Archive for December, 2011
Christmas 2011: A Ringl Version
Alright folks, it’s Friday and I’m dedicating my night to getting my Christmas posts up and ready. Yes, I know I know, it’s soooo selfless of me to give up my night just for you guys 
Okay, okay, I’ll admit it… I don’t have any plans tonight and that makes it 1,000,000 times easier to focus (and upload photos like a mad woman!)
Well let’s get to it shall we. Here we go…
A Ringl Family Christmas
The Ringl Women
(+1 in Valerie!!)
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He knows how to make his girl smile!
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Baby Ringl
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Aunt Valerie helping Sarah open a present
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We stripped Sarah down for dinner time and she LOVED it!
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Dad, Stephen, & Baby 
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Sarah helping Valerie with her present
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Presents!!!
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Val & Kyle
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Helping daddy open his present
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Sarah’s favorite toy: Mommy’s Phone
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Proud Grandma
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Mom & Dad Ringl
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Val, Kyle, & due-in-August baby Messick : )
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Stephen & I
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There ya have it, a glimpse into a Ringl family Christmas. Sadly I didn’t get a picture of when Valerie shot mashed potatoes at Stephen during dinner. It isn’t a real family meal without some potatoes plastered on the wall.
We just found out that Valerie is pregnant and due to bring another baby into the family in August. We are SO very excited! I know mom and dad are flipping out at the idea of another baby to love and hug on! Stephen and I are so psyched to have another niece or nephew (I’m voting for a boy. Does voting count for anything?!?!)
We had a wonderful time celebrating Sarah’s first Christmas. Children make Christmas an entire new level of fun! We celebrated with the Ringls on Saturday and the Wells (my maiden name) on Sunday. To end the day we played Apples to Apples and chowed down on cheesecake. Speaking of cheesecake, we have the leftovers in our fridge… seems like a good time to take a break. Night !
New Pals
Hi friends. I have a ridiculous amount of Christmas pictures to sort through so I can share some with you. Lets hope I actually get them up before the New Year gets here.
Until then, here’s a goofy post for ya.
“Mom, there’s a hippo in the tub!”
“I don’t know about you…”
“Wait a sec… Water comes out of your mouth? That’s the coolest trick ever!”
“Alright, you’re cool. You can stay. Just keep the waterfall flowing.”
Sarah Swinging
Just wanted to share.
–Stephen
Happy Christmas
The Ringls would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a wonderful Holiday Weekend :)
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- Our little Elf -
with
- A Candy Cane Teether -
We’ll be sure to get an actual family photo today
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With love,
the Ringls
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The Tale of 5 Friends
This is the tale of 5 friends. On an unusually gloomy day the young colorful sea creatures ventured out for an afternoon of fun adventure. Never could they have guessed the tough obstacle they would soon face on an otherwise normal day.
While stopping for a lunch they came face to face with a creature they had never before seen.
“Oh a giant!”, the friends said, “What should we do?”
With some quick maneuvering they got in a defensive formation.
Before they knew it the giant struck.
With her powerful hands she scooped up Crabby. She acted so fast he didn’t have time to flee.
“Oh no” peeped Crabby’s friends, “What do we do now?”
The giant put Crabby down and set her sights on a new target.
She quickly worked her way through the group, one creature after the other.
Then Pelly the Pelican had an idea! He yawned big and wide and lay down to go to sleep.
Then something happened. They saw the giant get sad and heard her cry out.
“It’s working!” Pelly said to her friends. “When giants like this are upset they can’t resist a good nap!”
So Crabby, Denny, Octo, and Toots all began yawning and snoring to make the giant think they were sleeping.
Then they watched as the giant rubbed her eyes and laid down her head.
After a few moments of the giant not moving they made their escape back home.
When the giant awoke from her nap she couldn’t find her new playmates anywhere.
She watched from the window and awaited the return of her five little sea friends.
While sad at first that they had left she knew deep in her little belly that she would see them again one day.
Up To Date: Our 41 Week Old
With this update I am finally current with Sarah’s weekly photo. It’s so easy to keep pictures on a camera and not do anything with them until one day, while searching through your camera, you realize ”I have 240 images to go through?” It’s at that moment you know it’s past time to empty your memory card.
This pair of Christmas PJ’s are one of my favorite. Then again, they are all ‘one of my favorites’ sooo, that isn’t saying too much
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This makes me laugh so much. Love her
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Do you have any idea how difficult it is to choose the letter color and placement on these pictures? It’s kind of dumb how much time I spend moving the writing to different spots, and changing the colors to see which POPS, but doesn’t hurt your eyes…
I also want to show you this picture because you can kind of see her teeth…
You have to look close, but you can see those 2 bottom teeth shining between her lips
Only 1 more Sunday left in December, which means we have 1 more Christmas themed weekly update. I haven’t decided what outfit we are going to use, so I don’t even know the cuteness that will ensue.
I do know one thing, this Christmas is going to be SO MUCH FUN!!
What I’ve Learned: 9 Months
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- I know I’ve said it before, but Sarah truly is a great baby. She is so easy going and loves to be around people and activity. We pretty much load her up and can take her anywhere without a second thought.
- The past few weeks Sarah has been taking some awesome naps. She goes down at 9:00-11′ish and then 1:00-3′ish. Sometimes she will sleep for 2 1/2 hours. It.Is.Awesome!
- Last month Sarah said ‘mama’ all the time and I was beyond excited! Well, turns out she is actually working her way through the alphabet because she’s been saying babababa and nananana for about 2 weeks now and hasn’t returned to mama yet
Sad, but that just means I can get re-excited when she does finally learn mama. - Our girl loves being tickled and ‘chased’ while crawling. We love hearing her laugh while we blow raspberries on her tummy. She really gets laughing when I lightly bite her feet. She kicks and giggles so hard, it’s the best!
- I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that Sarah has started dancing when she gets excited & hears music. She will be standing there and suddenly she’s bouncing up and down. She also throws her arms up and down and squeals with a huge smile. Girls got some moves!
- When Sarah started pulling up around 6-7 months I was afraid I was gonna have an early walker and I’d have to chase her around the house. Thankfully she hasn’t started walking yet, although she does let go and stand for a good 5-8 seconds until she lowers down into a sitting position.
- She is also pulling up on everything! I have come around the corner several times and found her standing against the wall, or standing against the fridge trying to reach magnets. The child has no limits.
- Speaking of the fridge, Sarah LOVES to stand inside it with the door open. She has figured out how to turn the light off and stands there making the light flicker. She also knows how to turn the light switch off when we leave a room (when we hold her up to it).
- Sarah is still nursing 6-8 times a day. We give her mashed fruits and veggies on occasion, but it’s not a daily thing yet. She does love to watch us eat and ate her first (mashed up) animal cracker the other day. She’s interested, but only snacks lightly until she wants to play with the food instead of eat it.
- We have nicknamed our girl Hoover. She will eat ANY and EVERY thing she finds on the floor. I have to sweep daily, but she still finds the tiniest things. She combs the carpet for things, it’s insane. Yesterday I found a Christmas tree needle in her diaper… definitely grossed (and freaked) me out.
- She also loves to kiss/lick mirrors. I’ve revealed how much she loves to eat/chew on everything, so I suppose there’s no reason mirrors shouldn’t make the cut. It’s like having a puppy, but she doesn’t poop or pee on the floor, and seeing her fingerprints on everything makes you smile instead of bust out the windex.
- When Stephen gets home from work Sarah knows as soon as she either hears him close the car door, or unlock the front door. She usually waves her arms around and then crawls at rocket-speed toward the door. It is positively adorable to watch her and see his HUGE smile when he comes through the door and sees her!
- While we know we want more children, just the thought of having a baby/toddler while going through another pregnancy is exhausting. Hopefully we will still be leaving near all our family when that time comes!
- Oh, and one last fun addition; Sarah has learned how to wave bye-bye. She babbles baba and will wave her fingers on her right hand. We absolutely love it!
Well, those are some of the things that we have been up to. I really need to start writing down her new tricks when they happen. Trying to remember everything at one time isn’t easy.
I can’t believe in 3 short months Sarah will be ONE! What a fun day that will be We love you baby girl!
The Truth of Exercising
Stephen and I own a few of these books, and I also subscribe to the comic series and this strip was so completely accurate that I had to share. Hope you enjoy
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I don’t know about you, but this is how I usually feel about the gym. I just wish I remembered that wonderful ‘after’ feeling before I hit the snooze button in the morning…
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Santa’s 40 Week Old Helper
We are back with week 2 of our Christmas jammies update. Sarah was much more cooperative last week than the week before. Just wait until you see this weeks (yes, I’m a slacker with still being 1 week behind).
Each week just gets more fun and exciting. Our girl keeps getting cuter and I love watching her personality develop and grow. We are so thankful that she loves being around people as much as she does. One new thing we have been experiencing is a little of the ‘separation anxiety’ that I’ve heard can creep up around the 9-month mark. It’s only happened two or three times, but she usually gets over it pretty quick. Nothing a good nap can’t fix We also have to keep an extra close eye on our quick crawler because she LOVES to investigate and explore. She’s like a cat sneaking into the tiniest spaces and corners. Maybe she’ll want to be a detective like I did when I was younger.
Okay, enough chit chat. Here we go:
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This made me laugh because she loves to be flown around and she nailed the SuperMan pose
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The next few outfits are a little less pink and have more of the classic red & green Christmas colors. I guess the baby clothing companies want to make sure people know your child is a girl with all the pink they add to outfits… even when it comes to jammies. No that I mind, it just means she matches her seahorse a little better
Hope you are all done with your Christmas decorating and shopping! We finished last week and actually ordered EVERY gift online. That’s right, we didn’t have to set foot in a single store for gift shopping. It was a fantastic decision. Checking the mail has never been so fun!
A 39 Week Old in Pajamas
For the month of December I thought it would be fun to do Sarah’s weekly photo of her in some of her Christmas themed pajamas. Fact: Babies are adorable. 2nd Fact: Babies in pajamas are even MORE adorable!
This was Sarah’s 39th weekly photo shoot.
“Look mom, this is my foot. Let me show you how I can stick it in my mouth!”
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Only 1 real photo this week because almost all of her other pictures look like this…
girl does not like to stay still
I love that Sarah is in the ‘pajama set’ stage. Changing a diaper is 1000 times easier when all you have to do is take off bottoms rather than unzip/button an entire outfit just to get to the legs. Tip for future parents: Any outfit is easier if it doesn’t involve buttons!
Stay tuned for this weeks Pajama-Themed photo, coming soon’ish (that is, as soon as I upload the pictures, crop them, edit them, and add the text on top).
For now I have to go get ready for our church Christmas party. I’m supposed to be baking cookies right now but wanted to get at least 2 posts up before this week ended… The month of December is busier than I remember. Then again, all months feel busier this year than they have the past 27 years. Babies, they definitely keep ya busy!
Have a great weekend
