Happy 2nd Birthday Abigail

Happy Birthday baby girl!

You've grown so much in the past two years, it's absolutely amazing.

When this post hits the internet, you would have been born exactly two years ago. And we've made it Michigan safely and {hopefully} uneventfully.

We love you so much!

{Birthday pictures to follow!}

Our Star Student

Austin brought home a Star Student Award! How awesome is that?

His award was for showing responsibility. We're so proud of him!

Start Smart

For the past four Saturdays, Austin has been participating in a class called Start Smart. The class is offered to 3 & 4 year olds, or Pre-K students in a couple of our cases. It's an introduction to the fundamentals of sports. Each Saturday the kids (and their parent) rotate stations of throwing, catching, batting and kicking.

They start out by stretching first.



Then we make our way around to the different stations.

(Nice high water pants Mom!)











As you can see, Abigail thinks she's a participant also!







As you can see, they have a blast!





Each week, the stations have gotten a little harder. Instead of hitting off a tee, we're now pitching to the kids. The throwing station has turned into a basketball station. The kicking station has goals set up and the kids are learning how to run and kick the ball at the same time. And the catching station now involves using a glove to catch.

They have also incorporated a game of baseball or soccer into each class. This past Saturday Coach Norma got out her big parachute and the kids got to play the popcorn game. They also had to run under the parachute when Coach Norma called their name. Nine times out of ten, all of the kids ran under it no matter who's name she called out.

At the end of each class they all help clean up, get a sticker and whine (and sometimes cry) that they have to leave the class.

Austin is going to miss the last class because we'll be in Michigan, but I think we're going to sign him up for the next session. The next session will concentrate strictly on soccer. He'll also miss the first class of the session, but he's advanced enough in soccer that he really won't miss anything. It will also be nice because Daddy will be home for most of the classes. It's hard chasing Abigail around and trying to participate with Austin. Plus Daddy really enjoys going to the classes and I enjoy that we all get to do something as a family.

Happy 5th Birthday Austin!

It's hard to believe that 5 years ago Austin entered our world. I can't believe how fast time goes and how fast he's grown up.

1st Birthday!

2nd Birthday!

3rd Birthday!

He's been the best big brother!

4th Birthday!

(Camera date was wrong)

Today, for his 5th birthday we invited some of our friends to join us at Wazoo's. The kids enjoyed pizza, playing on the inflatables and cake! Austin had a blast!

He got a Power Ranger cake.

And gifts from his friends.

Even Abigail enjoyed her piece of cake!

It's been a great day so far. I can't believe how much love I have for my son. It's unexplainable!

Happy Birthday Austin!

"Where Daddy go?"

That's all I've heard from my darling daughter since her Daddy walked out the door on Saturday.

I swear my kids knew the instant Michael walked out the door that we were on our own. They were rotten this weekend. Just plain naughty on purpose, whining, fighting, you name it. We've gotten back into our daily routine and things are starting to run smoothly like they normally do. Today is Austin's first day back to school so today should really put us back into the routine of things.

(Not a great picture of Daddy & the kids, but it's all I got the other day!)

Just a picture

We've been extremely busy lately! I can only imagine what it will be like when we add the kids activities on top of our own. We're also busy preparing for Daddy to leave on Saturday for 6 weeks. He's leaving right after Austin's class on Saturday, I'll blog about that later. {Let's just say that Michael took 74 pictures while we were at his class last week, so I'll have plenty of blogging material!}

Until next time, Happy Friday! And enjoy your weekend. I have a three day weekend and Austin has a five day weekend. He doesn't have school today, he's out Monday because of the holiday and is off on Tuesday. Lucky little booger!

Abby Abbie Abbey Abbi

How about just Abigail?

The poll results for the spelling of a nickname for Abigail were:

Abbi ~ 3 votes, 10%
Abbie ~ 8 votes, 27%
Abby ~ 15votes, 51%
Abbey~ 4votes, 13%
Abbye ~ 0 votes (Preetty safe to say this one's out of the running)

While we still are calling her Abbie, or Abby or Abbey, I still can't decide how I want to spell it.

I'm leaning towards Abbie just because it's a little different. {Considering my nickname is Andi and it ends with an "i" instead of a "y"}

Michael's leaning towards Abby, but I want to know what you think. What spelling did you vote for? Was there a specific reason why you voted that way? Leave a comment with your favorite!

Can you tell she was only interested in the caramel, and not the apple? We had to take a shower once she was done, it was all over the place!

{And just in case you hadn't noticed, I'm having a blast playing with my new camera!}

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! After a wonderful week with my parents, we're all back into the swing of things. My parents arrived the day after Christmas after an eventful day of traveling and stayed until this past Saturday. Pictures can be seen from their visit by clicking on the picture above or by clicking here.

In other news, I booked our airplane tickets to Michigan for February. We're leaving on February 11th at 5:15 am in the morning. {Yes, I'm crazy for traveling with my two kids alone and leaving at 5:15 in the morning!} We're flying into Detroit and then heading to Grandma & Grandpa Ringman's house. On Friday we'll be attending Uncle Ben & Aunt GiGi's wedding ceremony and then spend a couple more days with the Ringmans. We'll then be heading to Kalamazoo to hopefully arrive in time for the birth of a new cousin and to visit with my side of the family for a few days. We'll be heading back to Texas on the 21st.

Where's Michael going to be? Why isn't he coming? Unfortunately he won't be coming to Michigan with us as he is leaving at the end of next week for 6 weeks. He'll be attending training at Ft. Leonard Wood where he'll graduate on March 6h. It should be interesting to see how the kids react to his long absence, especially with his deployment approaching.

She's a goof ball!

I don't know what it is about these glasses, but our kids sure do like them!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

We've had a great Christmas so far and we hope you do too!

Thank you to everyone who sent a gift for the kids. We really appreciate it and they loved everything! We can't wait until Grandpa & Grandma Richards get here tomorrow!

Preparing for Santa

We started the evening preparing for Santa by baking him cookies.

After a burnt plate incident in the microwave (by Abigail), Austin was afraid Santa wasn't going to come to his house. After a chat with the big guy himself (aka Grandpa Ringman) and being told it was just an accident, Austin was ready for Santa to come.

We continued our preparations by making food for Santa's reindeer.

We spread it on the lawn in hopes that Santa's reindeer would be guided to our house.

Abigail wasn't too happy that she couldn't spread any more reindeer food!

When our cookies cooled off, the kids placed them on the plate for Santa.

Santa sure wouldn't walk away from our house hungry.

It took Austin awhile to go to sleep. He was still a little shaken up by the burnt plate. I had to lay with him to get him to fall asleep. I think I heard Santa just as Austin was drifting off to sleep...