There's Something About Ruby

I don't know what it is but it seems like Ruby has been a stranger magnet lately. And I'm not talking about just any old stranger off the street. I'm talking about the "special" people. A few weeks ago, a female Wendy's employee, one of these said "special" people, came up to us and yakked our ears off about how all babies just burst into smiles when she smiles at them. Well, I guess we broke her streak because Ruby wouldn't even look at her but it didn't phase her, she just kept telling us story after story about kids beaming at her.

Then today, the white trash in me came out and we went grocery shopping at Wal-Mart and then had lunch at their McDonald's (I already said it was the white trash in me rearin' its ugly head!) and while we're sitting there minding our own business, clogging our arteries, one of their "special" clean-up employees comes up to us and launches into this crazy conversation.

She asks me if I did my Christmas shopping today. I say, "No. I've got my kids so I can't spoil the surprise, right?" So then she goes off, and she's almost worried about it, about how I need to leave the kids home TONIGHT with my husband, but maybe I can bring the baby along because she won't know, but for sure I can't bring my boy because it'll ruin his surprise, and I should come back to Wal-Mart TONIGHT to get all my shopping done, and I need to check with my husband to see if he can take my boy TONIGHT because I need to come back to Wal-Mart to do all my Christmas shopping TONIGHT.

So then she says, "So, you just grocery shopped today? Oh [looking into all the bags in my cart]! You got some new shoes?!?"

"No," I say, "they're not for me. They're for my little boy."

"Oh," she bursts, "but these aren't sneakers!"

"No," big sigh, but still trying to be super polite as I respond in between each artery-clogging bite, "they're not sneakers, they're dress shoes for him to wear to church with his Christmas outfit."

"Oh. His Christmas outfit."

"Right, his Christmas outfit."

Then she starts ooohing and aaahing over Ruby (who is still sitting in the seat of the cart, right next to me) and how cute she is and where did I get her headband and her bracelet, and look how her shoes match her outfit!, and does she like Christmas? etc. Of course Ruby is embarrassed and won't make eye contact so she's ducking her head down towards my purse and our "special" friend says, "Oh, you like your mama's purse? What's in there? Look, what's in there?"

And then she proceeds to OPEN MY PURSE and starts shuffling things around to try to grab Ruby's attention.

HOLY MOSES.

So Ruby starts going to town, pulling crap out. And as she does, our friend gets this concerned look on her face and says, "Oh here Mama. It looks like she wants this ... wait ... what is this?"

"Um ... that's lotion," I reply with an amazed look on my face as she starts handing me the stuff.

"Here, you better take this. She wants your lotion."

"Uh ... thanks."

"Oh here Mama. She wants this bag of stuff too ...... and uh-oh, here comes your wallet. You probably better hold on to that. And what's this? Oh, your checkbook. Yeah, here, take that."

And it goes on until our friend (because Ruby has lost interest in the contents of my purse) pulls out every random receipt, scrap of paper, penny, lip gloss, gum wrapper, and bouncy ball floating around in the dark crevices of my organizationally-deprived purse. And then finally, she hands me my purse and says, "Here Mama. Your baby took all the things out of your purse. You should probably put those things back in here."

"Thank you," was all I could say.

Santa's "Man Bag"

We have this Santa sitting in the window above our kitchen table.

Today at lunch we were having a little talk with Henry about "avoiding" bad behavior (which is a common occurrence at our house these days). And of course, it seemed we weren't making any headway when suddenly this brilliant thought came to me, "With Christmas looming, we should be milking Santa's influence for all its worth!" So I started singing (and I have a bit of a cold so my voice was super low; I'm talking the G below Bass C low - I went and checked it afterwards on my piano -- that's 10 notes below Middle C people!!!)...

"You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm telling you why...."

And you know the rest. Henry was loving it. He was soaking in all the words, smiling, giggling, totally into the "message." So I give him the re-cap, "That means you have to try to be a good boy so Santa will bring you your presents, okay?"

Suddenly, he's staring up at Santa with a confused look on his face and he says, "But ... but Santa Fraws don't have a purse!"

We Came, We Saw, We Ate

Oh, how I love Thanksgiving. Is it the food? Is it the good company? Is it the 8 1/2 hour drive to my parent's house? I just can't decide!!

Last week we went down to Payson, Utah (home of Onion Days) for the actual turkey dinner. And boy was it a feast! Adrienne, Nick, and I were the only kids from our family there but we were joined by the Zimmerman crew (Adrienne's in-laws). We had a great time.

So Thanksgiving is always special for me at my parents' house. I love my parents' house -- it's so beautiful, comfortable, full of family -- but at Thanksgiving, it gets even better. Maybe it's because of my mom's stuffing. I think I'm gaining weight just thinking about it. Here's my mom finally getting herself something to eat.



Here's what Ruby thought of the mouth-watering food:



Another highlight of the day was the presence of a special family visitor: My dad's cousin, Trudy. She's a unique character and one day I'll have to write just about her because she's that interesting. I can't remember exactly how old she is, somewhere around 65 maybe?, but she has Asperger's Syndrome (a mild form of autism). Her parents and closest relatives have died so now my parents try to include her in our family get-togethers. She follows my Mom around like a puppy, much to Mom's dismay, but her presence alone helps keep the laughter coming (we don't laugh at her, we're not those kind of people ... seriously) so she was a welcome addition to this year's Thanksgiving.


I love this next picture. It's my cute pregnant sister, Liz, reading with her daughter Paige (on the right), and Adrienne's daughter, Kate. I love how Kate has just made herself right at home on Liz's pregnant gut-tar. Kate was probably just thinking, "Man, Aunt Liz has a sweet built-in armrest."

On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Scott's Dad gave us tickets to go to the Jazz game. I hadn't been to a Jazz game in probably 10 years -- we had a great time. We even left Henry and Ruby with Scott's family (that's the first time she's ever been put to bed by someone other than us -- and it only took one year to get us this far! We're finally winning our independence back ... slow and steady wins the race; that's what I have always said).

Anyway, the crowd was loud:

And the Jazz dancers were ... still there (what else do you say about them?):

And most importantly, we had a great time:

Now that I think about it, one of the reasons I really love Thanksgiving is because it sort of feels like a "gateway" holiday to me. It means Christmas and New Year's is right around the corner. And what does that mean? More family! More food! And Presents (to give, of course, I'm not really that into the "getting" side of gifts ......)!!!!

My Baby Girl is ONE!!!

Yesterday was my sweet Ruby's birthday. She is growing up so fast -- it's incredible. I think it's no coincidence that her birthday is right before Thanksgiving because by just looking at her I am overwhelmed by how blessed my life is. She is such a happy, cuddly, funny baby that I just can't get enough of her.

I think I'm becoming a true Christensen because somehow I have contributed to the 62,000 nicknames we have for her. Some of them are cute (probably only to us) and some of them are absolutely horrible (I did not give her any of those, mind you). Here are some of the most common:

Rubydoo
Rubadoo
Ruby-dooby (Henry's personal favorite)
Rubelstiltskin
Rubels (yuck, I know)
Rubix-cube (Scott's contribution)
Rubicon
Ruby Begay (Scott's dad's contribution, a real winner)
Rubinha (pronounced Rube-een-ya, gotta love Portuguese)
Lady
Ladybug

Ruby truly is one of the greatest blessings the Lord could have given us and we feel lucky to be her parents. She is 50% of our pride and joy (I'll give you one guess who the other 50% belongs to. Here's a hint: It's not the dog.) and we love everything about her. We love you Ruby Jane!


And again, for those of you who have a little more time on your hands. Here's our tribute to little Ruby Jane:

Tagged, Shmagged...

Okay, so here I am. I've been tagged.

I'm such an open book, you probably already know these things about me.

(In no particular order ... drum roll please ....)

1) I was Student Body President of Farmington Elementary School. GooooooOOOOO ROADRUNNERS! Although I can't remember much of my running platform or even my "duties," I do remember both "my" vice-president and secretary were girls. I was such a feminist. See Mom, taking us to meet Gloria Steinem did pay off. Ahhh ... the glory days.

2) I love dill pickles. Sometimes just thinking about them makes my mouth water. See, it's happening already....

3) I loved keyboarding class in 7th grade. I became quite the proficient typer. When I worked at Nu Skin, I used to type over 110 words per minute (sorry I can't beat your 115 WPMs Nikell ... show off). In fact, I became so consumed with typing that I used to (and sometimes still do) type billboards I read. It's a lot tamer now but it used to be so bad, I felt like I had OCD -- I HAD to type everything I read on billboards. It used to drive me absolutely nuts.

4) I've had three epidurals but only have two children. Hmm ... something's a little fishy with that math. Most of my family knows this but when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Henry, I had a false alarm. I went to the hospital with super uncomfortable contractions (which I later found out were just out of control Braxton-Hicks because I was dehydrated), the nurse checked me, told me I was dilated to a 6, she told me I must have a really high pain tolerance, Scott laughed a little too hard at that, we called our parents, they started driving up to Idaho Falls from Utah, I got an epidural, the night nurse came on duty, she checked me again only to find out that the first nurse had checked me wrong -- I was only dilated to a 1. So, I stayed over night, nothing happened, so they sent me home and I didn't have Henry until 2 1/2 weeks later. The best part is, they tried to make us pay the bill.

5) I used to want to be a marine biologist. Why? I loved whales. Humpback whales, to be exact. When I was about 13, I bought a "Whale Adoption Kit" from the World Wildlife Federation that included a booklet of different whales (identified by their tales, of course) from which I could choose one to "adopt." I assumed that once I picked a whale, that whale was removed from the list because he was mine. Oh the naivete. I think my whale was either named Onyx or Tika, it's hard to be sure. But he was a good whale, of that I am sure.

6) A favorite family story (one told at my expense, I might add): once my friends and I took dates up the canyon to watch a movie and I graciously offered to bring the tv (which belonged to my little brothers; it was one of those super cool VCR/tv combos). For some crazy reason, the tv kept shorting out. So, some genius figured we just needed to turn up the generator. And what do you know? The tv went up in smoke. Being the responsible 17 year-old that I was, I tried to hide it from my parents and my little brothers and get the tv fixed on my own. I thought I was being responsible. Paying for the repair and all that. But oh no, apparently I was being "sneaky" and "dishonest." I like to think of myself as a glass half-full type of person so let's focus on the positive -- I got the tv fixed AND paid for it myself.

7) In 5th grade, I was reading on a 9th grade level (Mensa-material, I know). Our class was playing some version of "Oregon Trail" (remember that old-school computer game?) where you had to answer questions to progress your team's wagon further along the trail. So when my team's turn came up, we had to choose one team member to go up and spell a word to move our wagon forward. We were debating about who should go and I remember confidently letting my team in on my secret -- I was practically the national spelling bee champ due to my heightened reading abilities. Wow. It worked. They sent me right on up. Surprise, surprise -- I spelled the word WRONG! Oh the humiliation. I thought I would never be able to look my 10 year-old classmates in the eyes again. Moral of this story: 9th graders aren't as smart as 5th graders think they are.


*I tag everyone on my "list" who has not been tagged yet.