Ruby Learns to Walk (April-May 2010)

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April 2010 Recap

Ruby's first ponytail - 4/1/2010

I adore this picture...I'm wearing her in the sling and she is enjoying the full-service treatment!

Papago Park-4/2/2010
My cute friend Jenny invited the kids and me to hang out with her and her family at Papago Park for an Easter Egg hunt and picnic. I'd never been, so it was lots of fun and the weather was awesome. Carter even found the "golden egg" with money in it! I didn't get a lot of pictures, but here are a few of the kids hanging out.

Hugo is one of Carter's favorite buddies.
Carter and Lacy had fun rolling eggs down the hill.

Acacia came too. She's a fabulous babysitter and a sweetheart!
Bunny Day and General Conference - 4/3/2010
It was the tradition in my family growing up to celebrate "Bunny Day" on the Saturday before Easter every year. The Easter Bunny brings us treats on Saturday so that we can focus on Jesus and the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Carter especially loved his Transformer's coloring book.
I think Ruby liked her stuffed bunny.

Shane made Carter's favorite: star-shaped "egg-in-a-holes" sprinkled with cheese.
It was LDS General Conference weekend the same weekend as Easter, so we enjoyed snuggling and hanging out together all weekend watching conference. Growing up, my siblings and I made "nests" of blankets and pillows from which we watched the conference each Spring and Fall. Shane tried to show Carter how to build a proper nest and CJ had fun with it...until it was time to clean up and put it all away of course.
We took a walk between sessions.

Brad's Mission Call! - 4/6/2010
If you read the blog regularly (or know us personally at all), you know we have a very close relationship with Shane's Uncle Joe and Aunt Claudia. They live just a few blocks away and have been so wonderful to us since we arrived in AZ four years ago. Carter and Ruby know them as Nana and Grandpa. Carter said Nana before Momma, I'm pretty sure.

Anyhow, Bradley (Joe and Claudia's son) received his LDS mission call to the Chile Santiago North mission. We are so excited for him! He will be a hard-working, wonderful missionary. I found out a few days after he got his call that his mission president will be Presidente May, who was in my stake in Valencia growing up, and then moved to UT around the time my parents did. Elder Hilton will be in great hands there with Presidente and Hermana May! Brad graduates from high school at the end of May and reports to the Missionary Training Center on June 16th. Brad's mission call was especially exciting for the family because Brad is the youngest child, only boy, and will be only one to serve a full-time mission (as a young adult anyway) of his siblings.
Here is Elder Hilton with his proud parents.

Fun side note: The map in the background was posted after Brad's papers were turned in and the wait for his call began. The colored markers were guesses from friends and family of where Brad's call would be to. Joe, Brad's dad, noticed nobody had guessed Chile just a couple of days before the call was opened and tagged it as his guess.

Ruby is eight months old - 4/18/2010
Shane already posted a bunch of eight month pictures, but I wanted to include this one in the April recap to note that she was not only standing, but taking steps at eight months. I was not encouraging this. I absolutely blame her father...and I have witnesses.
Oh, but I do have to say she melts me. {swoon}

Rocker, Parties, & Prom - 4/24/2010
Carter for some reason has a love for rock and roll. He often asks us to "rock" with him. We've scored some sweet band equipment from yard sales and a clearance sale and now we have three toy guitars and a toy microphone with karaoke machine. We jam a lot. Fast forward to cute Cambria's dress-up birthday party. We gave Carter all his dress-up options (Spiderman, pirate, etc.) and he chose rocker. Love these pictures Shane took before the party.

{Notice cliche "Mom" tattoo I drew on his right shoulder and scorpion tattoo dad gave him on his left forearm.}

Carter and Ruby went with Shane to a second friend's party that afternoon while I had the pleasure of taking pictures of Brad and his darling date, Allison, before their prom. I had so much fun with them. Thanks you two!


Lastly, I spent most of April working furiously in every spare moment to prepare for the opening of my etsy shop, Ruby Jane Boutique, and Boutique in the Barn (which was May 1st). The boutique was a lot of fun and although the shop only has one listing so far, it will have many more items listed soon!

Thanks for all your support everyone!

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Eight Months Old

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March 2010 family recap

Although the first item of business actually occurred at the end of February, it didn't really sink in until March. We bought a 2004 Toyota Sienna minivan! This is life changing people. In August, we will celebrate our 9th anniversary. We've never had two cars before. Heck, there have been times in our marriage where we have been completely carless. I can't even tell you how spoiled I feel. There have been many weeks where I haven't been out in the daylight with the exception of going to church on Sundays. As Aunt Claudia (aka Nana) described it, we didn't purchase a car, we put a down payment on freedom.

We ended up taking 200 miles and 35 hours worth of road trips the next three weekends. It was both fun and exhausting. The end result is that we're ruined now. I don't think we could take a road trip with our kiddos in our Accord again. The minivan is so much more comfortable, spacious, and convenient for traveling.

The sunroof is great in Arizona.

Navigation and lots of buttons that Carter loves to explore.

And the DVD player was the luxury/necessity that kept Carter sane when Ruby was fussy.


Ruby hit her seven month mark in March. She accomplished quite a lot and we have been floundering to keep up with her. Just off the top of my head, she started clapping, crawling, pulling up, standing (she constantly has a bruised forehead from all the spills she's taken, about half of them thanks to Carter), talking (mama, baa for bath, and dadada for dad), and signing (she just signs bath anytime she thinks there's hope, like when we change her clothes or diaper -- baths are her favorite activity). She moved into size 4 diapers, 12 month clothes, and 18 month pajamas. She endured yet another fight with an ear infection (I think this is her 4th since December) and a cold, and her top four teeth moved in, leaving us awake many nights. What a doll baby though. She has never had to work hard to keep us wrapped around her chubby little fingers!

St. Patrick's Day brought us to the table for a festive breakfast. Inspired by my creative friend Andrea, I decided to serve green pancakes with buttermilk syrup, green eggs and ham. We also used green dishes. Carter thought it was fun, so mission accomplished, right?
Carter got an overdue haircut. These were the before pictures, but I totally spaced out taking an after pic...still, I love his faces in these. They are so HIM.

Just a couple of our favorite quotes by Carter this month:
*While pushing his forearm up into a faux muscular bulge, he exclaimed, "It's a tree mountain! It grows up two times! See Mom?" And then he did it again, this time with sound effect to indicate growing, "Wooooopt!"
* While eating oatmeal for breakfast, Carter noticed Ruby crawl into the kitchen and look up at him. He explained, "Rube smelled my oatmeal and it smelled tasty. And she looked around and around and around and she said, 'Hooray! Where my oatmeal?!'"

We rented a beautiful house in Moab, UT over the weekend of March 19th for the 2010 Canyonlands 1/2 marathon and 5-mile race. Shane ran the 1/2 marathon and I the 5-mile. Shane did pretty darn well for not running for the three weeks prior to the race (since he ran Ragnar). I finished. And not in last place! So, I have to admit I was pretty proud of myself. It might not seem like much, but 5 miles for me was scary. My heart kept having freaky palpitations and I could barely walk for days following the race. I even ended up at Urgent Care thinking I might have a fracture in my foot, but the doctor said it's a bad strain/sprain and could take up to 8 months to heal. But I finished!

As an added bonus, we had visitors in Moab. Shane's parents and youngest siblings, Joseph and Sarah, stayed with us the first night and took care of Carter and Ruby during the race. My two oldest nieces, Eliza and Lizzie, joined us the afternoon following the race. They stayed with us that night and we had a blast! Thank you all for making the drive. It made the trip so much more fun!
We also were happy to get to see/meet adoption friends at the race! Here I am with the famous (in the adoption world) Mrs. R! I hate this picture of myself, but had to include it for the love of adoption!
We went out to lunch afterward together and I just wish we would have had more time to spend with those fab girls. Thanks to Lindsey (aka Mrs. R), we planned ahead to do the race together. You can see her post about the race here. Adoption rocks!!!

Shane had the chance to meet up with a friend from high school (at the zoo with the kids) while I was at an adoption workshop on the 27th. Here are a few pictures from that day.

I was working feverishly preparing items for the Boutique in the Barn.

I had a lot of fun being part of a Spring swap.


Carter talked us into showing him how to use the camera (under our close supervision - it's heavy) and ended up with some surprisingly nice shots, all things considered.

This one was with a timer, but Carter composed it.

After seeing his excitement with photography, Shane gave him his old camera phone and put it in airplane mode. He gets so excited and comes running in to tell us when he takes pictures of Ruby, or the ceiling fan, or his subject of choice - his finger half covering the lens. Love that boy!

Last, but certainly not least, we were saddened to learn of the loss of Shane's Uncle Kevin. It was a blessing to be able to make the trip to gather with everyone in celebrating his life. What a beautiful, faithful family he has here to take care of one another in his absence. In closing, I just want to say that our thoughts and prayers continue to be with Kevin's wonderful family. We're so grateful for the knowledge of the gospel in our lives!

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Ragnar del Sol Relay - Feb. 26-27, 2010

Last month, I ran in the Ragnar del Sol relay race. It was an experience unlike anything I've done before. There are several Ragnar relays held around the country. Each is about 200 miles in length, split into 36 legs between 3 and 8 miles long. Teams of 12 runners rotate running around the clock until they reach the finish line. There were nearly 350 teams this year that ran in Arizona. In the end, participants have done a whole lotta running on precious little sleep. Each team splits up to travel in 2 vans. Team members in each van run 6 legs, then "rest" for 6.

Our van's worth of runners ready to get started! (L to R) Ben, Warren, Spencer, Scott, Jon, and me - all rookies to the relay.
The other half of our team had several members that had run the relay before.

Most of the teams decorate their vans and some teams ran the shorter legs dressed up in some crazy ways to go along with their team name.
Teams track their "kills" or number of runners they pass during each leg. The Fat Man Xtreme team also tracked their "got killed's"

Team Disco Fever

Team Fast Food

At each exchange point, the finishing runner snaps a slap bracelet on the next runner as a hand off.

Your team van can stop along the way to encourage you and keep you hydrated.

At a couple of points, the race crews let the drivers shuttle the runners through some flooded areas. Notice this team named the Ultraviolets. There were a few "ultra" teams of only 6 members that would run 2 legs at a time.

Apparently, this guy's van was AWOL.

I started my first leg (#12) of 7.1 miles at dusk and finished in the dark with a 7:19 min/mile pace.

The Town of Congress Fire Dept. had a pasta dinner waiting for us after I finished. We handed off to our other van, grabbed some dinner, and drove ahead to an elementary school that let us pay $2 to sleep - er, toss and turn for a few hours - inside. Around midnight our other van had caught up to us and we started up again.

Ben ran his 8+ mile leg (#18) and handed off to Scott.

During leg #19, tragedy struck when a runner from another team was hit by an oncoming car when he was crossing to give his teammate water. He was resuscitated several times before being life-flighted to the nearest hospital. He passed away shortly after. Our deepest condolences go out to the Mayasich family. Race organizers ultimately decided to bypass the next six legs and pick up at exchange 24 to allow emergency crews to do their jobs.

My second leg was 8.4 miles at a 7:26 pace.

I ran the last leg of the race, and after a missed turn, had the chance to extend the final 3 mile experience to almost 4 miles. I was SO happy to see my darling wife (and her best childhood friend, Ashley) send Carter out to finish the race with me!

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