Ruby does the turkey toss

Here's who was at our house for Thanksgiving: Nate's parents, Nancy and Steve, AKA Grandma and Granddad, Rachel and John (Rachel works with me at the paper), Elizabeth and Nathan (friends from church) with Oliver, their son, and Claire, Elizabeth's sister. It was such a fun group all crowded into the living room at a rented table. We had a great time.

Ruby was good during dinner... but most of her turkey ended up on the floor. She does like stuffing! (who doesn't?)

Here's a picture of Ruby with her granddad, reading a book before dinner.

We are giving Ruby a haircut. It's kind of a work in progress, because we are novices and she's always trying to help by moving her head around and grabbing the scissors. But I would say Ruby with bangs is an improvement. It's fun to be able to see her eyes when she wakes up in the morning, instead of just a chin beneath a big mess of hair.

Nate and I took an early run at it last Tuesday night, then Nancy helped me even up the bangs:

Good Morning

Here's Ruby first thing in the morning, having some cheerios with her bed-head.

Ruby has made several advances this week, and now she can stand up by herself for 15 or 20 seconds, and she can push a little walking cart toy around the house. It's funny to see her getting around because she is so little.

At daycare, Ruby crawls around and steals the pacifiers from the little babies' mouths. Her binky-stealing has her confined to an exer-saucer whenever she is on the same side of the room as the little babies, which she is unhappy about.

We're trying to impose some discipline so she stops doing dangerous things -- like standing up in the bathtub and sticking her fingers in the heater vents -- but most of the time she's into stuff just because of her curiousity. The other day she was eating the leaves off my jade plant, so I moved it to the top of a bookshelf. When I looked over at her again, she was hanging from the bookshelf, trying to get to the plant.

Here are a few photos of Ruby doing her favorite thing: eating.

Who is this blonde lady and where is my Mom?

As you can see, Halloween was sort of scary for Ruby. I hardly have any photos of her in her Grizzly uni because she was mostly crying while wearing it. We took her to a Halloween party, and before long she went to sleep in a spare bedroom. (My costume is an inside joke in Seattle -- I'm dressed as an uptight local county councilwoman whose campaign for re-election is in desperate upheaval because she got arrested for a DUI).
On the day of Halloween, I went to visit her at daycare in the afternoon, when they had dressed all the kids in their costumes. She was tired, and terrified of Josie, who was dressed as a giant spider. So funny!
But she got so upset that by the time I picked her up to go home, she was exhausted and ended up going straight to bed. She slept from 6:30 until 8:30 the next morning... missing the trick-or-treaters and stuff, which is probably for the best.
She was pretty cute in her little pigtails.

Pumpkin

Nathan and Elizabeth scratched Ruby's name into a pumpkin in their garden when Ruby (and the pumpkin) were babies. Here they are together, getting ready for Halloween.



Coming soon: pictures of Ruby in her Halloween costume! She'll be sporting it tonight for a party we're going to.

Priest Lake

Here are some photos of our weekend with the Noons at Priest Lake. Mark and Shannon are our most beloved friends from college, and we met at the cabin to celebrate Shannon's birthday.
It was a long haul to get there but the weather was beautiful. Here are Ruby and Raleigh (5 1/2 months) playing at the cabin.

And below, Ruby helping Grandpa drive.

Here's one of the daddies together.

Sorry about the applesauce on your fancy tables

Last night Nate had to chaperone a dance, so Ruby and I got dressed up and met some girlfriends for dinner. It started out fun, but the restaurant was crowded and tiny and Ruby quickly got tired of being there... before we even got seated. (There was a 45-minute wait for a table). She used to be so good in restaurants but last night I felt doomed to eating noplace but T.G.I. Fridays until she's 10. It was frustrating.

In other news, I'm so excited that Ruby's Great-Granny and Grandpa Woots have figured out how to read the blog. Hi Granny and Grandpa Woots!

Will the real Ruby please stop standing up?

Ruby learned recently how to pull to standing, and she is soooo proud of herself. Last night she continuously yanked herself up to standing holding onto the couch, then let go with both hands and crashed down... and repeat.

She's so busy that I have to lock her in a playpen while I shower.

And this is a cute thing she does lately: Every night after dinner I start the bath and then get her undressed in her room, and she crawls, naked, across the hall to the bathroom, all excited to get into the bath. It's adorable.

I've been working a ton lately and feeling really exhausted by the whole working mom thing, so Nate and I put in place a social moratorium on the weekends. We're usually really busy, so it's felt luxurious just to hang out by ourselves on the weekend, getting stuff done around the house.