Frugal Challenge Update

As I first talked about here and then updated here, I am deep in the throws of a frugal challenge: Use all my existing hair products up before buying anything new. In the original post, dated July 11, 2011, I guessed that given my current stash, I could make it until at least October before making any new purchases. And then my friend Chanda gave me a ton of products that she tried that didn't work with her hair, and in the follow up post, I guessed that it might be more like March or April of 2012.

Well, it's almost July and I am going strong. Sure, I don't "do" my hair as often since I'm home now with Ruthie, but this challenge has really opened my eyes to how much product I actually had and had easy it was for me to just pick up something interesting in the beauty aisle. I mean, seriously? A year? I can't believe how long all these bottles that were 1/3 full have lasted. What if I had kept buying? I shudder to think. It's been a very good experience for me, this frugal challenge, and I am excited to see in what other ways I might be able to save. Any ideas?

Life with Ruthie

Ruthie is very busy these days. She has one small toy bin in our family room and she is very fond of digging through it for her favorite toys. You can see her avid interest in this photo. I love how she has it tipped toward her.

She is also very fond of pushing herself up on anyone or anything that is still enough for her to do so. She is very proud of her standing - especially her one handed trick!

She continues to be an amazing baby and we are so thankful. It's hard to believe she's been a part of our family for 6 months. But it's also impossible to imagine life without her.

I am already happily brainstorming her 1st birthday - stay tuned!

Father's Day

We had so much fun celebrating Ian's first Father's Day! We'd had a busy weekend, so he wanted to be low key. We went to church and then had snacks for lunch, Ian's favorite meal. I went to Trader Joe's and got all his favorite things.

We all enjoyed the picinic in our backyard!

Then we watched a movie (one of Ian's favorite afternoon activities) while Ruthie took a nap. After her nap, we opened presents.

Ruthie and Ian really enjoyed each other's company!

After presents, we met up with Mary and Mike at the park for some Frisbee golf and bochee. We had a super fun time with them at the park and their kids entertained Ruthie very well!

When we were finished at the park, we went to Buono's, a local pizza place by our house. After thoroughly enjoying that, we headed home to put our Bugaboo to bed and enjoy a quiet evening in. It was such a wonderful time, celebrating my amazing husband who is now an amazing father!

Bananas!

Since Ruthie is turning 6 months tomorrow, we decided it was time for her first solids. Truthfully, she's been ready for a while - eyeing our food, grabbing our forks, fussing at the dinner table because everyone is eating and she's not, etc. But I have so been enjoying nursing (and it's so easy - no prep, no clean up, no packing!) that I didn't want to cut in on that sweet time. But, it was time and we were actually really looking forward to the first meal.

It worked out great, too. It was Father's Day, so it seemed fitting to have Ian give her her first taste of solid foods, while I recorded it and took photos.

Ruthie started her adventure in the wonderful world of food with bananas, very ripe and very mashed.

Looked pretty gross to us but she seemed to really enjoy it! 

Here she is, getting ready with her bib.

She wanted to "help" with the spoon process, but Ian did a great job holding her hands down and getting the food in there at the same time.

As you can see, she's quite enjoying it!

I think she mostly just liked all the attention and praise she was getting. =)

And now we are on day two of the solids, and she is doing great. In fact, she's 2 1/2 hours in to her morning nap, something she hasn't done in several weeks, so I'm a BIG fan of the bananas.

Sole Surviving Son

Last Friday, I went to a funeral service for my sister's neighbor, Jim. I definitely went more to support Mary and Mike (who was doing the service), but since I lived with Mary in that house before she got married, I had also been neighbors with Jim and his wife (also a Mary) for 2 1/2 years. Jim and Mary are pretty involved with Mary, Mike and the kids, so I've seen them both many times since moving out, since I'm at Mary's a lot. Jim was young, only 62, and his death was sudden. His widow, Mary, has been leaning on Mary and Mike a lot for support and Mary and Mike have really been able to show love to this woman.

Anyway, let me get to my point. When Mike was giving a sketch of Jim's life, he mentioned how both Jim and his brother had served in the Vietnam War. His brother was killed in the line of duty, so Jim was honorably discharged as the sole surviving son. For some reason, that really struck me.

I mean, I've seen Saving Private Ryan, so I guess the knowledge of that practice was somewhere in the back of my mind. But here was a real life example of the tradition and you know what? It's a good one. Think what you will of the military - sending home a son from battle because his brother(s) has been killed is the right and noble thing to do, and I'm glad our country does it. Cheesy as it may sound, I was proud to be an American.

They Called Our Number

Our church has this great system of alerting parents when their children need them. When you drop off a kid in the Sunday school room, you get a number and then there is a board in our sanctuaary that lights up with your number if your child needs you. This past Sunday, they called our number. We've only been called out once before, when they couldn't get Ruthie to go to sleep and she was fussing. I went that time, rocked and snuggled her and then put her down with her pacifier, and thankfully, she went to sleep.

This Sunday when they called our number, it was before service had even started. What could already be wrong? So Ian headed back to her room, to see what was up. When he got there, he was promptly informed that she was being moved out of the newborn class and into the crawlers. Apparently, our church has the policy that if your baby crawls off the play-mat that is in the center of the newborn room, then they get promoted. And they take that policy seriously, because then and there Ian had to take her to the crawler room.

She looked so little to be going to that room but she seemed just fine with the change. It felt very abrupt for me - I didn't even have a chance to hum to her Pomp and Circumstance! But I guess that's for the best; better save my weepy nostalgia for a real graduation. =)

Anyway, Ruthie is obviously making great strides in her crawling. I wouldn't say she officially does it yet, but she has lots of purposeful movement and can cross the room, just by crawling and scooting.

She's also been working on her sitting up, and as you can tell by this photo, she's quite proud of that, too.

Bum, buda-bum-bah-dum, ba, buda-bum buh..