Clara

Clara Girl is going to be 5 in a couple of months and I can’t quite get my mind around it. She’ll be starting all day everyday Kindergarten in the Fall. It’s crazy! When she isn’t watching herself dance in the reflection of the oven door, she’s playing games with Charlie, singing songs, drawing pictures and picking out outfits to wear. Preschool days are her favorite days. She loves to help me set the table and loves to make-believe that she’s a hostess at a restaurant. 

Here are some recent Clara-isms

• “I’m gonna sing ‘Go Tell it on a Mountain’ but a jazzy one.”
• “When I’m at the dentist can you just go away from me? I can do it alone. I’m a big girl.”
• “When I grow up I want to be a doctor …actually, I want to be a ribbon dancer.”
• I asked how old she thinks I am, she replied, “Mom, you’re twenty big.”
• I was helping Ruby with her homework and Clara wanted me to watch her dance, so she said, “I’m gonna do a BIIIIG twirl. This time can you say, ‘WOAH!’?”
• We told the kids we were going to stay at a hotel for a night and Clara got a dreamy look on her face and said, “At hotels I dream about ponies, rainbows, Jesus, movie theaters…” she loves hotels.
• “Hey, why are you taking a picture of me?” because I can’t help myself Clara.
• The girls and I were talking about being mommies and Clara interrupted, “Wait. Mom. When me and Ruby are mommies we’re gonna get smooched by a dad?!?!”
• A mo-hawk in the bathtub is known as a “bow hog” to Clara. She loves Bow Hogs.
• She loves playing “kitchen” or “restaurant” and the other day I asked her what’s for dinner. She replied, “Just a piece of cake of cheese mom, just a piece of cake of cheese.”
• Ruby taught Clara how to say “Hello” in Spanish. Clara ran into the kitchen and yelled to me, “I’m speaking cursive! Ruby teached me how to speak cursive!!”
• Clara loves her friends Blakely, Emmi and Taylor. They’re just the cutest little buddies.

My Clara Girl, with her flower headband accessories and Punky Brewster street style, her sweet smile and loud laugh, reserved around crowds but a comedian around those closest to her. She’s really something special. I’m so glad I get to be her mommy.

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Rubyisms

Ruby Dawn is everything wonderful about six year olds. She’s losing teeth all the time, she is “livin’ the first grade life” as she says, she has been getting more confident as a reader, loves science, writes her ideas and thoughts in a journal and loves people. I want to keep her little, but she keeps saying things like, “I totally don’t like princesses mom, I’m not a baby.” and “Oh mom, not pigtail braids! Those are for babies!” Then the other day she made this face with a peace sign in our picture and I realized she’s pretty much all grown up.

Since time is flying so fast, the best thing I could think of to do was get some new Rubyisms on the blog.

• “I’m starting a new lifetime right now. From now on, wherever I go I will wear the perfect thing. If I go to a bike race, I’ll wear my shirt that has a bike on it. On the 4th of July, my shirt with fireworks on it. Tomorrow to church, my beautiful church dress.”
• “They didn’t have the words on the screen at church because they were having traffical difficulties.”
• Ruby chose to be a “Ballerina/Ninja/Cat” for Halloween this year.
• We were eating lunch and I was saying how much I love Costco pizza, she responded, “But Costco pizza doesn’t matter more than families.”
• I heard a big sigh from the backseat, “It’s the first grade life.”
• While I was explaining to the girls why it’s important to let your pee out regularly, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but Dad knows more about bladders than you because he’s a doctor.”
• On the playground after school, “I think I’m ok. Whew! The good news is that now I know what it feels like to fall off the monkey bars!”
• We had quite a time getting her first front tooth out – she didn’t want to pull it so it dangled like this for way too many days in a row before she finally pulled it out herself during writing center time at school. Thanks to all the friends and family who prayed for me during those days when I couldn’t look my own daughter in the face without feeling queazy.
• Wile driving home from school, “I reeeeealy want to retire.”
• “No one can come in my room except me and Clara …and Charlie, mom and dad, grammy and papa, nana and papa, all our family, some of our friends …actually anyone who’s our friend mom. But that’s only who can come in my room.”
• About her “I love God” sign, “I wrote it in Sharpie so it can’t change.”
• “Do we have to get consequences every time we want to do something fun??”
• “Clara! If our mom and dad got related then we would grow up to be sisters!!”
• “Dear mom, Are you tired of me being bored before dinner? I have the perfect solution, a hot tub. I could relax. I could warm up. I could get in whenever. I could flip underwater. I could have alone time in it. Love, Your Poor Daughter, Ruby”

Charlie Boy

Charlie! He’s just the best little guy. I wish all of you could spend a day hanging out with him. He’s getting quite funny at the ripe old age of two and a half. He loves to laugh, talks all the time, is extremely expressive and opinionated, loves trucks, trains, tigers, dinosaurs, dirt, super heroes, pirates, sticks, and is the sweetest most cuddly, loving and empathetic tiny person I’ve ever met. He does ridiculous boyish things like run while shaking his head back and forth until he falls down or crashes into something. He animates his actions with sounds. He believes he is the biggest, the fastest, the best climber, the highest jumper there was, is, or ever will be. When I open a door to let him through, I can’t prevent the voice in my head from announcing “Release the Kraken!”

Here are some things I want to remember about my Charlie Boy at this age:

• He’s either running full-speed or stubbornly not walking at all depending on the opposite thing I’ve asked him to do. If we need to hurry – he requires being dragged, when we’ve got all the time in the world, he’s running as fast as he can.
• He loves telling everyone about his new shoes. They’re not new, there the same shoes he’s had for months.
• You should see the way he hugs his sisters when they cry or when they’re sad. He gets behind them and hugs their back and pats them with his little hand. It’s the sweetest.
• The other night I had a pirate at my dinner table. We are still working on manners – obviously.
• After being rough and rowdy he asks, “you ok mom?” which is very thoughtful.
• There’s nothing he hates more than riding in elevators. He’s got some spacial awareness thing going on that terrifies him when he feels himself going up or down.
• Many friends are greeted with a roar or a growl, based on their reactions bigger roars and growls will follow.
• His ears are tuned to hear planes, sirens, helicopters, trains, or big trucks …sounds he hears that I wasn’t aware of until he points them out.
• High fives and fist bumps are his favorite greeting/closing move.
• If I’m carrying him he’s yelling, “Me want to walk!” and if he’s walking he steps in front of my feet and says, “Me want to hold you, mom!”
• Similar to his sister Ruby, he is extremely organized. He lines up his trucks at night and makes sure all the dinosaurs are lined up in their places as well.
• I love the way he puts both feet on a seat before he sits down in it
• His favorite books are “Goodnight Construction Site” and “Little Blue Truck.” He would let me read books to him all day.
• One time after a run-in with a pair of Ruby’s scissors I took him in for a haircut and he came out looking’ like Lloyd Christmas

Here are some recent Charlie-isms.

• Whenever we’re driving, “Me lookin’ for horsies. Me see one! Me see a biiiig, biiiig one!”
• “I tell you a question, Mom! I tell you a question.”
• In the morning Clara loves to wake him up, but if he wakes up first I hear, “I awake! Mom? Where are you? I awake!”
• This is what his rowdy face looks like. He will likely spontaneously combust if I don’t let him run around outside or jump on the mini-tramplone in our basement everyday.
• Many nights around 4am I hear his quiet voice from down the hall, “My tears. Wipe my tears. Wipe my tears, mom.”
• The next morning telling me about his night, “I crying. I sad. I crying and crying.”
• Christmas lights never get old. He screams out, “Chrissas Lights!!”
• On trying a bite of a pickle, “I no like it. That’s too, too tasty.”
• “Lay up” is the opposite of “Lay down”
• Anytime he’s working on something, “I havin’ a little trouble here.”
• He’s a professional stick collector. Charlie’s never encountered a stick he doesn’t like.
• When I discipline him he says to me, “Stop talking! Don’t say that!” but then after he’s done in time out and has a “happy heart” again he says, “I ok mom. Sorry mom.”
• We took him to a Monster Truck Rally last week and he absolutely lost his mind with excitement.

Amazingly, my littlest buddy will be off to preschool for a couple mornings a week starting this Fall. He’s growing so fast and changing so much right now. I’m trying to soak in every moment… also, I’ve adapted as a boy mom and now I have eyes in the back of my head.

Charlie. He’s getting older.

You guys, I don’t even know how old Charlie is right now. I was going to title this post, “Charlie: 18 months old” but as I was typing it I wasn’t really confident that’s actually his age. I was much better at keeping track of these sorts of things when I only had one child… and I feel like I was ok at it when I had 2 children. Poor Charlie – maybe he’s 18 months old? If he’s not 18 months old yet, he probably will be soon – or maybe he’ll be 19 soon. I don’t know.

Needless to say, he is getting older.

The last time I updated you on my little buddy we were celebrating his first birthday. Instead of all the effort it would take for me to update you on everything that has happened since then, I’ll give you a glimpse into my life with Charlie through some recent pics from my Instagram feed.

Charlie and my Papaw, his Great Grandfather. I love this picture because when I was a little girl, if I was concentrating really hard papaw would always ask me, “are you sure you’re holding your tongue right?” and it would always make me laugh.

Some of my favorite things about Charlie:

• the way he waves at me when I come to get him after naps
• his eyes smile before his mouth does – which is ridiculously endearing and will probably be one of the things that his future wife loves most about him too.
• how he hums to himself when he’s concentrating
• How happy he is when Ruby kisses him goodbye on her way to school each morning.
• the way he wrestles and tumbles and wipes out but gets up and seems totally fine
• the fact that his hair on the sides of his head grows 3 times faster than everywhere else on his head
• the way he runs and laughs when Clara chases him around the house
• how he always wants to sit on the stool and brush his teeth when his sisters are brushing theirs
• he says “dada, DADA!” stomps his feet and gets so excited when Ryan gets home from work each night
• books, trucks, balls, shoes, dogs, baths and crackers are his most favorite things

Some of my “not as favorite” things about Charlie:

• the fact that he empties my kitchen cupboards so all of our crackers, cereal boxes and snacks are sitting out and cluttering up our countertops.
• changing his diaper is so stressful because the entire time he is rolling over, standing up, kicking his legs, squirming away, making my job IMPOSSIBLE!
• no amount of food is ever sufficient for him. He wants more – even if it’s just to throw or smash onto his own head.
• speaking of which, I’m far from succeeding in taming his meal-time throwing arm.

He finds interesting ways to entertain himself – most of which I attribute to everything that is mysterious about the male species.

Charlie is really good at entertaining Ruby and Clara. They’re really good at reporting his shenanigans. “MOMMY! CHARLIE IS IN THE CUPBOARD AGAIN!” “MOMMY, CHARLIE STICKED HE’S HANDS IN HE’S POTTY!” 

Charlie loves his sisters and is always looking for them when they’re both at school.

This little guy has absolutely stolen my heart. He causes me an unbelievable amount of trouble, but he also is such a sweetie pie. Being a mom to a boy has been totally different from how it’s always been with my girls, but I’m up for the challenge and I’m trying to soak up all the amazing and crazy moments with him each day. I know these days are long but the years are short and he won’t be a baby much longer. Thank you Jesus for Charlie. Help me be a good mama to him. Amen.

Rubyisms

Five and a half suits Ruby Dawn well. There is no end to her exuberance. She wins the “most excitable” award as well as the “most dramatic” award on a daily basis. She’s been learning to read at school and loves “reading” books she has memorized to Charlie and Clara. She put on my glasses and proclaimed, “Uhhhhhhhhh Mommy? I’m just blind in your glasses!”

Here are some more “Rubyisms” for your enjoyment.

• As we dropped change into the girls piggy banks, “The coins in Clara’s piggy bank are just making friends with each other!”
• While driving down the road I hear from the backseat a dreamy, “What’s that smell? It smells like buttercups in love!”
• “Mom, can we go somewhere today? I want to go to a National Park today.” I do too hun. I do too.
• When I asked her to repeat the instructions I had just given her, “uhhhhh, I guess I was just talking too much.”
• She was so excited to “help” Uncle Chris hold his candle during the Christmas Eve service at our church. 
• As I dropped her off for school one morning before turning the corner down the steps, she looked back at me and yelled out, “Better get crackin’!” then lifted one knee and quickly made her way down the stairs like a cartoon character.
• When I asked her to put her boots on, “You got it sweet cakes!”
• She loves to sing… Frozen. If she’s not singing Frozen she is making up her own songs which use all the notes you’d find in Gregorian Chants. I don’t know why her natural inclination is to be a monk – but she’d be great at writing music for those guys.
• Her joke-telling is getting a little better – “Where do ants go to eat? A restaur’ant’.”
• The second half of any “why did the ____ cross the road” joke is “Because he didn’t have the guts to do it!” followed by uncontrollable laughter.
• While reading one of her library books, “Did you know a lobster has great armor like a knight?” All library books she chooses are about spiders, deep-sea creatures, poisonous snakes and other things I’d rather not be thinking about at bedtime.
• Ryan asked her how her day was and she replied, “I can’t read independently yet.”
• “I’m gonna get fashioned up.” as she runs up to her room to change clothes for the 16th time each day.
• During a spaghetti dinner, “Let’s pretend we are rats eating worms… Mama Rat?!?!”
• “I’ll be Snow White and mom, you can be the queen and Clara can be the one dwarfs because we don’t have seven dwarfs.”
• I signed the girls up for Gymnastics. Ruby thinks she’s been in Gymnastics already because she jumps on the couch in the basement. “I can do backflips but not independently.”
• Since gymnastics began she’s been asking me to buy her a tard to wear. “I just need a tard mom! All the other kids wear tards at gymnastics!” (leotard)
• Ruby has been making plans to get together with her friends after school. These plans include talking to her friends parents and asking them to call me to talk about “the plans”.

Ruby asks me everyday if it’s summer yet, but still loves playing outside in the snow. She takes her boots, snow pants, hat and gloves to school everyday so her teachers will let her play outside during recess. They get to go out as long as the windchill stays above zero… hashtag PureMichigan

A letter from Clara (A Glimpse into the Three-Year-Old Mind)

This morning I thought I’d get a head-start on creating some Valentine’s Day cards so I asked Clara if she’d like to write a letter to her dad. She was so excited to tell him some things. This is her letter.

This is a letter to dad. Mom, I think we should put some smiley faces on it. 🙂 🙂 🙂 And a smiley face 🙂 and another smiley face 🙂 and another one 🙂 and another one 🙂 and that one 🙂 and that one 🙂 and this one 🙂

Mommy, Is daddy at work? I’m going to tell him what my Valentines Day card is. Um, I think I’m gonna do more smiley faces. 🙂 🙂 🙂

I want to say I love him, and mom, do you see this smiley face? It’s because I love daddy. 🙂 Remember to put some smiley faces on. 🙂 And also I love about him… too… how much he loves me. And I also love daddy for… a present. And I like doing music with daddy. Uhhhh Mommy, I want to just talk to dad.

Actually, this note will be to Nana. I wanna say that I love Nana. Sooooo, and also I love funny faces. And I love about Nana dancing… yes dancing. Mom, this is gonna be really fun. Mom, pretty please can we please go to Nana’s for a teensy tiny bit?

So I love about Nana is playing colors and sewing and pirate ship and also eating bananas and also doing art and music and that’s it. And also about going to the store with her.

I know! How about we go to Nana’s and give it to her, like, we hafta give it to her at her house.

Ok. I’m gonna go now.

Claraisms

Sweet Clara Dawn. This little lady is really something special. She’s as turbulent and tumultuous as any 3-year old I’ve ever met, but she’s also as sweet as pie sometimes. She keeps herself quite entertained and her imagination has really developed in the past few months.

• Clara and Ruby started preschool and Kindergarten a couple of weeks ago. They are absolutely loving it. Clara goes 2 mornings a week and has the sweetest preschool teacher you can imagine. This pic on their first day of school pretty much sums up their excitement.
• Clara’s got the music in her. She loves to put on shows which include singing and dancing as well as on-the-spot songwriting for anyone who will sit and listen. At the beginning of every show she says, “The show is starting to begin.”
• Before preschool started she got to go to school to find her locker. When she saw it, she sat down and explained, “I just love it mommy.”
• When I pick her up I always ask her what she did at school and she always replies, “I did everything I need to do.”
• The girls both love riding their bikes and scooters when they come home from school in the afternoons. Clara was super disappointed the other day. I asked her what the problem was and she answered, “I just can’t ice-skate.”
• While peeling a clementine, “I don’t want to get any clemonade in my eye.”
• Clara is great at spotting things while we drive. “I saw a JEEP!” “That looks like the dentist!” “There’s a car wash! I saw a car wash!”
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• “My energy is running out of batteries.”
• I kinda enjoy that she can’t pronounce her “R’s” very well yet. “We watched this weally funny show where the pwincess kissed a fwog and it turned into a pwince!”
• “My watch says its fourteen teen eight.”
• She got to hold some baby goats and bunnies at the orchard last week. She LOVED the bunnies… poor bunnies that get held all day by crazy children. I think this bunny was just playing dead.
• Before she starts a song she says, “a one, a one, a one, two, fwee”
• At the end of her bedtime prayers she always says, “Thank you God for my mom and dad and sister and brother and most of all, thank you for my Clara girl.”
• Ruby detests when Clara is screaming/crying so she covers her ears. Clara detests when Ruby is covering her ears. It’s a vicious cycle of detest. “Wooby is covering she’s ears!!”
• She calls the airport “The Plane Station” like a train station for planes. It just makes so much sense, people!
• Clara and Charlie are best little buddies and spend the hours of 4-6pm most days causing a ruckus, wrestling and chasing one another around the house. I love seeing their little friendship develop.
• “Wooby is just going weally weally fast!”
• “I need to give you a checkup mom.” She gave me this unfortunate diagnosis, “I’m sorry to say you’ve got a diarrhea of your mouth.”
• She loves to pretend she’s going to work and talks a lot about “Daddy’s Hostible” (hospital) “I’m just going to see a lot of strange people eating when I go to work.”
• In conclusion, following up with Ruby’s amazing school picture last week, here is Clara’s school pic. I’ve been laughing all morning about it. Those photographers are lucky I’m not in charge of hiring/firing them!

Rubyisms

It’s been too long since my last Rubyisms post. Now that school is in session I don’t get to see her 24/7 but that doesn’t mean I’m missing all the hilarious things coming out of her mouth. I’m sure her teachers could add to this list…

• “Mommy! Call all your friends because I’m having a coloring party so they can all buy whatever they want but they won’t cost a price!! So, you wanna buy one?!?!”
• During bedtime prayers a few weeks ago, “…and God, you made the fireflies glow and put wings on their bottoms and I just love what you have made.”
• “The way kids drink pop is you freeze it and it tastes good for them, it’s a freeze pop.”
• “God is perfect but he made us not perfect. But God can see us! He sees everything! I bet he has a loooong neck!”
• She rides her scooter everyday and calls her kneepads “knee patches” and elbow pads “elbow patches.”
• Charlie was laughing at Ryan during dinner the other night, Ruby exclaimed, “I guess Charlie likes being in our family.”
• Kindergarten in Ruby’s favorite thing. She often talks about the principal because he’s out on the playground with the kids at recess. She tells me, “He’s the ruler of the entire school.”

• Within the first week of kindergarten Ruby was already telling me she didn’t need me walking her all the way to her class. “I just know just where I’m going mommy. I know just the way! I can do it by myself!” Amazingly, she actually does know how to get to her class, hang up her coat and backpack and give her folder to her teacher each morning. I’m amazed.
  
• She’s been practicing her joke-telling, “Why is the Letter C blue? Because it’s some kind of nut! HA! I told you I’m a good joker!”
• We’ve been talking about how when she prays she can just talk to Jesus like she’s talking to a friend. Now during her prayers at bedtime she throws in things like, “…and you know what God?…”
• We’ve yet to take her to Chuck E Cheese, which she calls, “Chuck’s Cheese-Its”
• This summer she went to VBS at Ryan’s parent’s church. She came home and announced, “Mommy! At VBS I got to see a REAL Christian!”
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• Ruby loves wearing dresses all the time, but in the mornings when she wakes up early for school she is always “freezing” and chooses  to wear her sweatpants and matching zip-up sweatshirt to school. Purple velour from head-to-toe is a good look on her.
• “I love Charlie a hundred gallons! That’s a lot!”
• Ruby’s friend Genevieve made her a loom friendship bracelet which broke. She told Genevieve, “We don’t need a bracelet for friendship, we just ARE friendship.”
• She loves playing in the dirt behind our garage. “I’m digging!” “I’m soiling my garden!”
• “Mommy, Are there any mommy long-legs or kiddie long-legs?” In reference to all the daddy long-leg spiders she was finding on our swing set.
• She fell off her scooter and scraped her knee, when she looked down she screamed, “MY BLOOD IS JUST FALLING OUT OF MY BODY!!”
• “MOM! I heard from my teacher that our school is a BUILDING!!”
• As she walked out from behind the garage I asked, Where were you? “I was making a worm die for God’s sins.”
• Did you make any new friends at school today? “Oh yes! So many!” Do you know any of their names? “Not really.”
• And now, I present to you the most enthusiastic picture of Ruby anyone has ever taken: her Kindergarten school picture. I love these hilarious memories and I love my hilarious Ruby girl.

Yelling, Lie Telling and Nudity

I briefly mentioned in my last post that I try to blog mostly about all the happy moments I want to remember and look back on – but sometimes it’s good to let all the rest of you moms out there know that I’m totally barely hanging on by a thread most days too. I feel exhausted, frazzled, outnumbered, under appreciated, and pray I survive until bedtime most days. I seem to never know what’s for dinner even though I’m in charge of making it. My kids fight, scream, bicker and whine. I’ve been terrible about yelling across the house at my kids to get them to obey ANYTHING I’ve asked lately. To top it off, I got puked on today. Not just a little spit up… I’m talking about a fountain of projectile vomit all over my hair, shirt, shorts, dripping down my legs and all over the floor and wall within a 3-foot radius of where I was standing.

I looked around for my mom and realized again that I’M THE MOM.

OH. MY. GOODNESS. GRACIOUS.  I stand frozen in shock trying to get my brain to function beyond my immobilizing disgust enough to figure out what to do next. I think to myself, should I set Charlie down and risk him crawling though his own vomit puddle and tracking it even farther than it already reached? If I move my feet I will track vomit with me. Maybe I should just stand here until Ryan gets home from work… in 5 hours. If Ruby comes in this room and sees what just happened she will FREAK because for reasons unknown to me vomit is the thing she is most afraid of in the whole world. I realize my three-year old is my only hope. In my calmest voice I call to her, “Clara, sweet Clara girl, can you please come in the kitchen and help mommy reeeeeally quick? Clara? Clara? HELLOOOOOOO? Clara?”

Ruby appears around the corner. “Mommy. What is THAT?!?” she asks pointing to the slimy liquid running down my arms and legs and dripping from my ponytail. “Well Charlie isn’t feeling good, can you just grab me that towel over there so I can stand on it to wipe off my feet?” “Mommy. Is that diarrhea?” she asks. I know I’m not supposed to lie to my children, but knowing what might happen if Ruby knew it was actually vomit made me respond, “Yes Ruby. Yes it is. Please stay away from it until I can get Charlie bathed off and come back downstairs to clean it up.” She tosses me the towel, I wipe off my feet and head upstairs to the bathroom.

A short while later Charlie is sleeping in his crib and I come down to clean up the mess. I’ve thrown all my clothing down the laundry chute and plan to run upstairs to shower as soon as I get the floor cleaned and a load of laundry started in the basement. The girls are disturbed that I’ve become a nudist and are asking me all sorts of questions while work on  getting chunks of gooey banana? toast? cheese? out of the carpet fibers. Ruby asks why I have to clean everything and I try to explain that it’s my job as a mommy to clean up messes sometimes. In her dramatic and exasperated way declares that she is “NEVER going to be a MOMMY, mommy.” and storms into the other room.

So there you have it. Having 3 kids in 5 years has turned me into a yelling, lie-telling, nudist who may never have grandchildren.

How was your day?

Rubyisms | HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY!

Ruby Dawn (aka RubyDoo, The Rubester, Rubykins, Snicklefritz) is 5 years old. She loves sparkles and princess dresses as much as digging in the dirt or collecting bugs. She’s never met a person who she didn’t want to be friends with and will talk to anyone with a pair of ears. I love seeing her interests develop and especially enjoy her growing appreciation for true artists like Shel Silverstein and Jimmy Fallon. 

To celebrate her birthday Ryan and I told her she could have a “yes” day at the zoo. Basically that meant she could ride the carousel, get her face painted, and eat Dippin’ Dots, which are all things we typically say “no” to. She absolutely LOVED her “yes” day. She took full advantage of the situation and added a $7 Camel Ride to her requests. ha!

Clara LOVED getting her face painted too.

Ruby spends time each afternoon being “quiet and alone” while Charlie and Clara take their naps. Her “quiet and alone” time took a turn for the worst a few weeks ago when I found her in the bathroom trying to wash hot pink marker off of her arms. She thought she could get it off before I knew what had happened… but she was wrong. One thing is for sure, she is very thorough… and very right-handed.

The night before Ruby’s last day of preschool she asked me to make her a checklist so she wouldn’t forget to say goodbye to anyone in her class. She loved preschool and is ridiculously excited to be a kindergartener in the fall! 

I can’t post this update without mentioning that Ruby is friends with all the monkeys at our zoo. They seem to think she is one of them. Most days we are there at least one monkey will come sit by her or look at her or interact with her in some way. Its hilarious. Here are a few examples from recent weeks: And of course, the most recent Rubyisms for your (and my) enjoyment.

• “Ugh! All of this noise is destroying me!”
• Proof that commercials work: “Mom, we should get Clorox. It really really really works! Even for muddy socks! It just gets out the stains! Isn’t that awesome?!?”
• “I just won’t forget because I’ll use my brain as a thinking cap and it will just pop into my head but I can’t feel it when it pops into my head.”
• Driving distances are typically measured by how many “Dora The Explorer” shows it will take to get where we are going. “But how much looooonger until we get there?!?!?” “Only 2 and a half more Dora the Explorers, Ruby.”
• “I love you mom, I love you so bad!!”
• When Ryan gets home from work Ruby often asks him, “Did you have any good cases today daddy?”
• “Mom, I’m going over here if you please.”
• “I have a hundred and forty five two germs. How much is that?”
• When we go to new places where Ruby hasn’t been before she often wonders who will be there, specifically teenagers. “But mom, will there be teens there?”
• “Thanks mom! You’re such a good cooker.” (I defrost Chicken Nuggets like a pro!)
• “Mom, when we move to our new house are we gonna love it …or list it?” (I obviously watch too much HGTV during the kids nap times. ha!)
• “Can horses have spots? Stripes? Pentagons? Squaragons?”
• Ryan loves teaching her specific things that specific organs do. If you ask her what the liver does she responds, “It metabolizes drugs, makes clotting factors and makes bile.”
• This afternoon she said to me, “Mommy, you look sooooo nice with your dress on. Isn’t that a nice thing to say?” Yes Ruby. That’s a nice thing to say.
  
• “This is God’s Holy Marble. It’s what makes Gods Holy Wind. It makes Gods wind cold and snow cold.”
• “Mom, lets talk about something.”
• “I love pink and every single body who loves me.”
• “Mommy, you’re just destroying my fun!”
• “I’m drawing a blue-horned cat.”
• “That’s the town of Potbelly’s!!” (sometimes we go to Potbelly’s after church on Sunday’s and the girls always dance and talk to Darby, the girl who plays her guitar and sings.)
• “I think my brother is sad because he doesn’t really have any friends.”
• “I can’t go hiking today because it makes me so homesick!”
• What started as “I’m blazin’ hot!” has been applied in many other circumstances including “It’s blazin’ rain!”
• “I was like losing my mind when daddy took me to the Disney Store. I like lost my mind.” Ryan verified that yes, she did indeed nearly lose her mind in the Disney Store.
• “Daddy, is Charlie old enough to eat Salmon?”
• “Don’t worry Clara, tooth fairys are like soooo quiet. They’re like quieter than ever. You don’t even notice when they get your tooth.”

If you’d like to read more “Rubyisms” just type “Rubyisms” into the search box in the top right corner of my blog and all the past Rubyism posts will show up.

Happy Birthday Ruby Dawn. Clara, Charlie, Daddy and I love you so much and are so excited to have a front row seat to all the happenings in your life. Your smile makes everyone around you want to smile too and your enthusiasm for EVERYTHING brings so much joy to our family everyday. We love all the hilarious questions you ask and hope you’ll always continue talking to us about everything running through that active mind of yours. If “sparkly” could be used to describe a person, I’d say you’re the most sparkly person I know.

Happy Happy Happy 5th Birthday Sweet Girl.
Love, Mama.