The Life of Ruby

I was going to write about my crazy weekend that last till this morning, but after reviewing the pictures I took of the Little Miss today I decided it would be all about Her!

Today started later than the last two mornings...which was nice, but I still wanted more sleep! Daddy returned from PT today and got a few minutes in with the Princess...8:45am was when she sprang up screaming for a bottle! And we can never get it ready fast enough...the life, to have someone else prepare your every meal and then basically hand feed it to you! The ever so kind Daddy then started up a nice episode of Veggie Tales, we would be so lost without Veggie Tales, and she laid there soaking up her bottle!!!
After Daddy ran off to work we had Mommy & Ruby time! Which is Ruby climbing all over Mommy, pulling on hair, yanking glasses off and that high pitched scream right in her ears! If I were to do this to anyone I am most certain handcuffs would be place on my wrists or possibly back handed by someone!
Ahh naptime...the most peaceful time of day for everyone. This only comes twice a day and I wish it was three times! The only time Mommy can get anything done and with our Florida vacation starting next week I need all the naps I can get!!! A wonderful full hour of sleep was had today so half the kitchen got cleaned, laundry was folded along with the cloth diapers and dinner was started! If only I could sneak a nap in...and it is a complete lie when someone tells you to sleep when baby sleeps!!! When they are sleeping that is prime time to...shower, pee, do laundry, vacuum, EAT, brush your hair or do anything you like to do without a screaming kid up your butt!!!
After nap time came lunch...another bottle and a bowl of apples & butternut squash, Rubys favorite! And again all made by someone else and then hand feed to her! Then more Mommy time and we learned about our letters and animals!!!! Daddy came home for a few minutes on lunch and these are the pictures that lead to the All About Ruby Blog!!!

She melts our heart everyday...even with the screaming, hair pulling and fits of delayed bottles!!!
She is working on nap #2 of the day and once she gets up it will be naked time (best way for a baby to be and helps prevent rashes), bottle #3 and maybe a walk!!!

This finally picture says it all. She is relaxing in her chair learning about number I believe! Leap Frog has become her new best friend, besides all her books of course! Which we will add she can read those books better than us, or that's what she would say with her high pitched screams!!!
The life on an baby...if your hungry-scream, if you want to be held-scream, if you want a nap-scream!!! Now Ruby isn't much of a screamer as she is a glass shattering screecher! We are blessed everyday to have her and are the luckiest parents ever...12 hour a night sleeper, heck yeah we're lucky! Sometimes I just wish I had her life...well the nap parts is all I really want!!!
I give her another 30 minutes and she'll be up ready for another 3-4 hours before bed time!! Tonight though will be spent with Daddy...Mommy has church!!! So she gets to climb all over him, scream in his ears and make several attempts at breaking his glasses!!!

Llamas, Bambi and Emus Oh My!!!

What a beautiful day it was today!

We started off with a Daddy!!! Tommy had today off, well "forced" day off, he finished up a 2 week school yesterday so today was his day to relax! Ruby and I were so darn happy to have him all to ourselves on a weekday...once the weekend rolls around everyone is to tired to do anything! So no the question was What do we do today? Sit at home and finish some odd projects like the backyard or clean the garage or head out of base and do something?

Well duh, oh course leaving base won...the backyard and garage will get taken care of tomorrow or Sunday!

Ruby was fed her diaper bag packed with an extra gatorade for me and I climbed into the front seat! I am so very lucky I must say, Tommy drives everywhere...sometimes I forget how to start the darn car! Plus front seat driver is the best place to be...no worries, other than Rubys safety, and prime time for out of state license plate and Slug Bug hunting!!!

Our destination...The Drive Through Safari!!! Little Miss Ruby loved it...well all of it but the Emus!

What a blast we had and we sure needed it! The animals were awesome and we got there just after the park opened and the animals were hungry and there was barely anyone there!!! We had 4 bags of food and were ready to feed the animals!!!

 She was in love with them! She was telling them all about her day and screaming for them to come closer!!! We did not let her feed them...we know Ruby would have eaten the food before the animals did!!

She got to ride shotgun in either Mommy or Daddys lap...the speed limit was 5mph so we felt there was no harm to her! Although we were a tad worried she would through a fit when being placed back into her carseat.

He wasn't a fan of the food....really I think he got smart and learned to stay away from humans!!!

The Longhorn...wanted nothing to do with us...or anyone!

 They owned the road...and your car!










Thus Ruby was placed on animal watch!!!

The only one who didn't like these guys was Ruby!!!

They were so stinking awesome

 We all know Tommy is a terrible driver... Ruby decided to teach him how to drive better!!

Our favorite spot of the day was up front in mommys lap!!! She had all the cool animals on her side plus a wide ope window!!!

 All the little kids overfed the goats at the petting zoo.......












So they either wanted the paper bag that the food was in or our clothes!!!!

Princess Ruby was done for the day....just like Blu you take them out for an hour or two and they'll sleep all day and night!!!

We had a blast today and hope you had a blast going through the pictures!!!

One more thing for you all...a few videos from today!!!

Lots of Love to you all!!!!!!!!

A Birthday Celebration!!!

I'm not so sure whose more excited about the idea of a birthday...Ruby or Daddy???

There was a time when Tommy put a limit on things he would do to entertain a screaming child or even an imaginative child! As we can tell those limits have recently been thrown out the window!

Our Sweet Little Miss Ruby is 25 days shy of her 1st Birthday!

We are so thrilled and blessed to be able to come back home to Florida and spend it with our family and friends...though there will be many family members and friends that wont be able to make we know you will be there in spirit!

We look forward to seeing you all and being able to share our Sweet Little Ruby with everyone!

Cake, food, beer and a bounce house who wouldn't come to her party???

I sent out a link on facebook and I wanted to send it out here in the blog world, we did register with a local cloth diaper store here in San Antonio. Many who attended our baby shower contributed to our "Cloth Diaper" fund and we greatly appreciate that and we were able to buy about 11 cloth diapers, YEAH!!! But we are still looking for more, a good stash to have is about 24-30, so for those of you who would prefer to give Ruby a gift Cloth Diapers is what she wants! Plus it will be like giving a gift to our next child since cloth diapers can last for 2-3 kids!!!

http://www.gobabygoshop.com/april-hartzell/

We are so happy to have found this store, independently owned! And so very much want to support to her, so if you would like to get us diapers shes the place to go!!!

Thank you for the love that you have given to our daughter over the past year and then some! We can not thank you enough and so happy we know and go to know you all! We hope that even thought the military keeps us far away we can still keep in contact with you all!!!

Lots of Love to you all and hopefully see you all within the next month!!!



Cat and the Doctors

How happy am I to be doing almost nothing today? So very very happy a load of laundry, dinner and some quick cleaning here and there! If only I could sneak a nap in sometime but I'm most certain that wont be happening.

My day yesterday was spent chasing down hospitals, fainting on purpose, quietly cursing the parking attendant out and trying not to run out of gas!!!

So those of you are "Keeping Up With Facebook" (totally knockoff of the kardashians) and know that I've been spending allot of my days at the doctors! Well the ultimate test was yesterday...dun dun dun! I was scheduled for a tilt test, I was strapped to a table and then elevated until I had a dizzy/fainting spell. Well my body preformed very well, I was told it could take up to 20 minutes and if it took that long they would give me a drug to encourage a dizzy/fainting spell, it took less than 2 minutes. My bloodpressure went from 100 down to a whopping 40!!! Yes I said 40. I was a rather scary moment for but I lived to tell you all about it. The Dr has come to the answer that I have

Vasovagal syncope, most people have experience this at some point in their life me on the other hand experience it on a daily basis! For those of you wondering its basically just fainting...dads sometimes do it when they watch their wives give birth or some people faint at the slight of blood. Just basic fainting spells for you all, for me its like an everyday party!!!

So what do I do to fix this...

1. Eat more salt, can't be done I'm a Butler at heart and we eat salt with everything

2. Wear these sweet things called Compression Stockings, most people get the ones that only come up to the knee, but I get the thigh high ones

3. Take in more fluids, cause the gallon of water I drink a day is enough and add gatorade to that

4. If that list doesn't curb my "spells" then I will go to the option of medicine!!!

It is most certainly something I can handle and deal with the only problem with it was trying to figure out what was going on. So now we know and we can get on with our wild life!

This of course would be Sir Rascal! For those of you who have both worlds of children (human and animals) you will understand this! I bought this bed for Rascal because he seemed to have no bed to call "home". Most nights he spent sleeping at the foot of our bed but night and night he got kicked out, so he decided to take over poor Blus bed! He lost that rather quickly cause we threw him out of Blus bed...every night Rascal would snuggle up in Blus bed and Blu would just get up and go sleep on the couch a big NO NO in this house! I brought this bed home and he was intrigued for the first few hours and then said "Screw This" and had nothing to do with it for a week or two. So as any mother would do I told him I would be taking it back to the store if he didn't start using it...$30 is alot for a cat bed! And guess who started sleeping in his bed that very night!!! Just like a child, you threaten to take something away and then they either use it or start taking better care of it!!!

New Hair & Lemons!

I've slacked a little in the postings, but here I am! I'm telling keeping up with an 11 month old is alot harder than they say! If your not pulling things out of her mouth your scan the floor to find things before she does...for some reason the vaccum purposly misses things for her to eat!!! So far shes found a piece of mulch, about 15 broken leaves and a rolly polli bug!!! If your not a parent this sounds gross....you just wait!

Onto other things...Mothers Day Weekend...yes weekend not day! I believe it should be week but Tommy says thats pushing it. I started off my "Weekend" with a new hair-do, and its NEW!!!

It's going to be difficult to get use to but I decided...new state, new hair! Stupid me failed to go BIG, needless to say I don't fit in well here in the Big Texas!

Took Ruby a minute to figure out who I was with the short hair and bangs, hid behind daddy and then realized it was The Awesome Kickass Mommy and screamed till I picked her up!

That was the begining of the "Weekend" today started off with 8am church, a trip to Lowes for glass glue, Cracker Barrel for lunch and then Micheals to find nothing that we needed!!! Tonight we are heading out to the new Johnny Depp movie and maybe a nice big chocolate cake for me! Ruby gets to hang out with the babysitter!!!

One last thing for today, Little Miss Ruby has a few Aunt Beffie qualities...she loves lemons!!!

Loves them so much she goes back for more....we hope the stinky feet is a quality she wont gain though, love you Aunt Beffie!

Get some good laughs in from this silly girl!

Love You All



Rascal Cat

If you were to ask my brother about my lovely cat the only response you would get is "He's Satans first born!"  Oh yes Andy loves that cat so very much, they have a "special" bond!
With having the nickname satans first born I am actually surprised with my little fat cat! for the 10 1/2 months Ruby has been outside of me he has only attacked her twice! Thats saying alot for him, he'll attack Andy for just walking into the room!
His crazy little world changed big time when Ruby entered our lives, he was no longer the center of attention. He was kicked out of bed and Ruby took his spot, hes eating schedule took the back burning and it came when I found the time!
And when Little Miss started couch walking nap time was over for him! She'd see him all curled up peacefully sleeping on the couch and her first thought was "I want that tail!"
Hes been yelled at, smacked and left for starving more than a few times!!! And if the SPCA were to come visit our house he'd make sure to tell them we starve him on a regular basis....even though the vet claims he's 5lbs over weight!!!

Thus when he got a little sneaky tonight...we let him get away with it...for a minute or two!!!

Please excuse the "How The States Got Their Shapes" in the backround....Ruby was getting her history education in for the day!!!

Stair Master

Tommy has a theory these days..."Lets have Ruby climb the stairs so she'll walk sooner!!!"

It may work, but all its doing is making my life more difficult while he's at work. If the gate is left open for 3 seconds that girl hightails it to the stairs!!!

I was cleaning the dishes a week or two ago and could have sworn that gate clicked closed, but I was wrong! I noticed it was rather quite in the living room and peeked around to the living room to see what she was up to!!! There was no Ruby in sight....the gate was open, there was three places she could have gone; her room, the bathroom (Bath Time anyone) or our bedroom at the top of the stairs!!!

One guess as to where she was..........thats right at the top of the stairs!!! She is a darn pro I tell ya!!!

She loves the stairs too, any chance she can get to climb them she takes! She has only fallen once but Mommy was behind her to catch her! Those footed pajamas seem to always get in the way. Another thing she loves is to steal all of Rascal toys at the top of the stairs, he never wants to share.

Our Little Miss Adventure!

Just so you know she still isn't walking or standing alone, so we can prove or disprove Tommys theory just yet!!! She is so looking forward to visiting Florida and all her family but is sad there wont be any stairs to climb!!!

Everyone hide your blinds and animals cause Crazy is coming to town June 2012!!!



11:15am

9am came quick this morning with Little Miss. About 8:45am I checked my phone think it was 7:30ish and to my surprise it wasn't and even more surprising Ruby was still asleep!!!
Or at least I thought...I failed to turn on her moniter last night....she could have been screaming her little head off downstairs!!!
She wasn't of course, and if she had been I would have woken up...needless to say I don't need the moniter, noise travels fast in this house!
I got up did my little morning routine...peeing without a child screaming! Those without kids don't understand how amazing it is to pee in peace!!! Proceeded downstairs grabbed a glass of water and prepared Little Miss's bottle! Usually when she hears the microwave going is when she starts screaming the "I know someones up, now come get me out of here!!!" cry, but she sleep through it!
So I wandered into the living room shacking an 8 ounce bottle still yawning and wanting to crawl back into bed when I decided to grab the camera and capture the peacefulness of Ruby!

To parents this is the greatest sight, a sleeping baby! Oh course not even a second after the flash went off she was up!
Tommy and I sometimes tend to forget how lucky we are when it comes to Ruby. Most parents would sneak into our house at 2:37am and swap out babies just to have ours!
The time now is 1:25pm and Ruby went down for a nap at 11:15am ten minutes before dad got home for lunch!!!
This Little girl yet again proves to be her fathers daughter with her sleeping habits!
Our nightly routine since about 8 1/2 months old is bathtime around 7pm (if needed) and last feeding at 7:30-7:45 and then bed at 8pm!!! This leaves mommy and daddy time without a destructive whinning "I want Mommy" darling crawling around and getting stuck in this corner or that corner!!! Then from 8pm she will sleep till about 7:30am-9:30am!!! Thats about a whopping 12 hours of sleep! Every now and then we have a pacifier emergency or a "Someone rip these teeth out of my Mouth" emergency, but most of the time its peaceful sleep!
Now I have know mothers with children at this age that still wont sleep more than 4 1/2 hours at a time!!! So this is one thing we are blessed with...a baby who sleeps like her father!!!

One more picture for the day!!! Ruby was attacked by the Tickle Monster last night, we have a video of it but for some reason I can get it to upload but I am working on it!!!

We hope you all are enjoying these!!! Please let us know that you are able to see them by leaving us a comment or two!!! So happy technology can keep us contected being so far away!!!
Lots of Love
The Hartzells



The Hippie!

On numerous occasions now I have been called a hippie...by my husband, sister, bestfriend and I've even called myself a hippie!

I've decided to go on healthier route, now we can all eat healthier but that only goes so far. I recently invested into a juicer...I swear in the past month I've had more fruits and veggies than I've had in the last 3 years!

It just makes sense to me/us, I'd rather make Rubys juice than get it from the store and have 3 extra cups of sugar added to it! You can most certainly tell the difference between homemade and store bought apple juice....for one you can tell they peel them before they are juiced!!!

This would be Rubys favorite, apple & carrot! She loves her fresh juice, drinking from a sipping cup she dislikes allot!!!

The combination of fruits and veggies is endless! One of these days I'm going to close my eyes and just grab what ever I can from the veggie/fruit drawer in the fridge!

Having this awesome juicer has helped so much...Tommy recently saw the Dr and got some bad news on the blood pressure department! Now that boy eats apples and bananas like there is no tomorrow!!! But he also eats those overly salt Tostitos Scoops like the world will end today...so the yummy kiwi, apple, zucchini, wheatgrass, grapefruit & grape juice has done wonders! That and he has lost his right to those nasty chips for a few months!

There is now allot less junk coming into our home and allot more fresh organic food! Although Tommy will never give up his Triple Carmel Chunk ice cream!

Second reason I have been called a hippie...the diapers, but I've already covered those in a recent blog! "What has she gotten herself into you ask???" Those are the neat liners that go in the cloth diapers for all the icky stuff...so when you change her all you do is take the diaper to the bathroom remove the liner and flush!!! How stinking awesome, and if she doesn't make any ickies that liner can be washer with the other diapers and reused!!! (I would let it air dry and not toss it in the dryer!)

My finally hippie action for the day...as I said earlier bringing fresh food into the house only goes so far!

This is now most of my showering needs!!!

Castile soap...AMAZING!!! Found out about this through a local Natural Parenting group here in Texas...I am now wondering where it has been all my life??? I bought the bottle for $9.99 at Whole Foods and this stuff can be used on darn near everything...showering, dishwasher, washer, grease cutter, babywash, facewash. carwash...anything I say!!! You be squeaky clean and so will everything else when you use it. Its all natural oils...as in you can read everything on the label and know what it is!!!

Baking soda has become my shampoo of choice...a tablespoon+ (depending on your hair) and a cup of water!

Little lesson for all you young folk the first modern day pH balance shampoo didn't come about till 1930, before that women went and got their hair "shampooed" every 2 weeks-6weeks...oh and they used an oil based Castile soap!!! So a heads up, you shouldn't shampoo your hair everyday and condition it even less.

I am now washing my hair every 3-4 days, now I still take showers and rinse my hair I just don't put anything in it. My hair is more manageable, softer and less of those crazy fly-aways!

The baking soda helps to retrain your hair to not produce so much oil, the main reason we wash our hair! Those oils are actually good for your hair to if you didn't know. But we strip our hair of them so much that our body overproduces them...less shampooing less oils!!!

WEBmd on No Shampoo

Last up...Coconut Oil!!! Do you know the wonders of Coconut Oil: cooking oil, body lotion, diet aid, antiviral properties and so much more!!!

I have yet to cook with it but do use it as a lotion and I love it! Your skin is so darn soft and it smells good to, the coconut smells doesn't stay sadly and niether does the oily feeling!

Coconut oil helps women in many ways...for nursing mothers it will help maintain your milk supply and helps with keeping strong bones! Don't want to get sick add some coconut oil to your daily diet, it is a natural antiviral and antibacterial....oh and this stuff can aid in the fight against diabetes!!! Coconut oil will soon be joining our diets and I couldn't be more excited!!!
Another hippie action...it can be used in a homemade deodorant!!!Homemade Deodorant!!! I already use it as a deodorant but will be trying thie reciepe very soon!

Well that my healthy rambling for today, Ruby will be up soon so its off for now!!!

 

Much Love and Hopefully you might change something about your everyday life...If I come across another hippie find I shall share it with you all!!!

2% Butler

I have had an ongoing joke with Tommy since he came home..."The only way I know Ruby is my daughter is that I gave birth to her!!!"
When Ruby gracefully entered this world everyone in the room knew she was Tommys little girl! It was even a joke that if the DNA test said she wasn't, that the DNA test would in the end be wrong! She came out with his head full of hair, his nose and his face!!! And lets not forget the stomach...that girl could eat! There was no part of her that resemble me, and it drove me nuts for awhile!

Now how can you say thats not Tommy? But as she grew she just turned more into him...a bottomless pit that drove me insane!!! Yes Tommy drives me insane on a daily basis, but he claims its a healthy insane!

Look they are like twins, how could that not drive you nuts! On top of that Tommys mother told me that as a baby/toddler he had to be up her butt, where ever she was he had to be or the temper trantrum was thrown!!! And how does Little Miss Ruby handle mommy leaving the room to pee, clean the dishes or shower...she handles it with a temper tantrum! Her eating competition days are slowly coming to an end, good news for our wallets. There is still now end in sight for that crazy hair though.
But there is good news......

 Only a few will appreciate this....the Butler teeth have survived another generation!!! Its true Ruby is 2% her mother, and I am so excited about this!!!! Took 10 1/2 months and it was so worth the wait. Tommy demands braces now, but she has a few more years to go until we fix them. She sure does know how to use those teeth, I think I get bit once or twice a day! Rather shocked she hasn't tried to eat the cat. Hopefully now more of Mommy will start to shine through...if this is how my children are going to be I'm not sure if I can handle 3+ mini "Tommys" running around!
We will end up on a farm with an endless amount of cows and chickens to feed all those bottomless pits!

Cloth Diapers!!!

So it has started...the cloth diapers!!! I am so darn stinking happy about this, Tommy not so much but he doesn't do the laundry so he could care less! The money he does care about though!!!

How could you not love these???

We are still getting use to them and for sure do not have a full stash! I Love them though!!!

Excuse the mis matched socks, Dad put those on!

A few mishaps here and there with the diapers, we mainly wear them around the house...haven't gotten to comfortable out in the wild yet! They are great!

I know most think....gross! Its far from that, trust me getting puked and peed on is so much worse than clearing out a dirty diaper!!! And once you have your stash of diapers you'll only do an extra 1-2 days of laundry a week! That is just one load each day. Our laundry day is monday...I refuse to wash clothes any other day...and then I only do 1-2 loads besides that during the week....diapers that is!!!

So eco friendly...we have a few bamboo lined diapers and a few cotton ones! The pair Little Miss is sporting is cotton I believe!!!
And thats the whole diaper!!! No extra rubber pant covers or 20 steps to put them together! Of course those are still around if you'd like them, but no me.

Once our stash is established we will have spent about $300-$400 on all the diapers...now there are extra stuff that comes along with it, special detergent and butt creams.

But think about how much you spend on diapers each month...plus these can be used for the next baby...unless you end up with a different sex and got all gender specific the first time around! The few extra loads wont make that much a difference. They also have these nifty think liners to catch the icky stuff and you FLUSH the liners!!!! Oh dear Lord not as gross as you thought!!!

Cloth diapers today have come so far from what your grandmother used...no metal pins!!! You can pick between button and velcro...and you can get OS (one size)!

What are these wonderful OS diapers....they are one size fits all, well most!!! The weight is from 7/8lbs-35lbs, they adjust with snap buttons to smaller or larger. Most though don't fit those newborns to well.

There is so much more to tell about them! We have just recently entered the wonderful world of cloth diapers....they even have cloth wipe----I am so stoked!!!

Oh and Ruby just loves how cute her Little Tush is now!!!



So I've wanted to start some sort of blog for a while now. Mainly for family back home and a tad for my nonsense rambling!I am super excited about this, now all you family kin-folk can be up to date on all the Ruby-ness in the house! No one is left out!!!

Yeah I got a picture in! Rubys awesome eggs with kale, mango and apples! I'm hoping I can put in videos for you non facebookers....she's one funny girl!

So this is the start, be prepared for some terrible grammer and english! Don't worry I'm sure Beth will be on top of it and notify me on the corrections that need to be made.

Ruby and I hope you all love this and love watching her grow, it saddens us to be so far away but we are excited about the new adventures out here!

We'll be back in no time at all....My mom is counting down I think 31 days now???

Much Love to you all!!!