Daily Livin'

Good morning! Well, I guess if you live on the east coast it's afternoon already... Anyway, good... day?

If you'd like to see what a "typical" day in my life with an (almost) 18 month old, head over to The Domestic Wannabe to check us out!

And if you came over to visit from Ashley's blog, welcome, don't mind the cobwebs (I promise they'll clear once I'm done with this craft sale!), and feel free to stick around!

Month in iPhone Pictures. Whoops.

Holy crapbag.  It's been a month since I've done my weekly ipic roundup.  Also?  I had 291 pictures on my phone that hadn't been uploaded to my computer.  Yikes.

Before I get this mess o pictures started, be warned.  I'm probably going to be just as, if not more, terrible blogger than ever for the next few weeks.  I've decided to participate as a vendor in a craft fair for Ruby's school.  Which means my every spare waking moment is currently being spent crocheting.  Well, except for this moment.  Because I've got to catch up on my daily iphotos...

Ok, turn your clocks back to:

September 15-21

Sunday:  Sewing, sewing.  I feel like if Baby Beast-mode were holding a football in her right hand, this would almost look like a Heisman pose.  Tackling the dog.  Monday:  First day of school!  Checking out her new classroom.  Super wound-up and goofy after an exciting first day.  Tuesday:  Happiness in the form of an iced chai.  Pretty excited about construction in the courtyard.  A happy mail day.

Wednesday:  Um, my kid is crazy.  And she haaaaaaaated the little coin-op rides at the outlet mall!  Thursday:  If she kisses the frog, will it turn into a prince?  The coolest swing ever.  Friday:  Our favorite toy.  Coffee date with Auntie Dawn!  Completely wiped on the stroll home.  Saturday:  Playing the family piano with grandma.  Our neighbors are amazing, and gave Ruby this wagon that their grandkids had outgrown!

September 22-28

Sunday:  Coloring in her menu at breakfast.  This is what happens when you miss naptime...  Monday: Off to school we go!  Trying to return something she pickpocketed from the diaper bag.  Tuesday:  She takes her volunteering seriously, and likes to wear the badge.  That t-shirt kills me (inside the french press it says, "too young for coffee, but still going strong").  This is what happens when I have "help" with the laundry...  Wednesday:  Snack time!  A cheerful hello on our walk.

Thursday:  We found this awesome shirt at Target, and wanted to send a pic to Daddy, but you can't even tell it's neon green.  The face of a girl who woke up from nap with a cold.  Not too sick to play outside, though!  And bring her mommy rocks, of course.  Then some "art" with dollar bin stickers.  Friday:  Daddy brought home a super cool glowing bracelet from the Microsoft meeting.  My little helper pretty much unloads the dishwasher on her own.  Saturday:  I guess we only took pics in the bath?  That's not a yawn - it's an "I-O!", baby!

September 29-October 5

Sunday:  How we roll at breakfast.  She's not just a sports fan, she reads novels, too.  Hey!  I cleaned up the craft room dining room, so we can actually use the table now.  Monday:  We had to play hooky from school because she still had the sniffles, but she still wanted to play outside.  Wrapped up in a quilt, per her request.  Tuesday:  Trying on my toddlerhood kitty costume (crazy!).  Showing off her Halloween doggie shirt.  Wednesday:  Pet store = toddler amusement park?  Poppin' bubs.

Thursday:  Someone insisted on wearing boots to do a little reading.  Wagon ride to the park to take some 17 month photos!  My sweet little cowgirl.  Friday:  Yes, that's a candy corn hairbow.  Daddy came home early, so we took him to the toddler park.  Bubbles every day.  Saturday:  A grumpy hayride.  Nap part deux in the Beco.  All smiles in the pumpkin patch.

October 6-12

Sunday:  So cozy!  Wistfully watching big kids with bubble wands at Salmon Days.  Monday:  Sensory bin fun.  Our weekly trunk picnic.  Tuesday:  My maple is holding out, trying to hang onto its green.  Once again, taking her volunteer job seriously.  Wednesday:  Color, color, color.  She wanted to help walk the dog.  Hugs, every chance she gets.

Thursday:  Rockin' the glow in the dark onesie!  Classic Ruby-face.  Friday:  Ghosts in the House.  One of the many hats.  "Helping" me bake some Halloween cookies.  Please note, the flour all over the legs...  Despite having plenty of toys in her room to play with, she entertained herself with this shirt of mine that she pulled off the drying rack for a good half hour.  Saturday:  My sweetness.  Who then turned around and tried to ride the dog... which is frowned upon in this establishment.

Pumpkin Fun!

Mr. G and I tend to be the biggest holiday procrastinators.  You know the type - shopping on Christmas Eve, getting a tree, like, a week before, and hitting the pumpkin patch the week before Halloween.

Not this year.

This year, Mr. G wanted to do both pumpkin patch AND corn maze.  There is an amazing corn maze about an hour from where we live.  We've always been at night (so fun!) pre-kid, but we figured it'd be pretty awesome in the daytime with our girl, too.  And the weather here is currently incredible, not at all like our usual wet Octobers!  We had to seize the opportunity.

And bonus?  They have a killer pumpkin patch on the same farm.  If you are local you MUST check out Bob's Corn & Pumpkin Farm.  Must!

This wasn't even half of it.

Ruby took kind of a crappy nap, and didn't sleep at all on the way there.  Which took forever, thanks to an accident on 405.  So she was in a really weird/out of it/grumpy mood when we arrived.  We parked, trucked it in past some farm animals (that she was interested in, but still way out of it), purchased our passes for the big maze, and while we waited for the tractor hayride to take us there, we discovered that the Snohomish County firefighters were there with some apparatus' for the kids to check out.

Mr. G was a firefighter back in the day, so you know we had to get our girl in that engine!

But she was still super weird and out of it!  It was bizzare.  Anyway, we decided to head over to the tractor pick-up area.  All around us were amazing smells of roasting sweet corn and cider donuts.  When Ruby saw the (enormous!) tractor, she perked up.  This tractor was so huge, she could've fit inside the wheel.  It might have been her favorite part.  It pulled two huge haywagons to take us across the street to the maze, so we hopped aboard.

Still a total grumpapotamus, but she thought the straw was really cool.  Once we arrived, you could either go to the pumpkin patch, or head into the 10 acre maze.  Yes, 10 acres.  That's where we went!  We thought Ruby would enjoy running through the corn stalks.  No.  She wanted to be carried.  But not really.  She just wanted to grump?  I was kind of worried.  We got into the maze, and promptly got lost.  In case you're wondering what we were dealing with, this is this year's maze:

via

For reference, both the start and the finish are in the upper right corner (start is the opening at the bottom of that notch), and the large square at the bottom left is the halfway point.  Oh, and the crop circles are areas for private firepit parties when you do the night maze (night maze is so awesome).

Anyway, we were lost, and we weren't even to the "BOB" part yet.  And Ruby was grumping.  We found a dead end, put her in the Beco, and decided to use the map (thank goodness we took a map, we almost didn't because we never have at night).  Except when you're lost, it's almost impossible to orient yourself with the map.  It wasn't until we stumbled into the O that we figured out where we were.  We figured it wise to use the map with a cranky baby, but even with it, it was SO challenging!  We got a little mixed up near the bee, but luckily I am pretty darn good with direction.

Thankfully, Ruby decided to fall asleep, and we all made it out alive a couple hours later.

We decided it was time to find the great pumpkin, so we headed out into the patch.  Ruby was still pretty grouchy (what the heck, kid??), but once she saw the pumpkins, she asked to get down.  It wasn't long before those big orange orbs turned her mood around.

Pumpkins everywhere!

She tried to lift some huge pumpkins, and got really annoyed that she couldn't just pick them all up.  Then she found the little one with the long curly stem, and it became her BFF.  She kept pointing to it, and saying, "Wow!!!".  It was super hard to walk out there over the dead vines (thank goodness it wasn't too muddy, since her rainboots arrived at our house while we were at the farm), so we decided to snag her little pumpkin and one of the cute white ones there, but head back across the road via tractor and get our big pumpkins by the barns, since we had all our stuff and they had another smaller patch over there.

We made a quick stop at the barn to see how our little lady measured up, and so that she could again show us how much she loved the curly-stemmed pumpkin, before walking over to the patch.

That face!

She was freaking hilarious, trying to pick up all of the (huge) pumpkins.  Mr. G decided to take the majority of our junk back to the car, so Ruby and I fooled around in the patch, taking tons of pictures of her cuteness.  It was awesome to see her so excited about the pumpkins (especially after all the grumpies earlier!).

She really liked these greenish ones.  I did too, I'm kinda sad I didn't take any home.

"This one, Mama."

Daddy came back and found us horsing around the barn again.  Ruby would point to a pumpkin, then point to herself, which is how she usually lets us know she wants something.  Haha!  At one point, she even kissed a pumpkin!

We grabbed a pumpkin wheelbarrow and loaded up our little pumpkin for a ride through the patch to the other side, where we found the perfect mama & daddy pumpkins.

Back up at the barn, we found a cute little Ruby-sized pumpkin, too.  Mr. G went in to pay, and Ruby and I watched kids swinging from a tire swing on a big old tree.  Seriously, how awesome is this place?  

After that, we had just enough time and energy to grab some hot apple cider donuts (my stomach just growled thinking about them).  Ruby took one bite and couldn't believe what was in her mouth.  After that, all we heard was, "Bite?  Bite?".  They were amazing.

We bumped along with our wheelbarrow way back out to the car (it was next to that black one driving in the picture above, oof), and loaded up for the trip home after what turned out to be an amazing day at the pumpkin patch.  I already can't wait to take Ruby next year, and I feel like this was a preview of just how awesome holidays are going to be with a toddler.

And, hey!  Since we weren't slackers this year, we still have time to take her to another pumpkin patch if we want.  I'd love to take her back to the one we went to last year!

Calendar Girl - Seventeen Months

Uh oh, guess what day it is?  Guess what day it is!  Nope, not hump day.

It is the actual day that Ruby turns 17 months.  And here's her calendar girl post.  BAM!

Yeah.  I'm a little proud of myself.

So, seventeen months is where it's at.  Seriously, I am so in love with this age right now!  Ruby is just so so SO much fun!

Last month, I had a feeling that we were on the verge of a big language explosion.  There was a lot of babbling going on, and it just seemed like she had something to say.  BOY, was I right!  In just one month, Ruby is up at least 25 new words!!!  I say at least because, well, that's how many I remembered and wrote down.  And, of course, like any toddler, some of the words aren't actual words, but sounds that she says the same every time she means that one thing.  So it counts.

Added to her vocabulary this month are: guy, shoe, no, cheese (this one is SO cute), wash (wa), buh which means buns, box, bag, bus, buckle, or pocket (wtf?) depending on what she's talking about, spoon (which is what she calls all utensils), boom (thunder), girl, cake, bite, ride, guh (glasses and hanger), nice, dance, boo boo, down, bone, bowl, chair, and boots.  Phew!!!

Adding those to the words (and sounds) she already knew, we now can basically have conversations with each other.  It is totally awesome!  Of course, it's also kind of a bummer.  Like when I pick her up to change her diaper, and she starts yelling, "Down!!!".  Or I try to eat a cookie and she demands, "Bite!  Bite!".  But it's also really adorable.  When she sees (or makes) a mess, she exclaims "Oh, no!!!".  Kid cracks me up.

She is straight up obsessed with Braidy.  She kind of always has been, but it's reached a new high.  She gives her hugs whenever she can get her hands on her.  She brings her her bone (which is probably why she chose to learn to say that word).  When she wakes up in the morning or from nap, she doesn't call for mama or dada.  She calls for "Bray".  At night when we're going to sleep, she asks about her ("Bray?  Bray?") at least a dozen times, and finally accepts it when I've told her (also a dozen times) that Braids is ninights.  And the cutest part, is whenever Braidy walks into the room, Ruby lights up and goes, "Heyyyyy, Bray!!!".  It kills me.

In other news, sleep continues to be going all right.  It's much the same as last month.  We get one nap a day in the crib (unless we're gone somewhere at naptime).  We read our stories, sing a song, and I put her down.  For a couple of weeks, she went down without crying AT ALL.  Then one day I realized she had pooped while we were reading stories, so I had to change her first, and that totally unnerved her.  She had a few days in a row of protest cries, and now sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't.  Probably more often not.  

Nights are also the same.  She falls asleep cuddled up with me in my bed, then I pop her over to her own.  Which sounds like it should be a bad thing, but it is totally working for her.  Once in her crib, we don't hear a peep from her until morning.  It has been much colder at night, and she has outgrown all of her sleepsacks, so instead of buying large ones, we've been making the switch to using a blanket (that my aunt knitted her, so it's holey and breathable).  She's still not totally sure about it, but will allow me to put one over her after she's asleep at night, and seems to like it when I put one on her at naptime, but she doesn't usually keep it on for the whole sleep.  I'm not really sure what else to do, other then just keep offering it to her, but I have been kind of worried about her being cold, as her room seems to be the chilliest in the house.

Of course, we all know that Ruby started school this month!  So far, it seems to be a hit.  Sadly, we've only been twice.  We had to skip this week because the new school germs got her down, and she had a cold.  But she's been getting more daring at moving away from me to go try things she likes (she even crawled through a tunnel!).  She discovered the play kitchen last time, and loved it, so yay, since that's what Santa's likely bringing her for Christmas.  She also love LOVES getting her hands stamped at the end of circle, and has been walking around "asking" for more stamps since we've been.  I was so sad we had to miss last week, I already look forward to us going so much!

Girl on the go.

Speaking of being more daring, my girl finally braved up enough to go down a slide on her own!!!  She likes to slide, but she's always been too fearful to do it herself.  When the weather is nice, we walk over to a little toddler park in our neighborhood, and last time we went, she marched herself up the little steps, sat down on her bottom, and slid down the little slide!  I couldn't believe it, really.  And I think she was a little surprised, too, but she did it a few more times.  Go Ruby!

Ruby continues to knock our socks off with her smarts.  One day, I dumped a bunch of blueberries into a colander to rinse them.  R was standing next to me, so I absentmindedly handed her the empty container.  Next thing I knew, she was opening the pantry door and putting it into the recycling!!!  Then a few days later, she finished eating a snack while we were down in the living room.  She climbed up the stairs into the kitchen, I didn't see her for a minute, then she came back, without the bag, asking for help down the stairs.  I had no idea what she'd done with the bag, until later, when I found it neatly in the garbage can.  What the heck, kid?  And she now does this all the time, and she always knows what's supposed to be recycled, and what has to go in the garbage!

Requisite pointing-at-airplane shot.

Ruby is still a good eater.  She still hates yogurt (and most all white, creamy dairy).  She LOVES broccoli, and would probably eat a whole head if I let her.  I cut her off at 1 cup.  Insane.  In the past, she has disliked oatmeal, but I have been making this pumpkin oatmeal recipe that I found on Pinterest, and she loves it!  She's doing pretty well at eating food off of a plate (instead of her tray) now, but has some learning to do in the utensil department.  Use of fork is starting to pick up, but she doesn't really like eating anything off of a spoon - except that oatmeal, which she practiced scooping herself just yesterday - yay!

Oh yeah, and to eat that food, she needs teeth, right?  It's been a couple of months since she's gotten any new teeth.  Understandably, she doesn't like me feeling around in her mouth, but I check periodically.  Knowing molars are on the horizon, I figured we'd know about it when those were coming in...  Um, NO.  Sneak-baby cut BOTH top molars sometime in this past month without even telling us about it.  I just discovered them a couple of days ago.  Either she is crazy tough, or she should be a poster child for amber teething necklaces!

Overall, she is just the most awesome, delightful toddler.  She's had one solitary tantrum (and it turned out, she was getting sick), and while she has her whiny moments (like while I'm trying to cook dinner), she is just so happy and fun!  She loves to give kisses.  She brings us our socks and shoes.  She'll walk up behind me when I'm sitting down and drape herself over my back in a hug.  She notices everything. She likes to help me cook.  She still is obsessed with the dishwasher and can unload almost the whole thing.  She's getting into crayons ("color color").  She is still very much into clothes and shoes.  She likes to sniff spices when we're baking, and flowers if she sees one.  She is the love of my life.

It's hard to believe that the next one of these I write will be 18 months.  One and a half.  Time is flying.