Milestones

Just a quick post to record an important milestone.  Today, Ruthie counted all the way to 12!  Previously she counted as high as 15...but always skipped a few numbers. (particularly 3 and 4)  this time she was very slow and deliberate and included everyone. :)  Of course, after 12 she went back to ten but...uh...who's counting? ;)

Teddy sorta hit a milestone too.  She had her first allergic reaction today.  Well, second I guess, but this time she had hives.  She was lying on a mat on the floor and Sammy snuck in behind me and was licking her face (Ruthie tattled on him! "baby sister, sunshine, Sammy!")  He'd done this once before, and while I'm glad he loves the baby, I'm not really into the face licking the infant thing.  Last time her face got some red blotches, but I just wiped her face and they went away pretty quickly.  This time the red blotches were there again, and as I wiped them I noticed she actually had some hives (white splotches) on her cheek as well.  I did call the doctor, altho they didn't get back to me until HOURS later, when the blotches had already faded. (and basically told me to wash her face really good.  Duh.)  Hopefully as long as I am super vigilant and keep Sammy from licking her it won't be much of an issue, as Ruthie LOVES Sammy and I really don't want to have to get rid of him.  (I do love him too!)  I'll keep you posted on any future developments with that.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Ru!

After the baptism everyone headed to our house for a pasta lunch and then Ruthie's birthday party!

Ru sat on Daddy's lap and opened her presents.  She's getting pretty good at pulling the paper off.  she was a little disappointed we didn't let her play with anything and instead kept moving the cool stuff away and handing her another gift.  But she got into the swing of it eventually.

Gotta love the little coy look, she's started tipping her head when she knows you're going to take a picture.

Still mastering the art of blowing, right now she just makes the 'f' sound when she tries to blow. 

Keep AWAY from my cake!  She only ate a few bites of the frosting and was done.  We don't give her sweets very often, so I'm guessing three bites of straight frosting was a bit rich for her, if she'd got to the cake itself she might have done a bit more damage.  I was fine with that tho.  Now if only I could have got a few more smiles out of her for the pictures!

Teddy's baptism

Lutherans believe in infant baptism, and we were quite happy to have both our girls baptised.  I don't know if I ever posted about Ru's, as the pics turned out awful (I didn't realize I had the flash turned off when I passed my camera off).  She was baptized June 29th, 2008, and my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Keith stood in for her sponsors, my brother Chris and his wife Nikki (who live in KS).  Sharon and Keith were visiting from KS so we scheduled the baptism for while they were here.

We weren't anticipating any visitors for Teddy's (Sharon and Keith were in Turkey at the time.  Whatever. ;) so I had a bit more flexibility with the date.  So I scheduled it to coincide with Ru's 2nd birthday party, to save the family from having to travel up twice.  So Teddy was baptized April 18th, 2010.  (both girls at Zion Lutheran Church here in Newberg)  I asked a fellow scrapbooker to take the pics this time, so we got MUCH better pictures. :)

Teddy's sponsors were Don and Judy Kennedy (often referred to as gma Judy and gpa Don) and my brother John and his girlfriend Misty.  Pastor Steve Estrem performed the baptism.  

Larry and Connie (Brian's folks) were also there, but my mom and Marvin and actually Grandpa Don were not, as all three of them had the stomach flu.  (crazy, as mom and marv live 5 hours away)  Oh yeah, and Daddy and Ruthie were there, too. ;)

Nana bought her a dress (she bought Ruthie's too) and since you can't really see it much I took some pics at home in her crib.  

Teddy's 2 months!

Teddy turned 2 (months that is) the 7th, so Brian and I got out the camera and took some pics the following Sunday since she was wearing a dress for church.  Unfortunately they didn't turn out really well, as she had red eye SO bad it still looks a little funky after being corrected.  But it's not so bad I won't post some for you, along with one of big sister. (who did NOT want her pic taken with baby sister this time.)

She was feeling feisty; I had a REALLY hard time getting one without my hand in there as she kept throwing her head around (and the rest of her followed of course)  Brian didn't manage to actually take a pic when she threw herself forward and I caught her her face with a rather audible smack! (didn't upset her tho, so it didn't hurt, just looked like it should have. :)

They don't look so bad zoomed out like this, it's when you click on them to size them up her eyes look oddly grey.

Ru's turned out really nice tho. Heh, I need to start making her sit on the other side so I can crop out the unused throw rugs hanging out behind the love seat.

I just had a nice little photo shoot with Teddy basking in the sunshine, so I should get another post or two out this week for sure.  (maybe even today, but I also may be overly optimistic there as I'm supposed to finish the chicken coop today with some help from John and his girlfriend Misty.  But they aren't here yet.... ;)

Easter is a rather low key holiday around here.  Church service is generally the highlight of the day (as it should be :)  But we have been at a loss to do afterward since we don't have any local family.  Last year we invited an older couple over for lunch, but their health is not as good this year so their daughter came up this year.  So we were quite pleased when Judy's sister Joni invited us to join them for their family dinner.

But first, Ruthie invited Grandma Judy over to our house to see the baby chickens. :)

After the chickens we showed Ru that the Easter bunny had came and left her a basket of presents.  She got a new video, a Chutes and Ladders game, and some other misc goodies like sidewalk chalk and stickers.

 

Ru and gma Judy posed for a quick pic before Judy left and we fed Ru lunch, and attempted (unsuccessfully) to get her to take a nap.

And so we headed off to the Ka'uhani's for Dinner.

Joni's daughter Mahealani hid eggs for Ruthie, so she was able to have her own little Easter egg hunt.  She didn't look up at the camera for any of the pics, but at least we got a couple where you can see her cute little Easter dress.  She did NOT appriciate Joni's hubby Michael trying to play and stealing her eggs.  She was confused at first, then started crying.  She wouldn't even take them out of his hands when he tried to give them to her.  I guess she doesn't understand that sort of teasing yet, as she wanted nothing to do with the poor guy for the rest of the afternoon.  At least she recovered enough to get back to her egg hunt.

After playing with the eggs and chasing their kitty around, Ru was a good girl and ate dinner at the table with us.  After wards Judy put her down for a nap (she has some magical talent at getting Ru to nap) and we played a board game.  Teddy slept most of the time, and Mahaelani got some good practice handling a baby.  We had a great time, and look forward to next year as they've already said they'd love to make a tradition out of it! :)

Teddy's Easter Dress

Since Grandma Judy comes and takes Ru to praise team practice with her before church, I had some time to get Teddy all dressed up and ready for church, AND some time to snap a couple of pictures of her all gussied up, too.  While this dress is technically a hand me down from Ruthie, she never wore it and it still had the tags on.  Since I expect poor Teddy will always have to live with Ru's hand me downs, I promised her she could always have her own brand new dress for Easter if she wanted one.  She didn't seem to mind this year.  ;)  I did buy her the sweater and the shoes tho.

 

I do think Teddy is starting to look like her own self now, rather than just like a little Ruthie clone.  I think her facial features are all about the same as Ru's, but her face itself is longer, more oval than round like Ru's.  She certainly is her own personality as well.  She is more laid back than Ru.  She doesn't cry as often or as intensely as Ruthie did.  She also is already sleeping for 3-4 hour stretches at least once or even twice a night.  It will be interesting to see how that all plays out as she gets older and her personality develops more. :)

Decorating Easter eggs

Even tho we had Nana and Papa visit most of the day Saturday (yay!) we decided to go ahead and decorate eggs after they left. It's not like Ru goes to bed early anyway.

We used crayons to color on the eggs. (I did the one above, Ru did the rest ;) Daddy took the pictures.


You shouldn't decorate Easter eggs with an almost 2 yr old without thinking things thru first. I did the dying, while Ru looked on. She didn't protest this arrangement at all, which kinda surprised me since she's all about doing things herself these days.

(and don't fall off your chair or anything, but yes, I AM wearing a skirt. :)

After I dried the eggs off, I let Ru put stickers on them. I think she was trying to give this sticker to Daddy in this pic, I'm not sure what's up with the aggressive facial expression, but it wouldn't surprise me if she was growling, too. She's been into that recently, she thinks it's funny. :)


We only had one egg casualty, which Daddy happily ate. It was a pretty satisfying activity (helps that Teddy slept thru it) as we didn't make any messes and everyone was happy the entire time. Three cheers for happy art activities! :)

Let's get this party started!

I seem to have some sort of writers block in starting this blog, and I really need to get posting again. So I'll just jump right into it rather than trying to play catch up or anything.