Well, here it goes: You are forewarned!

Being home with Ruby during the day has been such an amazing blessing. I have lost track of how many times Mike has said: "Eating at home is so much better than eating out." or "This is so much better." or something of that nature. It truly is such an incredible difference. Our house stays clean and organized. Dinner is on the table every night. Ruby stays on a consistent schedule, and I am able to spend some very good time with her.

Ruby had her 12-month well-check, and everything is looking good overall. She has relapsed back into her acid reflux, so she's back on her Prevacid. Other than that, however, she's doing great! She's 27 1/4 inches tall, and she weighs 17.5 lbs. She surprised me and showed off for Dr. Miller by pointing to a chicken on the painting and saying, "Kiken! Ba Ba!" (Chicken! Bak bak!) and then pointing to the dog and saying, "Dah! Oo oo!" (Dog! Woof woof!) She hasn't repeated it since, so I truly believe it was just an amazing cooincidence, but it was pretty funny! She is starting to learn LOTS of words and signs, though! It's one of the great benefits of Mommy having more time to teach her and drill her!! This is her current list of words and/or signs:

1. Dada
2. Mama
3. Uncle Kyle (Unka Kah kah kah kah kah)
4. More - sign
5. Eat/Hungry - sign
6. Bottle (baba)
7. Milk - sign
8. Moo moo
9. Baa baa
10. Night-night
11. Bye-Bye (and waves)
12. Hi (and waves)
13. No no

She is starting to really move into the toddler phase. She's not walking, but she sure has a personality and an opinion. She's crawling all over the place, and trying to pull up on everything that stays still for even just a second. (This has resulted in quite a few tumbles! Poor Mommy may need a pacemaker by the time this kid walks!) She has learned how to throw fits and cry on purpose to try to manipulate Mike and me. It isn't working, but she sure gives it a try! She's cutting some new teeth. I can't tell which ones yet, but I know all the signs. She is also dealing with her peanut allergy very well.

Here are some recent pictures of Miss Ruby!

She got some new kicks! Check 'em out!

Being home has also allowed us to get together with friends to play!!
(And Mommy has been able to get some accountability and wisdom!!) This
past Wednesday, Alex (Amy's son), Luke, and Helene (Jessica's children)
came to play. Ruby had an absolute blast. She kept crawling right
over and getting in the middle of all the action. Rumor has it that
Luke and Helene might start coming to play more often while their mommy
runs some errands! Yay!! (As you can tell by this photo, Alex adores
Luke. It's very cute to witness!)

Ruby had spaghetti for Leap Day dinner. She definitely needed a bath afterwards!

Then she was all pretty again! (We took pictures *just* like these almost exactly one year ago. We'll have to do a comparison here soon.)

Mike took this really good picture of Miss Ruby right before bed:

Then, she gave mommy and daddy kisses, and she went off to bed! (We love her so much!)

Okay, I was going to write more, but I'm sure you all are sick of me for tonight. I'll write more tomorrow, I promise! For now, just let me ask for prayers. Tomorrow is going to be a really rough day for me. Thankfully, Mike and Ruby are heading to Indy, so I can have some time to myself. Just pray me through, faithful ones. I appreciate it!

I have finally launched a site that I've been working on for awhile:

http://www.thesmalltownheroes.com

The site is for a band called SmallTown Heroes, located here in Lafayette, IN. An old friend of ours (from the BCM days) named Dallas Johnson plays the guitar and mandolin and sings for them. I acutally enjoy their music a lot. You can listen to some tracks on their "listen page". Lindsay and I are going to try to make it to one of their shows in the near future (see their events calendar).

If you know anyone else who needs a well-done, cheap website please direct them to me, and I'll be glad to help.

After about an hour on the phone with Vonage support, I have cancelled our service.  So, our home phone number no longer works.  This is just a small way for us to cut back on monthly bills, now that Lindsay is not working.  If you need our cell phone numbers, please let us know.

Seriously! Only three people live in this house, I swear! However, laundry seems to materialize out of thin air!!! After tonight, I should be completely caught up, aside from the actual clothes that are on the backs of my husband, my daughter, and myself. Just watch, though...tomorrow afternoon, there will twelve loads waiting for me to get started washing, drying, folding, and putting away.

Okay, maybe that's a slight exageration, but it just seems like it never ends.

Can you tell I've been doing laundry this afternoon? I really want to get to work doing some research for the new business I'm starting (more on that later!), but I made a promise to myself to get the laundry done first. I'm waiting for my last load to finish drying, and then I'll be on my way.

This is my second week as a stay at home mom, and I can't describe how much better this is working for our family. We are still waiting on God to show us some specifics regarding finances, but we all seem much happier and healthier. Ruby and I are still figuring out our timing during the day. She's trying to adjust to napping in her crib, and I'm trying to adjust to doing my chores and work upstairs during her awake hours while still getting in good play and reading time with her. All in all, it's wonderful!

I've also had the time to get together with other moms and women from the church, and it just feels so right. I know that God has placed these women in my life (and vice versa) for a very specific reason. It feels so good to have time to meet with them and learn from each other!

Today, Amy and I took advantage of National Pancake Day. We had lunch at IHOP, and we each got a FREE shortstack! IHOP does this once a year, and simply asks that patrons make donations to Riley Children's Hospital. It's a great program, and we certainly enjoyed our time together. Amy is an amazing mommy. You should see her interact with her son, Alex. He is such a cool little guy, and I know that's due in large part to his cool momma.

Amy and I also got to commisserate over our geeky husbands and their infatuation with domain names! LOL! We love our Mikes, that's for sure!

To help contribute to our family income for the time being, I will be starting a direct sale home business. (Examples are Tastefully Simple, Pampered Chef, PartyLite, and the like...) The specific name of my company is AtHome America. You can follow the link to see the catalogue. I will be attending a meeting tomorrow night to gain some more information. From what I know so far, I am extremely excited about this opportunity. I'll share more in a post on Thursday. For now, feel free to browse the catalogue and let me know if you'd like to host a home show and get products for 50% off or FREE!!

That's about it for now!

I believe that Mike Huckabee is a man in whom we can trust.  I do believe that he is trying his best to live a life that is a positive witness for Jesus Christ.  I'm impressed with him in many ways, and I'm praying that we see a political miracle this year.  God can do great things.  We've seen it in our own life, and we've seen it in this country.

Please pray with me that God leads this election and puts a worthy man in the office of President of the United States of America.

This is video from Christmas that I forgot to put up. Kyle is rocking out on guitar, while Lindsay tries to sing a song that she doesn't know and Kayce Swofford bangs away on the drums. It's pretty good stuff.

Yesterday, we celebrated Ruby's first year of life. When trying to decide who to invite to the celebration, we realized that there were literally a couple of hundred people who have touched Ruby's life (and our life!!) in the past year. Since we couldn't fit that many people in Zach and Sarah's house, we tried to limit the number of people as best as we could. The number of people who wanted to celebrate with us was absolutely overwhelming, and we ended up changing the location to the church. We maxed out the bonus room, and many people enjoyed the day with us. Many of you reading this blog were in attendance yesterday, and we cannot thank you enough. We are blessed beyond measure by our family and friends, and we can't accurately express how much we appreciate having you in our lives.

Ruby has not been feeling well the past two weeks, and we're not exactly sure what's wrong. Yesterday was no exception, but she did really well for being a sick baby. She didn't seem phased by the number of people, and she seemed to enjoy her carrot stick and macaroni and cheese. Of course, she enjoyed her cake, too! She didn't quite understand why Mommy kept taking away all the fun toys she was opening, but she was a good sport. Without further ado, here is the picture proof of the event!!

The beautiful birthday girl and her daddy and sitting in her birthday chair: 

The party decorations and her cake. (Since Ruby can't eat anything from a bakery, I made her cake. I did the best I could, but, ultimately, I was sad at how pathetic it looked. I had grand visions of her first birthday cake. You can ask Aunt Kim about it...) 

 

 

Enjoying her macaroni and cheese: 

Enjoying her cake! ( : Can you tell this was my favorite part??

Getting cleaned up:

Opening presents, finding a blanket, and deciding it's time for a nap. Hee hee hee!

Thanks again to everyone who helped make Ruby's birthday party so special. We love you very much!

For anyone who doesn't get to go to Ruby's birthday party today, this is the video that we made for her. It's quite long (~18:00), and it was made with Windows Movie Maker. Although it has its obvious bad points, I'm actually quite impressed with the program. Enjoy!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=908394656355083885&hl=en