Yay for Gamma! Mom arrived on Wednesday and Ruby is in heaven! Not to mention Mommy and Daddy are LOVING the extra help and date nights!! Ruby and Gamma bonded right away, Ruby ordered Gamma to sit with her in the back seat on the drive home from the airport and has been ordering her around ever since. Gamma doesn't seem to mind. :) At night time, Ruby "requests" that Mommy, Daddy AND Gamma get in bed with her (in a specific order, of course) for her stories and songs. It's a pretty funny sight to see, I would imagine.

Ruby seems to have grown right before our eyes in the past month. Not only physically but mentally. Now when we ask her why she did something, she says, "because"...and then goes into a long explanation. She also asks "because why?" When we tell her to do certain things. She's a pretty smart cookie and knows exactly what she wants. I overheard her counting backwards from 10 the other day! She's very particular on how she wants things done. A lot of the time, I'll come into the living room and she'll have each of her babies and dolly sitting on different chairs. If you ever come visit, DO NOT move them. They are there, on those particular spots for a very specific reason.

Ruby had her very first haircut last week. We went to this really cute salon that's specifically for kids. She was really excited but started to get a little nervous as she was waiting. She did great and even got some glitter hairspray at the end. She loved that part!

Ruby is pretty excited for Christmas. She really, really, really wants a double stroller for her dolls!?! Yes, I found one. We walk down the street frequently to a neighbor's house to look at their huge blown up Santa and the other night when we were leaving she turned around and said, "bye Santa, don't forget my double stroller!" We just about died laughing.

We are SO excited for Auntie El and Uncle B to come on Wednesday. An LL Bean commercial came on the other day and Ruby was playing away and all of a sudden looked up and said, "El and B???"

Have a great Christmas all! xoxo

Before the haircut.

Goofy girl, waiting to get her hair cut.

Still waiting, getting a little nervous!

VERY serious. She didn't take her eyes off me.

Still serious. :)

After. Glitter hairspray and all.

Hugging the snowmen at Home Depot.

She loved these guys!

Decorating the tree with Daddy.

First attempt with Santa failed miserably.

This Santa looked like the real deal!

Bella, Santa (needing a drink) and Ruby.

Santa pretending to cry.

Notice anything "off" about this picture. Hint, she got into Gamma's eyebrow pencil!

Pouring Gamma some tea.

Cheers!

Watching Dora with Gamma.

Ready for tea. Big Doggy likes tea too!

The whole gang taking a ride on Big Doggy.

Baking with Gamma. Check out the ridiculously cute matching aprons Gamma made!

Thanksgiving

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving! We took our first long road trip with Ruby to Pinehurst, NC to Dave and Toni's beautiful home. Ruby was beyond ecstatic to see her cousins Andy, Emily, Luke and Evan. Every day for about 3 weeks before we left, she wanted to hear about our trip to see her cousins. She was a trooper for the car ride, we broke it up to two days and she LOVED staying over night at the hotel. Of course the DVD player we bought for the car was a hit. The cousins hit it off and played together very well and the adults had a great time too. We had a fun visit from Stephen and Stephanie - Ruby was a little shy with Uncle Stephen and his big beard at first but warmed up and actually fell asleep for the night to one of his new slower songs. We then had a jam session out on the porch with singing, music and dancing. Great times!

This is a short update for now but I will do a new one next week. Love to all!

We're on our way!

Ahh! 2 hours of glorious nap!

Emily & Rubes

The cousins engrossed in a TV show.

Emily was so sweet to Ruby!

Ruby and Luke before gymnastics.

Rubes and Uncle Stephen xoxo

Awww, I love this picture!

Asleep for the night at 6pm - she slept until 7am!!

Bath time with the boys.

This was very sweet. Story time before bed.

We've had a roller coaster couple of weeks since Dad's diagnosis but have managed to stay positive and have fun here in the Vogt household. Ruby has, shall we say, a strong personality and keeps us on our toes. For example, she is a horrible back seat driver and the other day as I was driving, I was leaning up close to the steering wheel to stretch my back and here's the conversation from there:
Ruby: "Mommy, don't sit like that."
Me: "Ruby I can sit however I want, you can't tell me what to do, I'm the mommy."
Ruby: "Well I'm the Ruby, don't sit like that."
Me: "OK then."

Ruby is talking so well now, she's saying new sentences and words I didn't even know she knew every day. It's so much fun to hear what comes out next! Hopefully nothing too embarrassing for a good while yet. She's also starting to colour really well and really tries to stay inside the lines. She likes to colour the eyes of all the characters in her colouring books. It's really kind of creepy.

Ruby cannot WAIT until Thanksgiving to go see her cousins Luke, Evan, Andy and Emily. She wants us to tell her at least 20 times a day about our upcoming trip to North Carolina to Dave and Toni's. She is going to have so much fun, we're all looking forward to it so much.

Doug and I actually got out on a date last weekend. We tried a new babysitter and Ruby just loved her and got a glowing report when we got back. We've decided we're going to start having date night once a month now that we have a babysitter we really like. Yippee!

We hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving, we all have so much to be grateful for. So much.

I can't believe how grown up she looks here!

It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!

Date night!!

Car ride at a festival. Despite the look of terror she LOVED it!

"Look Daddy, a train ride!"

Aww. Ruby and her buddy Chris.

The aftermath of a temper tantrum when she didn't want to nap.

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet!

Halloween is over for another year! What a fun Halloween week we had! Parties and events and play dates and finally trick-or-treating. It took Ruby a few houses to get into the swing of things but after that she was a pro. She was so excited to finally be able to touch all the scary witches up on people's porches. Yes, we have a twisted child. She was very sad to see her favorite witch had been taken down today when we took a bike ride. When I tucked her in tonight, she said in a very forlorn voice, "Mommy, my favorite scary witch is gone." So we made up a song about it and she seemed to cheer up a little bit. Hope everyone had a happy Halloween!

At a play date. Ruby LOVED the babies, Marco and Ethan!

Not liking the smell of pumpkin guts!

What IS that stuff??

Helping Daddy get the seeds out.

Trick or Treat!

On to the next house.

She's a pro. Going to the door by herself!

Best buddies. Eva, Ellie and Ruby.

Our mummies we made for the Halloween party.

Strange couple we met at the Halloween party.

The 3 amigos again.

FANGS!