Ruthie

I've been wanting to do some posts about the kids but it has been busy around here lately! Luckily, we had the Primary Program today which gave me a good excuse to pull out the camera. Which, by the way, is all sorts of weird because I was messing with it the other day at Will's bball practice and now I can't figure out how to put it back to its normal settings. Sigh. So with lots of editing, the pictures sort of came out all right, and here we go!

She's a crazy, that's for sure.

Is it just me, or is she starting to look incredibly old? I call her my baby, but she is this big person and I can't get over it!

She did phenomenal for the primary program. She got right up and without hesitation (which is funny, because I'm not sure she ever said her part all the way through correctly when we practiced it) said "For behold, this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. The scriptures teach us about Heavenly Father's plan." and sat down. Right into the mic, no fear. She was awesome!

We're all sorts of happy that the primary program is over, because I pretty much wrote it, assigned everything, spoke at it to fill up the empty time because we have so few kids, played the piano for it, printed everything off for it, and...anything else you can think of. Oh Miami, sometimes your Cuban roots are sure exhausting. 

I was trying to get her to smile normal. She is starting to hit that funny stage where she leans against things and pokes her chin out all weird. Another reason she looks more like a kid than a baby. Haha.

It started to rain on us (story of our weekend) so we went inside to try to catch a few more photos, but we should've just bagged it. Ruth was done and Will was in his perma-pestering state.

And this is how Molly felt about after church pictures. Oh wait, that's how she always feels about everything. Except for with added shrieks to add punctuation. ACTUALLY--she has been an absolute delight lately. But I plan on posting about her soon, because she is just learning so much lately and I just LOOOVE her.

Ruthie is just growing and learning by leaps and bounds lately. She had a struggle at first learning her primary part because she kept adding in the Pledge of Allegiance that they are currently memorizing at school--haha. She comes home every day singing new things  like "The sun and the shine make-sunshine. Add a lip and a stick and get-lipstick." or however that little song goes. She's really good at it. She also is learning about rhyming so she is constantly exclaiming "THOSE MATCH!" and Will always tries to get in on the action, but doesn't understand rhyming, which is just hysterical. 

Ruth wakes up in the morning, says her prayers, makes her bed, gets dressed, and then comes to get me (usually still in bed) to do her hair for school. It is the cutest thing in my life. While I get ready she continues to help Will and Molly make their beds, pick out Molly's clothes, and pester me with what we are having for breakfast. At least we are never late to school, haha! (To be fair to myself, this is usually 630am, and I can legit sleep in until 730 or so and be totally able to get everyone fed and out the door on time at 815.) Ruth also gets a three page homework packet every Monday that is due on Friday. She finished it every single Monday afternoon during nap time and hands it in on Tuesday, haha! It is the cutest! And she can never just color the coloring page, she always adds stickers and rainbows and whatever else she can figure out. It's so cute. I got after her the other day to give me more details about how her day at school was so now when I ask her what she did she sighs this deep sigh of long-suffering and says "Well, we started with greeting, like you always know, and then..." 

One of my favorite things about Ruth right now is her over-use of the word "even". She uses it for things like "We played at the playground, even the whole class played, even me and Quinn, and even we played on the swings." It's so adorable.

Ruth told me I shouldn't have bought her plain white leggings because they have NOTHING sparkly on them. Duh mom, should've seen that one coming, right?!

She is incredibly helpful. She ALWAYS helps me in the kitchen, loves it when I can think of things for her to do while the other kids naps, and usually ends up cleaning all of our toys and books because Will is possessed of some heathen boy and seems incapable of anything resembling listening, helping, or working. We're working on a system for him, but currently I'm trying to pretend like my son was taken captive and I'm waiting for him to return. Grrr.

She changes into a ballerina outfit the minute she gets home. One time I already had the kids down for a nap so I wouldn't let her go into her room to change. So now the MINUTE she walks in the door she says "Can I go change right now before they go take a nap?" Haha, she doesn't forget!

One of the cutest things lately is listening to her talk on the phone to Grandma R. She asks to talk to her sometimes on the way home from school in the van, because she remembers that our house gets such poor service, haha. The other day she talked to grandma for over twenty minutes!!! Mom was like "That girl definitely knows how to keep a conversation going!" No kidding! Haha. 

Tonight was one of those perfect Sundays where I was reading on the couch and Sterling was sleeping and the kids were magically playing without fighting for FOREVER. They laid out blankets on the living room floor to be a picnic and put on dress up clothes, and picked out books from the 'bookstore' and set them up on their kitchen to watch as movies. They have been playing these elaborate pretend games so much more often lately--with Molly too--and it just makes me want to freeze them right here forever. I love looking over and seeing them pretending to bite food and skipping happily back and forth from their room with some scheme going on. It's the best. 

And now I'm out because it took way to long to work with those photos and my computer is a snail. Sigh.