The many names of my children

I am a nickname queen apparently. I thought all parents gave their children nicknames, but I recently learned that not all parents do! I was a little shocked. I am actually surprised that my girls know their real names!

Naomi's nicknames:

Gnomes, Gnomi, Nay, Nay-Nay, N, Sha-Nay-Nay, Nan, Nannie, Shenanigan, Naomi-lou-who, pretty, number 1, Gwen calls her Num-Num, the kids in primary call her Meomi. 

Gwen's nicknames:

Gwenie, G-G, G, Ga-ga, Gwenners, Gwenaby, Gwena, Gwen-Gwen, Goo, Bug, Penguin, PG (penguin shortened), Gwenie-lou, sometimes shortened to Lou or Lou-lou, number 2, sometimes two-y, Little Sister, Little G, Naomi sometimes calls her Little Butt, the kids we used to babysit for called her Granny. 

So I don't think I've ever introduced you to Big P. Big P is Gwen's Penguin that she sleeps with no matter what! Naomi never got attached to any one stuffed animal - she rotates through them. Some nights she needs ALL of the elephants or sometimes its just her Dalmation or a babydoll. Gwen always has Big P. Big P got his name because of how we shortened calling Gwen Penguin to PG. So she is the Little G and obviously that leaves the Penguin to be the P and he is a large penguin so therefore, Big P.  Sometimes I even give him a nickname and call him Big Papa. 

I was not permitted to touch Big P so these are the best shots I could get of him. It was apparently his naptime!

From 2009

From 2009

From 2009

She was rocking him to sleep here.

This is what Gwen does in her spare time. I found her in her 

room after realizing she was being too quiet.

From 2009

I am getting very, very excited for April Fool's Day! 

My Birthday

So, overall, my birthday was sort of a bummer! Yet the only reason it was a bummer was because I was so freakin' sick! I literally could not get up and enjoy my birthday. I hated that! I kept wishing I could just change it to another day. So we are thinking that maybe sometime this week we will have a little get together party with a cake. If I ever stop feeling so dizzy and sort of nauseous. 

As far as the day, if I hadn't been sick, it would have been nice! I got some long stem roses from my mom! I got some bright pink gerbera daisies hand delivered from my visiting teachers! I couldn't believe they remembered! Brian got me the Planet Earth series!!! Yay! (It was actually on my list, I think its the first time Brian purchased something on my list! He always tells me my list isn't good enough because I generally ask for practical things instead of playing things - even though those practical things I really really want!) I got a beautiful necklace from my mom the day after my birthday! And then also received a giant box from my parents-in-law which had kitchen shears and a pizza cutter from Pampered Chef. I so needed a pizza cutter! While on vacation to NJ my pizza cutter mysteriously disappeared, and I use that thing for cutting everything!! I think Brian gave it away, at least that is what I tease him about. Also in the giant box was Brian and my quilt from when we got married! Woohooo! It is all finished! Along with a few cards, I also got 36 birthday wishes on Facebook! I think that is a gigantic amount! So whenever I have a my little get together I'll post pictures to complete the birthday event.

The biggest news of the day is that Gwen is now in a big girl bed!! Its a trial period for the moment, but I think it will probably stick! She fell asleep with no problem last night, though she did wake up at about 11 and seemed like she didn't know where she was. Then she woke again at 5am and started walking out to the living room crying. She is now in what was Naomi's toddler bed, and we moved Naomi into Gwen's crib after taking the side rail off because the crib is much taller than the toddler bed. 

Bad news for the day - it totally snowed last night! How dare it! We had such nice weather these past 3 weeks while I've been trapped in doors trying to avoid spreading this awful flu crap. Now you know the Ruggles are getting better because the snow comes!

I think in my sicky stupor I did not explain the Marriage study we are involved in well enough. It is a Health in Marriage study. They want to see if there is any correlation to your health and being married. Along with the blood pressure monitors that we wore for 24 hours!, we also had to have our blood tested at the Health Center and then we chewed on these cotton balls and kept them in test tubes I think it was 4 times a day. Then we filled out these questionnaires that claimed to take 1 hour, but took me much longer than that! I hate questionnaires like these. They tell you to rate what you feel about something on a 1 - 5 scale. I feel like I lie on every single answer just because I can think of so many different scenarios where I would fall into each numbered category! 

I simply cannot believe it is only 3 months left until Brian will be ALL done with school and we will be moving! First, its amazing that this winter semester is so close to being over! Then for the Spring Term Brian won't even have any classes on campus - 2 online courses and his Practicum/Internship thing. I wonder where we will wind up going? Any guesses? Or better yet any job leads?? We are looking into some alternative options at the moment, but they would not be the ideals. I'll talk about those later if anything comes of them.

Crush

I have to admit, I generally mute my computer because I open up lots of pages and blogs and various songs will play and I just don't want to deal with it all bombarding me. However at the moment a friend of mine has David Archuleta's song Crush as her song for her blog. I can never, never mute it once I hear the song start! I just love that song! Its even more odd because, though I knew I loved David Archuleta during the AI competition, I was a firm supporter of David Cook. Let's face it, I married Brian, I have to love rock! Now after all is said and done I hear David Archuleta everywhere and ENJOY IT! It just goes to show as an american people we just don't know anything! =o)

On another note: still sick. My fever is gone, but I cough like every 2 minutes and sometimes for 2 minutes straight. I just don't want to eat anything. I have been maintaining 3 meals a day but I never want them. 

Brian and I are doing a marriage study on campus. They pay us $200! So today we are both wearing a blood pressure monitor that is supposed to go off every half hour but I think mine goes off every 10 minutes! Not pleasant.

I actually went to the doctor!

I have been pretty impressed with myself for not getting this awful flu that the girls have had for the past 3 weeks! I thought we were finally through it all. We didn't have any more fevers in the house. Then yesterday I got it! On Tuesday evening my temperature slowly began to rise until it hit 103.5. The ibuprofen did not even help! So I slept with the high temp all night. Awful! 

Wednesday Brian stayed home because I pretty much never woke up. I slept until about noon and still had the 103.5 temp so he called a clinic and actually got me in on the same day! I am now on 4 different kinds of medications. Rotating 1000mg of tylenol and ibuprofen every 4 hours. Mucinex D and Delsym twice a day. I slept the rest of the day after seeing the doctor too. Brian got a movie. I actually wanted to see it but could not keep myself awake. 

I made the mistake last night of not setting myself an alarm to get up at 3:30 in the morning to take more ibuprofen to keep the fever down. At 6:30am I woke up very uncomfortable with again the 103.7 temp. So I took all the meds and tried to get more sleep. 

I'm awake today and the fever is down due to all of the medications, but its still lurking, waiting for me to miss a dose.

My Leprechaun Traps

From 2009

From 2009

From 2009

These are my leprechaun traps! We haven't 

caught any Leprechauns yet, but the day is 

young! A leprechaun did, however, dip his 

toe into our water jug because all of the 

water was green this morning when we woke 

up! Naomi keeps asking me why he would do 

that! haha. You can see that my last trap with 

the giant painted rainbow is only half finished. 

Turns out I don't have any wire hangers to 

make the clouds hang in midair. So I may 

attempt the cloud hanging next year. We just 

have to keep a close eye on that gold.

We also had little leprechauns leave green

footprints all around our toilet paper.

Sneaky little guys!

New Dresses, Crazy Dances Moves, And Obscene Cakes

First we have our new dresses! We 

went Easter Dress shopping - and we 

also got these! I can't ever control 

myself when we go clothes shopping 

for the girls!

From 2009

From 2009

From 2009

This is Naomi's crazy dance move. Its 

a little bit like Beyonce's booty shake, 

but not quite.

From 2009

And I know you are all wondering about 

the obscene cakes. Well, its only one cake.

For a ward activity we were all asked to 

make a cake together as a family. We 

planned on doing legos,

but when the cake came out of the oven 

it had poofed up severely in the center. 

Not ideal for legos.

We thought it would be funny to make it 

into a tufted ottoman.

It wasn't until after the party when Brian 

brought the cake home that I noticed what it 

actually looked like! Yes, I do believe I made a 

boobs cake, complete with nipples and all! I'm a 

little embarrassed, but at least it was not my 

intent! I'm glad I labeled it!

From 2009

St Patrick's Day

I get to teach about St Patrick's Day for preschool next week! I'm very excited! I've got some fun things planned already, like a fun little maze where they follow the alphabet shamrocks while holding on to a rainbow ribbon to get to their pot o' gold! 

This will be their pot o' gold taken from FamilyFun.com.

I have to remember to take pictures while the kids are actually here this time!!!

But while I was looking for St Patrick's Day stuff for preschool I found something REALLY awesome!! I want to make these Leprechaun traps and leave them all over the house. I think Naomi would get a kick out of it!

This one has a trap door on top for the leprechaun to fall into once he climbs the climbing wall.

See the cage in the cloud that is rigged to fall if someone moves the gold pot.

This one is also set to fall in when the leprechaun steps on top.

If I get to make them I'll post pictures of my probably not so awesome versions! 

I'm sorry I have been so lackious (yeah, I think I just made that up!) in putting up pictures of the girls. We have been very out of whack lately. Naomi and Gwen are still sick. They keep getting random 102-103 fevers, little coughs, runny noses. The doctor says its viral. We went to see him today. He said to bring them back on Friday if they still have the fevers. We have not left the house in 2 weeks! No preschool, no church. Its awful! We did, however, go to the Draper Temple open house. I do not have pictures of it. They are on Brian's phone. 

Naomi absolutely loved going to the temple! I told her on Friday that we were going on Saturday. Her response to me was this. "Oh, so I can marry Israel?" (A boy in our ward and preschool) So I reply, "Well, No, not tomorrow, but maybe someday." Ironically, when we got to the temple, Israel and his family were on our bus! The temple is beautiful! 

This picture just doesn't even show! It looks like dozens of squares stacked onto each other. It was beautiful inside as well! 

Today I took the girls to the doctor as I mentioned above. This being the first time we've left the house in awhile, I did their hair. Pigtails all around! We did it partially because their hair is so dirty from being so hot all of the time! So, yes I gussied them up to take them to the doctor! And then I took pictures!! 

From 2009

From 2009

From 2009

From 2009

Gwen was actually very good while I did her hair 

which is always surprising. But the 

pictures for some reason were not pleasant.

From 2009

They love each other! 

Naomi and Gwen just love each other so much! 

They cuddle all of the time. This time Gwen 

decided to eat her breakfast on Naomi's lap. 

And yes, Naomi is not wearing clothes! That 

girl Hates wearing clothes in doors.

If we go out, she loves getting dressed up though!

Or maybe something like this...

In reality I think the girls room might look something like this! I'm not doing anything to it right now,  but I like to have future ideas in my head. 

Now, this picture is from Pottery Barn Kids. I don't want to buy anything as expensive as these items so I'm on a search for similar items at much much lower prices. I have already found an equivalent quilt and bedspread. 

This is what I do with my spare time...

Cool Find

I desperately want this bed for the girls' future room. Wouldn't that be the most fun thing to have in your room??

Doesn't it look a little bit Tim Burton-y?

Pinkalicious

From 2009

From 2009

Isn't she just so pinkalicious? Pink PJ's, Pink cupcake, pink plate!

Here is what we've been doing lately.

I am still looking into what to do to finish up school. I'm 

currently looking back at finishing up SVU. I could do it in a 

few simple classes! Sort of simple. I'd have to take Calculus, 

then a 300 level Modern Art class, and finish up a 3000 word 

paper I wrote 7 years ago on Victorian Poetry. Crazy! But that 

is all to get my degree. If I want to add an English minor I just 

have to take a 200 level English course. So at the moment that 

is the choice I'm sticking with. I just have to find money for 

that now. But its A LOT cheaper than the Art Institute, like 

$87,000 cheaper! Then someday soon I can move on to Grad 

school. I'm also looking at several interior decorating diploma's 

that would take a year to complete.

Brian is steadily looking for a job. I'm beginning to hate the 

whole thing. Last year if he needed a job it would have been 

quite easy in his field! There we tons of Manufacturing 

openings. This year on the BYU eRecruiting website there are 

12 openings in Manufacturing. 12!!! For the entire school 

of MET. Not good! Of course he is looking elsewhere 

besides eRecruiting, but as a guidethat is not a good sign.

The whole job market/economy thing just makes me really 

mad right now! That seems like such a menial way to say it, 

but how else do I say it? We are finally at that point in life 

where we should be getting a job, buying a house, starting 

to live like real live people. Instead, we'll just be in the 

same exact spot except not living mostly 

off of loans. I'm just angry about it!

Naomi and Gwen have been sick with a head cold/fever 

combo. They are finally getting over it and now Brian 

has it. He mistakenly assumed yesterday was the worst 

of it. Now today he is realizing this could be the worst 

of it. I have my doubts. It was awful for poor Naomi, I 

think it will get even worse for poor Brian.

I finally finished reading all 13 books in A Series of 

Unfortunate Events. I did not enjoy them! But I am a 

finisher so I had to read all 13. I will still recommend 

them though. I think they are a great book to help 

early preteen kids expand their vocabulary. I think 

for that age group they'd be really funny yet still have 

that intrigue. For me though, I just speed read through 

them just to see how it ended. I know I could have 

just read the last one a long time ago, but I needed the 

whole story. 

We made a genius treat last night that our friends

Danielle and Jesse told us about. It's so easy too!

Brownie mix, then you plop cookie dough on 

top of that and bake. Brian and I have dubbed it a Brookie.

I'm also working on becoming a recycler! I have wanted

to set up full on recycling for a long time. I just keep 

excusing it away because we live in such a small place - 

where would I put it all? There are a few drop off bins 

in our parking lot that I should utilize. They only take

paper, newspaper and aluminum cans though. If I want

to do more than that I have to drive it to a recycling 

center in Orem. So that is what I've decided on. I don't think 

they require that I separate it all out, but its much easier

to store it all separate so like the cans don't contaminate 

the cardboard with various debris. I'm in the middle of 

working up an organizing system for my tiny back room 

so it will be easier to store and transport.

Yeah...

I can't afford it! That school is quite highly priced! I'll keep looking though.