Ruby's Blessing, School Starts

On Sunday we had Ruby's baby blessing. In the circle with Tyler was Grandpa Hatch, Grandpa Brady, Jeff Jones, Ken Pierce, Bishop Davies, and Alan Bloomfield. Tyler almost messed up her name (by changing her middle name to Rubeus- he said Ruby Ru-- before correcting himself). But he remained composed and gave a beautiful blessing. Grams was awesome and recorded it, it went as follows: “Ruby we bless you that as you continue to grow, you will gain strength and be healthy. We bless you that as you start to interact with your brothers and sisters, you will find and enjoy the love they will give you. We bless you that as you continue to grow, you will find love for the scriptures and the stories there in and will learn from them. We bless you that you will have a hunger to know your Heavenly Father and to know what it means to be a Child of God. We also bless you that as trails come if you cannot find joy in them that you will at least learn from them, to become stronger and closer to your Heavenly Father. We bless you that as you are given opportunities to serve that you will find joy in the service of others. We bless you that you will always be able to find help when you need it and always remember that your friends and family love you.” After church we took pictures and then went back to our house for a BBQ. My friend Caroline had made Ruby's dress since somehow I had lost the dress that was mine, Lucy's and Penny's :(

That night Poppy Hatch flew back to Arizona and the next morning my parents started their drive back to Arizona. Hard to say goodbye to so many but thankfully Grams Hatch is still here with us.

Monday morning Steven had his first day of 10th grade. The class he hates the most is English and the one he likes the best is Cyber Security (he says because they haven't done any real work yet in Cyber Security). He also told us how they played Two Truths and a Lie in one of his classes and everybody thought his lie was that he had a baby sister 15 years younger than him.

While he was suffering in school the younger kids had some fun celebrating their last day of summer. First the girls went and got manicures with Grams Hatch (Lucy got purple nails and Penny got pink nails). Then after lunch we went to Yates Cider Mill to get some doughnuts. Ben's friend Andrea joined us. We were super lucky because they were having a buy a dozen, get a dozen free deal and there doughnuts were so good. I went the extra mile and bought a doughnut with ice cream, carmel sauce and apple crumble. I could eat that every day. While we tried to eat our treats the bees surrounded us. I had to walk around to keep them from attacking me. I really dislike bees. When we finished, we decided to go for a walk on a nearby trail. It was so pretty. There were some stairs down to the river that the kids enjoyed trekking down.

The drive home was a little stressful. We hit some traffic and Ruby did not like the slow moving car so she started crying and really worked herself up. The kids were really worried about her- they thought she wasn't able to breathe. I had to explain that if she can cry, she can definitely breathe. It was a loooong drive.

On Tuesday the younger 3 started school at Renaissance. They all returned with complaints about school- too much work, mean teachers, can't sit by friends...the usual...I think they were happy to be with their friends though. 

 

Wednesday we had to get back to the homsechool grind. There was drama as per usual but we made it through, When they finished their work, Grams Hatch took the girls to their Back to School Picnic. Ben stayed behind. He had a friend coming over later that day and was not interested in going to the picnic. Around lunchtime Ruby was taking a nap so Tyler and I left her with Ben and went and grabbed a quick lunch at Leo's. It was nice to have a little date with Tyler and Ruby slept the entire time so it was easy babysitting for Ben. This having older kids with a baby really is awesome. The next awesome mile stone will be when Steven has his license and can help with rides...

Thursday, everyone was at school. I spent most of the day nursing Ruby. I really am not too productive these days. Friday was a holiday so Steven was home. Everyone was super social. I went with Ruby to visit Melissa and Alissa- Alissa had just gotten scoliosis surgery and she was doing reall well. I was impressed with how well she was getting around. Ruby was fussy but calmed down and let Melissa hold her while we were there. We brought AJ home with us so Ben could hang out with him and we had Andrea over too. Steven went to Max's, and Lucy went to her new friend, Brielle's house. Poor Penny was the only without friend time but Grams Hatch was nice and took her to Defy so she could have some fun. That afternoon I went to get pizza, only to discover that the Suburban was not OK. The wheel bearing was about to bust--again. So frustrating. Grams Hatch had complained that it sounded bad and we had thought it was just it's usual noises- nope.So now we are down to 1 car and of course,the busy soccer AND tennis season begins this week. *sigh* Parts come in Thursday so hopefully it'll be fixed by next week. Just another project for Tyler- he is also working on building himself a shed.

Saturday afternoon we met Mariah's family at West Bloomfield Nature Perserve. I had Steven lead us on the shortest trail but I didn't realize just how short it was. We were done so quickly. Probably should have done a longer trail. We decided to go to the cotton candy store after the walk. They were having a sale and  Leslie was going to get some cotton candy for Steve. On our way there Ruby got super fussy so I decided to stop at a park to nurse her while the kids play- I had the hardest time finding the right road to get to the park. I blame sleep deprivation. We got to the cotton candy store at 3:05, only to find out that they had an emergency and had closed at 3. So frustrating. I regret that nursing pit stop. There was a shop next door with ice cream and Grams was nice and got the kids ice cream. 2 of the kids got cotton candy flavored so they could stil have their cotton candy ;) When we finished up our ice cream, we hit up Milford on our way home. Grams window shopped with the girls while I sat and nursed Ruby on a bench. Steven hung out with me (Ben was tired from caddying and hadn't joined us on all our failed adventures-lucky!). The kids fought so much during all the driving- it was so irritating. It really wasn't a fun day of outings. 

And here are some cute pictures of Ruby. She still nurses every 2 hours, and she is often fussy- she's a tough baby. I had really hoped for an easy one. Nights she either goes down really easy and then is up every 2 hours or she takes forever to get to sleep but then does a ridiculously long stretch (5-6 hours). She is truly unpredictable. She's lucky she is adorable.

She turned 1 month old this week!