Little Ruby is now 7 weeks old, and Jerry turned 19 months last week. It is crazy to me that Jerry is no longer my baby and that I have a newborn again. Jerry and Ruby have been so different as newborns. Jerry was ALWAYS awake, and I mean ALWAYS. All of the pictures we have of him, he is wide eyed, there are very few pictures of him while he is sleeping. Ruby on the other hand, is the complete opposite. Rarely can we find her alert enough to take a picture during the day, until a couple of weeks ago.

My mom was here the first 2 weeks, and we were very sad to see her go, especially Jerry. My mom watched Jerry while we were stuck in the hospital, and they spent some good quality time together. Jerry loved playing with her, and liked to play rough at times. She would crawl on the floor and he would climb on her. At one point he pantsed her and bit her bum(she still had her underwear on). He also enjoyed pinching and scratching her,my mom left with many scratch marks on her face and arms. Despite her battle scars I think my mom enjoyed being here, I know we enjoyed having her and appreciate all of the help.


Jerry has done a lot better with Ruby than what I expected. He has been able to sleep through her crying in the middle of the night, thanks to a noise machine. Our house is very small so I thought he would be waking up all of the time. He has also been relatively gentle with her, he is always loving on her and giving her hugs and kisses. Thankfully for the most part Ruby does not seem to mind being mauled by Jerry. When we first brought Ruby home, Jerry seemed very concerned when she cried. He would first check on her then he would come and get us if we did not respond quickly enough. He has since learned that some crying is normal and zones it out, but on a few occasions he has covered his ears.

Ruby Claire Hansen

So baby Ruby was born on Jan 22, at 5:32 pm weighing in at 8lbs 9.5 oz, and was 19.5 inches long. We initially named her Ruby Abigail Hansen, but Kristen decided that she wasn't too keen on the middle name, hence the switch to Claire. Here are some pictures of the new baby girl.


As you can see, she has very red skin so her name fits her. The doctor says that means that she will most likely be fair skinned, so we will now have two transparent children instead of just one.



We were wondering how Jerry would react and so far,he has really been kind to her. He loves to give her kisses.


The most exciting thing about Ruby's name is that there are endless possibilities for nick names. So far, we have Rubik's cube, Ruby Tuesday, Rubydoobydoo, Mcruber, Mcrube (for those of you who love the Mcrib). I am sure we will come up with more.

Not quite the reaction we were hoping for

Every time we go to the Meijer (similar to Walmart for those who don't know), we put Jerry on this horse that costs one penny to ride. He absolutely loves to ride on it, and would sit there for hours if we let him. So this year we decided what better gift to get him than a rocking horse. We were so excited to see his reaction, but it kind of turned out to be a dud. My guess is because he had just woken up and was still a little out of it. Everyone says that he looks exactly like Kristen, but maybe he has taken after me in the lack of excitement category. Its not that I don't get excited, I just don't choose to express it outwardly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoPRe2If_34

Halloween!!

We were so excited this year to dress Jerry up, and we thought that with the pale skin and red hair, he would make the perfect little leprechaun. After searching online with no luck, we realized that our dream wasn't going to become a reality. There are no cute leprechaun costumes or patterns available anywhere on this entire earth! Since Kristen and I are not creative enough to come up with one on our own, we decided to go with this little golfer outfit instead. It seemed to be a similar Irish theme.




We took him to the ward trunk-or-treat and somehow convinced him to carry around the little set of golf clubs which came with the costume. He carried them around for almost 45 minutes.



Someone in our ward gave him a pencil and that was all he wanted for the rest of the time.



Jerry with his friend Luke.



Now that he is walking, he likes to cruise all over the place.



Maybe next year we will have better luck with the Leprechaun.

The Chicken Pox

While we were out in Utah we celebrated Jerry's and Amber's birthdays together. We had a bbq with family and friends, which was a lot of fun, except for the fact that Jerry broke out with Chicken Pox that day. As I was undressing him to put him in his swimming suit I noticed all of these marks all over his chest and back. When I showed them to my mom and sister they knew immediately that he had the chicken pox. Who gets chicken pox? You never hear of people getting it anymore, but I guess Jerry does. Even though I am sure he was itchy and uncomfortable the following week, he was a good trooper. He was only grumpy for a couple of days, the rest of the time I thought he did really well. I guess 2 good things came of it. We got to stay in Utah for an extra 5 days, since the airline wouldn't let us fly until he was no longer contagious. And he got to skip one of his immunization shots, which is always a nice thing. Now I just hope that the scars on his face and body will go away, but if not I guess they will just give him more character.

We Shall Call Him, Mini-Me

Everyone always says how much Jerry looks like Kristen and we've always agreed, but if there has ever been doubt in anyone's mind, look no further than this picture of Kristen when she was a baby. We found it a couple of days ago and couldn't believe the resemblance.

Goodbye to our little friend

As some of you may have already heard, Pippin died two weeks ago. We only had him for about 2 years, but we were so happy to call him our pet. He was the best dog in the whole world and was very kind to everyone. He never barked, never bit anyone, and was especially kind and gentle with little kids. When Jerry was born, Pippin found a new favorite place to sleep. On many different occasions, we would find him in Jerry's room laying next to the crib. I think that he felt like he was Jerry's protector. We sure will miss him!!