Successful Halloween!

Princess Dorothy herself
The whole crew

I'm usually really boring and never dress up for Halloween, so I decided to change that this year and we decided to all dress up like the Wizard of Oz characters.  I figured I'd better do it soon since each year I have less and less say in what Ruby is for Halloween, so here you have it.  We told Ruby all month long that she was going to be "Princess Dorothy" for Halloween because I was afraid she would have a tantrum thinking she had to be something besides a princess...and I must say it worked well!  In fact, I think she's the cutest "Princess Dorothy" I've ever seen.  And the Tin Man, well, I KNOW I've never seen a better looking Tin Man.  I wish the picture showed his legs and feet, we made his legs out of flexible vent ducts and they looked pretty good.  I'd like to think that we'll all dress up again next year because it was a blast but we'll have to see...it was a lot of work!!  I guess if I wouldn't wait till Halloween morning to put them together, it wouldn't be so bad.  Oh, by the way, we even won the award for the overall best costume and third place for our chili in the chili cook off at the ward party.  Happy Halloween everyone!!!

He's One!

The cake
My little firefighter
mmmmhhh!
Looking for any crumbs he can find leftover!

I can't believe my baby is already one!!  He's not really a baby anymore...I guess we should stop calling him Baby Jake.  We had a little first birthday party for Jacob on Saturday, thanks to all those who came.  I thought I would post some of his favorite things and things he is doing at his 1st birthday:

His first word:  dood (good)

His newest favorite word:  Mmmmhhh (he says it whenever he eats anything new)

His favorite toy:  Ruby's princess books and dollies (He only wants them because he knows it makes her mad when he takes them...it's amazing how fast they pick up on these things)

His favorite song:  "If you're happy and you know it" (He's recently learned all three verses...my favorite is when he shouts Hooray!)

His favorite place in the house:  Ruby's bookshelf (He empties it appx. 20 times/day!)

His favorite food:  sweet potatoes

His favorite person:  Mommy (That one is just for me to feel good:-))

He's not walking yet, but has recently mastered what we call the stinkbug crawl, where he crawls on his feet instead of his knees.  I'm sure it won't be too long before he's walking.  I can't believe how much babies learn and change in their first year!  He has been just about the best baby EVER and we're glad we have him.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LITTLE JAKE!!

First Haircut

Before the first haircut
She wasn't super thrilled at the thought of getting a haircut...
but I guess when your're two, a sucker can fix almost anything!
The after pictures
So it's probably pitiful that Ruby is over two and a half, and she just got her first haircut yesterday, but I couldn't imagine cutting off all of her cute curls.  I guess I shouldn't have been worried, because there are still plenty of curls left!!  We have been talking for the last few days about getting a haircut (hoping to make it really fun and exciting and something to look forward to :)) and Ruby seemed really excited about it until we got there.  You can tell from the picture right before we started that she wasn't too happy about the idea, but luckily I brought plenty of suckers and a portable DVD player with Finding Nemo.  Once she started cutting her hair, it was like she didn't even notice.  She got about 5 inches cut off, who knew she had so much hair!  Anyway, in my opinion, the wait was worth it, thanks for the cute haircut Dianna!

Little Artist

Ruby's newest thing is painting. Check out the concentration!

My Big Boy

Little Jake's favorite food has recently become puffs . . . because he can feed himself. I love these pictures with the puff stuck to his face, and he had no idea for the longest time, he just kept chow-ing!!

My sweet sweet baby boy!!!
My little boy is growing up so fast, I can hardly believe it. He is already 8 months old, and on May 23rd he got his first tooth. The day before he cut it through he was a little grumpy and had a fever, I've decided if that's all I have to deal with when he teeths, I've got NOTHING to complain about!! I took this picture to show his tooth, which I'm not sure you can actually see, but he's pretty cute anyway. He is almost ready to takeoff crawling, constantly on his hands and knees, or hands and feet, but he still just goes backwards and spins circles (he does do that well though!), and this afternoon I went in to check on him after laying him in his crib for a nap, and he was sitting up just staring at me as I tried to sneak in the door. He has never even been close to sitting himself up when I've been watching him, babies are SO SNEAKY!!!

Ruby Funnies

Every night before we tuck Ruby in bed we help her say her prayers. Most of the time she still just repeats what we say, but the other night as I was helping her to say her prayers, she decided to go off on her own, and thank Heavenly Father for what SHE wanted to thank Him for . . . it went something like this. "thank thee this day, thank thee cotta cheese (cottage cheese), thank thee cewol (cereal), bless this day."

A couple of weeks ago, as we were heading to Thanksgiving Point to revisit the Tulip Festival, we passed a Pepsi truck, and Ruby said, "look mama, daddy's yucky water!" Jake's favorite drink is Pepsi, much to my chagrin, and Ruby wants a drink of his drink every time he has it, but I always tell her that it is "yucky water" in hopes that she will stop asking for it. I guess it's not helping, because she has started ASKING for yucky water.

OKAERINASAI!!!

Jake and his mission companion, Timothy Canham
Our trip to temple square with Hiromi
Savannah, Ruby, and Jake taking a spin on the go-cart
Jersie, Ruby, and Connor at Thanksgiving Point.

This week was a fun filled week at our house. Last week Jake had a work trip to Atlanta, and while he was there one of his mission companions was also there visiting his mother-in-law, so Jake got to see him a little bit. Then last Saturday, the 3rd of May, we went to the airport to pick up a friend of mine from Japan, Hiromi. We got to play all week while she was here and had a lot of fun. We went to temple square, went shopping, went to the petting zoo at thanksgiving point, went to Leamington to ride go-carts, etc. etc. My house had seriously suffered from the week full of fun, but it was definately worth it! Before Hiromi came, I tried to prepare Ruby by speaking Japanese to her now and then, but every time I did, Ruby would get soooooo mad at me, because she couldn't understand what I was saying. It made me nervous for this week, because I thought Ruby would be grumpy all week with us speaking Japanese, but it turns out, she LOVED having Hiromi here. I'm sure it helped that Hiromi brought her toys, and played with her a lot, and it was cute because she was pretty sad when Hiromi left. It was fun for me to watch them play together and communicate together, and it didn't even matter that they don't speak the same language. By the end of the week, we even got Ruby to say her name, only it didn't sound like Hiromi, it sounded like Hoaneemoanee. Two-year-olds are the best!!! Well, we were sad to see the week come to a close, but I must say, it was so good for me, not only to see a good friend who I hadn't seen for a long time, but also to be reminded of how important family and friends are. She reminded me over and over of how much our Heavenly Father loves us and knows us, and especially of what a wonderful family I have been blessed with. I wouldn't trade my Big Jake, Ruby, and Little Jake for ANYTHING!! Thanks to my family and Hiromi for such a fun week!!!