School Pictures!

It's that time of year again...awkward school pictures!  I think both boys look like they are so ornery in these pictures...especially Caden.  They are both doing great though...complaining about school every day, but that's nothing new. :) Eli is playing in two soccer leagues and running cross country when he has time.  Caden is in boyscouts & has started guitar lessons.  :)

 

First Day of School by Wendy Silva
I wonder what you're doing right now and if everyone is treating you kind. I hope there is a special person, a nice friend that you can find.
I wonder if the teacher knows just how special you are to me.
And if the brightness of your heart is something she can see.
I wonder if you are thinking about me and if you need a hug.
I already miss the sound of your voice and how you give my leg a tug.
I wonder if you could possibly understand how hard it is for me to let you grow.
On this day know that my heart breaks, for this is the first step in letting my baby go.



I miss my wild boys   :(

This was a big week our little Millie.  She perfected riding her little bike with training wheels and was obsessed with riding it every minute of the day. However, last night she decided the bike was not much of a challenge anymore and hopped on her brother's 4-wheelers.  She woke up from nap yesterday and bed this morning demanding to go outside to "ride eli's wheeler"...

Catching Leprechauns...

This came home in Caden's backpack today...his spelling is a work in progress, so I will interpret:

When I caught a leprechaun, I would be a camera man. I will see the same thing in green (I THINK HE MEANS NIGHTVISION) and when the cage bumps it will set off and we will jump out and get that little punk.

Nice Caden...

A day of fishing...

Today I spent several hours down at the fishing dock with the boys. Wow, the things you hear when you are in a confined space with a 6 and 7 year old with no other distractions (i.e. a baby sister screaming her demands every 2 seconds). Here are just a few that I have remembered, and yes, they are mostly Caden-ism's as I like to call them:

1) "Man, when it's summer time, I'm going to living the good life, right Mom?" - Caden

2) "That's weird, I thought only God could walk on water, but I guess spiders can too" - Caden

3) "Mom! I need a new butt" says Caden. "Huh, you need a new bait?" says Mom. "No, a new BUTT, mine has a crack in it" says Caden. Followed by so much laughter by two little boys that we didn't catch another fish for at least 15 minutes.

4) Eli as I am trying to put their itty bitty tiny fish on a stringer for them so that they can "walk it" up and down the dock a few times before we free it..."You wouldn't say it was no big deal if I put that thru your lip mom".

5) "He's a fighter, He's a fighter" - Caden (said with Dustin on 5hr energy drink like intensity, as we try to pin down the flopping 6in teensy fish to put the stringer on)

6) "Why does fishing have to be so dangerous" - Eli (sobbing and holding his fingers from where a fish (again TINY) poked him with his fin thing)

7) "We should go in and get suncreen on" Mom says. "Really, probably just you because you're not 1/2 brown like daddy" Caden responds. Dang it...he's probably right on that one. :(

8) "Wow, this is the best restaurant in the world" - Caden as I come back down with sunscreen, juiceboxes & cheesesticks

And the finally, just a couple cute pictures of country girl Millie. I don't know if it's the John Deere or her Great Grandma Ringger grin, she sure looks like a Ringger to me in this first picture! lol

Oh and FYI, picture of Eli with fish coming soon...just need to download from Jerome's phone!

Hi Grandma!

Grandma Ringger painted Millie's toes a couple week ago when they were here. She still stops a couple times a day when she notices them and says "pink toes"! :) And yes, those are her brother's Pokemon cards she's playing with while they are at school...so glad I finally got a girlie girl! lol

2012 Superbowl

The Superbowl was in Indianapolis this year, and boy was it a big party! The city was just so alive with energy and excitement, we had a blast. We took the boys down one night and they got to have a little fun too.

Super smart Jerome had me call over a year ago to make dinner reservations for the Saturday night before the game at Capital Grille. Capital Grill is attached to the Conrad Hotel which is one of the nicest hotel in city, so before dinner we had so much fun celebrity stalking! We saw Lenny Kravitz, John Elway, Drew Brees, Danny Devito, Rhea Perelman, Lance Bass, LMFAO guys, Stephen Baldwin, Mark Cuban, and other sports people that I didn't know! lol

Finally, the best part of the week was that Jerome actually WON tickets to the Superbowl. We still can't believe it, amazing! Jim Irsay was having giveaways all week long for the season ticket holders and we acually won! So Jerome and I were able to actually go to the game, which was incredible. What a fun week, we both feel like we need a vacation after the weekend though!

Lacey & Stephen Baldwin...he asked me if I would help babysit for his 10 year old nephew that night! ha!

The girls and John Elway

For Grandpa Ringger...

At the game!

Crazy Colts Guy

Downtown on game day!

Ready for SUMMER!!

The Ringger family just booked a summer vacation trip to Michigan this summer, and we cannot WAIT!! So ready for another beach vacation with all the people we love the most! :) I came across this picture as I was "organizing" the office (basically moving stuff around in nice little piles, thanks Mom for this system!) Anyway, it just made think about how ready I am to have tan little smiling kids again, with no worries about school buses, tutoring, soccer practices, boy scouts, basketball practices, homework, science fair projects, and list goes ON & ON!

Quick funny...

Okay, I know I need to update on Christmas and so many other things...but I just have one quick little funny story. This morning Jerome was heating up something for himself in the microwave. Well...who would have known that if you put a small hotwheels paperplate with shiny areas on it in the microwave that it will literally explode, and you will have a little fire in your kitchen. So as Jerome and I are frantically trying to put it out on the kitchen floor and finally scoop up the flaming plate and throw it out in the snow...I notice Eli running past me in a flash screaming "escape, escape, escape!!!". He was at the garage door with Millie in his arms (and BIG tears in his eyes) within 5 seconds. Poor guy went into "EMERGENCY PLAN" mode so fast. It was so cute and so sad at the same time, but also I was stinkin' proud of that little guy!

The Rad Moves

Oh my, it's been so long again. Here is just one quick funny video to share. I am amazed how different each one of our goofy kids are. Eli has no lack of confidence, and even though he can get on a person's nerves A LOT, he also cracks me up every day. The boys got video cameras from Grandma Everett at Thanksgiving. I found them upstairs making movies of each other dancing, burping, jumping, etc (just about anything you can imagine that 6 & 7 year old boys would think is funny...yes, as you can imagine, there were a lot of deleted videos once mom downloaded). Anyway, I helped them make this video of Eli because he was just cracking me up...Enjoy Eli's "Rad Moves"

It's about time...

I wanted a baby girl so long, but now that I have one, I barely even treat her like a girl. She's such a roughneck with her brothers, and at this point prefers to play with trucks over baby dolls. So this morning I decided it was time to do something girlie and paint her toenails for the first time. To my surprise she sat very still and even helped to blow them dry!

Caden was home so of course his big head is in most the pictures, and I spent the majority of the time explaining reasons why he couldn't paint his toes. I finally told him that Max, Cole & Eli would make fun of him for having pink toes. His response, well I can beat up Max & Cole, so I don't care about them, and Eli's my brother so he doesn't matter either. So I gave in and painted one pinky toe, which he thought was hilarious, UNTIL...he wanted it off, and I told him I didn't have any remover. Then it was tears & sceaming that I was so mean because now he was going to have to wear socks and tennis shoes his entire life. Seriously??

1st day of school

I think when you go from "welcome summer" to "1st day of school" on your blog posts, that may mean I am slacking! Well anyway, I can't believe but my boys started school today. Eli is starting kindergarten and Caden is going into 1st grade. Oh my. They were VERY excited this morning and I am praying it will last. As we waited for the big bus to roll up, Eli whispered to me "I'm even more excited than I thought I would be". So cute! I held back all the tears, but will be watching the clock all day...can't believe they are away from me until 3:50pm! Not sure what the princess and I are going to be ALL DAY by ourselves. She already has asked me several times "KK at? YiYi at" which is how she says there names.

Getting on the bus...and still smiling! Please God let this last!

Caden and our neighbor Elle, both big 1st graders now!




Eli has to try to look "cool" for every picture

Just one of little Millie :)

Cheers...it's summer!!

We are really enjoying summer and we are trying hard to SLOW DOWN our days (which is hard when you are married to busy body Jerome)! At least once a week now, we start our day toasting each other with fruit smoothies on the deck. So hope you are are having a great summer and Cheers!

Little Sister

This is what happens to sweet little girls when they have 2 older brothers to teach them things...

Hair!

I am starting to realize that I am going to have YEARS of screaming, crying and fighting while dealing with Millie's hair. It's getting a lot longer, and wow when it is not "contained" somehow, it gets quite fluffy. I tried to put it into 2 little pigtails today, and boy was it a challenge. I strapped her down into the highchair and applied 2 different detangler hair products and pulled and stretched every little curl until they made it into the hairband. She screamed and wiggled the ENTIRE time. I honestly do not know how the moms of the little girls have have like 10 ponytails and barrettes all over their heads do it! I do think she looks darn cute though with them! They are not even, but I think it's pretty good for the first attempt!

School Pictures!

It's that time of the year again...time for the awkwardly posed school pictures! Actually, Eli's preschool always does a really good job, but poor Caden. He showed me "the pose" they had him do when he got home that day, and I was afraid to see the final pictures! Also, I included Eli's soccer picture, this year he was Team Japan. :)

Catch up...

I finally downloaded pictures from our camera and I have much to catch up on (as usual). The first sequence of pictures are of the boys. This is the perfect "story" of why I can never get a good picture of the kids together. This was actually outside of a photographers studio. We were on our way inside to have professional pictures done with their cousins...I am sure you can imagine how those turned out. ha!

This was Millie's Easter Dress, she would not sit still for even 2 seconds so that I could take a good picture of her. But it really was adorable, trust me!

Finally, yesterday was a gorgeous day here and Jerome was off of work, so we decided to take the kids to the zoo. It was a great time, and I think Millie had the best time of all! I feel bad, because I think I just think of her as a "baby" and don't really even consider that she might enjoy these things yet. She ran & squeeled from exhibit to exhibit...trying to climb into every single tank or cage she could get close too! The funniest part of the day was Caden though. He is really into taking his own pictures of EVERYTHING when we go anywhere. So I just let him have the camera and go for it. Well at some point he asked me to put it "movie mode" and he began filming the animals. I heard him talking a little bit, but what I didn't realize until I downloaded them all was that he was acting like a TV show or something...he was adding commentary to each film about the animal. There were too many share here, but each one CRACKED me up with the things that he came up to say about the animals. The snake area was the funniest, but it was really dark, so I didn't include it. He went from tank to tank though saying things like "notice this one really blends in with the rocks, and oh my, now that would be scary to see in your yard, and he would say "I am not sure what this is called, but then you would hear Jerome in the background telling Eli the name, and all of sudden, Caden would say "oh yes, I just remembered now, this one is called the rainbow viper" lol

Quick Picture...

It's SO RARE, that I actually get a picture of the three of them together, so I have to share! We went to Chicago for Spring Break (Tropical, huh?)...had a ton of fun though. Science & Industry museum, Aquarium, swimming at the hotel, lego store, and eating waayyy too much. I have figured out that all my boys need need for a "perfect vacation" is to sleep in a hotel and swim in a pool.

Yard Sale...

Today Eli decided he was going to have a yard sale...he made a sign and hung it in a tree, brought out several of old toys to sell and started to advertise. I think he mixed up our address with our phone number though...he rode up and down our street screaming "Yard Sale...335-1121" for at least 20 minutes. Poor guy was so upset that no one wanted to buy anything.

Even Millie wanted to try to help for awhile...and please don't judge me (or poor Millie) for the state of her hair. She just woke up from her nap, and we had not put her pony tail back in yet. :(

Funny Conversations...

A recent conversation I overheard from the boys...


The boys and I had just been discussing the fact that some day we would probably need all three parking spots in our garage because they will have a car someday. I told them that they would probably share a car since they will go to the same school, have the same friends, blah, blah, blah...so this is what I hear next:


Caden: "That's fine we can share a car Eli....BUT if I have like a science contest to go to then I need the car"


Eli: What's a science contest?


Caden: That's where they give trophies for doing science


Eli: Oh, okay, I guess that's okay


I heart my little science nerd! :) And thank you for my friend Dianna for telling Caden that he shouldn't be jealous about Eli's sports trophies, because some day he will be winning Science Fairs and getting a lot of his own trophies.