Back to basics

I know that it probably seems like all we do is just go and have fun all the time, that isn't exactly true, but who really wants to read about washing and hanging laundry day in and day out? But, since I brought up the laundry, I have to say I'm loving the warmer weather. If I haven't mentioned it before, we don't have a dryer. Thankfully, we do have a nice big laundry room with room to hang about two loads at a time. Even so, it generally takes about 24 hours turnaround... then if there's ironing to do--let's just say, it might be a while! Anyway, now that the weather has been warmer (as you can see from Ruby's garb!) I can hang things outside. Jeans which normally take at least 18 hours to dry are done in 2! Awesome! Okay, I can see you aren't as excited as I am, but it's the little things, you know?

But on to the fun stuff! Ruby and I visited the zoo, yet again, last week. It's much cheerier there now that all the animals are outside and the zoo keepers seem to actually be cleaning up the pens and such. Of course, all the flowers and hoards of people help too. This was the first time we've visited that the giraffes have been out--hurray! They were being quite cautious though and stayign close to home (that building right behind him), so we didn't exactly get a close-up view, but that's okay. At this point in the trip my heart was still racing from a near miss with a horse! There is a petting zoo within the zoo including lots of animals, mostly of the barnyard variety, for the kids to ride, pet, and generally play with. For some reason they also include horses with very low fences in this area. Ruby had been eating Cheerios from her stroller tray and apparently Mr. Ed thought he'd like a few too and just about bit the tray OFF of the stroller. I wrestled the stroller away as calmly as possible and we were off again. After we were walking away I saw a sign that said "Caution: Horses Bite!". Then WHY are they in the petting zoo!?!

Our little monkey (I mean Ruby, not this one!) has figured out how to climb the sofa and crawl up onto the window sill and then stand up there this week. Of course once up there she's totally trapped and basically an accident waiting to happen. Gotta love toddlers... She is constantly getting herself into jams and doesn't have a clue how to extract herself. Sometimes it's funny, but other times I just want to put her in her playpen and let her be SAFE for 20 minutes or so. Thankfully we haven't had any trips to the emergency room... YET! She still hasn't outgrown her put everything in her mouth phase either as we've learned when we try to do anything artsy--playdough, fingerpaint, crayons, chalk--they all end up in her mouth. And it isn't just once, she'll put them in again and again even though they taste horrible--weird.

I'll end on this picture of Ruby eating a burrito--who would have thunk it?! 12 months ago she could barely figure out how to nurse, now she's eating a burrito like a big girl! She has totally shunned all baby food now (with the exception of cereal) and wants to eat everything we do. I think that her tummy isn't quite ready for all of that though, judging from the "nasty factor" of her diapers. Hopefully her tummy figures things out soon, because there's just no holding this girl back!

Oh! As a quick teaser, we will hopefully be posting our videos from this Christmas and eventually some other clips here on the blog. We've discovered Google Video, so now I just have to figure out how to imbed the video into the blog and we're golden. Stay tuned!