestines are all blocked up.

While we were registering her in, she took the pen that had a flower at the end of it and tickled the receptionist's knee. The receptionist got a kick out it and told Ava that she had made her day. Then the rad tech came and took her in to get x-rayed. The whole way there she kept saying how cute she was and as we passed the radiology desk, all the receptionists were oohing and aahing over her. Needless to say, she came back with a handful of stickers , two bracelets and an inflated ego. Hmmm, maybe I should start taking her to the bank with me.

Hey, it's better than scrapbooking!

I am not your typical mom. I detest cooking, can't bake to save a starving life, no knitting here, and find scrapbooking a bit boring. So to make up for my lack of motherly duties I have taken to blogging my life.

Don't be suprised at my random thoughts, rants, and raves regarding life as a mother to two bright and beautiful girls. Who knows..... perhaps someday a movie director may stumble across my blog and want to make a movie about it. Hey, a girl can dream can't she?

Enjoy!