Official Present Openers

Not the greatest pictures, but then again they didn't give me much to work with!

Abigail's getting brave

Abigail is getting really brave. She's taking more and more steps each day. She took more steps today than she ever has. Of course I had to get a video of it!

And you can tell how much of a Daddy's girl she is. I'm cheering her on and she's looking at him!

Christmas Stockings

One of my favorite things to do on Christmas morning was open my stocking. Santa always put the coolest things in our stockings.

When Austin was born, my Mom cross stitched a stocking for him. When she found out I was having another baby she was excited to make another stocking for the new baby. As soon as we found out Abigail was a girl, she started on her stocking. When my parents arrived on Sunday she pulled out Abigail's finished stocking.

I love both the stockings. They're something my kids will always have and know their Grandma made them with love.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

The after shot of our living room!

All of our Christmas pictures can be seen in our Photo Album. To see the album, click HERE.

Christmas Eve

Get cookies ready for Santa: Check.

Make reindeer food for Santa's reindeer: Check.

Get the cameras ready for present opening: Check.

Open some presents: Check.

Sprinkle reindeer food on the lawn: Check.

Get into bed and go right to sleep so Santa can come: yeah right!

Austin was so excited last night after we opened a few presents that he didn't want to go to sleep when he got into bed. He eventually went to sleep and his reaction this morning was priceless!

Thank you to all the Aunts, Uncles and cousins who sent the kids presents. They opened them on Christmas Eve so they weren't overwhelmed today. They loved everything they received.

Present opening marathon

We're going to be opening presents for days! We've received more packages this week with presents in them. The kids had fun playing in the box my parents sent their gifts in.



Here's a picture of what our tree currently looks like. These don't even include the things I picked up last weekend, the presents I still have to pick up at Wal-Mart, the presents I still have to wrap and their stuff from "The Big Guy" we all call Santa.

See the Big Truck book? That's a present from Grandma & Grandpa Ringman. Austin decided he needed to open a present the other morning while he was unsupervised. Since then he hasn't tried to open any others.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of my parents tomorrow. We've been telling Austin that we'll be opening presents for Christmas when my parents get here. He's not quite grasped the concept that he has to wait until Christmas to open his presents. Hopefully we'll be able to hold him off for a couple of days after they get here.

Abigail's big helper

I think the picture explains it all, but Austin is helping Abigail walk. He'll also do this when she's doing something she's not suppose to be doing, like touching his toys or changing the channel when he's watching cartoons.

She'll walk with us if we hold both her hands above her head and took a few steps towards me on her own the other night. My guess is that she will be walking by her first birthday!

4 Years

Michael and I have been married for 4 years today. I still can't believe we've been together for a total of 7 years. Here are some pictures to take us back in time! I had to scan the pictures, so they're not of the best quality, but you get the idea!

May 2001
The day we moved into our first apartment together

July 2002
My cousin Lisa's wedding

December 17, 2003
The day we got married

(Just a reminder: we got married on 12/17 and I had Austin on 1/25. Explaining why I looked as big as a house!!!)

August 2004
Family pictures while Michael was home on R & R from Iraq
December 2007
7 years together and 2 kids later. Don't we look tired???

Happy Anniversary Michael!

Santa's Sleigh

I picked up round #1 of Site to Store items at Wal-Mart this morning. These are all from the Grandparents except for one item.

Can you say SPOILED?????

I'm also glad I now drive a Durango. I never would have been able to fit all this stuff in the Vue!

I made it, and other random things

I survived my first day back to work yesterday. The day consisted of filling out paperwork so I'm looking forward to actually learning something today. I also have to have my picture taken for various cards I must obtain as a civilian employee on post. Two highlights of my new job are that I can wear whatever I want to work (I can wear jeans and tennis shoes every day!!!) and I'll be working 8:30 - 3:30.

We've decided to not send our kids to a center based daycare. I couldn't get Abigail back into daycare, so they will both be going to an in home provider. I didn't want to split them up, not to mention the fact that it's going to save us a bunch of money in the long run. I'll be meeting with our new provider tonight and the kids will start going on Monday. She comes very highly recommended, so I'm hoping it works out. Michael stayed home with the kids yesterday and will be doing the same today.

December is the month for birthdays in my family. Happy Birthday to Uncle Aaron and Ashley today. There were three birthdays on the 12th, two today and one tomorrow.

I'll leave you with a not so great picture of the kids this morning. They weren't too thrilled about me taking their picture at 6:00 in the morning. But after all, aren't the pictures what you come to the blog for anyway????

Hello????

Here it is:

10 Months

Abigail is 10 months old today. I still can't believe it! She's going to be a year old in 2 months, wow!

She is all over the place. We have to have her in our sight at all times. If she's not in the living room the first place we look for her is Austin's room. The second place is the bathroom. If we forget to close the door to the bathroom her favorite thing to do is play in the toilet water if the lid is open. Disgusting! So we keep the door shut and the lids down.

She is standing on her own all the time now. She will stand for at least 10 seconds at a time before deciding to go some where. If she wants to get somewhere she will get down and crawl. She's not quite sure about taking a step on her own yet, but walks behind the walking toys without a problem.

She is trying more solid foods every day. Yesterday I gave her a piece of toast. She will take a bite and eat it that way. She's also able to take bites out of a Ritz cracker. She's still nursing, but I expect her to wean around her first birthday like her brother did. It might be sooner by the way this girl likes food.

I have a really cute video of her but I'll have to post it later. Google is having some issues and I can't get the video information.

I'll leave you with some pictures of her getting stuck the other day! I'll give you one guess as to what she was trying to do...




Also, congratulations to The Cooper Family. Their daughter, Avery, was born yesterday.

Picture post

Austin was running the camera last night.

After I turned the camera around and took a picture of us, he had to try it too.