Donald Duckisms

Ruby loves watching Mickey Mouse. She loves it a lot. She's taken to quoting Donald Duck and surprises us with new ones every day. Her favorites are, "Hey, what's the big idea?" "Oh Pickle Juice!" and "Oh Phooey!" She cracks herself up, it's pretty funny to us too.

We are in full swing Halloween mode, Ruby had her first little Halloween party this week, and she was the cutest little butterfly, even if she still does want to be a scary witch. We still have to have our daily walks around the neighborhood to see all the scary decorations. If it's light out, Ruby gets pretty brave and actually sits down and "pets" the skeletons coming out of the ground. She even made her baby pet one. But not the pirate skeletons, those are too scary.

Ruby is getting really, really good at riding her bike, she's really fast now and you can tell she's so proud that she finally can do it. She looks too little to be scooting around that fast but she's awesome at it and there's been no wipe-outs yet. We'll get a video of it for next post.

The terrible twos seem to be rearing their head in the Vogt household. One minute Ruby can be so sweet and loving and helpful and the next minute she's looking you dead in the eyes while tearing pages out of her book or writing with marker on our recliner or biting or hitting us. You can tell she's really testing us. Oh and there's the whining, dear god, the whining. I know that it must be hard for a person that little to be experiencing so many new things every day and I know that it's normal for them to go through this but MAN, some days can be a challenge. We try to keep our sense of humor about it all and the big hugs and kisses and the love she has for us at the end of the day usually makes us forget how bad the day was. Almost.

Finally, I just have to mention how lucky we are to have moved to this neighborhood. We have the most awesome neighbors that have turned into great friends. We had a cookout/corn hole tournament last weekend and had so much fun. Ruby loves playing with her little friends and we feel so lucky.

On the pier.

Pointing out the scary decorations to baby.

Our awesome neighbors.

Ruby and Eva watching the corn hole game.

Ellie joins the group. Don't they look like miniature grown-ups?

Right after the chocolate cupcake. Right before the sugar rush.

Ruby LOVES the dogs in the neighborhood. This is Jesse!

I LOVE this picture so much. This is the sweater Nana knit me when I was Ruby's age.

She loves her dolly so much.

Tight fit.

I was puttering around in the kitchen when I heard, "Mommy, help, I'm stuck". Of course I had to grab my camera and take a picture before I helped her get out.

Beautiful Butterfly!

At her little Halloween party.

Pumpkin Patch.

Kissing the ugly one.

Ruby picked out all the different looking pumpkins.

"I want this one."

Scary Witch!

Ruby is infatuated with Halloween. Especially the "cary" stuff. She loves to see "cary witches" and "cary ghosts" and "cary piders". The scarier the better! The people in our neighborhood decorate their houses to the max so we have to go see the scary decorations frequently. Every time we get in the car, the first thing she says is "I want to see a cary witch!" Halloween is going to be very fun this year but I don't think I'm going to get away with eating her candy like I did last year. Ruby's going to be a cute little butterfly, although she's been trying to convice me lately that she wants to be a "cary witch".

Ruby is a great little colorer! It is so much fun just to sit with her and color and talk. She's really getting so much better and tries to stay in the lines. She loves to draw too and usually wants to draw a scary spider, witch, monster, etc...

Ruby's been starting to dream a lot lately. She usually wakes up with a story to tell. The other day, she was dreaming about a lion that was chasing her trying to bite her toes. Another day, it was about her friend Lexi, she dreamt that she broke the cd player. It's fun to see what her little mind is dreaming about and even more fun that she can tell us.

Mommy and Em took Ruby for her very first real pedicure and she LOVED it! Of course she picked out blue nail polish. She sat very still and was so good. When we were leaving she said she wanted to do it again. Oh-oh, look what I've started.
Thanks to Em, Doug and I had a WONDERFUL weekend away in NJ! It was so great to just get away and not worry about a thing. They had a great time, even though Ruby did decide to test Em for one of the days. Once she realized she wasn't going to phase Em with her naughty behaviour, she went back to her sweet self. Thank you so much again Em!!!!

Em and Ruby Butterfly.

Kisses for Em.

Playing with Em's jewelry.

At gym class!

Playing a Mickey Mouse interactive computer game! She's getting too old!

Taking a break with baby to watch a little TV. It's a hard life.

Pretending to be daddy with daddy's hat, phone and sunglasses.

Ruby and her little friend Bella.

Ruby's new BLUE sunglasses!

Conversations with Ruby

Having conversations with Ruby is so much fun now. You never know what she's going to come up with. Here's our conversation we had in the car today that came out of nowhere. Ruby: "Mommy I want a baby sister." Me, after a moment of shock: "You do? Well Mommy would have to have a baby in her belly for you to have a sister." Ruby: "Yeah. I want a baby in Ruby's belly. A big one." Me: "Umm, OK." Ruby: "I want to go to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse."

She LOVES watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on TV and likes to have conversations about the different episodes. Over and over. Which brings me to something I found out today. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is a great bargaining tool. When she wouldn't cooperate with taking her nap, I finally told her that she couldn't watch any more Mickey Mouse Clubhouse today. Well. You would have thought the sky was falling, the world was coming to an end, that I just told her she could never eat again. I will keep that threat in my back pocket! :)

I had a wonderful weekend away with my sibs at the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Festival. HGTR rocked and we all had a great time. Daddy and Ruby had a great time at home together too. They had a nice, bonding time which is so important for them to do once in a while. I must say, I loved my BIG, long hug from Rubes when she saw me at the airport when I got back.

We had a nice, lazy weekend this past weekend. We got to the beach and the water was perfect. We STILL can't believe we live here! Ruby isn't really interested in the sand - she just heads straight for the ocean and stays there. She loves just floating out in the ocean and if she had her way, we'd go back to the beach and leave her in the water by herself. She's really starting to learn how to swim and loves dunking her whole head under the water.

We are SO excited for Auntie Em to come on Wednesday and can't thank her enough for taking care of Ruby for us while Doug and I get a much needed weekend away to NJ for a friend's wedding. Ruby is extremely excited for her Auntie Em time!! We're crossing our fingers that she's a good girl for Em. :)

I got Ruby calling Tom Bergeron on video, check it out at the bottom of this post.

At Daddy's softball game.

Looking for the Mickey Mouse candies she saw me pack in the bag before we left.


Silly goof.

With her "girls" as she calls them. Baby and Dolly.

Kisses for baby.

Reading Curious George with Daddy before bed.

Helping Daddy pick out a suit at Mens Wearhouse.

Fun in the ocean with Mommy.

Lost at sea!

Me and my girl.

Her new trick.

Ruby's favorite thing about the beach - the outside shower!

The sibs. xoxo

Lazy Long Labor Day Weekend!

We had a wonderful, lazy (well, as lazy as you can be with a 2 year old) long weekend. We didn't have any plans and ended up having such a nice, family weekend. We went to the Palm Beach Zoo on Sunday for the first time since being here and had an awesome time. Ruby loves animals and even got to pet a leopard gecko named Cleopatra. Fortunately, she hasn't carried on her mommy's intense fear of birds. There were lots of very big birds walking around and she wanted to pet and chase all of them. To Ruby's delight, there were also splash fountains at the zoo and she had a blast running around in the water with all the other kids. Ruby's one tough cookie, she got plowed over twice by bigger boys and ended up with a skinned elbow but she didn't miss a beat and wanted to get right back in there and play.

Today, we had a great time at the beach. The water was amazing and the weather was perfect. When Doug had Ruby out in the deep water with her floaties ("ploaties"), she kept telling him to leave and go back to the beach so she could swim by herself. She's very independent and the phrase we hear over and over again lately is "NO, I DO IT!!!"

Ruby's love for her baby dolls is intensifying and we now have to take baby, dolly AND their stroller everywhere. Makes for a very long grocery shopping outing! She plays with her dolls for long stretches of time now and is very loving with them. She's always patting them on the back and kissing them and talking very sweetly to them.

Ruby has figured out how to effectively use the word "now". As in, "I want my milk NOW" or "I want to watch Curious George NOW". We're trying to teach her that that's not polite but she seems to be very pleased with herself with the reaction she gets.

Some of my favorite things that Ruby does right now are:

Sometimes she'll just look up at me and say "hi bubbalooba" and then give me the most heart breaking smile.

When she wants me to pick her up, she says "Mommy carry you", she hasn't quite gotten the way "me" works. Funny since she has "MINE" down! :)

Her dancing. She's got quite the moves which usually is a combination of the wheels on the bus motion and the Elaine dance.

Every time she hears loud music, she says, "Uncle Stephen's music?"

How she wants to snuggle with me at the end of her naps. How she wants to copy everything I do. She likes to take her purse everywhere now, she carried it half way around the zoo and when I wear a headband, she wants to wear one too.

How she calls Tom Bergeron on the phone every day and says "Hi Tom Bergeron...it's Ruby...good...I live in Florida...OK...Bye."

I could go on and on but those are a few fun things that come to mind. Ruby also loves to sing, take a look at the video. Hope you all had a fun, relaxing long weekend!

Her beautiful Cinderella dress from the Ficarros.

I love her mix of girly-girl and tom-boy.

Her morning ritual of taking baby and stroller in and out, in and out...
Little Mommy.

This is what her hair looks like in the morning. Poor child.

She's got a silly personality. She's taking her juice box for a ride.

Bedtime stories with Daddy.

Ruby reading to Daddy.

Feeding the goats at the zoo. Check out the peacock just wandering around!

Ruby LOVED the fountains. We didn't bring her bathing suit but it didn't stop her!

Dancing!

Dancing again. There was loud music playing and she couldn't resist shaking her groove thing every few minutes.

Napping with dolly and baby.