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!!!

school busses and choo-choos

Miriam and Matt invited us to go to the carnival by the Provo Towne Center last Saturday and Ruby thought her dreams had come true!!! She absolutely LOVES school busses and every time we pass one while driving in the car she says "Mommy, ride school bus" over and over. So the thought of DRIVING a school bus was almost too much excitement for a two year old to handle!!
Ruby and Savannah driving the car. I was almost as exciting as the bus!
Jake and Matt took Savannah and Ruby on this little roller coaster and they surprisingly both loved it . . . it's a good thing because it cost $12.00 for the four of them to ride it for a couple of minutes . . . oh well, the looks on the girls' faces was worth more than $12. After they got off, Ruby kept saying choo-choo over and over, and I finally figured out that she thought the roller coaster was a choo-choo and wanted to ride it again.

A few days ago Ruby found her winter hat out of a drawer in her room, and discovered a new love of it. For a couple of days, I would find her in random places with it on. The funniest was when she wouldn't leave the house without it, and I'm sure the neighbors were laughing when they saw her come out of the house in her shorts, short sleeves and her winter hat. Kids are the BEST!

This is how little Jake enjoyed the tulip festival . . . covered up in his stroller chillin' with a toy!


I love these action shots of Ruby!!

Last Friday, the 18th we went to the tulip festival at Thanksgiving Point. Here are a few pictures from it. You would probably think there would be a few pictures of tulips here, but here are a couple of the reasons why there aren't.

#1 The grassy hill was a much bigger hit for Ruby than walking around looking at flowers.

#2 The flowers were hardly in bloom yet . . . maybe we'll have to try again at the end of the festival.

Even though there weren't a ton of flowers though, we had a blast. I love watching Ruby giggle and have so much fun. It's one thing that makes being a mom so much fun!!!