It's something...

A little old (maybe May), but at least it's something. I'll have more time this weekend!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We love Jimmy!

~ Pictures Added ~

Just wanted to show Chris & Christine how much of an impression the "real" Jimmy left on the kids.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The real Jimmy!

We might have to find Abigail her own Jimmy. Neither one likes to share him with the other!

Cooperation

Or lack there of...

My attempt at getting the kids picture while sitting together at the table!

Do you think they know when their pictures being taken?

Little Miss "No"

Abigail wanted to go for a walk in the stroller earlier in the week. Of course, then she didn't want to come inside. I got this cute video of her saying one of her favorite words, "No".

I love the forced dirty look after she says "no" and slams the tray down!

Funny movies

The kids provided me with some great videos for the blog tonight. The first video is of Abigail yelling at the neighbor's dogs through the door. It's cracked me up when she started pointing at them!

Austin was cracking me up. I had to take about three videos before getting this one. I kept hysterically laughing at him, which in turn made the camera shake. He likes to play the games on Nick Jr.com. Each time he would make the character jump his little feet would go up in the air. I was laughing so hard!

The weekend round up

Michael's birthday was Saturday and we celebrated the day at home. When he got home from work I made tacos, at his request, and baked him a cake. Just call me Betty Crocker! We also gave him our gift. He knew what it was before he even opened it. I believe the conversation went a little like this when he got home:

Austin - "Guess what Daddy? We got you a birthday present."

Michael - "You did? What did you get me?

Austin - "We got you a present, it's a new wallet."

He was correct, we got him a new wallet and a new police badge. Austin broke his original badge a while ago and we hadn't replaced it yet. It's a good thing I kept his gift under wraps with Austin until his actual birthday, he would have known days ahead of time what he was getting!

When the kids headed to bed early we watched a couple movies. We watched Dan in Real Life, which was really funny and a not so good movie with Jessica Simpson in it.

Earlier in the day, the kids and I headed to Wal-Mart to exchange the baby gate we bought on Thursday. We had to purchase a gate to put up at night because Austin was getting a little mischievous in the middle of the night and early in the mornings. One morning I awoke to a drawing on my chair in permanent marker and on the wall. You probably saw the wall art in this picture. Another morning I awoke at 2:45 am to find all the lights on in the house and that he had drawn gloves on his hands, in permanent marker. The original gate I bought wasn't tall enough, he could unlatch it to remove it from the wall. We exchanged it for a taller one and it's worked great the last couple of nights. We've been putting it up at the end of the hallway so he can navigate between our rooms, but he can't get out into the living room or kitchen. Needless to say, Austin is not to happy about being "trapped" as he calls it.

How do you know what you sound like as a parent? Apparently your kids are the best at imitating you. Abigail sure is picking up on it. Her newest word is, "Hey!" I love at the end of the video how she's pointing and telling Austin what to do. Well, her version at least!

The gate also comes in handy when Austin wants to play outside. I usually leave the door open while I'm in the kitchen so I can hear him, but that means Abigail can escape out the door and head down the driveway. I trapped her in with me so I could clean up the kitchen and not have to chase after her too!

Hard to understand

Do you, or did you, ever find it hard to understand what your child is saying?

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Let me start off by saying our decision to go with a home daycare (vs a center daycare) has proved to be the best thing for our kids. Sole (pronounced So-lee) has proved to be the most wonderful woman in caring for our children. When I drop the kids off in the morning I take them to the door, hand them over and continue on my way to work. Austin walks in the door and doesn't look back while Abigail opens her arms to Sole as she's handed over.

Do you know how good that makes me feel?

When it's time to go home neither one of them is ready to leave. Most of the time Sole is holding Abigail. When she tries to hand her over, Abigail doesn't want anything to do with me. She clings onto Sole. Austin's the same way, he's never ready to leave.

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Back to what I was saying...

Austin said something tonight and I couldn't understand him. He's speaking spanish! Sole is teaching him how to speak spanish. I knew she was teaching him how to count, but she's teaching him other words too! So far he can count to 5 (and then he jumps to 8) and just today he was telling me how to say up and down. Amazing. He is so smart!

Abigail's first birthday

Abigail started off her first birthday at the doctors office getting her 12 month check up. She weighed in at a whopping 18 lbs (10th percentile) and was 28 1/4 inches long (25th percentile). She still isn't big enough to turn her car seat around. She's got 2 more pounds to gain before she can turn around and look out the window. The way she's eating she might pack on the pounds by the time she goes back for her check up at 15 months. Today she received three shots along with a TB test. I have to take her back at the end of the week so the doctors office can read it.

The evening has been pretty low key with the exception of Abigail digging into her cake. Check out the pictures and videos below!

Austin's trampoline

My parents got Austin a trampoline for his birthday. Wal-Mart had a slight delay in delivering it to the store so it just arrived the other day. We picked it up this morning along with Abigail's birthday present from them.

The minute we got home Austin started bugging me about putting it together. I started to put it together in the house when I realized it was going to be far too big for an inside toy. Thanks Mom & Dad! We headed outside to the driveway where I spent the next two hours swearing putting it together. He didn't even let me get it all put together before he was inside jumping.

He thought I was taking his picture in this video! And nothing is wrong with Abigail.

This video is funny, he's jumping with his hands over his head.

When Daddy got home he showed Austin how to jump and bounce on his butt. This isn't the best video of it but the closest I could get.

Inflatable Funland

We ended up taking Austin to Inflatable Funland on Sunday. The trip was not as successful as I thought it would be. I thought Austin would love it (because he's always jumping) and would jump on everything because his friend was. I was wrong. He was afraid of almost everything. After I took my shoes off and climbed in, he was willing to jump in the open top bouncer. He wouldn't even get into the bouncers that were enclosed.

The only thing he would jump in. The guy with the hairy chest bouncer.

Abigail had a blast walking around every where.

Here's a little video of him jumping. I kind of cut his head off because I was trying to tape him and make sure Abigail didn't walk too far away!

Birthday festivities

We had some friends over last night for dinner, cake & ice cream for Austin's birthday. When we got home, Austin had a couple packages waiting for him. One was a new couch from Grandma & Grandpa Ringman. Because it folds out and Austin liked it so much, he slept on it last night.

(Sorry, the camera date was off by a year...)

I lite the candles on his cake and he blew them out before we could sing to him. This was his second attempt at blowing the candles out!

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!

Hello????

Here it is:

Chick-a-wow-wow

Has anyone seen the commercial for the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks yet?

Austin and his friend saw the commercial the other night and were running around singing "Chick-a-wow-wow, chick-a-wow-wow" while shaking their booties. Austin's been doing it ever since.

Wild girl

Abigail was dancing to her own tune yesterday!

I have also updated my blog with all of our videos on it. If you want to view all of our movies in one place, go visit The Ringman Family Videos. Even if you don't watch the movies, go check out my blog design!

Jingle Bell Rock

I couldn't get Austin to do any dancing for me, but Abigail was having a good time!

Pre-walking fun

Abigail was practicing her walking skills the other night while I was getting her bath water ready. She was having a great time.

Her hair was sticking up because she has a pony tail in her hair earlier in the day.

Wild woman

I keep forgetting to post a video of Abigail jumping in her jumperoo. She will crawl over to the jumperoo when she wants to get in and will start jumping before we get her completely in it. Most of the time she'll jump anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour. Although, she has gotten into the habit of taking at least one nap a day in the jumperoo. Check out our wild woman.

Is Abigail talking?

What do you think Abigail is saying? Leave a comment to let us know if you think she's saying her first word and what it is!

Up before the birds

Where were you at 4:30 AM this morning?

Here's what we were doing...

Michael was already out the door and on his way to work

Austin was crashed in our bed

And Abigail thought it was time to get up for the day...

Austin apparently heard his sister up playing, so he came out to the living room to investigate. Around 4:45 he was back to sleep in the chair!

She finally went back to sleep around 5:45, she thought it was so funny!

Here is some video I got of her bright and early this morning.