Happy Halloween

For a little halloween treat, here's Ruby singing "5 Little Pumpkins"

5 Little Pumpkins from Adam Badertscher on Vimeo.

5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate
The first one said "Oh my it's getting late."
The second one said "There are witches in the air."
The third one said "Good folk beware."
The fourth one said "We'll run and run and run."
The fifth one said "Let's have some fun."
OOOOOOOH went the wind
And out went the lights
And the 5 little pumpkins
Rolled out of sight

Wow- A lot has happened since Ruby's second birthday! First, for anyone who doesn't know already...

Yes! Ruby is going to be a big sister! We think that she is going to be an excellent big sister and a huge help, she loves her big sister kit that a super nice and talented friend made for her, to prep her in all the ways she can help us with the new little one. The due date is February 21st, but if this one is anything like their big sister, they will be late to the party. As this child will be completing the Badertscher family we are going to let the gender be a surprise, and what a wonderful surprise it will be!

To get Ruby ready we have already made a remarkably smooth transition to her big girl bed. We are in the process of turning the guest room into the nursery and are making some real progress there as well.

We had a great trip to Gillette for Great Grandma Liz's 75th Birthday (Hope you don't mind us sharing that Grandma!)

Ruby is definitely her mother's child and loves Halloween, she has picked out her costume- a triceratops. (Pictures to come soon) She also loves the Halloween section at Target and requests to look every time we are there. She has a few Halloween shirts and wears them a ton, and really likes her new skeleton shirt. For some reason cute ghosts and black kittens freak her out but she really likes skeletons. When asked why she replied "They are funny and they like to dance." She really enjoyed the pumpkin patch and talks about it frequently, and of course the delicious pumpkin bread (of which she pretty much ate all the icing off and then a few bites of the bread). She also points out the huge blow up jack-o-lantern on top of the Halloween store we drive by every day, saying, "There's the pumpkin! He's a happy pumpkin! There's a skeleton too, Mommy!" Literally every day I hear this.

Ruby also really enjoys helping us with the leaves in the back yard.

 And a Happy Halloween pic showing off our creepy/somewhat cute skeleton shirts.

What Ruby is really into right now...

• Pretending she is a doctor/dentist- "Open up please!", "You need a check-up!" 
• Puzzles- we bought her a 12 piece Snoopy Halloween puzzle for a dollar and she can put the puzzle together completely on her own. I think this is a sign of pure genius but that's just her mother's opinion. :)
• Horses- she has named her big stuffed horse Tawny from her Barbie book that has a horse. 
• Reading- of course, I doubt that will change and we are happy about that!
• She is starting to get more into baby dolls, she is still freaked out by most of them but she has a few plush ones that she likes and she likes to take care of them and feed them their bottles. 
• Spelling her name- a trick she loves to show off for friends. 

Ruby's 2nd Year

This is a video that debuted at Ruby's second birthday, documenting what Ruby was up to July '11 through July '12, enjoy...

Ruby's Second Year from Adam Badertscher on Vimeo.

We have been having such an exciting summer! (So much so that we haven't updated the blog in a long long time!) Well, here are quite a few updates.

First, Ruby took her first plane trip ever....to Ireland! Lucky girl! And lucky us too! Thanks to awesome Great Grandma Liz we enjoyed a one in a lifetime trip to see some of Amanda's heritage. Despite our fears of Ruby screaming for 10 hours on a plane due to ear pressure, boredom, or fear, she did amazing! Once we were there she was quite the little trouper, going on a 7 hour time change, almost complete lack of naps, and the sun staying up until 10:30 p.m. and for the most part maintaining her sunny disposition. 

 The first stop of our trip- The Guinness Factory. Poor Ruby was exhausted from the plane ride and slept the entire tour. 

 Playing on the fence with her stuffed lamb, a gift from our tour guide, Mike. 

 Hiking to Giant's Causeway on Dad's shoulders

 Playing on the cool flat rocks that make up the interesting shoreline here. 

 Picking flowers

 A statue at WB Yates' cemetary

 Yay! We found a playground!

 Ruby's on vacation too, getting to eat a really yummy dessert. 

Hello, little bear!

We had a truly amazing time and even though it is doubtful that Ruby will remember much or any of her trip we will be able to share with her the awesome memories that we shared and of course the many pictures we took!

Here at home things have settled down a bit, but there is still a lot more fun planned for our summer! We are so excited to take Ruby to Ohio in August for a wonderful friend's wedding and to meet some Ohio relatives. Ruby is also celebrating her 2nd birthday July 19th and we are throwing her a Yo Gabba Gabba party that I'm sure she will love. Here are a few more pictures, mostly of her playing in the yard. (I'm still experimenting with my new camera and am hopeful to learn a lot soon!)

April 29, 2012

I have FINALLY gotten all of the pictures/video off of my phone. So here's a little post to unload a few onto the blog.

Also...A few cute stories/updates about Ruby (this blog is also an attempt at a baby book of sorts for her so I'm going to try to add more of these stories so that I can get them in print for her later)

Ruby was eating lunch with us and I was having a few pretzels with my sandwich. Ruby kept reaching for them so I gave in and gave her a piece. Worrying that they may be too hard her we instructed her to chew it up good. Ruby stuffs a piece in her mouth. Adam says, "Ruby, I don't hear any chewing..." to which she replies "Chew, chew chew!"

We recently took a trip to the zoo and Ruby had an amazing time! We have taken her quite a few times before but this was the first time that she could really identify the animals, she LOVES animals and can name pretty much any animal she sees. We had a free ticket for the carousel and she was thrilled at the chance to go, and even picked out the animal she wanted to ride beforehand. Well, once we got on there she screamed like a maniac when I tried to put her on it so we just stood there, and probably would have the whole ride but Adam suggested I just climb on and put her on my lap. We were pretty cramped (you mean those plastic animals are not meant for 30 year olds and their offspring?) but she had a great time. The amazing thing about the whole trip was that she remembered everything later. After her nap when we got home she recited all the animals she had seen and even what they were doing, "The lion taking nap!" and recalled her adventure on the carousel, "I ride lion!" Even now, a few days later she is still talking about it. I guess a zoo membership renewal is in our future!

Ruby is very much into music which as music junkies couldn't make her dad and I happier. We are hoping that she will play an instrument or two, and now she likes the ukelele.
Ruby playing a song and singing

Ruby plays a song from Adam Badertscher on Vimeo.


I just really liked this photo from the phone

While working on the backyard Ruby decided to stand in front of the running sprinkler twice. After getting thoroughly soaked and screaming her little lungs out I stripped her out of her clothes, expecting her to run inside to dry off. It was a warm day so she and Koala Bear ran around the yard and on her new swing set instead. (Thanks for the early birthday gift Gma and Gpa Czapla!)

 I also added a few pictures of the back yard/patio area. We have slowly been making changes/upgrades and looking back I can't believe how terrible it used to look! Here are a few before/afters. Ruby loves her new sandbox!

February, March and April 2012

Once again we have been terrible about updating the blog but hope to make up for it in a small way by putting up a large post.

Ruby has been very busy, she is really enjoying her daycare 3 days a week and is learning a lot there, she sings "Ring around the Rosie", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and a few others, she really enjoys music, but mostly its kid music which sometimes drives mom and dad crazy. :) It is super cute to hear her sing "Yellow Submarine" from her sing a long CD though. I have some video of her singing that I will post soon. (We are are having a hard time taping her as she wants to watch the "baby movies" and doesn't understand that we are trying to film her.) She also knows her ABCs, and of course she still loves to read. She is talking like crazy, saying short sentences like "I did it, hooray!" or if she sees a baby crying at the store she'll say "Baby crying, she sad. She bonked her head."

Healthwise she is still very petite so we are trying to bulk her up, she had a few blood tests to rule out things like Celiac disease and we are happy to report that she is just fine- most likely just a typical picky and energetic toddler. Okay, on to the pictures...

February

Trying to get the camera- see what I mean?

A late snow storm meant a little fun out in the yard

Ruby loves to wash her dishes

March

Going shopping. She puts the cat in the cart and says "Come on, Kitty!" "Hop in Kitty!" We are working on not chasing Molly with the cart.

Playing in her tent

April 2012

Making Pancakes.

Watching TV- the perk to being sick.

About to go on an Easter Egg Hunt!

Yay! Scored some Easter eggs!

Happy Birthday Molly

Ruby's (sometimes) buddy Molly turns 4 today, here's some photos of our fearless guardian.

Painting, Counting, etc.

Ruby has been learning so much, it seems that every day there is something completely new that she learns or says. For example, the other day she asked for "whole milk". She has started feeding Molly her dinner and takes great pride in putting the food in Molly's dish and telling her to sit and stay, and "No, Molly!" (Can you tell we say that a lot to our dog?) And sometimes she does something that blows us away, and we look at each other with disbelief thinking, "Did you teach her that?" This time it was counting. While sitting down for dinner Ruby started talking to herself and counted to ten! We have been counting things like the kittens on a page of her book but honestly I don't think we've even worked on counting all the way to ten. Yay for our awesome daycare provider! We grabbed the camera and of course she would either refuse to do it for the camera or would be so quiet that you couldn't hear it. Well today she cooperated and we were able to get some footage to share with you.

Ruby Counts to 10 from Adam Badertscher on Vimeo.

Oh, and here are some recent photos as well.

Scouting for rocks in the back yard.

Painting

I turned the paintings into snowflakes as we were having a "snow day" (luckily on my day off!)

Showing off her Brown's pjs and blue hands post painting.

Balloon!

Helping out in the yard