Have I mentioned that we kind of forgot to bring up the whole topic of Santa to Ruby? I'm fairly certain that she knows who Santa is because of daycare but Heath and I have never talked about him at home and she has never asked anything about him. She's hasn't been to see Santa at the mall, we don't put cookies out for Santa, etc. etc. Earlier in the month Heath said, "I guess we should try and do the Santa thing...." and that was about as far as it got. After we had her my first reaction was, "I don't want to Lie to her!" but after thinking about it *I* wasn't traumatized by finding out Santa wasn't real and I didn't hold anything against my parents for playing the Santa game. As lame as it is I guess we are just lazy. But really, why should some mythical bearded fat guy get all the credit for all the cool gifts that we work hard to get for her? I don't think that her Christmas experience is ruined because she doesn't think that Santa comes down the chimney to deliver gifts. We do other stuff... like make totally innapropriate sugar cookies....

Not doing the Santa thing has its advantages. No midnight (or later) wrapping parties here!  Our gifts had been sitting under the tree for a week before Christmas ready to go. Amazingly I didn't wander in the living room to find any/all gifts unwrapped and the floor covered in paper. My work schedule was cruel (i.e. I had to go in very early) the days leading up to Christmas and I had to work Christmas Eve so we decided to open our gifts on Dec. 23. This also eliminated the need to haul all of these gifts down to Pikeville and back again. 

Ruby was excited about her gifts but not as excited as I was when I opened my gift from Heath: A Go Pro! A GP was on my list but I wasn't expecting it as it was over the $100 limit that we set for each other. BUT Heath was awesome (and lucky) and WON one, with several accessories, at his work Christmas Party Score!! I was psyched. Jasper was barely interested in the proceedings, he just looked super adorable.

After work on Christmas Eve we packed up the kids and drove down to Heath's parents house. Thankfully Jasper is a champion when it comes to being in the car and road trips and Ruby slept most of the way down (very rare for her). After we arrived we ate dinner and opened more gifts.

 Since all gift opening had occurred the night before you'd think that sleeping in would be part of the equation but alas Ruby decided that we had to wake up at 8:30. After breakfast we drove to Heath's cousin's house where more people got to meet Jasper for the first time. We opened a few more gifts, ate yummy food, and then drove back to Lexington so that I could get enough sleep to wake up at 3am so that I could go to work. Barf.

This year was definitely involved a lot of faking it until I made it as far as the holidays went. By the time the 26th rolled around I was completely exhausted from work/Jasper not sleeping/pumping all the time. People at work would ask, "How was your Christmas?" and I'd give a half-hearted, "It was okay." Because I was frickin' exhausted! I hated to seem so negative but that's just how it was this year. The tree was up, we made sugar cookies, a made a christmas card/birth announcement, wrapped gifts etc. I think I did pretty good considering that I really wanted to be in bed by 7pm every night. Perhaps next year won't be so crazy? Or maybe just a slightly less tiring version of crazy??

Ruby turned four recently. FOUR! It's a little insane but both Heath and I have really, really been looking forward to this birthday. Rumor has it that four is the magical age when kids stop being little demons and start acting somewhat civilized again. The jury is still out on that but here's hoping! 


As years past we had a simple celebration at home with Heath's parents and aunties-by-proxy. I swear we tried limit the stuff she got but even though we set a budget and stuck to it it still seemed like too much. She seemed to enjoy this birthday more than the others but she still hasn't opened but a few things that she got. Why this kid doesn't like toys I don't know. The big winner of the day were the giant RescueBots figures and the Lego table from grandma and grandpa.

The month leading up to her birthday I would ask her what she wanted on her birthday cake. Her number one answer was, "RESCUEBOTS!!!!" Until she saw Guardians of the Galaxy and then she wanted, "Rescuebots and Groot and Gamora!!!" I really did consider trying to cram all of those things on the cake but then decided that was a bit much. The cake didn't look anything like what it did in my head (it never does) but it tasted decent and she liked it so that's all that matters. 

Of course, along with all the presents and cake involved with a birthday comes a check-up. This one involved four shots. Oh wait. Make that five shots since I decided to get her the flu shot. I've been prepping her for this visit on and off the whole year. We watched a terrible episode of Sid the Science Kid that talked about immunizations more times than can be considered humane, along with an episode of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood where they got shots. We talked about why she had to get them and that everyone (well, almost everyone) gets them and that they keep everyone from getting sick. She wasn't jumping at the chance to get them but I feel like she was pretty well prepared. 

As far as stats she's still average across the board. Her hearing is PERFECT, despite her behavior to the contrary. What I didn't expect at the appointment was the barrage of questions the doctor threw at her. "What is your mom's name? What is your dad's name? Where do you live?" When she started asking I had an Oh Shit moment. It was like my parenting was being tested as well. Thankfully, she passed with flying colors. Parenting FAIL averted!

Finally, the time came for the shots. I was presented with these two options: Have one nurse do all five shots one at a time or have TWO nurses tag team her in a coordinated attack. Truthfully, the thought of two people shooting her up at once horrified me. I didn't know what to do so I just went with what  the nurses said most parents did, two-on-one. Ugh. It was terrible. She started screaming bloody murder as soon as the first needle went in and didn't really stop until after we left the office. Her arms hurt so much that she refused to put her shirt back on. I was glad she had a hoodie with her. She took a brief rest from screaming to weasel her way into not one, but TWO things from the giant treasure chest. I was proud of her when she refused the Frozen coloring book offered her and went for RescueBots and Sophia the First (something she's never seen) instead. 

And just when I thought I had avoided the parenting fail it came back to bite me.  I made the mistake of promising Ruby a treat after her appointment not thinking that I might be totally exhausted after being woken up several times the night before, working early in the morning, rushing from work to pick up kids, and wrangling kids. On top of that it was a rainy, blah day and that totally zaps my energy. Anyway. By the time the appointment was done I was exhausted and very ready to be home. She was not pleased with me when I told her that we'd get something another day. Hey. You win some you lose some! 

Even though I am usually not all that into the holiday season I love making our Christmas card. Well, since having Ruby anyway. I didn't bother before then. lol. This year I wasn't sure if I was just going to use a photo from a recent family photo session or if I was going to try and think of something funny. I wasn't sure if I had the time or energy for the latter but then I saw a Naughty/Nice sign at Target in the OneSpot. After the year we've had with Ruby and her terrible 3's and Jasper being such a sweet baby, it was perfect! I slapped an IKEA duvet cover on our bed, threw the kids in some cute clothes and VOILA! Cute Christmas card. Here are some photos from the shoot:

And this is the one we ended up using for the card: 

Now to start planning for next years card! Hahahaha. Like I'm going to be that ahead of the game!