on the seventh day of Christmas...

my true love gave to me, 7 minutes in a sled - with no snow.

 Uncle Erik gave Ruby a sled this Christmas, and she LOVED it.  Mine you, we still haven't enough snow this year to sled, but a couple of loops around the living room, and she was hooked. She probably would have done it all night, if we would let her.  There was discussion of harnessing Bailey (Erik's dog)... maybe next year.  When someone wouldn't pull her in, she sat contently and played with the sled rope.

 Unfortunately for Ruby, it doesn't look like we are going to get snow anytime soon.  Be sure that as soon as we get some - we'll bundle the girl up and give her first real sled ride!

on the sixth day of Christmas...

my true love gave to me, 6 blocks from Sam.

 Actually, there were 40 blocks, but we only put together 6 in hopes of getting everything home from trips to both sets of granparents in our little Civic.  The CR-V seems to be giving us problems these days.  So the Civic seems to be a safer bet.

 Uncle Sam got Ruby a set of large cardboard building blocks that I am sure will fill our living room for the next 10 years.  Perhaps someday we will get a playroom built in the basement. :)  Regardless, Ruby loves knocking them down, and I am sure soon she will love building towers, forts, etc.  Mommy warned everybody that Ruby would be most excited about the boxes that the gifts came in, rather than the gifts.  We never imagined she would get a box full of boxes!  

on the fifth day of Christmas...

my true love gave to me, 5 GOLDEN RINGS! 

 ...or at least there were 5, until she ate one.  :)

 Hope all had a great Christmas.  We love you all and over the next week we will do our best to update the blog with Christmas pictures and video from Ruby.

on the fourth day of Christmas...

my true love sent to me, 4 gifts from Santa!  ... a stocking counts as a gift in our book!

 Last night, Santa snuck into our living room while we were making supper in the kitchen.  That guy sure is sneaky.  He left Ruby a stocking full of books, seasame street figures, a Mickey Mouse cup, and a toothbrush and 3 wrapped gifts.  She opened a "walker" that turns into a wagon - once she is big enough, a Cookie Monster that talks and eats cookies, and a basketball hoop that makes music and 2 balls.  She was pretty overwhelmed and it was hard to get her to open a new gift, as she was still interested in the last one.  We probably should have spread the gift opening over a few days!  Once they were all open it was fun to watch her play with all three at once -slam dunking cookies and shoving blocks that came with the walker into Cookie Monster's mouth.  We tried to determine her favorite by spreading them apart and seeing which she went for.  She went for the roll of wrapping paper... the entire opposite direction of any of her gifts.  By the end of the night, we decided it was the box that her new toothbrush came in!  Excellent choice Ruby. :)

 It was a good thing Santa came when he did as it gave us to enjoy a little Christmastime just the 3 of us.  We have a whirlwind tour of Iowa planned. Time with friends tonight and tomorrow afternoon.  Time with Grandma and Grandpa Reicks tomorrow night and Christmas Eve.  Then driving Christmas morning to Papa and Babcha's for Christmas day and the day following.  Busy, busy, busy.  I am sure Ruby will love it all. 

on the third day of Christmas

my true love gave to me, 3 days to see Babcha and Papa!

 This year the weekend before Christmas, Mama and Daddy headed to Kansas City for a weekend with some friends.  They went to their first NFL game (Chiefs vs. Packers - can you believe the Chiefs won???) and spent time playing games, dining, and drinking with their best friends Shannon and Dave and Shannon's family.  This meant that Ruby got dropped off at the Wagner's on Friday night, and got to spend time with Papa and Babcha on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!  Mom and Dad hung around until bedtime on Friday and left after Ruby went to bed.  Steve has the worst luck and came down with a fever that night and a bad belly ache.  So needless to say, it was a long drive! Luckily he rallied and did pretty well on Saturday.

Ruby did pretty well for Papa and Babcha, but did not take one bottle the whole time.  She has refused bottles while Mom is at work since mid-November and has just nursed when Mom is around.  We were really hoping that after 40 hours without Mom, she might get the hint and go for the bottle, but she is one stubborn girl.  Babcha reported that she ate lots of table food and drank water to stay hydrated and in general, stayed pretty happy.  She squeezed in her second visit to the big guy in red while staying with them and spent time checking out the Christmas trees in Amana.  Despite all the fun, she was pretty excited to see Mom and Dad when they walked in the door on Sunday night and of course, they were really excited to see her.  Weird to remember what life is like without kids, and although the weekend was so much fun, I found myself looking up pics of her on my phone and thinking of her constantly. 

No more time away til this girly is done nursing!  Poor peanut!

 Thanks so much Kevin and Helen for giving us some time away and getting Ruby safely back to us!  Here are a couple pictures Helen took of Ruby during the weekend.

on the second day of Christmas...

my true love gave to me, time with two of my second cousins!

 Ruby absolutely loves her second cousins (though it may the closest thing she has to a cousin for a long long time... so we just call them "cousins"!).  Kids totally capture her attention, and she constantly wants to be touching, talking to, and playing with the big kids.  Hannah is 4 and Noah is 21 months (11 months older than Ruby).  Hannah likes to try to take care of "Miss Ruby", and stays pretty patient with her when she gets in her face or climbs on top of the book she is trying to look at - those babies can be so annoying!  Noah wants to touch Ruby, as much as she wants to touch him.  This gets pretty interesting and last weekend during "Reicks Christmas" Noah sat on top of Ruby who was crawling - trying to ride her like a horse. :)  Didn't work out too well.. maybe in a few months.

 Here are some pictures of the three kiddos during our time with my dad's side of the family for the holidays.  They got to go visit their Great Grandpa Butch for a while, which was really good for everybody.  Then we all spent lots of time at "great" aunt Jennie and uncle Mike's farm.  Plenty of games, food, and a pretty entertaining gift exchange.  Ruby got a cute play cell phone from Kassidy and some warm and toasty footie pj's!  We are all looking forward to time together in a month for my cousin Nate's wedding.  Hooray, more time with the cousins!

the 12 days of Christmas...

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...... One Christmas Tree!

  
Our family got our tree from the YMCA tree sale this year, and it's one of the prettiest trees that we've ever have.  In addition, it has yet to fall over (an issue we had last year), and it took us 15 minutes to pick out instead of hours of walking in the cold like last year!  I say it's a great new tradition. :)

 Ruby is pretty good when it comes to the Christmas tree. As long as there is something between her and the tree, she doesn't often think about.  The few times it has caught her eye, she seems to know she isn't supposed touch it because she will look at us and then crawl towards it and then look back and then crawl again.  As if to say, "when are you going to come stop me?"  Cute and very managable - I'll take it!  I hear next year may not be so easy!

who cares about presents??

It's the boxes they come in that count!

changing before our eyes...

So Ruby has been crawling for almost two weeks now.  Everyone warned us that having her mobile would make our lives harder, but in fact, it has been easier.  Ruby needs much less attention and entertainment, now that she can move on her own.  She loves throwing toys and chasing after them and gets stronger and more daring, as she finds more and more things she can pull herself up on.  Surprisingly, she has little interest in the Christmas tree or the stairs.  Though she has found her fair share of trouble, including chewing on a cellphone charger cord, a humidifier cord, and pulling Daddy's shoelaces out of his shoes.  Apparently, she has a thing for cords/string.

 As you probably noticed in a video posted earlier, she likes to perch up on her knees.  It's hard to see anything when you are on your hands and knees!  This habit has given her a strong sense of balance.  Today she was pulling herself up on Mommy's legs.  Mommy was paying more attention to Noah and Hannah and their new Christmas present and without Mommy really knowing what was happening, Ruby was standing on her own.  She dropped pretty quickly, but later tried again and lasted a good 5 seconds!  Watch out world, here comes Ruby!

 *Sidenote:  When I was giving Ruby a bath tonight, she picked up her hairbrush and started running it through her hair.  Things in that brain are clicking! 

Off to Ruby's first of many Christmases

Sent via pda

Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for... a healthy baby who brings joy to our lives every day, jobs that allow us to provide for her and allow us lots of time with her, a warm home, food on our table, constant support from our family, great friends, and a great Thanksgiving weekend that we got to spend with both of our families.

 On Thanksgiving Day, we were in Pella with Grandpa and Grammy Reicks and Uncle Sam.  It was a low key day filled with games and good food.  Ruby loved helping make the homemade icecream (made by Uncle Sam in an icecream ball), and loved eating Thanksgiving dinner even more.  She especially loved the butternut squash risotto and the green bean cassorole.  We had two 17lb turkeys that day... one was grilled by Grandpa and the other woke up from her nap just in time to have her feathers put on. :)  Each feather had something we were thankful for, including Ruby's feather that said "peaches, black beans, dogs, and family". 

 On Friday, Grandpa, Grammy, and Uncle Sam came to Des Moines for some more family time and more food.  Then on Saturday, Papa and Babcha came to the rescue.  I was scheduled to work all weekend and that meant Steve was going to have 4 out of 5 days alone with Ruby.  Daddy likes alone time with Ruby... but that was going to be a bit much.  So Ruby got some good time with Papa, Babcha and Cooper the dog.  Saturday evening when I got home from work, we had an Italian Thanksgiving dinner and again Ruby loved it, especially the lasanga. 

 Here are a few pics from our time with family including our 17lb turkey,