Anniversary Number 15!

Today is our 15th Wedding Anniversary. 

In case you wanted to buy us a gift, the suggestion is Crystal.  It's probably not really necessary or practical because 1) we have too many kids and nowhere to put and or use crystal.  And 2) we have no other crystal items because we registered at Target and at the time they didn't have crystal. (maybe they still don't, I have no idea)

After our wedding Gabe had to return to the tuxes of his groomsmen who were too busy lazy to return them.  Upon dropping them off at the rental shop the salesman said "I always like to check the pockets to see if anything got left behind".  He holds up the pants, starts shaking them and "clink clink"....Gabe puts his hands into the pockets and pulls out....FOUR SPOONS.  Why on earth did they need 4 spoons from the reception?  I have no idea.  But, in our box of stuff leftover from our wedding, we have 4 spoons.  A nice memento I guess!

Here is a picture of Gabe and I early on in our relationship.  This picture was taken during a phase in my life when I only took pictures of myself.  Shockingly, this didn't turn out too bad.  But, WOW, were we young!  (I actually think we are in our 20's in this picture.)

Quit reading now if you don't want to read me getting sentimental...

15 years.  It feels like a bit of a milestone.  If I had to do it all over again, knowing what I know now,  I would change many many things, but there's not a doubt in my mind that I would still say yes.  I feel like I uncovered some lucky penny somewhere that granted me this amazing wish.  We have no money, we are worn out from raising kids, we don't get to see each other enough; but if you asked me to dream up my perfect marriage, I wouldn't change a thing.

Olive Kristine Rutledge

Did you wonder what that yelling was on Saturday?

Don't worry, It was just Kristi giving birth to

OLIVE KRISTINE RUTLEDGE!

After an easy, yet painful labor, Olive arrived at 4:15 pm on Saturday May 7, 2011.  She weighed 7lbs 6oz and was 19 inches long.

Olive's birth was quite dramatic.  She was so active while in utero that she tied a true knot in the umbilical cord.

She aspirated meconium and ended up with pneumonia.  We had to stay in the hospital for 7 days so she could be treated with antibiotics.

 

 

While at the hospital we stayed in the "Turtle" Room.  If you ever have to stay in the hospital, I highly recommend the Special Care Nursery at St. Peter Hospital.  The nurses there are AMAZING.  They were so kind and compassionate and knowledgeable.  Seriously, the nurses there are just about the best people on the planet. The level of care we received was absolutely astonishing.

Olive's arrival home was eagerly awaited by Johnny and Maisy.  They were both very worried and confused about why she didn't get to come home right away, but they adjusted nicely.  Thankfully we have an amazing support system who stepped in to help and we are very grateful.

Olive is doing great and adjusting to life in the Rutledge house.  Maisy has decided that SHE is Olive's mother and I am still Maisy's mother.  (I guess this makes me Olive's grandmother) Johnny thinks it's funny that she laughs in her sleep.

As you can see, the majority of her weight is in her cheeks!

(The pajamas Olive is wearing were worn home from the hospital by all of the Rutledge babies!)



The Countdown Begins

Submit your vote for Rutledge #3's Birth Stats!

Rutledge Baby #3

(this is an amazingly awful picture of all of us!!!)

Rutledge #3 is due in exactly 1 month!  The atmosphere in our house is excited (Johnny), confused (Maisy), worried (Gabe) exhausted (Kristi), and looking like he's having a sympathy pregnancy (Don).

(Johnny pouring himself a "small" bowl of cereal!)



Johnny can't wait.  He was pretty bummed when he realized that the baby would not be sharing his room; he really wants #3 to sleep in his room sometime while she's still cute and tiny and not bossy like Maisy.

(Maisy decorating cookies)



Maisy's just confused.  Sometimes she thinks the baby is her stuffed toy, sometimes she thinks she has the baby, most of the time she has no idea.  She has accepted that the baby will be coming to live with us and doesn't want to send her off to Elmo and Papa's.  Also along the lines of acceptance, Maisy has finally admitted she's 3.  She was refusing to be 3 until just this month and told everyone she was 2.

(The Academy Awards, 2011)



Gabe is worried.  He has alot of shows scheduled at various times and is hoping that the baby cooperates with his schedule.  Maisy was not quite as cooperative and Gabe had to call in his back up for a Christmas party he was supposed to preform at.  Let's hope #3 is more thoughtful!

Kristi is exhausted.  I had no idea it was possible to feel so tired!  So Gabe is able to be at home for an extended period of time after #3 arrives, he's had to do alot of traveling.  Being a million months pregnant, by myself, with 2 kids who do not grasp the concept of "mommy wants to sit" is shocking!  With Johnny, I was terrified of giving birth and having a new baby.  Even though he was 15 days late, I could have gone longer!  With Maisy I was eyeing her due date and ok with waiting and hoped she came a little early so she wasn't born on Christmas.  With this one...I'm ready now.  I have no sleeping places set up for her, no car seat in the car, no bags packed, but I'm ready.  (by this point I know, you only need the carseat in place, everything else is a luxury!!)



And Don....Poor Don is suffering from the horrible northwest weather.  We had a wet, cold summer last year and Don didn't spend nearly enough time running around working off his "winter weight".  Then he added "winter weight" from this winter and his looking huge.  People keep asking if our cat is having kittens.  I prefer to think that he is having a sympathy pregnancy right along with me!

We'll keep you posted!

13th Anniversary

Today is our 13th Anniversary.  It is our "Lace Anniversary". 

(I've promised Gabe some lace doilies that he's had his eye on.)

As promised last year, I will write about one of my favorite memories from our wedding / engagement period.

Gabe decided to ask me to marry him and put the plans in motion.  (We were all of 22 years old and wasting away so it was high time he got on it!)  He called my mom to ask if he could marry me.  (aaaahhh...isn't that sweet?!?!?) 

The conversation went something like this:

BBBrrrriiiinnnnggggg (telephone ringing)

Sandy: Hello, this is Sandy

Gabe: Hi this is Gabe.  I have something to ask you.  I want to marry your daughter.

Sandy: Can you hold on, I have another call....

Obviously she eventually came back and said yes.  (If you know my mom, you can picture this scene perfectly!)

I feel as though I should apologize for my lack of blogging updates.  My health hasn't been at it's best this year and it's left me extremely exhausted and not much energy to do much more than take care of the kids. 

the kids are great....and fighting...A LOT.  Maisy is quite feisty and harasses Johnny every chance she can get.  Johnny tries to reason with her, which never works with a 2½ year old, and gets frustrated with the situation.  This repeats itself throughout the day.  The good thing is, Maisy is absolutely adorable and it's hard to be too annoyed with her.  Johnny loves his sister so much and takes his role of "big brother" so seriously, I understand why he's frustrated with her.  They are adorable together.

Silk and Linen

Today is our 12th Anniversary....Our Silk and Linen anniversary.

Below is a picture of us on our honeymoon. We are posing with at the Churros stand. It's a traditional honeymoon pose enjoyed buy newlyweds throughout time!!!

When Gabe and I got engaged we were in Disneyland. We experienced our first taste of Churros and fell in love...with Churros. We were already in love with each other! I'm pretty sure we ate nothing else but Churros during our trip. We felt like it was such a monumental part of our engagement that we decided we needed a picture on our honeymoon. The boy in the picture looked at us like we were insane when we asked to pose for a picture, but politely obliged!

Check out this picture! Look how young Gabe looks!

(I'm sure you'll notice that I, on the other hand, look petty much the same!)

We got engaged at Disneyland. Gabe and I went to Disneyland one evening and went to Sleeping Beauty's Castle. We looked over the water and Gabe said "I want to talk to you about something and I don't want you to talk until I'm done". He began by talking about our relationship and eventually said "We've been through some good times and some bad". Ignoring his original statement I broke in and said "Are you breaking up with me?". Exasperated Gabe asked me to be quiet and eventually asked me to marry him. He had put the ring in a zippered pocket in his coat and had some trouble getting it out, but eventually he did and we kissed and hugged and....

out of nowhere a woman came running over to us excitedly yelling "you just got engaged! Congratulations! Hey everyone they just got engaged!". She was crying and hugging us and telling us that she'd watched the whole thing. Gabe and I were both looking at each other trying to figure out who this crazy person was. She proceeded to blubber for another couple of minutes announcing to everyone that we were getting married and how excited she was and then she left. No one we told matched her level of excitement.

We celebrated by going out last night. In true Rutledge fashion we (and by we I mean Kristi) lost the invitation to the party we were invited to. After searching online for the address I found it and "thought" I remembered seeing that the party started at 4:00 pm. So, we decided to be fashionably late and arrive at 5:30 pm. We found the location and drove by only to see the hosts unloading stuff from their car and realized that we had the wrong time. We did a quick drive by turn around, short of ducking down below the dashboard and went out to dinner. We eventually went back to the party to say a quick hello before going back to relieve Grammie and Grandpa of their babysitting duties. On a positive note, Johnny enjoyed making a secret potion at Grass Lake with Grandpa! Don't tell him I said so, but his secret potion is kind of smelly!

Johnny has recently learned that he can't marry Maisy and he's pretty upset about it. He doesn't understand why he can't marry Maisy and have babies with her since he loves her so much. To see how much Johnny loves his sister makes me so happy. Even if in 5 years he'll deny this statement!

Happy Anniversary Gabe.

(maybe next year I'll share with you the conversation that occurred when Gabe asked my mom if he could marry me!)

1 year and a few months...

Maisy is 16 months.

Johnny is almost 7.

And Kristi has been horrible at updating her blog!

The winter was filled with illness and ebay sales and it took up much of my extra time. Maisy and Johnny are both so much fun right now, to be honest, I've been enjoying them and haven't felt like writing about it!

Maisy is silly, cranky, fussy, naughty, happy, spunky and just plain adorable. She's a little bit of a monster too! She bites, she hits, she kicks, she steals toys, she hits with the toys she steals, if you try and steal her toys she'll screech like a howler monkey. She's starting to talk and says Mama and Mommy, Daddy (day-yee), Johnny (Nonny), Don, Cat, Dog and all those other words kids start talking with. She also says Thank you, which is shocking and I'm never sure if I heard her right. She babbles alot and talks alot of trash as Papa would say. She walks around saying "dobby, dobby dobby dobby" all the time. We aren't entirely sure what it means. It has different inflections, different tones and different exclamations each time! (we equate this to Cassidy's saying "oh-ba-dah" as a toddler). Maisy loves to go outside and climbs everything. She's really strong and coordinated and fearless. We were spoiled with Johnny. He was far more interested in digging in the dirt then climbing to the sky.

Johnny is doing great in Kindergarten. He's made some very good friends and is learning to read and write. He LOVES to draw and will take any opportunity, and blank piece of paper, to draw an alien he's created. He's got his entire life planned. At 13 he'll be able to make youtube videos; 16 he can drive a car and begin learning animation; at 19 he can begin making his own toys and tv shows which he will make in his toy warehouse. He's going to sell some of the toys, but keep most for himself to play with. Alex just turned 13 and Johnny is very excited that he will now be able to create youtube videos on his own. Johnny started karate at Premier Martial Arts and LOVES it. He'd like to get a black belt someday, but REALLY wants a green belt. (it's his favorite color). His favorite part of karate is a game called dodge pad that they play at the end of each class. Johnny has decided when he gets older he wants to be in a band. He's going to pay the microphone.

I have sat down to write this post for months and months and get distracted and never finish. Most of these pictures are old, but if I don't post it now I never will.A year of Maisy in a stocking!

Maisy got this ladybug for christmas. She can barely touch the ground, but she loves it. Watch out when she drives by - she might run you over!Maisy's new carseat...the girliest print ever! Daisy Head Maisy It was time for a haircut! Her first!
Momo cut her hair

Maisy decided to do a taste test on the hairNot exactly a taste she enjoys!Finished product!If Johnny is sitting on the floor, Maisy will back herself up to him and sit on him. It's the cutest thing. Sometimes I find them sitting like this and can't resist a picture. If you leave the bathroom door open, Maisy will TP the house in seconds. She loves to wear her earmuffs around her neck while she works!


Here is Maisy's 1 year video that I never posted! It's long, get some popcorn, put your feet up and enjoy!