I can't believe she's 4!

Our little girl turned four years old yesterday. The years have definitely gone by a lot faster than we could have imagined. Ruth is our little princess. She is not shy at all and loves to make people feel happy. Ruth's curiosity keeps us on our toes and her energy level is what makes us exhausted every night. But we love her!

This is Ruth when she was about 6 weeks old. She was a beautiful baby!

Here she is about 18 months old...

This is Ruth's one-year birthday picture. She had no hair so I had to pretend she did by putting a pony-tail.

This is Ruth's two-year birthday picture. She finally got hair!

And this is Ruth one year ago on her 3rd birthday.

We got Ruth's portrait a little early this year (in March) by an amazing photographer but I still haven't ordered the prints so you'll have to be stuck with this (our crazy child likes to draw in the box before we pack it):

We're so proud of our 'Monkey Princess'. With her good attitude, friendliness, and excellent memory she's going to make it far in life. We're so blessed to have Ruth in our lives.

I need book recommendations!

I am in the mood for a good detective book. Any suggestions??

Why does she even HAVE a cell phone?

I hate this commercial. Every time I see it I tell Havilah that someone needs to discipline that child. Then I found this. I guess I'm not the only one.

BAM--April

Well you might have noticed (or not) that we didn't post for the Book A Month Challenge in March. That is mostly because we were busy and because only Jonesy read the book (I am a slacker--and not that interested in sushi) But just so you know, The Zen of Fish is very highly recommended by Jonesy. He's just been too busy to write about it. So read it

This month, the opposite happened. I read the book we chose and Jonesy didn't. I think it's mostly because he has no interest in beauty. The theme for April was 'beauty' so we chose to read Memoirs of a Geisha. We thought this would be appropriate for the theme because Geisha are all about beauty. An important thing I learned from the book is that being a Geisha is not only about physical beauty. In fact, that has little to do with the beauty of a Geisha. The clothes they wear, the dances they do, the music they play and the conversations they have are more the type of beauty that defines them. Being a Geisha is an artform.

Anyway, the book is a story about a young girl who is sold to become a Geisha. She goes through many trials, both physically and emotionally. The author did an amazing job of telling the story. It flowed perfectly. I really enjoyed reading about another culture and getting a glimpse into a lifestyle that I had preconceived notions about that were completely wrong. If you've seen the movie you might think that you don't need to read the book. I rented the movie after I read the book and was sorely disappointed. The plot is all wrong, the characters are not the same; it's like a whole other story (a crappy one). So read the book, please! This book is highly recommended!

Geocaching Again?!?!

Yes because we love it. I'm thinking if I post even more about geocaching you will all be convinced to go. This time we went with our friends Moses and Garion who just moved up here to Flag from Tuscon. The foot of Mt. Elden is covered in geocaches and we found them ALL -- okay we found three of them, which isn't even close to all of them, but whatever.

Can you believe there's a cache hidden up here?

A really cool tree...

Opening the treasure!...

Picking a prize...

Ruth's first tree experience...

This is called the Alligator tree. It's pretty awesome...

I'm so proud..

I'm so proud.

78 words

Speedtest

Questions of the Day

So Ruth has been asking a lot of difficult questions lately. We try to answer them as accurate as possible. We don't like cutting corners when answering questions, but sometimes I don't even know the answer!! I thought I'd start making lists of her questions. Just because I want to. So here are some from today and the recent past...

"Are Dinosaurs going to be resurrected?"

"Why do the leaves fall off trees?" follow-up "But why don't the poky tree's leaves fall off"

"So anyway, what's a criminal?"

"What is the future?"

"What lives on the bottom of the world?"

"Why can't I have a Hannah Montana birthday cake??"

There are more but I can't remember them! And THAT'S why I need to blog about them.

Ugh!

Some people need a good shaking. Or at least a good talkin' to. I failed to do either with a man I had a run-in with today.

We were at the mall playing in their little play-place. All was well. Ruth was playing tag with a couple girls her age and Gareth was crawling around climbing on stuff much too large for him. So naturally, I spent 60% of my time watching Gareth and 40% watching Ruth. It just so happened that while I was watching Gareth, Ruth tagged a little girl a little too hard and she fell down. Her father when rushing over (as if she were dying or something--mind you, the floor is padded) and picked his daughter up. He the looked over at me and said (pointing at Ruth) "Is this your daughter??"
Me: "Yes, what happened?"
Dumb Man: "She just pushed my daughter."
Me: "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't see it happen." Then to Ruth: "Ruth come here!"
Dumb Man: "Well you should watch your daughter better!" Huff-Puff

So that's all. I got Ruth's side of the story and determined it all to be an innocent/unfortunate accident. I had Ruth go apologize. We left of course because I hate confrontations and this man was pretty angry.

Here's what I SHOULD have said in reply to his last statement...

Cool Me: "Well it was obvious you weren't watching your little girl very well 5 minutes ago when she grabbed on to my daughters arm (with fingernails and everything) and wouldn't let go until Ruth's 6th time demanding she let go!....and you only have ONE kid to watch! Stupid-Head!"
Stupid-Head: "Golly-gee, I'm sorry. I'll go jump in a lake now, I feel so embarrassed for judging you when I am an even more terrible parent than I thought. Here's 50 bucks for your trouble."
Cool Me: "Thank you but I deserve more. Give me that nice leather jacket you are wearing too."
Stupid-Head: "Okay, here. Anything else?"
Cool Me: "Yeah, pick up your things and your daughter and leave. You make this place smell bad."


Yeah.. I totally should have said that. Maybe next time. Oh and that whole his daughter grabbing Ruth's arm thing.. totally true.

Anatomy Lesson

We've deprived Ruth. She hasn't had much experience with cats.

Today we were out on a walk and a cat started following us. I wouldn't let Ruth touch it but she was so excited to see it. When she saw it walking away she said:

"Mom! That cat has a hole in it!!!"

She was very worried about the cute kitty. It wasn't a hole...at least not the type of hole she was thinking it was.

Hannah Mon-poopy

Hannah Montana is driving me NuTs! And it's not even her show that drives me crazy. Everywhere we go Ruth points out Hannah Montana merchandise.

"Look Mom! Hannah Montana shirts!" "Oh look! Hannah Montana panties!" "Mom! Hannah Montana BAND AIDS!"

It's ridiculous. You see, Ruth has never SEEN Hannah Montana. And don't you dare ask me how she learned about Hannah Montana because I DON'T KNOW.

I'm telling you it's a conspiracy.

We Love Geocaching

Today was a great day for geocaching! We were just planning on going on a hike to Keyhole Sink just outside of Flagstaff but before we left, we checked our favorite geocaching website and found that there is a cache right at the end of the trail (along with some petroglyphs). So we took along our trusty gps device.

This is a picture of the petroglyphs...they are right in the middle of the pic. Look closely!

There was a small pond at the end of the trail in a little box canyon. When we first arrived we could hear a chorus of frogs singing to (or yelling at) each other. Right as we walked up closer to the pond they all stopped at once. On the other side of the pond were the petroglyphs. Ruth and I climbed (scrambled) over some rocks so we could get a closer look.

Here is Ruth posing by the petroglyphs...

On our way scrambling back over the rocks I almost squished a lizard. I tried to catch it but since I am a pansy my method of slowly sneaking my hand up on it didn't work. I'm too nervous to grab it quickly (I can just imagine what would happen if I grabbed too tightly and somehow squeezed it's guts all over my hand...ridiculous, I know). So the lucky lizard got away.

Here is Jonesy and Gareth on the other side of the pond waiting for us to come back...

This is us at the end of the trail by the information sign. Hooray for hiking!

I'm always happy to post pictures of my rear-end. Seriously, I am proud of my buttocks...I think I have a cute backside. (keep it to yourself if you feel differently!) You can only guess who took this picture...

After this hike, we went over to Williams (I had never been and was curious to see it) for lunch. We went to a diner that had homemade pies! BIG mistake....the pieces of pie were HUGE (delicious too). They had this apple strudel cream cheese pie that I wanted to try but since I was sharing with Ruth and she didn't want that one I didn't get to try it....we'll have to go back there before we move.

On the way back we hit two more caches just for fun. One was by the railroad tracks and the other was along Route 66 at a rest stop.

If you don't geocache you are missing out on so much fun. It's a wonderful family activity (even for young families like ours!) I really urge you to try it.

Our Trip to Utah

We had a great trip to Utah a couple weeks ago. The kids and I stayed with my parents while Jonesy went to Houston for a technical theatre conference. We were able to enjoy Easter while we were there. We also went to the children's museum in Salt Lake City and had tons of fun. Here are some pictures:

Rennaissance Faire

Finally! Pictures from our exciting adventures at the Renaissance Faire! We had so much fun with our friends Chris, Anali, Moses, Kerry and Garion but I realized a little too late that we didn't get any pictures of them!! I'm sorry! Also one of the best parts of the day was the Jousting Tournament...and of course I didn't take any pictures. I'm a failure as a blogger this month (or I guess last month because of the lack of pictures and this month for waiting so long to blog about them).