It’s finally a gorgeous sunny and 60 degree afternoon.
The Dog Whisperer
Last Day of March
I figured out how to add an Instagram feed on the sidebar. Click on any of the pics over to the right and they’ll take you to their page on Instagram. I’ll still try to keep this up to date with musings but if you want the latest photos that I haven’t gotten a chance to add here then that’s where you’ll be able to see them.
The snow is almost gone! It was a beautiful day at Comeau.
Ruthie called this a “mushberry brown ball”
As in, “what’s that mushberry brown ball?”
“Where?”
“There in the adocado”
We’ll Miss You Donny
Ruthie and Donny: Christmas 2012
Back in February we were supposed to be heading to St Louis to see Grandma Sherry and Grandpa John but instead they came here. Sadly it was for Ruthie’s Uncle Donny’s wake.
Donny was my step-sister Kim’s husband. He had been suffering from liver failure for about 2 years and despite Kim giving him part of her liver back in the fall, he left this life far too early for us all.
He always called Ruthie, Baby Ruth. I don’t doubt that he always would have if life had given him the opportunity.
One of my most recent memories with him was riding around their neighborhood in Long Island on these beach cruiser bikes. There was something ridiculous and yet completely fun about the whole experience and that was how I often felt with Donny. He was always up for fun. He and Kim threw notorious Halloween parties, a few of which I made it to. I remember Donny pushing around a vacuum cleaner in the middle of the night while dressed up and perfectly impersonating Mrs. Doubtfire.
He and Kim were the perfect couple. The one that made you think, huh, marriage really can be HAPPY even after nearly 40 years. The two of them had been together since they were kids and they made it work. I don’t think I ever felt a moment of tension in their house. It’s hard to think of life without the two of them in it.
So Donny’s wake back in February was a sad affair but somehow the memory of his spirit kept it light and it was a nice time with family.
Ruthie and Kim
With Grandma Sherry and Grandpa John
Ruthie with her cousins Kaylee, Waverley, and Brayden
Brayden and Johnny
John and Wave
Ruthie’s cousin Johnny came back with us and stayed in Woodstock for the week. He was a good intern and an excellent juicer.
Juicing with Johnny
Meet Pippi
Pippi is a friend who almost never made it into our lives. We were at Target sometime before Thanksgiving and we were looking for Hannukah presents for Mason and Cooper. They had this section of local sports team Pillow Pets and Ruthie picked this Yankees pillow bear out and said she wanted it. We hadn’t planned on getting her anything so we were going to let her carry it around the store and then set him down somewhere before we got to the checkout and were sure she’d never notice. We’d done this type of thing before. And we did exactly that but Miss Ruthie noticed and we had to go for a hunt for the pillow bear she now calls Pippi as he’d been ditched somewhere but then picked up by a store employee. I recall feeling like she was just going to forget about him within a day or two and it would be $20 wasted so we contemplated just telling her no. But she really wanted him and really never asks for things at stores so we hoped we weren’t setting a bad precedent and let her get him. Had we only known the love this pillow bear would see…
At bedtime now Ruthie has to get jammies for Pippi. And he requires his own milk and water. He gets dressed in the morning, too. Getting Pippi dressed generally just means laying some clothes on top of him but yesterday when Poppi was visiting it looks like he and Ruthie took it a step further…
Last Sunday On A Snowbank
A Belated Birthday Post
Wow am I behind. I think we last left off right around Ruthie’s birthday. She got to have 3 birthday celebrations! That was a lot of cupcake baking and eating for us all.
Cupcake Sous Chef
The first was her school party and for that we had to write a short bio for her that her teacher read aloud while Ruthie and her birthday twin, Isabella, stood beside Miss Wendy with their birthday crowns on. The kids got a bit distracted having to listen to two birthday stories but it was still so sweet.
At School In Her Birthday Crown
Here is the story I wrote for Ruthie:
On the night Ruthie was born there was an ice storm and when we woke up in the morning the trees were covered with ice and they looked like glass. They were beautiful. The next morning Ruthie’s grandma Sherry and grandpa John had to drive so carefully when they came to visit because the roads were so slippery but they couldn’t wait. And then her Grammy and Popi came with her Auntie Stef. Everyone was amazed by how much black hair little baby Ruthie had. When we brought Ruthie home she got to meet her two cats Birdie and Mulligan. They loved to sleep near her and watched over her and protected her.
It was very cold and snowy the winter Ruthie was born and most of the time we stayed home, cozy and warm in the little yellow house, and snuggled with Birdie and Mulligan. Sometimes we would bundle little Ruthie up and take her for walks to town. In the spring we had another family member come to live with us. It was Ruthie’s dog Beatrice who was just a little puppy when she came. They’ve grown up together and now Beatrice is a big dog.
In the summer we would walk to the stream down the street from the little house. Ruthie liked to play in the sand on the banks.
Ruthie ate her fist food when she went with her mama and Dada to visit Grandma Sherry and Grandpa John in St Louis. It was avocado and she loved it.
Ruthie learned to crawl when she was 11 months old. The first time she crawled it was to reach a plate that had pear and cheese on it.
Ruthie turned one and she got to eat her first cupcake. She really liked the cupcake and she still likes cupcakes, which is why she helped make these cupcakes today. She knew some words like “hi” and “buh-bye” and “mama” and she would call her dada “cott”. She would sing “ee-i-ee-i-oh” And she would throw things on the floor and say “ooh-ooh”, which meant “uh-oh”.
After her birthday we moved out of the little yellow house to the house where we live now on Chipmunk Lane. Ruthie loved pushing her Wheelie Bee around the house. She called it “whee-bee”. She also loved going for walks while mama or dada carried her in her pack. We went for walks in the woods with Beatrice a lot.
Ruthie learned a lot in her second year. She learned how to walk and on the first night that she got really good at walking she laughed while she was running back and forth between her mama and dada. She also learned how to say a lot more words.
Ruthie’s hair grew really long and got much lighter than when she was a baby over the summer after turning 1. She also learned how to walk up and down steps and her favorite game was to play on steps.
At the end of that summer Ruthie got to be in her first wedding. She was a flower girl and her cousin Mason was a “ring bear”. She walked down the aisle to her mama just like she was supposed to but then she turned around and ran back up the aisle. She was only 1 1/2. She didn’t know any better so everyone thought it was very funny. Her mama had to run after her.
In the fall she started going to Miss Wendy’s with her dada on Fridays.
Then in the winter she turned two. Her favorite game for a long time when she was two was playing “cups and bowls”. She had a big stack of cups and bowls that were all different colors and she would line them up in beautiful arrangements.
When she was 2 1/2 she started going to school at Miss Wendy’s all by herself. Her mama and dada are so proud of her.
This past year with Ruthie has been so much fun. She turned into such a big girl and she has learned how to do so many things. She’s gotten really good at climbing and she can run so fast. She uses the potty a lot now. And she likes to jump off of things. She likes to help with cooking. She’s really good at cracking eggs and doing pouring. At home she loves to play in her kitchen and make us all cookies and eggs and she likes to do painting and drawing.
Birthday Morning – Playing With Her New Magnatiles
For her actual birthday I took the day off from work and in the morning Ruthie got to open presents. She barely got to play with her new Magnatiles though because we spent the day in Phoenicia and then headed down to New Jersey for a birthday celebration with Grammy, Poppi, Stef, Dan, Mason and Cooper.
A birthday cookie in Phoenicia
And then she had her friends birthday party here at the house.
Beatrice and Morgan
Noelle decorated the dollhouse
Funny Things She Says
I’m trying to catch up on getting photos off my camera and onto this site but in the meantime here are some funny Ruthie sayings that I’ll forget if I don’t write them down…
- If something is upside down or inside out lately Ruthie will say we need to make it “upside up” or “outside out”. It makes me smile every time for how perfectly correct it is and yet how funny it sounds.
- The other day I picked Ruthie up from a playdate and her little friend Ridley has trouble saying the word “spoon”. Instead he calls it a “poon”. And Ruthie apparently thought he just didn’t know what the correct word was so she said to Ridley, “Ridley, it’s not a “poon”. It’s a “sssspooon”.” To which Ridley replied, “Yeah, assss poon.”
The Seattle Seahogs
Oh, I almost forgot one of the best Ruthie-isms there is… The Seahogs. Scott has made them his favorite team. For those who know nothing about football, this is the Seattle Team that most people know as The Seahawks.
The Book of Ruthie 