a year in review... part one.

Since I stopped blogging for ALMOST A YEAR, we have a lot to catch up on.  I'll start where I left off, in October of 2015...

We spent about 70% of October playing dress-up and trying to settle on the perfect Halloween costume for Ruthe.  It was not an easy task, because she LOVES to wear fancy dresses and silly costumes!

She could be a doctor, a gnome, or a witch:

We tried out being a ghost, several princesses, and even a dinosaur!!  All before we settled on the one and only...

TINKER BELL!!

Can you even handle how cute she is??  Because I just about died watching her trick-or-treat!  She was actually pretty great walking up to people and doors to get candy, unless there was anything even just the tiniest bit spooky!!  Luckily we went with our friends who have two very brave boys that helped her out!!  We think she really had a lot of fun, aside from not being able to see her feet to go up or down steps!  (And John and I were definitely happy with her candy haul!!)

I am already planning our family-themed costume for this year!!  Haha - yeah.  We're that  weird  cool, I mean cool.  We're cool.

Let's move on...

Thanksgiving means family and friends and football and turkey... and slides.

Because my parents just can't resist spoiling her to the core.  This slide lived in the living room for our entire Thanksgiving trip... and then moved to the end of the hallway through the rest of the holidays so she could enjoy it when we came back for Christmas.  The only other pictures I took of ANYTHING on Thanksgiving weekend were these:
 

Ruthe generally refuses to smile for pictures, unless she can see herself in selfie-mode... which then means you have to be QUICK to snap the picture before she starts making silly faces and trying to lick the screen!!

And she's always willing to help clean up... as long as it means she can make a giant mess in the process!

We truly are thankful for so many things, and having family to spend the holidays with is at the tippy-top of that list.  Since my grandmother passed away so near to Thanksgiving, it's been a bittersweet time for our family to celebrate.  Luckily, we know she's smiling down on us, so glad that we spend it together, because she always just wanted everyone together during the holidays!!

Is two holidays enough for one recap post??  Can I do Christmas and New Year's next time?  Wait... why am I asking you?  This is my blog.  I can do whatever I want!!

Smell ya later!

testing... testing... one two...

Hi.

Long time no see.

How have you been? 

Oh, you're still mad.  I get it.  I've been gone for a loooong time. 

ok ok. 

Here...

Now do you see why I've been gone?  I have this THREE YEAR OLD who insists on growing up, and I just didn't want to miss out on one single second of it.

But she's in preschool for two-and-a-half hours, four days a week, so I have all kinds of free time to get you all caught up on our lives!!  YAY!

Let's start with the fact that this babe:

Is, like, a big kid now.  And practically ready for med school:

Ugh.  She's just so unbelievably cute!!  I can't even stand it!  Alright, you've waited long enough, here's a nice long boring update for you about how this gorgeous girl is doing...

Ruthe is THREE!  She had a very low-key birthday this year, just dinner with family and the promise of a swingset from Pops and ZsaZsa!  She is a runner, jumper, climber, and professional get-into-trouble-er.  She has really started babbling a lot more in the past couple of months, which is great!  But she still only says "mama" - I'm not complaining!!

She has taken big giant steps toward eating!!  But don't get too excited because "big giant steps" for her just meant that she will eat at least one thing every day!  She really likes plain flour tortillas, any kind of chip, cookies, goldfish, yogurt bites, and most flavored crackers.  Fruits and veggies are a struggle because she doesn't want to touch or hold anything that's too wet or squishy.  She will sometimes eat yogurt or pudding or applesauce with a spoon, but those convenient squeeze pouches must be squeezed out to see what's inside and then never ever brought toward her mouth, ever.

We moved back to Las Vegas in May and are living with my parents until we can save enough money to buy a house. (YAY!) So Ruthe gets plenty of love and attention and presents.  She is slowly but surely filling the DVR with episodes of Peppa Pig, that we then have to watch at least three times every day.  It's especially funny to ask her to bring you the clacker (TV remote) so you can turn on her show... she starts by throwing a tantrum to try and get us to just do it for her, but then jumps up, runs to get the clacker & bring it over, and then jumps around in anticipation and excitement for her show.  Luckily she has not discovered that we have the power to fast-forward through commercials, and even MORE luckily, she doesn't watch a commercial and then spend the next three days begging for whatever it was they were selling.

Ruthe is in a special-education preschool class, of about 9 students.  All of the kids have varying speech delays, and so a speech therapist comes in twice a week to work with them as a class and her individually.  This will be the most, and most consistent, speech therapy Ruthe has ever received, so we have high hopes that she'll show significant progress by the end of the year.  Otherwise we'll all have to start learning sign language.  Even you.

That's about all I can think of right now.  I need to go shower before it's time to pick her up.  Or maybe I'll take a nap... hmm... What a dilemma.