Here are an assortment of fat photo's. They really don't do justice to the amount of weight she's put on the last week.

I love children's books. Specifically picture books. I've been collecting them for several years now and I've decided to occasionally share my favorites with you. When I'm picking books I have to love the art as much as the story.

The Spider and the Fly based on the tale by Mary Howitt and art done by Tony DiTerlizzi (he did the art for Holly Black's Spiderwick Chronicles). I love this book!!!!! Not only is the tale dark and timeless but the art is done in charcoals which completely add to the the setting of the story. The thing I love about it is even though it's in black and white I can picture the colors in my minds eye.

I searched my nieces book shelf yesterday and found this little tickler. Tuesday by David Wiesner is hysterically funny! There are a total of 9 words (some of them are actually just numbers) in the entire book. The pictures tell the story of one evening when frogs could fly on lilly pads. I love it!!!

I took that Excedrin at 5pm and I didn't fall asleep till 2am last night.

So while I was pregnant I was on a crusade to stay hydrated. Thus, I haven't had much caffeine the last 10 months. Yesterday and today I had severe headaches, the which I haven't had in quite some time. I finally took some Excedrin which has caffeine in it and I am BUZZED OUT OF MY MIND!!!! I feel like I could clean my car with Qtips or talk for several hours strait without stopping.

Yumminess: Emily had us try corn on the cob with lime juice and chili powder and it was lovely. A clean fresh flavor always goes over well with me.

Other stuff: Ruth all the sudden got really fat. Almost over night.

So we're in South Bend Indiana visiting family right now and fun fun stuff happened at church today. I forgot the Soothie (Ruth's binky) so needless to say she had a melt down right at the end of sacrament meeting. Not knowing what else to do I decided to feed her a little early. Later I was changing her diaper for the second time in an hour and she literally peed all over my shirt, skirt and counter. About 10 minutes later she spit-up I swear at least 2 oz in the middle of my white shirt. So awesome. At that point I turned to my sis-in-law Emily and was just like, "Are you sure you don't want to leave now?"

......while I was Blogging about this Ruth spit-up all over Mike and all over Emily's couch. More awesomeness.

Other cool things: I took a 3 1/2 hour nap today. So wonderful. We have also managed to eat 11 pounds of blueberries in 3 days:) We're going to go pick some more berries on Tuesday.

Nap Time with Daddy. I promise she has hair on top of her head. It just doesn't photograph.

Ruth's first trip to the Beach. The temp. was so nice at the Beach but the sand stuck to her face like she was covered in glue. Rinsing her face off in the bathroom was a little traumatizing for both of us. That's Brian Stock "B" in the back. And that's my huge white face in front.

Brian and Mike went to walk on the peer but didn't cause you had to pay. Lame!!

Here's some pretty sweet songs and routines from Episode 14 season 7 of So You Think You Can Dance. You may recognize the songs but they're knew to me.

Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri-Amanda if you haven't heard this yet I know you will love it. It's a broken heart ballad. I'm a sap and love those kinds of songs.

This is one of the coolest Hip Hop routines I've ever seen. Alex, the guy in red, is a Ballet dancer and this is his first time doing hip hop. Alex and Twitch

Cosmic Love by Florence and The Machine. Good song.

Cool Tips

I was checking out one of my favorite websites, www.realsimple.com and I learned these cool tips.

The Fastest Way to Dry Nail Polish

Dunk your hands in a bowl of ice-cold water. "The cold water freeze-dries polish, sealing and hardening it quickly," says Belinda Rivera, a nail specialist in Austin, Texas. Allow nails to air-dry for two minutes, then submerge in ice-cold water for three minutes, which is enough time for the polish to harden completely.

Another option: Blast nails with cool air from a hair dryer in between coats. This helps each layer of color dry as you go.

Quick tip: Old nail polish can take forever to dry, since time can turn polish gooey and thick. Toss bottles when the polish begins to change color or separate. At that point, the lacquer has probably thickened and become unusable.

The Fastest Way to Smooth Away Pillow Creases on Your Face

Splash warm water on your skin, then massage in a moisturizer. Skin cells contain fluid that acts as a cushion to keep the skin plump. When you're lying with your face smushed into a pillow for eight hours, that fluid seeps out of cells and is absorbed by your body. "This leads to creases," says Lydia Evans, a dermatologist in Chappaqua, New York.

Once you get out of bed, skin cells will gradually plump up with fluid. The warm water speeds this along by enhancing blood flow to the area, and moisturizer rehydrates it. Massaging the moisturizer in helps to smooth creases away manually.

Quick tip: Sleep on a smooth-fitting satin pillowcase instead of a cotton one. Satin won’t bunch up under your skin, so you may be spared morning creases. (It will not, however, eliminate long-term wrinkles.)

Speed-Dry Your Hair

Wrap your freshly washed hair in a towel (preferably a super-absorbent one, like the Microfiber Hair Towel, $20, at sephora.com) and let it partly dry naturally while you go about getting dressed and having a quick breakfast. Not only will this cut drying time but it will also give your steamy bathroom time to clear out. Humidity is the enemy of a quick—and smooth—blow-out: Imagine drying your hair in a steam room.

Cut Nonessential Beauty Items From Your Routine

First tip: You don’t need to use a toner. Ever. Toners help moisturizer seep into your skin, but leaving a little water on your face after washing facilitates absorption equally well. Also, skip the eye cream. These treatments are wonderful to use at night, when skin is repairing itself (and when there’s no sunlight around to break down the eye cream’s active ingredients). But it’s smarter and quicker to just use your face lotion around your eyes during the day. Better yet, apply one with SPF to save more time by avoiding that additional sunscreen step (see The Best Face Moisturizers with SPF.)

After much sweating, bleeding, tears and prayers I have finished Ruth's Blessing Dress:) I'm waiting to take pics of her in it till her Blessing Day. Her feet just peek out of the bottom of it.

Our 4th of July was awesome!!!! The samples at Sam's Club on Friday and Saturday were plentiful and good:) I had a special feeling that because it was a Holiday weekend they would pull out all the stops and they did. Saturday night we went to a Durham Bulls game with our friends. The Bulls are the local triple A baseball team and it was so much fun! Chick Fil-A sponsored some fireworks afterwards and they were quite decent.

Sunday we hung out at our house vegging. Monday was our big barbecue with the gang. I made 6 1/2 layer dip. The guacamole layer was so thin it shouldn't even count really. We sat by the pool and ate for like 2 hours. Yummers. We left a little early due to the fact that Ruth and I couldn't swim and we were melting by the late afternoon.

Kasey, my sis-in-law through Robert, came down from Maryland while she's staying with her parents to come play with us for a few days. I'm dumb and forgot to take any pics:( We talked for hours about this and that, watched some awesome BBC movies and ate some yummy Kasey brownies. We also went blueberry picking. They weren't as big or yummy as the Indiana blueberries but they made really good blueberry cobbler which I made 3 times in 24 hours:) I'm planning on making it for Em and John when we go to visit in a few weeks.

Upcoming Events:

July 15 Peach Day @ Farmer's Market

23 Flight to Indiana To visit the Wells

30 Flight back to Durham

(many other Anderson's will be showing up in Indiana while we're there)

31 Driving to VA to see Lyle and Dallin

August 4 Susanne arrives

6 Mike's Birthday

8 Ruth's getting Blessed

8 Susanne departs

12 Amanda's Birthday

13 Amanda Arrives

16 Our Anniversary

23 Amanda departs

(at some point during Amanda's stay my parents are arriving for 4 days)

Last night was Ruth's worst night yet. She would not go to bed. She would fall asleep in my arms but she would not let me put her down. I let her cry for about 20 minutes twice but finally had to get up and hold her cause my sister-in-law Kasey is visiting and I wanted her to get some sleep. She wouldn't really settle though. She would sit quietly with her eye's closed then start to cry till I patted her and talked to her. We repeated that process until 12:45 am then I put her down. I thought she'd sleep then cause she had been up for so long but then she started to cry. I finally sent Mike to hold her at 1:15am for a while cause I had hit my breaking point. I was so tired. I had changed her bum, fed her at midnight and got as much air out of her as I could but nothing was working. He still had her at 5:30am when I woke up to check on her. I fed her and put her to bed where she is still. I can't wait to hit the 8 week mark when babies usually start sleeping through the night.

But don't worry about me:) I'm totally eating brownies and ice cream for breakfast right now!

My 4th of July wilted baby.

Notice how they are mirroring each other and this isn't posed:)

Other news: Mike has started his summer class which is in the evenings to my delight:) This means he can still take one of the middle of the night feedings. Also, Ruthie's raisin fell off today so tomorrow she will get her first full bath which she is in desperate need of. Sponge baths are useless.

Poor Baby

Mike was practicing different burping techniques.

She's still really small and skinny but in this pic she looks massive!!!! Sumo baby.

She hates having her body washed but warm water on her head is quite pleasant.