"Mera's Birfday"

Aka America's birthday.  Aka the 4th of July. ;)

I was reading last year's 4th of July post (I can't believe this was Ruby's 3rd one already!), and was pretty amused to see that we spent this 4th almost identically to the last.  Ok by me!

We kicked off the day with a patriotic breakfast of baked red white and blue donuts, which did not turn out all pretty like the recipe, but who cares?  Plus blueberries and raspberries.  Ruby was SO excited about the donuts!  I was excited that I'd made them the night before, so breakfast was festive and zero effort.

Donuts!!!

Then, just like last year, we put on our red, white, and blue, and headed down to the parade!  Ruby was really excited about this, too.  Especially when I told her it would be full of kids, dogs, fire trucks, candy, and grand old flags.  Which is what Ruby calls ANY flag she sees.  Grand old flag.  Always grand old flag.  I love that so much.

Walking to the parade with her own grand old flag.

Also like last year, we were able to snag a great parking spot, and an equally great spot to watch the parade.  I need to remember next year to bring our picnic blanket to drape over the curb like a bunch of other smarties did.  It was kind of dirty.  But whatever.  Ruby looked intense/pissed off in almost every picture, but she wasn't.  She was concentrating on taking it all in.  

She really just wanted to be RIGHT in front of or next to us - hard to take her picture that way!

Waiting for fire trucks.

Here they come!

And, of course, Sammy the Salmon.

These kids had sweet rides.

Gathering candy.

We were surrounded on either side by much older kids/teenagers, who were really intimidating to Ruby.  When the candy would go flying, she'd make a dash for it, only to have these older kids dive in front of her and take the candy that was nearest to her.  I was a little frustrated.  Not because I wanted her to have more candy (obviously), but because I could tell she was disappointed each time she reached for a piece only to have it taken out from under her.  I was also annoyed that these kids' parents let them do that to a toddler.

"Where'd the candy go?"

Highlights of the parade were when Ruby flipped off the firemen (accidently, of course, but very obviously), when she kept picking up candy and putting it into the other kids' bags (hey, she's good at sharing!), and when she picked up an Almond Joy and exclaimed, "Mommy chocolate!" and brought it to me (I plead the 5th on that one).

After the parade was over, we went looking for the two things we were interested in at the Heritage Festival last year, but didn't do.  And both weren't there!  We really wanted to give Ruby a chance to climb on/check out the fire engines, since she's been into them lately.  Last year we walked up just as they were finishing up, so this year we went there first...  And...  They weren't there.  I guess they didn't do that this year?  Or maybe they had an emergency?  Who knows.

So then we went to go get her a pony ride, aaaaaannnnd...  No ponies.  Boo!  There was some shooting obstacle course game in their place (because that's appropriate for children...).  Since we knew that Ruby would be too intimidated by the bouncy house and inflatable slides, we decided to head out.  No big deal, really.  We'd come for the parade, and had a good time!

Mr. G suggested we go out to lunch.  Ruby had been lamenting the loss of her purple Red Robin balloon (it deflated after weeks), so he asked her if she'd like to go there for lunch and to get a new one.  Would she ever!

Her face after we told her where we were going.

Luckily they were open.  Apparently Mr. G had forgotten it was the 4th of July (?!?) when he suggested it, but they were, and no crowd.  Nice.  Except...  They were all out of helium!  No purple balloon!  I can't even tell you how many times Ruby asked us where all the balloons went during the course of our meal.  Thank goodness this child handles disappointment well.

We could tell that she was tired from all the excitement, so after lunch we headed home for nap.  Ruby suggested we go to the party store for balloons, but that wasn't happening!

I had made the comment early in the morning to Mr. G, that Ruby was so lucky.  All of her 4th of Julys had had amazing weather!  So rare for Washington!  Well, of course, during nap the clouds roll in.  Boo!  We had big plans to fill the swimming pool after she woke up, but "Mr. Golden Sun" was hiding.  Ruby was happy to play with her water table instead, though, and we put her in her festive swim suit anyway, since she's so splashy these days!

Funny story, I walked outside to set up the water table, and felt a drip land on me.  I was like, "Ugh!  Rain?" then I looked down at my chest (where I'd felt the drop), and realized a bird had pooped on me!!!  So gross!

While I cleaned up, the rest of the fam busted into a bag of Boom Chicka Pop(corn) that I'd bought specifically because it was the 4th and had the word "BOOM" on it.  Oh, and I got the "minty" bag, because Ruby is obsessed with all things minty.

Turned out to be a good call, because the three of us ate almost the entire bag!  I don't even really like popcorn, but this stuff was good.  You can tell by the dog photobomb above that Braidy really wanted to try it, too.  Too bad, dog!

Side note:  Later, Ruby was carrying the bag around, talking to herself, and we heard her say, "That's 37!  There's a 37 on there!".  Mr.G and I gave each other wtf faces, because seriously?  How in the heck did she know that that number was 37 (it says "37 calories" on the bag)?!?  We're still blown away by that one.

In addition to her popcorn snack, I also gave Ruby some festive watermelon that I'd cut into star shapes and skewered to a patriotic paper straw.

This might be my new favorite picture of her.

She was SO tickled that the watermelon was star shaped!  And on a stick!  It seriously made me want to cut up other food into shapes.  It wasn't even that hard (I used a cookie cutter), so I guess I am totally turning into that mom.  

After a dinner of BBQ chicken, hot dogs, and more watermelon stars, we decided to go for a family walk around the neighborhood.  Ruby decimated her dress with watermelon juice, so she needed a little wardrobe change first.

Throughout the whole day, she'd been saying, "Did you have fun at the parade?".  Meaning she had fun at the parade.  We had told her it was a celebration of America's birthday, so on our walk, she kept singing "Happy Birthday" and told us over and over that she was going to "Mera's birfday party!".  Yep.  We about died.

We debated long and hard about whether or not to take Ruby to see fireworks this year.  They are illegal in our town, so unless you want to break the law, you have to go to an orchestrated show.  None of the shows around here started until after 10pm, so we ultimately decided not to do it.  It turned out to be a good call, because we could tell she was exhausted by 7:30 when she announced it was time to put on pajamas.  

You can usually see fireworks from our bedroom window, but with the cloudcover, there were almost none to be seen.  You could definitely HEAR them, though.  Luckily, Ruby was too tired to care.  The booms didn't stop her from going to sleep, and while she would stir when a really loud one would go off, she never got up, and slept straight on through till morning.

All in all, it was a great 4th.  Mr. G and I both have hopes that we'll have moved out of our tiny townhouse by the next one so that we can host a party (fingers crossed), and maybe just maybe Ruby will be able to hang long enough to see some fireworks. 

I hope you all had a lovely, fun-filled Independence Day! 

Easter 2014

Just like last year, celebrating Easter as a parent did not disappoint.  At. all.  I just love love love experiencing holidays through Ruby's eyes!

We kicked off Easter this year with a pre-Easter egg hunt.  The in-laws are members of a local Elks club, which hosts an annual hunt for kiddos.  They had an Easter bunny, of course, and in spite of her usual fear of strangers, Ruby was OBSESSED.  We had to pry her away, so that other kids could take their picture, too.

After a nutritious lunch of hotdogs and chips, it was time for the Easter egg hunt.  They had sections separated by age, which I was happy about.  Didn't want my little lady to get overrun!

It was safe to say, she had a good time!  The highlight of the egg hunt for me, was when she and another girl both went for the same egg.  Ruby got there first, then looked at the girl, and dropped the egg into the girl's basket.  So sweet!

Also of note, this place was crazy.  The older kids' eggs had some with hidden notes in them saying the kid won a bike.  A bike!  There were about 30 bikes there, of varying sizes, and I'm pretty sure that every kid that was old enough got to take one home (helmets, too).  Ruby was sad and confused that she wasn't old enough to "win" one.

The Elks egg hunt was the weekend before Easter, so we got to spend actual Easter at home.  The Saturday before, we did some good old fashioned egg-dying.  Of course, Ruby was most into the stickers. She told me, "Doin' stickers goin' pretty good!"

Then I got to play Easter bunny.  I love doing her basket!  Here's a shot of her loot this year:

Coloring things, an amazing tambourine (from @loveleemusic on instagram), a new Camelbak, bunny socks, new jammies, bunny toothbrush, a pack of hair clips (@minalovesbows on IG) and a bunny bracelet (@cagedbirdblog on IG), squeeze bubbles, new sunnies (good thing, because we lost her beloved yellow ones the week before), and Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes.  Not pictured was candy (yes, candy), and Annie's bunny crackers (of course!). 

She was pretty excited!

I did the best I could to be festive with breakfast.  She was satisfied with a bunny pancake!

Then it was time to get dressed in her Easter pretties and do an egg hunt.  We don't have a yard, so we just made do with the area in front of our townhouse - which turned out to be kind of perfect for an egg hunt!

Braidy tried to get in on the action, too.  AKA, eating the bunny crackers.

SO excited!!!

After the egg hunt, we just chilled at home.  Which was awesome!  I love having a low-key holiday.  After Ruby took her nap, I thought she might like to do one more egg hunt, since she really seemed to love them.  I emptied all her plastic eggs and just re-hid them empty.  Well, I put one jelly bean in one egg, to make it a special egg.  She was a little bit miffed that there was no candy in the eggs, but she got over it quick because the hunt was fun.

"Mommy, no candy inside!?!"

We ended the day with more relaxing, and eating too much candy.  Just the way Easter should be!

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope you all had the most amazing time this holiday season.  I'm still coming down off the high of being a parent at Christmas.  This was Ruby's second Christmas, of course, but her first where she actually kind of knew what was going on and it was SO MUCH FUN!  Since I've been pretty much MIA from the blog the entire month, I need to go and do a little recap of the holiday season.

We kicked it off with a visit to our favorite tree farm to find the perfect Christmas tree.  It was freezing cold that weekend.  Like, in the 20s, which it basically never is in western WA.  So Mr. G declared that he was absolutely not cutting down our tree, and if we wanted one, it had to be a pre-cut.  Ha!

We found the perfect tree - tall and narrow.  Emphasis on the tall.  Somehow we ended up with like, a 10 foot tree!  Luckily we have oodles of ceiling height in our living room.  I also remembered that they have a Santa at this tree farm.  We tried seeing him last year, but he was on his lunch break.  Not the case this year!

Ruby was NOT into sitting with Santa.  In the pic she's asking for me, lol.  She didn't cry, but she didn't like it.  Funnily enough, after that day she would say, "Ho ho ho!  Lap?  Picture?" over and over.  And if you'd ask her if she wanted to sit on Santa's lap and take a picture, she'd say, "yeah!!!".  Goof.

So we took her to see Santa and get our "real" picture done in her Christmas dress.  Mr. G had the great idea (not) to go after nap to the mall Santa on a Saturday.  Which meant we waited in an hour long line right at dinner time.  But Ruby was a total rockstar.  She loved the reindeer flying over the center of the mall, and the people watching.  When it came time to sit on Santa's lap for her picture, she was again, not into it.  And offended by the camera's flash.  So we ended up with our second annual awkward Santa pic.

Our plan was to take Ruby over to the Red Robin at the mall for dinner after.  You have to go outside the main mall to get to it, and as soon as we stepped out the door we were stopped in our tracks by a HOARD of people.  We'd forgotten about Snowflake Lane, a nightly music/light show they do out there.  It was insanity.  So we bailed and headed back towards home (where there's another Red Robin).  It was after 8:00 before Ruby got any dinner, but she was totally chill!  We were so impressed with her ability to hold it together in a weird situation, and so thankful.  We were totally aware that not every toddler would put up with that!

At home, we decked our halls with our giant tree, our handmade stockings, a gingerbread man garland (because of the "five little gingerbread men in a row" song we learned at school), and the Pinterest felt Christmas tree.

Plus Christmas jammies, plates, Santa sippy, reindeer antlers and festive outfits.  Ruby loved it all, but was especially obsessed with reindeer.  In fact, she can now say the word "reindeer" incredibly well.  Christmas comes out "ki ki", and Santa is just "ho ho ho", but reindeer she's got.

I tried to do as much shopping online as possible (ha!), and nearly broke my hand making many of the gifts as well.  Ok, not really, but basically every nap time was dedicated to crocheting or sewing, and now my hand absolutely needs a break.

Ruby's handmade Christmas consisted of a dolly, play food for the kitchen Santa brought her, and an apron & oven mitts as well.

I also made a scarf for my step-mom.  Did I mention my hand hurts?  Ha!

Finally, finally the presents were wrapped, the cookies were baked.  After going to two separate grandparent's houses last year, we vowed that Christmas would henceforth be at our house (or at least it would this year).  So the house was cleaned, and it was finally Christmas Eve.

Ruby helped me check the mailbox for some very last-minute gifts (and our Christmas cards, argh!!!), in one of her festive outfits.

In case you're wondering, both Snapfish and the USPS are on my naughty list.  Art.com and FedEx are on the nice list (and Art.com makes the most amazing photo calendars).  In fact, FedEx delivered gifts at 7:00pm Christmas Eve.  Talk about cutting it close!  We were sad that they didn't knock when they dropped them off, as we had a box of homemade cookies all packed up to give the driver for being out on Christmas Eve.

Since we were hosting the next day, we wanted to keep our Christmas Eve dinner simple.  So I surprised Mr. G & Ruby with a homemade Christmas tree shaped pizza.  They both loved it so much - I think it may be a fun new tradition!

Ruby and I made pumpkin pies after dinner.  Well...  We tried to.  I guess I overfilled them, but right after they went into the oven, one of the pies dumped custard filling all over the bottom of my hot oven.  What a mess!!!  I had to turn it off and wait for it to cool down so I could clean up and try again.  Let me tell you - scrubbing out my oven was not what I pictured myself doing on Christmas Eve.

Ruby didn't want to go to sleep (maybe she wanted to wait up for Santa?) so I scrubbed, while Mr. G put her to bed.  Then I had to get to work building the play kitchen we Santa got her.  That thing was no joke.  But by the light of the tree, and with the Christmas Story marathon getting started on tv it was pretty fun playing Santa!  Oh, and the pies baked perfectly after that, so we were off to bed.

Ruby woke just before 6am (barf) so I brought her back to our bed so we could sleep more.  She & Mr. G snored away, but I never got back to sleep.  So I got up, made some coffee and baked our traditional Christmas morning Monkey Bread, and made sure Santa's loot looked perfect.  Finally, it was time for our little girl to see what the big guy had brought!

First peek at the tree before coming downstairs.

Toys!

She wasted no time getting into this bag!

We finally had to point out the kitchen to her, but then it was pure joy!

Time for stockings!

Serious unwrapping concentration.

Daddy and Braidy had to help her "opo" this one.

And then I stopped taking pictures and we got to opening the gifts under the tree.  Ruby got into ripping the paper and had herself a grand old time.  The kitchen was a HUGE hit, and the crocheted eggs I made her seem to be her favorite.  Which is good, because they were a major PITA.  Ha!  Once gifts were opened, we trekked up to the kitchen for our traditional Monkey Bread and eggs for Christmas breakfast.  Ruby thought she'd died and gone to heaven with the sugariness of it.  Then she went back to playing and we got to work cleaning up before family came!

As I stepped out of the shower, Mr. G came in to tell me he'd gone to start the ham, and smoke was POURING out of the oven!!!  We're guessing there was some dish soap residue from when I'd cleaned it out the night before (that pie mess wouldn't come out without it, but I thought I'd rinsed it completely).  But it was so strange because we'd cooked the pies and bread without a problem!  Our house smelled HORRIBLE and was full of smoke, so we had to open all the windows.  A bit later, he told me that it was ok and now the ham was cooking.  So who knows what happened, but I guess this was the year we almost burned the house down.  Twice.

When I was getting Ruby into her Christmas dress, she told me she wanted to go down and "cook eggies".  Which is exactly what she did.  And I died of the adorableness of it all.

Soon, our relatives came pouring in.  My mom, dad & stepmom, Mr. G's parents and brother, and my older brother, sister-in-law, and niece were all here.  The only one missing was my little brother (in DC with his girlfriend's family.  I stopped taking pics again and just enjoyed it.  Everybody brought food that we grazed on all afternoon.  Ruby and her cousin Frankie (almost 5yrs) played together the whole time.  It was the first time I'd really seen her play with another child, not just alongside, and it was so amazing.  

We skipped Ruby's nap, and even though we could see her getting more and more tired, she was SUCH a little trooper.  Her sweet, charming self the whole time.  Not one single meltdown.  It was more that I could ask of any toddler, and we all just marveled at her.  

There was more gift opening, of course.  Ruby played Santa.  As long as you told her who a gift was for, she'd hand it to the right person.  It was adorable, of course.  Then more eating, drinking, being merry.  Oh, and my brother brought these remote control helicopter things, which basically turned the men into little boys.

We Skyped our other brother.  Talking to his nieces was the highlight of his night.

Ruby could barely keep her eyes open anymore, and just about fell asleep in Mr.G's arms.  So he took her up to put her to bed, and she fell asleep mid-diaper change!  That's a sign of a kid who enjoyed some Christmas, I think!  Our family gathered their things, and everyone made their way out to go home.  Mr. G and I cleaned up a little bit, but decided just to leave it and watch the last few minutes of the last airing of a Christmas Story.

All in all, it was a perfect day.  A great shindig with the family.  Everything turned out great, everyone got along and had a good time.  And best of all, Ruby did.  We couldn't have asked for anything more.

I hope that all of your holidays were as wonderful as ours, and merry everything from our family to yours!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I couldn't be more thankful for this little lady. Hope you all have a wonderful Turkey Day!

Halloween 2013

There is just something about seeing a holiday through a child's eyes...  As Ruby is getting older, it's getting better and better.  Our Halloween was SO much fun!

We kicked off the week by having Grandma over on Sunday to carve pumpkins.

The pumpkins we got from our trip to the patch were no joke!  It was quite the feat to get those guys gutted and carved out.

Then Monday was school.  The kids were encouraged to wear their costumes, and had lots of pumpkin-related activities (and no painting, so they'd stay clean!).

Exploring a sensory bin (she dumped that basket of sand on her head).

Stamping spider shapes into play doh.

Shakin' her thang with the pumpkin shakers at circle time.

Then we took all the kiddos outside for a group picture.

The candy corn is covering the face of a little guy whose parents don't want him on the internet (they were ok with covering up).

On Tuesday, we had our weekly volunteering gig, of course.  The classes were having their own little costume parties, and the instructors encouraged me to bring Ruby in her costume as well.  Didn't have to tell me twice!  Ruby was an adorable little kitty cat greeter, and she was super interested in checking out the newborns in costume!

It also happened to be National Cat Day (that's a thing?), so it turned out she was dressed appropriately.

Wednesday we laid low (though she did wear her glow in the dark onesie!).  Finally, it was Halloween.  Ruby put on her trick or treating dog shirt and festive striped leggings for one last time, and I plopped her pumpkin hat on her head, so that we could go out and run some errands (no surprise, I needed to buy yarn).

Ruby later requested to wear one of her Halloween bows.  We discovered that because the bow has candy corn all over it, she thinks the word for candy corn is "bow".  Dead.

I realized just in time that I should probably take her outside to get some pics of her in costume before it got dark.  I had just been planning to dress her for trick or treat.  What a mom-fail that would have been!!!

Seriously?  Cutest kitty EVER.

She was kissing her pumpkin...

Messy hair, don't care.

Kissing her rocks...  Weirdo.

She looks like she's about to pounce on those pumpkins!  Me-OW!

After all the photo-taking shenanigans, we went inside for a dinner of pumpkin and bat ravioli.  You know, to be festive.  

When it was dark, we had Ruby grab her pumpkin bag (an old gift card holder from Starbucks many years ago - the perfect trick or treat bag for a one year old!), and we went next door to our neighbor's house for her inaugural trick or treat.

Our neighbor, Tanner, answered the door and was excited to see Ruby.  I was pretty much dying from all the cuteness.  He offered her the candy bowl, and she was like, "heck, no, you are not my mom & dad!".  She was being super shy, so I took a piece out and showed her that it got to go in her bag.

Whoa whoa whoa.  I get to put candy in my bag, Mom???

Yeah, that's when her demeanor totally changed, and she was into the trick or treating!  She got to take another piece from the bowl, and did all on her own, putting it into her bag.  We heard Tanner's wife, Samantha, yell from upstairs, "Don't go!  I want to see Ruby's costume!!!"  So we hung around and chatted a bit.  The whole time, Ruby was saying, "Bag?  Bag?" and pointing to her candy.  It was freaking adorable, and my heart was exploding into a million pieces.

Their baby was dressed as a skeleton, which Ruby thought was pretty great, too.  But baby skeletons need to eat, so we said goodbye.  We decided to take Ruby to one other house - our neighbors across the street (who gave Ruby her red wagon).

It was a good call.  Our neighbor, Sandy, was so excited to see Ruby all dressed up.  And Ruby was pretty excited that people were offering her more candy!

We came home, and in the spirit of the holiday, we let Ruby eat one whole piece of candy, all to herself.  Ok, so it was one of those tiny square candy bars (Baby Ruth), but she basically thought she died and went to heaven.

I told her that kids were coming to our house for trick or treat, and when one finally did, she was SO excited!  I think she might have liked helping hand out the candy even more than trick or treating herself!  Unfortunately, because our front door faces only a sidewalk (no street, see the pics above with the rocks in the background), we get very few trick or treaters.  This year was an all time low - only 4 doorbell rings before we shut it down and put Ruby to bed (late).

My heart was so full from watching my little kitty girl on her first Halloween that she had any idea what was going on.  It's going to be hard to wait until next year to do it all again.  Thank goodness we have Christmas coming up (I've already ordered Ruby some festive leggings)!

Want more Halloween fun?  Check out how we spent it last year.  My baby was so tiny!