I’m starting this post at 8:40 am and both girls are asleep.

I think.

I might’ve heard Ruthie a few minutes ago but I’m gonna pretend it was my imagination just to buy myself some more time. Don’t judge. I can write a lot of words in five minutes. But ask me to remember where I put my wallet, and that may take all day.

Some random things:

• Annie just farted.
• A spider crawled out of Ryan’s beard and he flung it onto the wall and killed it. No joke. It’s time to shave.
• Annie was on the verge of sleep the other day and literally laughed out loud. It was awesome.
• We’re about to go on a walk because it’s gorgeous outside. 8:43 and 63 degrees. Yes, please.
• Ryan makes me smoothies every morning.

…and I hear Ruthie. I’ll be back.

Okay, we’ve gone, we’re back, we’ve eaten lunch, and are about to go down for a nap.

Remember that broom from our garage sale adventures? Ruthie loved it, as I thought she would since she always wants to help sweep the floor when I do it. She spent a good long time sweeping in my parent’s house where we were all chit-chatting.

And then there was silence.

Where’s Ruthie?! Oh my gosh, ANNIE!!!

She’d been left to sleep on a chair in the living room…. and this is a reenactment of what Ryan found minus his hand.
As my mom said, Ruthie was trying to sweep Annie away.

Ryan and Ruthie were reading her Pride and Prejudice book one night on the couch. I love this book. The fact that they included her muddy skirt had me sold from the get go. This is the first book Ruth’s memorized, which is as it should be.
Then they got to the part where Jane gets sick at Bingley’s house…
Ruth said, “Sick. Mommy.”

“Mommy”, Ryan asked?

“Mommy. Couch. Sick.”

I then spent the next twenty minutes adamantly denying that I lay on the couch all day. And besides, you can’t trust Ruthie’s judgement anyway, because when I took down my favorite glittery picture of the holy family…

She looked at it and said, “Mommy and Daddy!”

Just because I may have cried out his name when pushing Annie out, doesn’t mean I’m his mother, Ruthie.

So see? You can’t take her word for it, Ryan.

A few minutes later, after staring at the picture some more, she whispered, “Jesus.” That unnerved me for a moment. How did she know that was of Jesus, when I’ve never even showed her it before? So I asked if she talks to Jesus, which one is Jesus, etc., and she said, “Go up! Book.” and started to walk up the stairs. I followed her to her room’s bookshelf and she grabbed the easter book that grandma and grandpa gave her this year.

Then brought it back down to read in front of the picture.

I love hearing her talk and read about Jesus.

Some other things of note:

Ruthie would like to be in a play pen.
The first day alone with them I let her play in there. Now it’s off limits after she tried to rock climb into it.

But the most important tidbit is the growing love between these girls.

The hard work is definitely worth it.