Santa Baby

Wow, it's been a pretty busy week for those of us in the House of Rut! Last weekend was spent in Eagle Lake with Mimi, Baby Rut's great-grandmother (on my side.) We ate fried catfish from the Sportsman's, yummy Austin's barbecue, and then enjoyed a delicious Sunday brunch at the Ferris Hotel after church. Eagle Lake may be a tiny town, but it's certainly not lacking for good places to eat! I took a couple of movies that Mimi had been wanting to see, The Queen and Miss Potter. After Baby Rut went down for the night at about 7:30, we relaxed in Mimi's sitting room and were transported "across the pond" via DVD. Sweet D and I had already seen both of those movies, but they were definitely ones we didn't mind watching for a second time.

On Monday afternoon, Baby Rut had his first picture taken with Santa Claus. He, Moozie, and I met Aunt Jen and "the girls" (Catherine and Elizabeth) out at Katy Mills mall. Baby Rut did great, he didn't cry or get upset at all. In fact, he seemed very happy to sit on Santa's lap. That's the best picture we got of the two of them, since it's pretty hard to get a 3-month-old to both face the camera AND smile on cue. I think it turned out pretty well, though! After the photo shoot, we did a little shopping in some of Katy Mills' groovy outlet stores. I got Baby Rut some nice new onesies, sleepers, and three hats to wear when the weather outside is frightful!

On Wednesday I made two batches of Potato Cookies to take to a cookie swap. Moozie came over to help-- she's always happy to clean up after me as long as she gets a share of the goods! I ended up with about 16 dozen, half of which I bagged up and took with me to the swap that evening. That turned out to be a lot of fun! I met several members of the mom's group that I joined over a month ago and we enjoyed a raucous game of Catch Phrase before dividing up the spoils of our kitchen laborings. My team lost, but it was still a good time. Thursday morning I went for a walk with one of the moms I met at the swap, then Baby Rut and I lazed around the rest of the day and I cancelled out the benefits of my walk by devouring most of the Ranger Cookies I had come home with the night before. MMMmmm, glad I got the recipe for those! That night I also attended a meeting of my book club at Cavatore's Italian Restaurant. The food was delish, the conversation was stimulating, and there was a lively piano player loudly belting out Christmas tunes and whatever else we wanted to hear. Good times. I left Sweet D at home with Baby Rut two nights in a row so I could cavort and stuff my face with cookies and Italian food, and it was absolutely marvelous!

Sweet D and I have also been enjoying our Netflix membership. This week we watched Shrek the 3rd and Waitress and he watched Ocean's 13 while I was out cavorting. I thought Shrek the 3rd was so-so, Waitress was weird but had a good ending, and Sweet D really enjoyed Ocean's 13.

Which brings me to this weekend. Friday was pretty uneventful, Baby Rut and I lazed around again and I ate a few more cookies until it was time to head out to the Land of Sugar for another slumber party with Moozie, while Sweet D and Daggles spent the night in Eagle Lake so they could shoot ducks this morning. We all met up today in Katy for Catherine and Elizabeth's 2nd birthday celebration! They really hauled in the presents this year-- rocking horse, doll house, tea set, clothes, books, DVDs. Plus they each got their own individual birthday cakes, made with love by their sweet Dadoo. Dadoo also made a totally delish Italian Cream Cake for the adults to enjoy as the girls were busy digging holes and planting their faces into their respective cakes. Baby Rut was a little angel, as usual. He didn't get fussy until it was time for everyone to go, and even then he calmed down after his diaper was changed and he was bundled into his car seat. When we got back to the Land of the Pears, it was Sweet D's turn for some cavorting, so he left me with Little B to go watch a boxing match.

Okay, Baby Rut update and a couple more pictures:

• You are a head-holder-upper champion! Notice in the Santa picture how great he's doing? Unforunately, your neck isn't quite strong enough for you to sit in your Bumbo chair. I'm actually worried you'll outgrow it before you're able to hold up that watermelon of yours, in fact.


• Heavenly joy, rapture, and bliss! You have slept from 11 PM until 6:40 AM four nights in a row and counting! Wheeee!! As a result, you are now down to just 5 6-ounce bottles per day! Yipeeee!


• You are starting to enjoy your fist and fingers more than your binky. We have this battle daily, but you are so funny with your big goofy grins every time I come over to extract your fist from your mouth and replace it with the pacifier, like you know exactly what you're doing to get mommy to keep coming back. I can't even begin to get mad.


• I think you're starting to laugh, it's kind of a deep "Huhhhhh, huhhhh, huhhhh" noise and it's usually after you've been fed. So cute!
  

Pictures:

1. Mommy tried to capture some cute half-naked baby pictures of you in hopes that one of them would be cute enough to use on our Christmas card. No such luck, but this was the best of the bunch.

2. A very grumpy caterpillar models the Very Hungry Caterpillar outfit that Moozie bought for him when he was just a few days old. It's a 3-6 months size and we were thinking he wouldn't be wearing it until at least January. Nope, I actually had to hurry up and get him into it before it joined the ranks of the too small. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of my all-time favorite books. In fact, whenever I'm hungry I like to say, "I'm a VERY hungry caterpillar right now!"