super power girl

Ruby has been pretending to be "Super Power Girl." She tells Jeff he's Super Power Boy. Tonight I even got to be Super Power Girl, too. Ellie was Super Power Baby even though she was taking a nap. One day she told me, "I'm Super Power Girl. I save people who need help or are stuck!"

Not so adorable is when she sporadically pretends to be a baby. She goes around pointing at things and saying, "Goo-goo! Ga-ga!" over and over again, expecting you to understand what she wants. (I've tried a few different tactics to not encourage this behavior but it's just another one of the games she likes to play. Hopefully it's a passing phase.)

Ruby has some new imaginary friends that she plays with a lot: Kaylee and Maxon. (These are made-up names; she doesn't know anyone named Kaylee and Maxon in real life.) Sometimes she is Kaylee's mom, sometimes she is her teacher, but usually she's just her friend. Maxon is always making trouble. I'll hear Ruby saying, "Maxon, you should tell Kaylee you're sorry," or "I'm mad at Maxon. Maxon made a bad choice today." Just this weekend there's another new friend: Oatey-otta. I can only assume that Oatey-otta's parents are from another country? That's the most creative name yet.

Ruby's not only imaginative, she's incredibly sweet. She's always telling us that she loves us and telling us things like, "You're wonderful." One day she told Jeff, "I want to be a mommy someday. When I grow up I want to be a mommy like my mommy." And another day she told me, "When I grow up I want to be a teacher and a basketball player and a mommy like you!" I love that.

A couple weeks ago she watched a few episodes of Blues Clues on Netflix for the first time. Then she watched the episode "Steve Goes to College." Steve is leaving for college so he has to introduce his replacement and ensure his friends that everything will be okay when he leaves. She wanted to watch that one over and over. One night when I was saying goodnight to her she said, "Wait. I have a question for you. Mommy, did you already go to college?" I assured her - yes, I've already been to college and I don't need to go again! Poor thing was so concerned about mommy leaving for college!

There are so many other fun Ruby stories. Just ask me and I can tell you more. For now, I have a bunch of fun/random Ruby pictures that I want to share. (The only thing not random is the order of the pictures; they are chronological, at least!)

In February Ruby was the 'Star Student' of her preschool class. I got to make this poster about Ruby to hang in her classroom for the month. Ruby also gave her first Primary talk in March. She did an amazing job. I'm so proud of my star student sunbeam!

One snowy Saturday in late February Jeff was working and Papa stopped by to shovel for us. One of our nice neighbors had already shoveled our driveway so Papa built snowmen with Ruby instead. They used cherry tomatoes for the eyes and a baby carrot for the nose. (The picture's a little dark & blurry because I took it through the front window. It was so cold out there!) 

Grammie got an iPad for Christmas and ever since it has been one of Ruby's favorite things at Grammie & Papa's house. Grammie has downloaded lots of fun games and apps for Ruby and she can sit and play with it for hours! She loves Grammie to sit next to her and play the games with her. It's terribly precious.

Ruby is an awesome helper. She loves to help clean or fold laundry, but  she is actually a lot of help when it comes to putting away the dishes. She'll stand at the dishwasher and hand you things. You can put something away while she's getting the next thing, so it goes super quick.
We've got to put her to work more often! 

Ruby's really interested in learning her letters and spelling things lately. She knows how to spell her name and  can recognize all of our names. "Ruby's letter is R. Ellie's letter is E. Daddy's letter is J. Mommy's letter is A." She finds our letters everywhere we go. She is working on recognizing all of the upper- and lower-case letters.

Cooper came to play a few weeks ago. They had been playing in Ruby's room for a while and then came out to the living room together. Ruby had a dress on over the outfit she was wearing. She was holding another one of her dresses. She held it out to Cooper and said, "Cooper, you wanna to wear my dress?" She couldn't get him to play dress-up but they had a blast running around like crazy.

Grammie and Papa have been working on finishing their basement the past couple months. They built a special playroom just for Ruby (and Ellie), and they let her choose what color to paint it. She chose pink, of course. After weeks of anticipation, this was Ruby's reaction when she first got to see the room painted. It's not even finished yet and she loves to play in there.

Ruby is getting anxious for spring to arrive. She asks me almost every day when the flowers are going to grow and "when will it be spring?" Even though the weather hasn't been very warm yet, the days are getting longer, so we've been enjoying spending more time outside.
As you can see, Ruby makes herself right at home outdoors.

Mr. Puppy Snuggles came to visit one evening so Ruby ran around the yard with him. They got to meet the new next-door-puppy Rocky.

We had a baby shower for Cooper's mom last Saturday. Little did we know that sweet little Annabelle would be born that evening, five weeks early! Ruby is very excited for Cooper to have a baby sister, like she does.

This is one of Ruby's favorite activities. She puts on her shoes, goes out to the backyard, then takes off her shoes to play in her "house." This is her "sweeping the floor." She is great at getting creative and dirty!

I bought the girls' Easter dresses this weekend and I made Ruby & Ellie try them on. This is Ruby in her dress, making a growling face. Oh how I love her sweet face!