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!

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!