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.

Christmas/Book List

This post is because I love Christmas, and something about summer being over makes me go right into Christmas mode.

According to facebook I have been finished Christmas shopping on September 4th for the last three years. HAHA

And this post is also because my friend told me I am her sole source of good book recommendations for her little guy. So I feel some responsibility. 

Oh and this post is also because we are sitting here waiting out a hurricane in an eerily quiet Miami with everyone's houses boarded up around us. Fun stuff.

This year for Christmas I WANTED to get the girls matching dolls, matching doll beds (think ikea), a few doll outfits, maybe some dolly and me matching pajamas, etc. But....Ruth does not play with dolls. It is what *I* would have wanted when I was little. But Molly has a ton of birthdays and Christmases to get her fill of dollies, and I've come to realize that it is not really Ruthie's thing. And that is totally a-ok and now I just need to figure out what is. Which was not to hard. DRESS UP! Obviously. 

Dress up is all my kids play with 24/7. But have you ever looked into BUYING dress up clothes? And I mean, the kind that is durable, nice quality, and will actually stay up on your kids' shoulders and around their waist? We're talking a LOT of money. Especially if you go to etsy or something. We have quite a few fun things, mostly handed down from my sister Kami (a pioneer skirt, a red riding hood cape, some super hero capes my mom helped me unpick the velcro on and put in snaps because the velcro was wrecking the fabric, and a couple classic disney/halloween dress up princess dresses) but I wanted some more things that were durable. 

After doing some research I came up with play silks. After figuring that they might be quite fun I happened to be talking to my sister Andrea and she had gotten them for her kids for Christmas a few years ago and LOVES them. So. No questions, that was top of my list. 1. I am excited to dye them with Ruth because I think she will get a kick out of that. 2. I liked picking out the exact sizes I wanted with the idea that some of the them can be forts/capes/dresses while others can wrap around heads, etc. 3. I thought it was a perfect FAMILY gift as all three of my children can play with them. Online people go on and on about them because they are a great montessori thing--kids have to use their imagination to play with them, they aren't a dress-up dress that is a specific thing already. I think that's great, but mostly, I wanted them because I think they will be a blast.

Molly has been in love with cats since Grandma's house, so that was easy. I really wanted to get her a jellycat cat because that is the brand her Ellie (the elephant) is and she sleeps with that thing every night and it is the softest ever. But they are SOOO expensive. So I went with this little guy called the Longfellow Cat and he is adorable and snuggly and WAAAY cheap, so I'm sure it'll be a win. 

Will was finished this summer. You know those rat-a-tat cars/trucks/airplanes that you can take apart with a thick plastic screwdriver and put back together? There was a big sale on the airplane and we knew he'd be in heaven and he likes to work on puzzles like that, so I'm sure he'll love it.

For Ruthie I scored on Zulily. They had a couple dance outfits and tutus on a big clearance one time when I was checking and instead of the ridiculous $30-40 prices, we got a couple for under ten bucks. Along with a little pink ballerina duffle bag that I think she will adore. 

Of course we had some stocking stuffers--I got the kids wallets for a dollar because they are all super into collecting pennies right now and saving up for things. I also got these little three dollar recorders and harmonicas because I love adding some music into Christmas. 

So besides their big present and stocking stuffers, we do a book and pajamas. I splurged a little on pajamas this year because WE CAN ALL MATCH. I'm sure my kids will not be ok with that forever, plus it gets more expensive the more children you have, so I really wanted to do it at least once and figured now or never, right? I'm very excited about them.

On to books.

This year I found a LOT of the Elephant and Piggy series by Mo Willems. We check these out from the library REGULARLY and one day at BJ's (wholesale store like Sam's Club) they had a whole stack of them and I just couldn't resist. I think I got four or five, haha. My kids ALL love those books, and they all laugh and laugh at them. Ruth has the one that we own memorized. I just thought we needed those staples in our library.

For Ruthie I got the first three Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa books. They are an older series with longer pages. I love the old style of illustrations and I wanted to promote a LITTLE longer books with her, but not ready to jump into chapter books yet. (We can do Roald Dahl's Esio Trot, The Enormous Crocodile, etc. My kids love those books so much they will sit and listen to them all in one reading, but it's a pretty long haul for the reader!)

I'm trying to remember for Molly. I know I got a set of Berenstein Bear on clearance a while ago and I think that's what I planned. Not because I think those books are amazing, but they are good, and my kids always enjoy them with a good laugh, and they were on clearance.

Now if we weren't on such a tight budget this year, I would definitely have gone overboard on books. My kids have been wanting to read like crazy lately, Ruth is starting to sound out words, and I definitely want to keep that train going! But then again, I have to remind myself, we do enjoy the library and that keeps us plenty happy! So had I NOT been going with some clearance items, here's some I would have liked:

Heckedy Peg. We have this checked out so often it might as well be ours. My kids have it mostly memorized and the illustrations are FANTASTIC.

Petite Rouge Riding Hood. Again, we might as well own the library copy. In fact, we had it all summer while in Utah and paid $6 in fines, haha. This book is just hysterical. I think we love it even more since we live in Miami and really have come to love the Creoles. But even if you don't have that connection, it is wonderful. 

The Circus Ship, by Chris Van Dusen. My sister *just* recommended this to me and it was delightful. I love the rhyming. I LOVE the illustrations and the best part is the page where all the animals are hiding and my kids sit there and search for them all. Obviously, that was the most fun the very first time, but even after dozens of read, my kids still sit there and point out where all the animals are hiding. They love it!

Fables by Arnold Lobel. I have not read this in a thousand years, and unluckily, our library system doesn't have it. But I was thinking about how much Will loves Roald Dahl's the Enormous Crocodile and thinking of how much that reminded me of what my little brother Ethan used to enjoy. He always picked things that I thought were a little too long, or a little too boring. I'd think "What do you see in this stuff?" but they always had some great humor. I remembered that he picked out this Fables book forEVER and EVER to have read at bedtime. He adored them. I'm pretty positive Will will too, once we track down a copy.

Ella the Elegant Elephant. I want to find more. I loved it.

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. I think this is a little old for my kids, but I love it and I think they will too. 

Oh if you have a kid Will/Ruth's age get MERCY WATSON--we listen to the audio books in the van because that is what our library has, but they are HYSTERICAL and Will laughs his head off, which is so adorable.

Now for my friends that have slightly younger kids, here are some recommendations of what I already own:

Babies, by Gyo Fujikawa. My kids read this DAILY. They love it so much.

On the same vein, Little Golden Book Mommy Stories by Esther Wilkin and illustrated by Eloise Wilkin. Will and Molly especially love those right now. Also, Molly LOVES the Little Golden Book farm animals story (I can't find it to look up the title) but you say all of the animal noises and she LOVES that. 

Off the top of my head, here are ones we reread over and over: Are you my mother?, No Room on the Broom (if you do not have this BUY IT before Halloween, and then maybe your daughter will memorize it like Ruthie, haha), We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Little Blue Truck, Five Chinese Brothers, Princess Hyacinth, The Brute Family (I LOVE this one), Every Cowgirl Needs Dancing Boots, Pout Pout Fish, and Leonardo the Terrible Monster. Oh the Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear--that book is so great and the illustrations are even better.

To make this post EVEN LONGER, here are a list of books that I want to buy/read but have not been able to because they are not at my local library but they come HIGHLY recommended:

The Children of Noisy Village.

Beekle: The Unimagined Friend

Tales of Magic and Mystery

We Were Tired of Living in a People House (illustrated by Doris Burns)

Andrew Henry's Meadow (Doris Burns)

Summerfolk (Doris Burns)

Zeke Pippin

Dandelion

Poppleton the Pig (this is a series, and for older kids, like Ruthie, but I already know she's going to love it, I just need to get in gear and find it!)

And now, I am so excited for Christmas I can hardly stand it and can't wait! But luckily, when it does come, I just get to bake a lot and enjoy doing things with the kids (hopefully outside, this fall has been SOOO INSANELY HOT!) and not worry about Christmas presents!