Thursday, May 13, 2010

Spreading the love...

I've mentioned before how much I love Ruth Ann's fearlessness around animals. Today I took Ruth Ann out in the yard to play and our two furry boys showed up to see what we were up to. I asked Ruth Ann to give the dogs a hug and kiss...here's what followed...

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So sweet! Too bad both these boys stink to high heaven and she could have possibly used a scrub down after playing with them for even just a few minutes, but still sweet none the less!

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It was bound to happen one day...

Ruth Ann has a new love...and no red blooded girl could possibly disagree with her latest obsession...shoes. But not just her shoes, no sir, any pair of shoes she can get her hands on...this is what I found coming out of the kitchen...

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Not exactly her size or my favorite style. At one point she had them on correctly, but the left shoe got turned around somehow. She took the time to fix this problem...

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Well, almost!

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Mother's Day

I'm a little behind the times...I can't believe I've neglected my blog for this long...my apologies!

We started our weekend of celebrating mothers at my brother-in-laws house by grilling out with the entire McCarty family. My niece and nephew got a trampoline recently and spent time showing off some of their tricks...

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Ruth Ann joined in the on the trampoline fun, but mostly just rolled around...

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This resulted in some serious static to her baby fine hair...

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Then she took a quick break to catch her breath...

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Then she chatted it up with her grandma for a minute...

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And then she was back to playing with her cousins again...

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Then on Sunday Ruth Ann and I spent the morning in church nursery. I volunteer one Sunday a month and Mother's Day was the Sunday I started. We're lucky to be members of a church with a great ministry for children. As an aside...if your ever looking for a church family I think the test of a strong & growing church is found in their children's department. So, after you listen to the sermon, ask for a tour of the children's sunday school area...even if you don't have children, I think a church's emphasis on ministering to children is vital to church growth. My opinion, my blog.

Then I did a little sewing while Ruth Ann napped and before I knew it dinner time was upon us. We planned on having dinner with my parents so they met us at our house so I could get a few pictures before we headed out...

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All in all, it was a great Mother's Day! I'm already looking forward to next year!

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Time to earn her keep...

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We've decided it's time for Ruth Ann to pick up a few chores around the house...

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She's an expensive member of our family and it's time she earn her keep...just kidding, but I am curious when to start giving Ruth Ann chores. I feel like my entire childhood was filled with chores, but I may be exaggerating just a bit.

Ruth Ann has started taking trash and putting it in the trash can when asked, but she also gets trash out of the trash can when she isn't asked or when her Grammy is here watching her. Her daddy loves a good find at the local dump, so I told Arch it's totally his fault that our sweet little girl is turning into a dumpster diver! I appreciate her desire to want to clean up her mess and I hope this means she'll be a tidy toddler before we know it!

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Sunday, May 2, 2010

Cause you gotta have friends...

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We held our monthly supper club this weekend at Chez Tunmore and this supper club happened to fall on Sally's birthday...here's a picture of all the girls...

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Sally's the cute blond on the end. Here are two other cute blonds...

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I try so hard to not get my heart set on who Ruth Ann's friends will be when she gets older...but I really hope these 2 little girls stay close friends. As Ruth Ann gets older I see her following Betsy around more and more and I love it! I hope Ruth Ann loves spending time with Betsy as much as I love spending time with her momma and our friends...a girl has to have good girlfriends!

Dinner was fabulous, as always, but Auralee went the extra mile as hostess and bought Sally this delicious looking cake...

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But what I wanted to sink my teeth into more than anything was the item I was assigned to bring...

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A twice baked potato and yes, they taste as good as the look! But sadly, I'm still on South Beach and close to 30 lbs. down, so I was a good girl...here's what my plate looked like...

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But that potato would have been right at home on my plate and later in my belly! Notice how I was sitting right in front of the cake, not a problem, what I've learned on this diet is I'm a salty/savory eater, not a sweets eater...but I've never met a candy bar I didn't love!

I attempted to let Ruth Ann sit with the big kids...

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But that was very short lived and she soon found her way into the high chair.

It was another fun evening with good food and good friends. I'm up next as hostess and I have big plans of what the menu will be...one exciting item...Purple Jesus (PJ) for those of you from SC...Hunch Punch for those of you from South Alabama...but a more grown up version that I found in one of my new favorite cook books...

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I can't wait!

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17 months

I know I say this at least once a month...and usually it's on the first day of the month...but it's worth repeating...I can't believe how fast Ruth Ann is growing up! 17 months can not have really already gone by!

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Lately, when I'm asked how Ruth Ann is doing my response is as follows..."She's BAD!". But honestly, she's not into anything different than any other child her age...I think her momma just has unrealistic expectations at times! I love seeing her little personality develop every day...for example...when asked if she wanted a breakfast bar this morning she responded in her favorite way "Umm, No.", I just told Arch she's a girl who knows what she wants and won't take anything less. That character trait will serve her well later in life...just not while she lives under my roof!

Ruth Ann now has 12 teeth. It seems like I waited on the first tooth to pop through for months and now she seems to have a whole mouth full. We're still waiting for the teeth between the top four and back molars to come in so we may see that huge gap between her front two teeth finally close in.

Ruth Ann loves being outside and loves long walks in her wagon. Unfortunately we live in a very hilly neighborhood so our walks are grueling on me...I keep warning Ruth Ann that if she gets much bigger I'm going to make her get out and push!

Potty training has stalled out at our house and I'm afraid I will not be meeting my 18 month deadline I had set for myself. I thought if I put training panties on her for a little while she would find out how wet panties felt and would want to do something about it...I was wrong. She walked around in wet panties like it didn't bother her at all. Oh well, I may need to set a new goal.

My favorite thing Ruth Ann is doing right now is recognizing familiar faces in pictures. For about 6 months or so she would say or sign "baby" when she saw any baby or small child. But now she points to Spencer's pictures and says "Bubba", when she sees my mom's picture (or any woman who looks to be of a grandmotherly age) she says "Mammie" and when I'm on Facebook and she sees a picture of my niece Ada, she says "Addie". I was on the phone one night with my mom, sitting with Ruth Ann in my lap in front of the computer...I'm a serious multi-tasker...anyway, I pulled up Toni's (my sis-in-law) profile and she has a picture of Ada as her profile picture. Ruth Ann immediately said "Addie"...I had seen her do this several times, but my mom had not...she of course thinks her granddaughter's are 2 of the smartest kids on the planet and thought this was particularly cute, so she called Toni to tell her about it. It turns out this was the nickname Toni called Adam so she loved that without any conditioning Ruth Ann had decided to call Ada this same nickname. So sweet, I love the little ways the Lord helps us remember Adam...even if it's just passing along a nickname!

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