Sweet Sleep

That big, round cheek. Those tiny toes. That little fist. Those long lashes. The scowly eyebrow. Those scrunched legs. All the rolls. The sweet smell. I love the smiles and coos and laughter and tiny, pokey teeth, and the concentrating face when he tries to pull a toy toward his mouth. I love his softness and how I can still hold him like a tiny baby. I love his big, brown eyes. I love him so very much. I just love this baby of mine.

The Littles

The other morning I thought Ruthie was looking especially cute and tried to snap a few photos. Of course, between figuring out the lighting and the camera setting, and then trying to get a smile, the pictures did not turn out that great. But the girl sure still looks adorable! I love me some Ruthie!

Shirt courtesy of Devaney hand-me-down, and skirt courtesy Bell hand-me-down. Gotta love older cousins!

Ruthie can now open doors all by herself. The other morning I was getting ready for the day and thought she was downstairs playing nicely with her toys. Come to find the garage door open and Ruth playing in the gutter-stream in bare feet! AH! I now bolt our front and garage door. She still gets into the pantry, and I still need to rearrange the stuff in there. But at least no more runaways! 

Ruth also loves to sing. She goes around singing an original compilation of several songs she knows. Usually it has a bit of "Old Dog Blue" and "Doo-daa" from our disney cd's, a bit of Twinkle, Twinkle and "I Like Your Eyes" from the good-night songs we sing her, and then some ad lib. It is pretty adorable. 

Another thing that I love about Ruth right now is asking her how she is. She always says "Goot" with real gusto and a really hard 't' sound and then bobs her head up and down once to add finality to the response. I just love it. I will be so sad when her 'good' sounds just like everyone else's. 

Sterling was playing with Will the other day while I, obviously, was ignoring them. He was getting Will to laugh so hard that he grabbed the camera and got this great shot. (See why I think he smiles like a lizard sometimes? Its just the tongue at the tip of the mouth thing...) Will has the greatest grin! 

His laugh is pretty much the cutest thing in my life. It seems to just gurgle right out of him as if he just can't help himself. Ruth usually startles/scares him when she puts her face in his and yells "hi!" as she runs on by, but every once in a while she comes up nicely and spends some quality smile-time with him. I love seeing them laugh and smile back and forth.

 Olives!!!!

The end.

He eats!

I was talking in the mothers lounge today about the fact that the second child just flies by. I totally forgot what the normal age to roll over is (suddenly at his 4 mo dr. appt they asked me if he was rolling over...no? do I even remember when that is supposed to happen? no?) Its ok folks, he rolls over now, even without Ruthie in the room pushing him over. And then there's real food. I was SO excited the minute Ruth was 4 months old to try real food and see what she thought. Will is almost five months and I haven't even thought about it. Until today when he was grabbing at my food, and I said to Sterling, hey, we should try giving him some of this applesauce (gasp...we aren't even giving him cereal first like we should!!! haha) besides, I know the ingredients I used in case there's an allergic reaction. 

No allergies, but MAN was there ever a reaction! (I felt bad about the 2nd child shaft, and ran to get the camera to at least document the moment.) He tasted that spoonful, grabbed onto the spoon with BOTH fists, and WAILED when I pulled it away to get more. He ate two full little dollops off my plate and barely got any on his clothes and didn't spit any of it out! (there was quite a bit on his hands, he had to stick his fists in his mouth for the milliseconds in between bites)

Grabbing the spoon to 'help' the process!

All those hands! He just couldn't pull things towards him fast enough.

He eats (or, at least, has eaten). He has two bottom teeth. He can roll over. And look at those wise, big brown eyes! Oh, where has my baby gone? He is so big already and it has flown by so fast! Can't anyone learn how to slow down life? If every pregnancy, delivery, and baby was as easy and perfect as his I really would have ten more...I mean, he's slept through the night since 2 1/2 months! I think I'll start giving him some cereal for dinner and maybe then he won't wake up for his early-morning feeding that he's been keeping around 4:30-5am. I just love watching babies learn and explore new things. Sterling said he wishes that he got Will's very first expression upon tasting food on camera, he was quite surprised! 

Roastin' Pit

Remember our good friends? All the babies are finally here and we could party again! The Schultz's just put in an awesome fire pit and we made good use of it! The best part...all those adorable little babies. And that picture of all three proud papas and their tiny little ones? Our life is just so good. And filled with so many wonderful people. Thanks guys! (our baby is almost 5 months and the other two are barely three weeks, I can't believe how fast he's grown! and how tiny they are!)

Sterling & Will, Eric & Sam...can we say CLONE babies?!?!?! And little Reagan looks just like her big sister, I think.

I stole this picture from the Schultz's. Thanks guys!

Flashback to November, and now our little group has almost doubled in size!

We're building our house in their backyard when we finish medical school. Its the best plan ever! 

They reluctantly gave each other a hug when I asked...I think Myah is a little scared of Ruth's crazy outgoingness.

And, of course, the most handsome man there. 

Thanks everyone for a great night! We have such great friends! And I can't believe how many little people are starting to populate our parties! Just yesterday we were all newlyweds in the same apartment complex building snowmen and staying up WAY too late at each other's places. I am so glad we got to grow into parenthood with such wonderful examples and friends. And what a great way to spend a beautiful summer night, the longest night of the year even! 

A Family Outing

Our good friends invited us to go swimming with them last Thursday to celebrate their daughter's 2nd birthday. Unfortunately, that same daughter threw up in the parking lot right before going in. So they cancelled. But I had spent the morning preparing (and man! what a job preparing to go swimming is!) and had even laid Ruth down for her nap an hour early to make sure she'd have a good time at the pool. Sterling and I discussed it, and decided to go anyway. It was weird, for both of us. We are both used to big families and events like swimming are accompanied with lots of people to make it fun. Would we even have fun with just us? We sure did, it was really fun to be 'just us' and I am so glad we decided to go! 

We mostly hung out in the kiddie pool with this amazing frog slide (Ruth could have gone up and down all day long!):

If you look very closely do you see that bandaid on her knee? Before she even got to go in the water she took a spill and gashed her knee enough to get blood on Sterling's shirt. We got a bandaid and she seemed good to go. Then she fell again, same spot, and it took a little bit more to convince her she was good to go. Then...you betcha. Same spot. That time it ripped the bandaid and it started bleeding again. It took her a bit to recover from that one. But some gatorade, licorice, and teddy grahams seemed to do the trick. Poor little lady.

Enough floatation devices? Haha! Ruth loved them, she learned right away that she could jump in water and float around with her awesome swimsuit from Aunt Amy. She loves being her independent little self !

She got better at waiting in line. Sort of.

Love that man. xoxo

 We put Will in the water for a little while, but there was a pretty good breeze that froze us out, plus the little floaty that Ruth used last year isn't that great for him yet because he can't sit up completely by himself. We enjoyed ourselves some bonding time, and then he hung out with daddy at the end so I could get in and play with Ruth. Oh I just love my little man. He is the cuddliest, handsomest, most perfect little baby there ever was!

Pretty sweet farmer's tan! 

Sterling took Ruth into the deeper water for some impromptu swim lessons...if you can call it swimming with that many floaties!!! Sterling would push her away and she would paddle her way back, and she was grinning the whole time! (Sorry for the pole in all the pictures, but I was nursing and thus, stuck in that spot for picture-taking.)

Not grinning so much here. But I gotta say, that face is HILARIOUS! 

 I just love those two. And she loves her daddy. And that is just one of the best feelings in the entire world. I am so blessed.

I guess we CAN be our own little family of four and it can be loads of fun! We even splurged and got some nachos (and a hot dog for Ruth)--it felt like we were at a carnival! Also, it took an entire duffel bag just to carry all our towels in, it felt like we were bringing our whole house for a two-week stay instead of just for an afternoon of swimming! But, we were well-fed and well-hydrated and thoroughly happy. (Minus my left shoulder that somehow must have missed the sunscreen application. Ouch.)

Photos from my phone(not an iPhone)

My little brother Ethan helped show me how to get my pictures off my phone, so I thought I'd show some favorites!

They start at the most recent, and go backwards in time until you see Will just barely born at the hospital!

Oh how I love thee, sweet stroller of mine!

Blessing outfit.

Massive panda at the treehouse museum.

The end.

Father's Day

 See that handsome man? He's the best. dad. ever. and I am so very happy that he is going to be my kids' dad forever! He was extra loved this father's day because we just happened to get the George Foreman and fix his dent in our car. Then he got his present (a new shirt, that he didn't wear because of his sunburn...too much red, haha!) and I even made him cookies! I'm so glad that I get to love him and especially that I get a day to remind myself of what a great husband he is to me! 

Also, my dad. I got a GREAT picture of him and me together, but alas, it is on my sister Kayli's camera. (if she is going to be so frustrated with my camera, she needs to be better about sending me the awesome pictures she takes on her camera, right?!) So we'll go with this picture of him kissing my mom's elbow. Which is appropriate. I love my dad!

Two little redheads sitting in the car!

3 redheads. 

 With that pitiful amount of obviously non-staged pictures, I will tell you about our wonderful Father's Day. We ate delicious chicken salad sandwiches and salads made by everyone. Cookies and caramel rice krispies, and then we sat around on my sister Megan's porch and chatted, and enjoyed the nice summer night. I love spending time with family! This weekend, at the cabin and at my sister's, made me start to feel a little sad about moving far, far away for medical school. It's still a year away, but still.

 After all that delicious goodness and relaxation, my little brother took me on a ride on his new motorcycle and, oh, how I LOVE motorcycles! Then we had some amazing DDR competitions. Ethan, my little brother (not to be confused with Sterling's little brother in the last post, haha) was a couple hundred points ahead of Sterling for almost the entire song, and Sterling came back and beat him by THREE points at the end! YAY honey!!!! Then I totally killed Kayli, Lindsay Ann, and mom. Of course, they had to play again, and I lost to Lindsay Ann who had some mad crazy skills and set a new record. Ruthie also joined in the dancing and had some hilarious leg-lifting skills going on. Good times had by all, what a wonderful day!

The Cabin

We left LATE Friday night, after Sterling got off work (thanks Bridget and Cade for waiting for us!) and Ruthie decided to be WIDE awake at midnight and entertain all of us for awhile when we got to the cabin. For some reason we were all wide awake for a bit, even though it was late, and had some fun chatting away. We decided we didn't want to wake Will up by putting Ruth in the pack 'n play to cry herself to sleep (she usually cries for a couple of minutes every time we lay her down), so we let her sleep with us. She certainly thought she was the queen bee for the moment! We snuggled in between sleeping bags with Ruth in the middle and Ruth smiled and kissed me, then Sterling, then me, then Sterling, and happily snuggled down deep. Sterling was less than impressed that she had to take her cups to bed with her (she is obsessed with stacking them). We were both considerably less than impressed when Will woke up at 5am, woke Ruth up, and neither went back to sleep.

pj's underneath some warmer clothes, it was FREEZING at 5am!

The cups she carried around and continually stacked all day.

 Since there is no insulation in the cabin, we got up and drove around the mountainside for awhile to let everyone else have a chance to sleep without noisy kids so early in the morning(I tried walking, but since Ruth wouldn't let go of her cups, her fingers froze, so we decided to drive)! I wish I would've brought my camera, we saw the most AMAZING sunrise!!!! It was kinda nice to see such a beautiful mountain in the morning, if only we had gotten more than about 4 hours of sleep!

Ruthie konked out.

 After an absolutely DIVINE breakfast of crepes with fresh strawberries, nutella, and whipped cream, we got everyone to go on a hike! It was so much fun! It was cooler up in the mountain, making it just the perfect weather for a beautiful hike.

Ruthie, Sterling, Grandma Cindy, Jenny, Ethan, Cade, Bridget, Marlowe

 Ruthie learned how to say Jenny's name while we were there. She says "Shenny" and its pretty much the cutest thing in my life. Usually she always wants to see her cousin Devaney, but yesterday after church I said that we were going to see Devaney, and she said "No! Shenny!" On the last leg of the hike she was sick and tired of the carrier and ended up being a pretty good little trooper. She still had to pick up every rock in sight, but she had some help with keeping up (Marlowe and Bridget would stay back with her and then carry her at a run to catch up with everyone).

Destination: a beautiful lake...that should be called a pond, haha! 

Awww...

Make a wish!

 Ruth also spent a good portion of her day digging. For dirt. She got quite a pile too! I promise we kept sunscreen on her and her face is just red from the heat. Sterling and Cade went fishing and they were not so lucky in the sunscreen department and both came home with beautiful lobster faces, haha!

Jenny and Will

Removing Ethan's sliver. Important business going on there.

Our delicious tinfoil dinners. Love.

The beautiful cabin.

I was there!

Awww...

Handsome Marlowe.

Ethan roasting with his own stick.

Best daddy ever! 

Yay for s'mores!

While we were playing Blokus, Will decided to entertain us with lots of cooing. I LOVE how his lips make a circle when he is cooing, its so adorable!

Jenny's gutted fish! YAY! They even roasted it in the fire!

 All in all, it was an absolutely FABULOUS day. Too bad it wasn't a LOT longer than just one day, oh well, better luck with that next time. I would like to say that I was a champion at Seven Wonders and got a high scores of 69! WHAT!??!!? I also am the biggest loser of Blokus. I like it, but I really cannot sit there and strategize like Cindy and Marlowe. Really though, we had a drive at sunrise, crepes, a hike, fishing, board games, card games, tinfoil dinner, s'mores, fires, dirt, and even a few songs on the guitar. It could not have been a better camping trip! Thanks everyone, we love you!