a dash of salt. a sprinkle of pepper. a little of this, some of that.

- kate is blogging again. yay! i've got to say, it's been wonderful to have kate to talk with throughout this whole new mom thing. little miss mary wallace is two months ahead of ruth...so i usually get lots of good tips on what how to deal with stuff.

God is so lovely...eight years ago kate and i met in dusty africa and became immediate, lifelong friends. and here we are, still friends, now raising our girls up to love the Lord. He is so good.

- today is miss allie's third birthday. a little allie trivia for you: deer jerky gasses her up like the hindenburg. so gross.

- it's freaking 31 degrees today. i miss you, summer.

- friday night we went to whole foods to grab some organic produce for ruth's baby food. it was our first time to visit that store...it was so interesting. we really liked it! we grabbed some dinner off the hot bar and took it home to eat. it was a lovely way to spend a cold, rainy night. ruth loved it, too. she's been doing such a great job just hanging out in her sleepy wrap while we run around town and make a million stops. she's such a happy girl.

hanging with mom at whole foods.

- the other day, while chugging water out of my camelbak, i noticed inside the straw valve...well, it looked weird. upon closer inspection i realized it was MOLDY. sick. sick. sick. it never occurred to me to take apart the bite valve and clean it. i didn't even know it could be taken apart until mr. darling did it for me. so, it's been cleaned, bleached and we are now back in business. but there's no telling how long i had been drinking water through a moldy straw. sick me out.

- this past week ruth went through her six month sleep regression stage. normally she would only be up once or twice a night to eat. but this past week? we were up every 1.5 - 2 hours ALL NIGHT LONG. perhaps, fingers crossed, last night was the end of that. she never woke up, i finally woke her up at 3am to eat before my chest exploded. of course, now that i have blogged about this she will probably be awake for the next three days straight.

- i swear, once you think you have the baby figured out...WHAM, she goes and changes it on you. just to remind you who makes the rules in this place.