Last day in Indiana

On Thursday August 6th we just spent a relaxing day since we were driving home the next day and wanted to leave at 4 am. Mr. John aka Holly's dad took Ru fishing. She had a blast and they caught 5 fish. She is going to miss Mr. John I am sure. The last picture is from our drive home. Ru had a fever and slept almost the whole 16 hours but still slept that night.

Holly took this reflection picture and I thought it was cool

Isn't she so cute

Shipshewana

On Wednesday August 5th we went to Shipshewana, Indiana. I wanted to see the Amish community there and it was like a 3 hour drive from Holly's parents. I have been wanting an Amish handmade quilt for my bed for a really long time. We had finally saved up the money. So while we were in Shipshewana we ordered a king size quilt, but there is a picture of the pattern below. I read a lot of fiction books about the Amish and so I am really fascinated by them. They also had a huge flea market there in Shipshewana were the Amish and non-Amish both shop. There was a little bakery where I bought some jam, cinnamon rolls, and this yummy stuff called Chocolate Cashew Crunch basically toffee with cashews but they call it "Amish Crack" because it was so addicting. We went to a bulk foods store too and I bought some yummy homemade pasta. It was super fun to see all the buggies everywhere we went.

Pattern for my future quilt

Amish girl on a bicycle

Buggy on the rode next to cars

Flea market

Buggies parked outside the bulk foods store

Trip to Chicago

Holly's parents live about an hour from Chicago so on Tuesday August 4th we went to visit Chicago. We saw the huge mirrored kidney bean and we went to the lego store. We also just walked down Michigan Ave. Ru napped in the stroller that day and it was a fun day.

Giant mirrored kidney bean

Lego store

Day at the Dairy

On Monday August 3rd, we went to tour the Fair Oaks dairy. It was fun we got to see a cow give birth. Tomorrow I will talk about our trip to Chicago. On a side note, most of you know that we are a very touchy family. Today I was sitting next to Ru at lunch and she had both of her feet on my leg. She said, "Mommy look both of my feet are stroking you." She is the cutest.

Bouncing on the bouncing pillow

Driving gas powered tractor

Indiana Shower

On Sunday August 2nd, we had Aunt Holly's first wedding shower. It was held in her parents backyard and as you can see by the pictures it was beautiful. Ms. Judy made homemade blueberry jam for all the guests. I thought this was such a creative idea for a party favor. There was quite a crowd, and it was nice to meet all of Aunt Holly's friends and family. Ru squeezed into a few extra pictures that were not necessarily supposed to include her. Aunt Holly said she didn't mind and loved having her in all the pictures.

Just a cute picture of the princess

Aunt Holly's dad(Mr. Jon) was the bartender for the shower

Aunt Holly and her cousins and Ru

Aunt Holly and her mom(Ms. Judy)

Ru and Aunt Holly

Aunt Holly's parents backyard all set up for the shower

Indiana

On Friday July 31st, Ru and I went with my brother's fiance a.k.a. Aunt Holly, to visit her family in Indiana. We decided to drive the 16 hour trip because her mom was going to throw a wedding shower for her while we were there. We left Friday at 4 a.m. and we arrived at 8 p.m. Ru did really well she only slept about 2 hours the whole trip but she spent a lot of time relaxing and she played really happily. The pictures below are from Saturday our first full day there. In the next few days I will post pictures from the rest of the trip.

Aunt Holly and Ru on Mr. Jon's motorcycle

Mr. Jon and Miss Judy(Aunt Holly's parents) own greenhouses that grow pretty flowers.

Ru with Mr. Jon

More Pictures of Houston

Watching a 3D movie

Butterfly exhibit

Aquarium

Carousel ride

Vacation

We just got back from a vacation to Houston. It was a pretty cool trip. We were able to borrow my mom's car which has more room than ours which was nice. We also took Holly (my future sister-in-law) to help us with Ru. We were able to get our hotel for free because of Jon's hotel points from when he was in Seattle for work. It was a really nice hotel. We had two rooms, one for us and one for Ru and Aunt Holly. Each room had sliding doors between the sitting area and the bedroom which Ru liked to open and close. We drove down on Tuesday and came back on Friday. We went to the Aquarium, Space Center, Children's Museum, and another museum that had a butterfly exhibit. Ru had lots of fun. Thursday night Ru stayed at the hotel with Aunt Holly while Mom and Dad went to Cirque du Soleil. That was their favorite part. Ru enjoyed spending quality time with Daddy. The Children's Museum was awesome. It was so huge and their was tons to do. If you ever get a chance to take your child there you should. I forgot to take my camera a couple of days so I will post more pictures when I get them from Aunt Holly

Space Center trying to push buttons while laying down, actually her bottom is supposed to be on the seat but who cares.

Working out

Well I have finally joined a gym and have been working out doing water aerobics. Ru has not been enjoying the childcare. She screamed the first time and they had to pry her out of my arms. It has been hard on me but I feel like I need to do this. Today was the 4th time I have taken her. Hip Hip Hooray today she went without crying. She still whimpered and said she did not want to go to the "gym" but her friend Kyle was there today and at least she didn't scream this time.

July 4th fun

We went to Granbury to visit my grandmother for July 4th. Ru calls her Grammers. We spent 2 nights with Grammers. We went to their pool. We did fireworks and watched them. Daddy bought Ru her very own Disney Princess fishing pole. It was really cute. Both mornings when she woke up she said, "I wanna go fishin."

Ruth watching the neighbor behind us mow

June 20th Party with the Scheffrahns

Ruth sitting with her cousins Asher and Caedmon sitting on Papa.

I feel like every time I sit down to write something else comes up. June 20th we had a party for quarterly birthdays with the Scheffrahns.

I have been taking pictures

Above is a picture of the night time ritual where Daddy reads her a book in bed.

On Friday Ru and I went with her friend Sammy to the Cowgirl Museum.  They have part of the exhibit from the Fort Worth Museum while it is being renovated.  They had a pretend house with a light switch, phone, sink, doorbell.  They also had a little pretend grocery store.  They also had a little pretend car and train to sit in and steer.  Upstairs they had a fake horse they could sit on, a teepee they could crawl in and a place to make pretend camp stew.  It was a fun trip.

My Princess singing during lunch

We are kind of boring around here

When I say that we are boring it means we are probably just hanging at the house.  These days are filled with laughter though.  Ru is so funny right now.  The other day we had the following conversation...

Ru: Can I take my baby to the car

Me: Sure honey

Ru: I am going to take her blanket too.  She(the baby) wants a bottle, but I am too tired.

She is also in a stage of making up words.  Yesterday she sang a whole song full of made up words while dancing in a circle by the slide.  One of her favorite thing to make up is names so we are always going to Bago's house or some other no name person.

  Today we went to my friend Misty's resale shop called Little Giggles.  I got Ru some cute things and I got some needed summer pajamas.  I also got a baby doll potty.  Ru has been telling me that her baby needs to go potty.  I am sooooo nervous about ending up with a baby soaked in potty water so I always discourage it.  This baby potty is just a little plastic toy one. Well Ru has loved it but after several babies went potty she said she needed to potty on it. While holding in the laughter I said, "No baby you are a big girl and so you go on the big potty this is just for your babies.

On a totally different note.  I tried putting oatmeal water in Ru's bath yesterday.  A friend of mine suggested it on her blog and said that it helped keep her kids skin soft.  I thought well I have some oatmeal so I will give it a try.  I didn't measure really I just dumped some oatmeal in a big pot and boiled it until it was milky colored then strained out the oatmeal and put the oatmeal water in the bath and added some water.  Ru's skin is so incredibly soft even today.  My friend said that for her infants she doesn't even use soap very often the oatmeal water is more of a gentle cleanser.  Well I have rambled enough for today.

Randomness

Well yesterday Ru's friend Si came over to play on the swingset.  Today we are hanging out with Kyle, Brooke and Miss Chrissy.  It has been a busy week and Ru's mom is very tired but Ru is loving every minute of it.  She is my social girl.  Some of the things I love about my girl are...  I love when she say "I make you happy" when she gives me a hug.  I love it when she dances which looks a lot like skipping around in a circle.  I love that whenever she goes to sleep she has to give everyone in the room a hug, kiss and secret(I love you so much).  It makes me laugh when I ask for a kiss and she kisses her hand and tries to hand it to me.  It is so cute how she sings the ABCs and Jesus loves me together like it is one song.

Today it was more of the same. Aunt Beck and the kids came to celebrate the new swingset.  Ru was so excited to show off her new playset that she giggled out loud.  It was the cutest thing. Aunt Becky made special banana cream for Ru to celebrate.  Ru of course loved it.  Sugar came over in the afternoon to swing with Ru.  Sugar taught her that they could blow kisses while swinging next to each other and still holding on.  Family is a wonderful thing.  Ru also had her first little fall from her new swing but it was just a little lip cut.  I think that she is going to enjoy her new set a lot, but I also think she is going to learn a lot on it too.