wild

one

Ruby's first birthday has come and gone, and I didn't have time to post on her birthday! It's amazing to think how much she has grown in the past year. She's grown four teeth, fourteen pounds, quite a few inches and more red hair! Walking is in her near future, but she's happy crawling for now (or being carried!). She is in love with animals, especially dogs, which she has learned the sign-language for. At night, she gets her second wind at around eight o'clock, and she starts crawling all over Jack and me in bed, clapping and shrieking. Her personality seems to be a mixture of silly and opinionated. She also loves water-- bathtime is her favorite and we can't go to the beach without letting her splash in the water. Boy is she a Scorpio!

I am so excited to see what the next year has in store for Ruby

Ruby's Birthday!

We celebrated Ruby's first birthday last Wednesday. She had a great time, and luckily was in between ear infections, so she was in a good mood. She didn't nap very much, so I was crossing my fingers that she would make it through the party.

We've decided to start downsizing birthday parties, so we only had close family there. That included 9 adults and 8 kids, which is full capacity at our house. Ruby got just a few gifts, which were very special and have been played with often since last week. For Jack's first birthday, we invited so many people that we had to hold it in the church basement. He got so many toys that our house was instantly full of toys. It's definitely a blessing that we have that many people in our lives that love our kids, but we've decided to make birthdays a smaller gathering.
I made Ruby a log-cabin style pillow, and Jack gave her a stuffed horse. I also made her a birthday crown that we can use every year, and a birthday banner to re-use each year as well. I went with fall colors for both, and they turned out great! Her god-mother bought her a cute (and delicious) birthday cake with animals on it, and my mom ordered pizzas for everyone. I didn't have to cook anything!-- I just had to make sure the house was ready for guests.
My mom was a huge help (thank you mom!) with everything, especially with running up and down the stairs checking on all the kids playing. And, as you can see, Ruby had a lot of fun with her birthday cake.Thank you so much to everyone who helped prepare for and celebrate Ruby's first birthday!

one year ago

(bad pictures from John's cell phone from a few days before Ruby's birth and the morning of)

Last year right around this time, at 41-weeks pregnant, I started to feel my first contractions. The contractions lasted for days and unfortunately ended up with the c-section that I was hoping to avoid. While the nine months leading up to this day last year felt long, the following four days of (pre/false) labor felt the longest. I was so anxious to meet Ruby (and not be pregnant anymore, and avoid a c-section) that I was trying to will myself into labor. It didn't work out as I had planned, but I still ended up with a beautiful baby girl, whose birthday we'll be celebrating in four days.

Ruby's version of the ABC's

finally, halloween pictures!

ABC's

Successful Community Astronomy Night

So, I've been the planetarium director at our middle school for two years now, and we're finally getting things really going. It took awhile for me to become really comfortable with not only the equipment but also with my knowledge of the night sky. We've been doing shows for elementary groups, which has involved over a hundred hours of programming, and finally felt ready to do a community show. Our first Community Astronomy Night was last night, and I had been a little nervous about the turnout. I had images of only a dozen people showing up, in a planetarium that seats 60. Nowhere in my fears did I imagine what actually ended up happening-- over a hundred people showed up! It was pretty stressful; we ended up cramming in as many people as we could, but they just kept coming! We ended up having to do a second show, which made for a long but rewarding night.

We had hoped to go outside and do some observations, but the weather didn't exactly cooperate. We are looking forward to many more community nights, and next time we'll plan for two shows!