My Kids

Ruth loves my parent's cats. They have barn cats which is nice because I am allergic. Ruth can play with them outside and I don't have to touch them, it's a win-win situation. I especially love it when she plays with this cat because they match, orange-orange. It was especially so sweet this afternoon because Ruth had a fever and had been sleeping or lying on the couch all afternoon, but she still wanted to love on the cat!

kisses 

loves 

Will is just the cutest baby ever.  

A bit ago Ruthie found my old hat and decided everyone needed to go gangsta for an afternoon. It was good times.

Will thought it was especially hilarious. 

Earlier today I was thinking my girl looked really cute in her new shoes and new outfit (new jacket courtesy of Bell Family Hand-me-downs) so I told her to smile and crouched down to take the picture, so she smiled and crouched down right along with me. Haha.

scroll between this stone face and the next picture, it really makes me laugh

showing off his top two teeth, and he officially has one more on the right and almost another on the left top.

My sister-in-law Bridget recently gave this toy to Ruth for her birthday. Ruth played with it quite a bit for a few days, but since then it has definitely become Will's thing. He LOVES it. He sits beside it and runs it back and forth, back and forth and chuckles his low, funny chuckle the entire time. What a character!

And one more picture of Will today while we were canning. Those eyes are dark like his daddy's and I just love them oh, so much! 

My kids are getting big right before my eyes and as cliche as it sounds, I wish I could stop them! Today they were both sitting in the cart (at Sam's Club) and Will would grab the item Ruth happened to be holding and chew on it, so Ruth would elbow him, so he would protest, and I just thought...when did my kids get this old? Aren't they just little perfect babies? They are. But with a lot more pizzaz lately. 

To offset the bickering though, they are getting to be such good buds. Ruth says "Oh no! Baby sad!" every time Will cries and rushes to his rescue with kisses and hugs. She gives him back his toys when they fall down and he's in the high chair. And I can't figure it out, but he laughs at her and nobody else. It is SO hard to get a real laugh out of that boy. He'll do a low chuckle now and again but its not long. Then Ruth will walk up and look at him funny and he will laugh and laugh! I have a couple videos where she did things that made him laugh and he was just rolling! Lots of times Ruth just has to walk past and he'll do a little chuckle and then if she pretends to tickle him he is just in heaven. I hope that is the basis for a strong and loving relationship between them forever.

Will has started army crawling full-force. Or something like that. He only uses one arm and pushes with one leg, but he is really quick. This morning he almost toppled down the stairs and I caught him by one leg (talk about mad momma skills!) Ruth came running and said "Will sad!" in this shocked voice. So funny. 

Ruth has started adding "a lot" onto the end of everything she says. Her nose has been running lately and so she'll point to it when it needs to be wiped and say "I nose, a lot" which, if you think about the pun is quite funny. Today she had a very unfortunate incident. I was unloading everything from Sam's and Ruth was 'helping' by carrying things around the kitchen. I carried some things upstairs and she started screaming. I came downstairs to see a pool of blood in the carpet by her feet, a trail to the kitchen, and a steak knife with blood on the end of it that she had been using to try and open a package. It was like a horror scene! Up to this point, she hasn't been able to reach that cupboard, but I know better now! I grabbed a towel and stopped the flow (I couldn't even tell which hand was bleeding because she had them clasped together and there was just as much blood on each.) and took off her pants because every time she saw the blood on them she started crying again. I tried to look at it and the cut looked a little like a fish's open mouth. I thought for sure we'd be headed in for stitches. So I thought about neighbors that could take Will, the blood on the floor and needing to clean it up, etc., and decided to hold Ruth's finger for a bit and see what happened. After awhile I thought it looked closed up, it wasn't bleeding and so I asked my neighbor (who has LOTS of kids and who I would have asked to watch Will if necessary) if she thought Ruth needed stitches. She thought it looked fine (probably because she hadn't seen the masses of blood on our carpet) so I bandaided it up and we called it a night. Ruth walked around saying "I owie a lot" and it was pretty sad. I let her eat Raisinets, a little taco salad, and a lot of ice cream for dinner, sweet girl. Every once in a while she would remember about her finger and hold it in the air and proceed to give it a matter-of-fact kiss, it is so cute. (Cleaning all that blood out of the carpet was not so cute.) Luckily she hadn't napped this afternoon because she was busy playing with cousins, so she fell right asleep without any crying. Sweet dreams Ruthie.

I have such perfect kids. Sigh.

Wake me up when September Ends...

(If you don't want to read this boring update on our life, please scroll to the end for STUNNING pictures taken by the talented Kayli Bell.)
It is already September. For some reason I started a couple blog posts about August and never finished. Lets just say, I hope we have a fabulously long fall because I feel a little gypped about the end of summer. We had colds, then Will got croup, then I got their cold, which led to nursing issues, which led to lots of pain and lots of crying.  It was the horrible sinus/congestion don't-even-want-to-move-your-head sort of a cold. So, we sat on the couch all day long and watched the Magic School Bus (Ruth calls it skoo-bus). Oh, I also got a tooth pulled during that time-I have to get an implant. Long story, but I agree with my employer when he said that those of us who work in the field should be immune to things like that! Then I thought we were ALL over it, when Ruth decided to randomly have a fever over Labor Day weekend (and then the rain killed our trail ride plans...although the rain was beautiful and we did still have a wonderfully relaxing weekend at my parents) and then they both decided to get teeth. Will was awake on Saturday night from 1am-5am. We were all a little bushed on Sunday, to say the least. Luckily, it broke through today, and hopefully the second one that is making its way isn't as bad?!?! There's always hope. Ruth is also getting teeth, three molars are through and one more hasn't even started. Can I blame their recurrent runny noses on the teeth or do they have colds again? No idea. Anyway, that was the last two weeks of August in a nutshell. So much for hitting up the splash pads one last time!

Luckily, Utah is so good to us, and on Saturday morning Sterling and I took the kids on an early morning hike-just a little trail that I used to run on-but it was just what the doctor ordered. I got out of the house, the mountains smelled incredible after all that rain, the air was cool and to top it all off I got some time with my beautiful little family! Maybe this means we won't get any more sicknesses this winter? Ha. Ha. Ha.

Sterling had his first in-person interview today (he had a phone interview with Western Michigan last Thursday) at the U! For several reasons that would be ideal (although I would love to live out of state for awhile) namely because it would cut our expense in half and then some. In preparation, I cut his hair on Saturday, I cleaned his teeth on Wednesday, and we ironed his suit and cleaned his shoes. I also read interview questions to him, but that proved a little controversial. Haha. We have three more interviews this month, and he starts working 7-on, 7-off tomorrow...welcome to September, where Lindsay truly discovers what singly parenting is all about. Sigh.

In other news, we put a baby gate! Why is this of note? Will is crawling! He does this hilarious shuffle where he barely uses his arms and gets most of his gusto from pushing the ground with one leg. It doesn't sound like much but he can MOVE. He also likes to roll against the baby gate...good thing its there. Ruth likes the gate because it has a swinging door and she thinks that's pretty shnazzy.

On all my nights without a husband I plan on making my very first quilt--I've already bought everything I need and borrowed a sewing machine from my sister and a cutting mat and rotary cutter from my mother-in-law---and finishing a couple of Christmas projects. I am all about finishing Christmas early, and this year Sterling and I thought that would be especially important so that when he actually IS around, we can do a lot of family time and not worry about presents. Focus on the reason for the season, right? We've had a lot of fun with presents so far, and I'm excited to try and do some handmade items because they are always the best, right?

Oh, at the end of August we also purchased a mini-van! I keep waiting to post about it until I post pictures, but I'm kind of lazy and haven't even taken a picture of it yet. Basically, I am way too young to be driving a mini-van, but this van is the bomb. Leather seats, beautifully upkept, and so much space I feel like I'm in heaven. We had to get a second vehicle since Sterling is now working in Salt Lake, and it has been so nice. We had one vehicle our entire marriage (and almost our entire engagement) and it is just a wondrous feeling to be able to go where I need to go without hours of juggling our schedules. 

And now, after all that boring update, I will post some pictures of when my sister Kayli took family pictures for us at the beginning of August. She needs to come back. (Also, I didn't want to cut my hair beforehand because I was worried about if I happened to get a cut a didn't like. But since then I've cut my hair and it is SO MUCH healthier and so much nicer. And so much easier to do. Why don't I ever remember those things when it is time for another cut? Anyway.) Also my sister Kami needs to come back to help me with my quilt. Basically, we need another summer, thanks! But back to the point of this paragraph, my sister Kayli is so incredibly talented and since I have recently received some of these prints for my walls I am SO IN LOVE and I look at them all. the. time. Thank you so much Kayli, it was a really rough day for Ruth, but you still were amazing!

I blew this one up REALLY big and its framed on our wall in our living room. I can't believe I have two kids. And I drive a mini-van. Wowza.

Eventually I'll post the pictures from the last couple weeks from my camera, but these are MUCH better anyway, and I just realized that I'd never posted even some of them before. I thought I had. Silly me. Enjoy!