Will turns 3!

Our little boy turned three last week! How is that possible?!! It amazes me how fast time is moving, & it just seems to spin faster & faster.

Since Scott had to work on Will's actual birth-day last Sunday, we postponed celebrating until Wednesday. We originally planned to take Will to different places around town to ride the train at the outdoor mall, play at the park, pick out a treat at a bakery . . . but once we got in the car, we changed our plans to make the day more out of the ordinary for him - we took him to the Sacramento Zoo (a first for all of us, & we had a blast!). 

Will ran from one thing to the next, making it difficult to even keep up with him. He was so excited to see all the many different animals. He finally settled down while sticking his head through the cardboard safari cutout b/c the train made its appearance while going around the zoo. He was enthralled by it, & had a look of such pure happiness on his face as it passed by.

As we prepared to leave the zoo, Will climbed up on a fence to look at some monkeys. I started taking some pictures (I know, even more - like I didn't already have enough) when he stepped down, lost his balance & fell backwards, smacking his head on the pavement. He was bawling, & when he finally calmed down enough to gasp some words out, he kept pointing at the cage & repeating, "Monkey hurt me. Monkey hurt me." How do you reason with a three-year-old that the monkey didn't push him or hit him, but that he just fell? It only made things worse that about a month ago, while we were downstairs in the kitchen, he heard a loud boom upstairs & got completely freaked out. He kept saying, "Monkey go boom upstairs." I don't know where this whole monkey fear came from, but he had nightmares for a couple nights following that. So of course it had to be monkeys he was looking at when he fell down & hurt himself. If only it could have been another animal. He still talks about the monkeys hitting him & making  him bonk his head. 

After leaving the zoo, we crossed the street to spend some time at Fairytale Town

(not nearly as cool as the zoo).

For Will's birthday dinner & dessert, we had Mickey Mouse waffles with whipped cream.

Talk about a happy kid! 

We had an awesome day celebrating Will's birth into our family. We are so grateful for him & love him more than we thought possible to love a child.

Happy Birthday Mister!

welcome to our beautiful baby girl

Last Monday, I had my 40 week appointment to see how my pregnancy was progressing. My doctor told me it wouldn't be long before the baby came, defnitely before the week was up. I was 80% effaced & dilated to a 2.5. To speed things up, he recommended walking & eating tomato & garlic pizza. Well, after my appointment, I was pretty uncomfortable & kept pacing around, hoping that would help labor start. Around 5:30 (6 hours after my doctor appointment), my mom & I got Will in the car to go get some pizza at BJ's Brewery for dinner. Once in the car, my contractions started. They got more & more painful, so I started timing them - about every 4 or 5 minutes apart. I wasn't sure if they were legitimate contractions or not, so we kept driving to dinner, got inside, & ordered our food (of course, I was in enough pain & having contractions every 3 minutes by now, so when the waitress asked me what I wanted, I couldn't talk & kept firmly tapping the menu to let her know. She didn't get the hint, so I finally had to tell her "BJ's Favorite" through gritted teeth & a hard contraction.). Before our dinner even came, I told my mom I had to get to the hospital. The waitress ran behind us with our boxed-up pizza. I couldn't wait to tell my doctor that just getting in the car on my way to get pizza, my labor had started. I didn't even have to take a single bite of it for the garlic & tomato to kick in.

We got to the hospital where I was hooked up & monitored to determine whether or not my labor was genuine. Turns out it was. My mom & Will sat in the room with me (actually, Will climbed around the different machines & kept saying, "Oh wow!" whenever he saw something interesting), & then Scott showed up. I was so grateful to have him walk in the room (looking all fancy in his firefighter uniform), & felt instantly better having him there with me. By this point, I was 80% effaced & dilated to a 4. The nurses took me to my labor & delivery room, & within the next hour or two, I had my epidural (thank goodness for numbing medicine!). After another couple hours, the midwife came in & broke my "bag of water" (does that phrase sound funny to anyone else?), hoping to speed up the process. She predicted the baby would be here in 4 hours. I thought differently, but kept my mouth shut. At this point, my contactions got so bad that even though I had an epidural, I got really nauseous & was shaking horribly (again, so grateful I couldn't feel the contractions very well). Two hours after my water was broken, the midwife checked me & said it was time to start pushing. Within four contractions, our little girl was safely delivered to us.

our new addition

My entire pregnancy, Scott & I could not come up with a name for a little girl. We had a long list of potentials, but nothing stuck. At one point, we even decided on the name Camilla Jane, but after hearing people refer to my baby girl as "Camilla" or "Millie," I just couldn't take it. It just didn't sound right to me. The week prior to our baby girl's birth, Scott & I finally narrowed our list of names down to 5, & these were the names Scott listed on the whiteboard in the labor & delivery room.

As soon as the baby was born & the nurses handed her to me, I instantly felt like she was a Ruby. This thought was confirmed even more to both Scott & me when everyone in the room kept commenting on her beautiful rosy lips (they referred to them as little rosebuds) & her  healthy red skin. She was our beautiful little Ruby. While the nurses cleaned her up, weighed her & performed their tests, I looked at Scott & said, "She's not an Emma or a Clara." He went to the whiteboard & crossed those names off. I looked at her again & said she wasn't a Lucy - he crossed it off. It was down to Grace & Ruby. As soon as we were left alone for the first time after she was born, we both immediately decided on Ruby. After such a long time, it felt good to finally have a name for our sweet girl.

Ruby Jane

born at 2:20 AM on Tuesday, August 30

8 lb 2 oz, 20 1/2 in

Christmas 2009

I was never able to post pictures of Christmas because all the pictures were taken on my mom's camera.  Now that I have my hands on it again, I was finally able to download them.

Christmas Eve:

Scott worked Christmas Eve/his birthday, as well as Christmas Day/my birthday, so Will & I spent those few days at my parents'.

My Aunt Bev's kids came for Christmas, so it was a lot of fun seeing them for a short bit.  Max (Dani & Paul's baby boy) & Will had a lot of fun together. 

Max wasn't really sure how to hold his own around Will - I think Will was kind of shocking to him. Notice the ball flying toward the head.

That's my (hyper) boy!

Cleaning the dishes after our feast: Steven, me, & Amy

Some of the cousins: Kim, Dani, Max & Paul, Alli & Jason, & Adil

Getting ready for bed, so Santa can come!

Christmas Day:

Of course Will woke up & was clueless about Christmas.  But when he saw all the goodies that Santa brought him, he got super excited, especially when he saw the ball!

Later that night, after playing some rounds of Pirate Bingo, we celebrated my birthday with a yummy carrot cake!

New Years:

Since Scott had to work New Year's as well, I headed back down to my parents & spent the exciting holiday with these yahoos.

Cole, Drew, Timmy, & Zach (Lily, Sammie, & Will were already in bed)

Will's 1st Birthday!

On Friday, Will turned one! I can't believe that a year ago, I actually gave birth to a baby - amazing.  And he truly is such a happy & wonderful baby.

My mom asked Will if he wanted some chocolate, & he repeated "you want some chocolate?" (with a baby slur). It was hilarious - he was totally mimicking her.

Will w/ nana

Because Scott had school on Friday, we spent that day preparing for Will's party & celebrated with friends & family on Saturday instead.

Gail used to spend a lot of her free time decorating cakes, & taught me how to frost cakes/cupcakes, make decorating bags out of parchment paper, use the decorating tips, & manipulate the frosting on the cupcake with toothpicks & my fingers (I cleaned my hands thoroughly before doing all of this).

 Will kept crawling all over my legs while I knelt on the floor to decorate the cake (no the cake was not on the floor with me, I just needed to get down lower to see what I was doing, & my back needed a break from bending over the cakes for hours).

I wanted a Pirate Monkey & Lion theme, so I used the book, Hello, Cupcake! to learn how to decorate the lions & monkeys, & then added some pirate details.

Lions: w/ mini oreo eye patches

Monkeys with fruit-roll-up bandanas & frosting earings:

The yellow banana runts on the edge of the cake are 'crossbones': I had so much fun decorating these cakes - I never thought I was capable of doing something like this because I don't usually have the patience for it. It turned out so cute, & I'm really glad I could do something extra to make Will's first birthday treats & cake special.

The kids loved them, & even the adults were impressed (it's not normal for my dad or brothers to compliment the way cakes look, but they kept going back & looking at them to say how great they looked. And my niece has already requested princess cupcakes for her birthday). Aren't they fun? And they were so much easier to do than I expected.

We loved having so many people over to support Will, both our family & friends.

My sister(-in-law) Amy w/ Lily, & Timmy

Zach (also belongs to Steven & Amy)

Dennis & Scott

Lily & Carson were both fond of the cell phone.

Leslie & Sara

Ethan & Curtis

Will was all about the hugs at his party - he practically tackled Lily to give her a hug, & wouldn't leave Wes alone until he gave him a hug too (he's never tried hugging other kids before, so it was so cute when he started hugging his cousins).

Little cutie!

Parading down to the pinata.

My brother, Brad, bought fake-hair headbands for Lily & Sammie. I was so glad to catch Sammie pulling Lily's 'hair.' It's so typical of her - she's been doing this to Lily since she was a baby. I love these girls!

Will favored kicking the pinata to using a bat.

Zach was the one to finally break the pirate open & free the loot.

Lily, my dad, & Wes sitting in the grass while Dennis was all over the picture-taking.

Our little family.

Steven & Scott w/ Will: It really pays off to prepare good food for parties. I never plan enough ahead to do this, but with my mom's & Gail's help, I was able to put together a great spread: bread w/ spinach dip, bowtie pasta salad, a veggie plate, grapes, strawberries, little tuna & turkey sandwiches cut up for the kids - it was so good.

Timmy & Drew - they're such great friends & cousins.

Marching over to his cake.

He wasn't quite sure what to think about everyone singing "Happy Birthday."

He also looked kind of overwhelmed by the cake. What the heck was it for?

Will probably ate 3 bites of cake (& only because we put it in his mouth for him) & spent the rest of the time destroying it.

After cake, we all went on a mini hike on Mt. Diablo. It was a longer 'walk' than some expected, especially having to carry kids, but it was so beautiful. I wish I'd gotten some pictures - the leaves were changing to orange & yellow, the oak tree branches were arching over the trail, the moss on the rocks was such a bright, beautiful green, & we even saw deer down below the trail jumping across the small "stream" - if you can really call it a stream. It felt so good to get out & enjoy such a beautiful hike w/ everyone.

Some of our friends from back home: Tiffani, Leslie & Ben

Our little pirate: Happy Birthday sweet boy - We love you so much & are so grateful that you came to us!