RUTH IS SIX!

Okay world. When we moved to Miami Ruth was TWO. She turned three just a few months after moving there. I feel like we have not lived in South Florida that long--but suddenly she is SIX! She could not be more thrilled--but I am dying a little bit! The night before her birthday she asked for something, and I said no, because the baby was fussing and I had to go feed him. But then I looked at her and I said "Well, a few more big hugs and kisses because tonight is the last night I get to hug you as a FIVE year old!" so I squished her cheeks and hugged her and patted her head and she said "mom, stop being weird." haha. 

This girl. She is everything. Outgoing to the max (how do I get her to stop going up to complete strangers and asking for things?!?), always making friends, always willing to help, always facilitating games with her siblings and my best helper and cleaner. She loves to help with the baby and hold him--she always laughs now when he falls asleep for her because she does it more often than me it seems! She loves to sing and dance and memorize--she's always replaying songs and rereading books to memorize them. She loves crafts! Anything from painting and coloring to tracing and gluing and cutting ( I told her she should have been Aunt Kami's daughter so she could paint everyday, she told me she would like that.). 

She is so smart and has such a sense of humor. The other day in the van she asked how long it would take and I said "forever" and Sterling kept the shenanigan going because Will was freaking out about it (we're good parents like that) and halfway through you could just hear this light bulb in her voice and Ruthie goes "You are TEASING US aren't you?" Haahaa. It was pretty cute. She always catches grandpa Jack at his teasing, which impresses me since I still get fooled sometimes. 

Right now her days are full of swimming lessons (she's learning front crawl and back stroke), swimming at our pool, helping me by: holding baby Russ, folding laundry, doing dishes, washing sinks and mirrors, and helping to carry towels and things to and from the pool since I have the baby. I don't know what I would do without her! She colors pretty much every day. She loves the games on the touch screen at the library. She just gave a talk last Sunday in primary and did a FABULOUS job. She likes to play with little figures and dress-up. She gets up every single morning and makes her bed, gets dressed, and says her morning prayers without being asked. She almost has brushing her hair in the morning down (the very back is hard to reach!) and brushing her teeth at night.  She doesn't like cereal that much, but she does love Fruit Loops. She loves pizza and Dad's casserole. Oh, and she's the best at puzzles (and doing them when the other kids get them out to help me put them away!). 

WE LOVE YOU RUTH!

She came downstairs in the morning to not only Fruit Loops, but Belle cereal!!! 

 

Grandma Cindy sent a bit of money in the mail to pick out a present--she immediately said she wanted to go to the Playmobil store. Did I write about that? It's a store here that you pay $1 to go in and they have a THOUSAND tables set up with ALL of their toys to play with. It's amazing. Really amazing. She wanted a big castle (Uhhhh $159!) but settled for the carry-along fairy house. She was pretty happy about it!

They added our Little People castle beside it and got out all our little toy figures and created one huge fairy land!

My helper when she got the baby to sleep! (and I was messing with my camera settings)

 

For her birthday dinner she asked if we could make pizzas. So I made the dough and rolled it out and they made their own little pizzas. Here is her creation--pepperoni, her favorite!:

She asked for a Belle birthday, so she had Belle cereal, a Belle balloon (on the other side of the balloon was Belle, amongst the other princesses), and a Belle sitting on her cake. She actually got a Walmart cake because she saw it at the bakery there a few weeks ago and incessantly asked to get the chocolate one there ever since. So I just went with it. 

She had asked for a Belle doll, but the art set was a TOTAL surprise and she was in HEAVEN over it! Mom win! She was so sweet and said 'thank you' so many times that night!

And OH MY GOODNESS look at her TINY ADORABLENESS!!!

 How did she go from that ^^^ to that below???

She's so excited for Kindergarten and that makes me so excited for her. She can't wait to stay all day 'and for lunch' as she keeps telling me (only full day option here, which is why we did a 3 hr day last year). I don't know what I am going to do without my helper at home!