Ruby the Helper

Now that Ruby is totally mobile and walking and climbing everywhere like a little person, she's started to get more interested in being Mommy and Daddy's little helper. Yeah!! We have had some success with getting her to help pick up her toys, but have found that we have to be very specific in our requests. Just saying, "Help Mommy pick up your toys." doesn't work. You have to say, "Ruby, please go get your tractor/doll/legos/etc.". Of course, after a few times she starts to get aggravated--I guess she thinks I'm treating her like Cinderella--and will start fussing... I'm hoping that she'll get over that phase though! She also enjoys helping load/unload the dishwasher and load/unload the washing machine. She's also my chief clothespin holder and sorter, which is probably her favorite "chore".

Recently, on a Saturday, I asked Jared to vacuum for me while I did something in the kitchen. We put on our house cleaning music (They Might Be Giants pumped up LOUD!) and got to work. Ruby watched Daddy for a while, but then scurried off to her room. She came back carrying a broom! It was so cute watching her push that broom around the floor, even though it's ten times too big for her! She thought she was very clever (and so did we!). I'm starting to think maybe we should get her some kid-sized cleaning tools. I think she'd get a kick out of helping with her own stuff. Anyhow, after a few minutes she abandoned her broom and was off again to her bedroom.

A few minutes later she came into the living room with a watering pot! I guess she thought that Mom needed a little help keeping up with all of our houseplants (which is the truth!). Since she couldn't reach any of the plants I brought down a little herb pot that I had just bought and let her "water" it (of course the watering can was empty--just pretend water is the best option when we have all wood floors!). I wish I had gotten a better picture, but she really was trying hard. She does have quite a bit of practive watering as Jared lets her help water the potted plants in the garden with her little bucket--too fun!

Here's a picture of Ruby and Carter taken last week. I can't believe how grown up they both are getting! They really do act like brother and sister sometimes. The funny thing about this picture was that Ruby kept trying to hold Carter's hand, which he was NOT interested in! Sometimes they will hold hands though and I think it's so cute. I'm so thankful that she has a little friend and that Jared and I have Danny and Claire as friends. What a blessing!

I hope that you all have a blessed day! We're having a sunny start today and are planning to meet Claire and Carter at King's Garden (Kongens Have) for some playtime and the puppet show. Have a wonderful day where ever you are!

OOPS!

I just realized that I didn't make an announcement about being pregnant! I really thought that I did, but I think it must have been one of the times that Blogger was acting up and I lost my post or something. Anyhow...

Jared and I found out a while back that we are expecting Bean #2! We're really excited! I have been feeling a bit more under the weather than I did with Ruby, but I didn't have a toddler to play with and chase around all day last time either! The due date is April 1, 2007 and I'll be keeping everyone posted as we negotiate having a baby in another country. I have learned that there are lots of differences between socialized healthcare and the HMOs that we were used to in the US. The Danes would say that their system is far and away the best... I'm not so sure I agree, but maybe I'll change my mind as we go. For now, I'll leave you with a little ticker to count down the days until we welcome little Bean into our family. And if you have any name ideas, let us know!

A Day in the Sun

Although August was for the most part too wet for even a fish to enjoy, there were one or two nice days. These pictures are from a trip we took to a park in Frederiksberg. Claire and I found (when it was almost too late) that there are several of these shallow wading pools for kids that are free to use. The only down-side is that because they change out the water every few days it was ICE cold when we visited. Claire and Carter were both a bit too cold to venture very far in, but not Ruby!

She just LOVES the water and was splashing around everywhere and walked from one end of the pool to the other. A few times she tried to walk on her own, but quickly lost her balance and ended up head first in the drink. It didn't seem to faze her too much though... I guess she must have automatically held her breath or something. She also loved it when I swung her through the water with lots of splashing. We didn't stay in too long though as after a short while even Ruby was starting to look a little blue and shivering up a storm.

Once Ruby was out of her suit and relatively dry we hit the playground. She really loves swinging--at least in small doses, so this was a happy compromise to the heartbreak of leaving the pool.

Jared told me that on a recent trip to the park she has started teaching herself how to "pump" and was actually gaining some height without his pushing her. I haven't witnessed that yet, but I believe it! She just keeps surprising us with all of these "big girl" things that she's doing.

This little thing spun around like a merry-go-round. Carter did NOT like being trapped inside the net and I don't think he was all that crazy about spinning around either. Ruby did like to look down at the ground going by (something that would make her Mommy toss her cookies), but she was soon tired of it too and ready to move on to bigger and better things.




At our next stop the kids crawled onto those wiggly critters. Ruby loves to just wiggle and shake on them, but rarely ever rocks back and forth like a rocking horse. I think in this picture she had noticed one of the big kids running around and was too interested in them to play. She really loves watching the big kids... the only problem is that it seems like she often gets in their way and end up getting plowed over--an experience she doesn't savor nearly as much. She's much more interested in spectator sports than contact sports at this point.

I'll leave you with this picture of Ruby really leaning into a wiggle. I wish that everyone that loves her could see her play and listen to her giggle because it really is the best. She's such a sweetie and I'm so thankful every day that God blessed our lives with her.

Around the house

A post about life around our house really wouldn't be complete without these pictures! Ruby's TOP favorite thing to do is to talk on the "phone". She does have a little pretend flip phone that makes noises and says, "This is the operator, can I help you?". If she doesn't know where her phone is, however, she's happy to make due with anything that is "phone-shaped". This is often one of the remote controls, though her favorite is this one for the DVD player becuase it's the smallest.

It is SO funny to watch her talking on the phone becuase she just walks around all over making choppy little "conversation" and is very animated with hand gestures, etc. I really don't think that either Jared or I are nearly as animated as her when we talk on the phone, but I guess she's getting her information from somewhere so it must be us! Sometimes, as you can see in the next picture, she'll even lay down with the "phone" and here it looks like she's fallen asleep (though I think I just caught her blinking!).

One of the other "too cute" things that Ruby has started doing is singing! She doesn't really like to sing along when Jared or I are singing, but if we sing a line and then ask her to sing she really belts it out! Whatever she sings isn't anything close to what we've been singing to her, but she's trying to sing different notes and make "word-like" sounds. It's really cool--I just can't wait until she really sings along!! She also likes to make the animal sounds when we sing "Old McDonald"! Our little girl is growing up!

One of Ruby's favorite things to do with Daddy is play with his hats. She'll play peek-a-boo with them or just cover her face and try to walk around blindly. We like to put the hat on her head at funny angles to make her look like a little "baby rapper". Of course she loves it too becuase Mommy and Daddy are playing with her and giggling--two of her favorite things.

Well, that's about it for today. Hopefully I'll get a few more posts up tomorrow. I've got a horrible cold and am staying home, so I have high hopes of getting through some of my huge backlog of great photos to share with you all. I guess we'll see what Ruby thinks about that though... ;)

Oh, if anyone has any good name ideas for Bean#2, leave me a comment! I feel like this is a boy... of course I thought Ruby was a boy too... but this one feels very different from Ruby. We think it would be neat to have a Scandinavian name, so if you have a favorite name (boy or girl) let me know!

Capella Play and a trip to the beach...

We have had quite a few opportunities since the beginning of August to start investigating our options for indoor play. The weather has been pretty rotten nearly every day, which doesn't dampen Ruby's desire to play out in it--just Mommy's! Anyhow, we have visited Capella Play a few times which is one of those giant play centers for kids with balls, slides, tunnels, games, mini "traffic areas", train sets, etc. Ruby discovered this little pram in the "traffic area" and really loved arranging the dolls in there and pushing it around.

This "funny face" that Ruby is making is her surprised face, I guess. She had just discovered that if she slapped the top of the drum it made a big sound--too cool! She does that face ALL the time now though. It's really a pretty silly face, but she likes it!

Well, we did go with Claire and Carter, but as you can see there aren't many pictures of them together as they were interested in different things. Carter loves anything with wheels--cars, trains, etc. where Ruby is 100% girl and loves her dolls and some of the puzzle type toys.

One of Ruby's favorite things at Capella are the slides. She doesn't so much care about going down, although she does think that's fun...it's the scaling up them that she enjoys most. This picture is of the smallest "baby" slide in the place. Later on we were crawling in the huge play area and there is a slide with about 5 lanes and two humps going down, so it's long and steep. I went down with Ruby and before I knew it she had scaled her way halfway up! I couldn't even catch her until she was already at the top and then of course she wailed when I grabbed her... Mommies sure know how to ruin a good time!

This picture was taken down in Køge. We had been planning on having a beach day for Moms'N'Tots, but unfortunately it was really pretty cool so no swimming. Also there were about a million of those little brine shrimp (sea monkeys!) that kept getting stuck inside your sandals! YUCK! Ruby didn't mind the cool weather or the sea monkey and was happy to splash around in the water for a bit. She just LOVES the water.

Here is our Moms'N'Tots group as it was then. I'm happy to report that we have added two more Moms and kids to our little group and we are really enjoying getting to know the new additions. Ruby is going back into a clingy stage the last week or so (precipitated by being sick last week I think), so we didn't have all that much fun this week, but hopefully she'll start playing again soon!