Livin the Good Life

Who says you can't enjoy two of life's fine things...eating a fudge pop and taking a bath, and do them at the same time. Notice the brown water...Noah is living the good life. And yes he did learn this from me. :)

My Little Man

Thanksgiving always brings out the gratefulness in me. So I thought I would just mention one of the many reasons that I am so thankful for Noah. Noah has been waking up especially early in the mornings for the past few weeks. I have tried a later bedtime but it seems even if he goes to bed late, he wakes up close to the same time every morning. So I have decided to get over it and come to terms with the fact that my child doesn't require much sleep. Every morning he greets me at my bed with all three of his blakets, his flashlight and one of his guns (yes he sleeps with all of those) and says "hi mommy im awake." Since it is still dark outside, I usually tell him it is still night time and he needs to go back to sleep. So he climbs in bed with me and snuggles for a bit. This morning I decided even though it is early, I love this time with him. For one it is about the only time during the day that he holds still long enough to cuddle and the second reason is that he is super sweet that early in the morning. This morning I woke up to him giving me butterfly (eye) and eskimo (nose) kisses. Love it! He is truly the best gift I have ever been given. I love being his mom, even on days when he acts like a wild animal, I love him more than words can express. I am so glad that I am his mom and he is my little man.

Thanksgiving at the Cabin

We had such a fun Thanksgiving at the cabin with the whole family! Natalie and Matt announced that they are pregnant with their fourth and are due in June...about a week after Sarah and Nate have their first baby. We are excited for both of them!!

How do you get three little boys to hold still for a picture? Put grandpa's shotgun in their hands! From the left...Noah and his cousins, Isaac and Luke. Noah had so much fun with his cousins. He woke up every morning and asked me..."where are my buddies, Isaac and Luke." So cute. We wish they lived in Las Vegas!!

The whole Ringer clan! This is everyone! It was so fun to all be together this year.

This is Noah reading "I SPY" with my brother Jordan...notice the one earphone in his ear. He likes to listen to Jords IPod with him. I should also say that Noah found Waldo before Jordan one time! Smart kid, I know!

Gun Control

I am beginning to wonder if I should initiate some gun control around our house. Noah is a bit obsessed with guns, swords or weapons of any kind really..but mostly guns. He has a little nerf gun that he loves to run around the house with and shoot innocent bystanders. He has trouble cocking the gun, so he runs up to me every few minutes and says, "cock it mom." Lovely huh. So the other day Noah was eating a banana that I had peeled about half way for him. When he ate it down to the peel and needed help peeling it the rest of the way, he handed it to me and said, "cock it mom." Hahahaha! I also caught him moaning in his sleep today at nap time saying, "cock it, cock it." Hmmm I'm thinking the gun situation is a little out of control.

Happy Halloween

So a few weeks ago Noah's grandma Mel bought him a really cute pug dog costume for Halloween. I tried to get him to try it on then, but he refused. I talked to him about Halloween and told him that you have to wear a costume to get candy. We even read Halloween books to help him get the idea. In the coming weeks we continued talking about the costume and I continued to try persuading him by telling him how "awesome" his dog costume was. Noah was not convinced and replied, "No it's not awesome mommy! I am mad at Halloween!" Thus began the stuggle with the dog costume. Needless to say, life is busy and I pushed the costume incident out of my mind and actually kept thinking that on Halloween Day with everyone in their costumes, Noah would be excited and put his dog costume on. Well no such luck. Noah ended up being an army guy, which to him was a way cooler idea than a puppy. Duh mom! I actually don't blame him for this. So here he is in his thrown together costume (two hours before we went trick or treating). He has my black eyeshadow on his face (improvising). He had some sweet boots for this costume, but boots were out of the question also. Such a two year old!

The day after Halloween and Noah is still enjoying wearing his army hat!

Trip to Cali

My mom, sisters and sister in-law and I, took a girls trip to California last weekend. We decided on the way there that the priorities of the trip were as follows: 1.Shop 2.Pee 3.Eat 4.Sleep
I would say that we definately, on a few occasions, did forgo eating and sleeping to shop, and the bathroom breaks were limited to emergencies only.:) We had so much fun just being together! We also went to the musical in L.A., Wicked! It was soooo amazing, I loved it. Here are a few pics from our trip!!
Wicked in L.A.!


At the Orange County Swap Meet

Michele and I thought this pink dog was not so cute. We are at the South Coast Plaza Mall!

Lake Powell

Noah and I spent the past week in Lake Powell, or "Yake Towell" (as Noah would say) with my fam! Noah had about as much fun as a child could have I think. His favorite phrase on the trip was, "Come on mommy, it'll be fun!(with enthusiasum)" It was lots of fun for both of us. Here are a few pics from our week.

Love the goggles!

Noah calls the wakeboard a skateboard and was fully confident in his ability to ride it. I found him like this a few times on our trip, saying, "me skateboard mommy, come on it'll be fun." Hahaha I'm not so sure he is ready...what do you think?

Tube rides with grandpa!

Swimming...he was a little tense in the water, not so sure about the life jackets ability to make him float.:)

Noah had so much fun with his cousins! (Natalie's three boys Isaac, Luke and Kaleb)

Noah lovin the jet ski! Since mid afternoon naps were out of the question with everything fun going on all day, he even fell asleep twice while riding with me.

I learned to slolam ski...which was so much harder than wakeboarding! I need lots more practice to be as good as Nat and Matt!!


It was time to leave and Noah had to pack up his sand toys, which was very sad for him! This is his forced smile for one last picture LOL!

College Days

A few of my girlfriends from BYU came to Vegas for a few days last week. We met for dinner at the Wynn and then got pina coladas and sat outside to watch the free show they run every 30 minutes at The Lake of Dreams...totally fun. It was so fun to see them and to reminisce about all our fun times at BYU! Love these girls.

MICHELE GRADUATES and ERIC COMES HOME!

So it has been such an eventful week at the Ringer house. On Tuesday my little sister Michele graduated from Spring Valley High School! Since there is quite the age gap between us (10 years), I did alot of mothering her when she was younger and up until the time I left home. Seeing her graduate from high school made me feel pretty old! Since Noah and I have been back in my parents home for the past year and a half, it has been so fun because it seems like the age diffence between Michele and I didn't matter much anymore. She is like a best friend to me! She is leaving for BYU in a few days and I am so going to miss her so much but I am excited for her to have all the fun experiences I did in college. Love you Meesh!

Michele and our dad at graduation!!

My little brother Eric returned from his mission in Milwakee, Wisconsin on Friday! Eric left for the MTC two weeks before Noah was born!! So he met Noah for the first time Friday. It feels like Eric has been gone for a really long time and it was so good to have him back. He has been an awesome missionary and I am so proud of him!!

Here is the whole Ringer gang!!! It was fun to hang out with everyone this weekend!!

My older sister Natalie, Me and Eric

We love Shoes and Summertime

Noah likes to try on my shoes. These are his favorite and I don't blame him, they are hot! Gotta love the pj's with breakfast all over them and platform shoes.




Noah and I had a fun weekend and spent lots of it in the pool, playing in the backyard and riding bikes! We love summertime!

Cupcakes

Noah and I made cupcakes this afternoon for after dinner. I frosted and he was in charge of the sprinkles. This child is definately mine...he has my sweet tooth. Yum Yum

Headbands

Noah really likes to try on my jewelry, headbands, necklaces and bracelets as often as possible. The other morning I was blow drying my hair in the bathroom and when I was done, I found him watching Cars and looking like this! Ha ha

Iron Girls!

So I swam, biked and ran my first sprint triathlon two weeks ago and it was so much fun that I am going to do it again...in June! I am going to train a little harder and see if I can't improve my time. We started out swimming 600 meters in wet suits at Lake Las Vegas. Swimming is not my strength, but it was over quickly. Then we biked 12.6 miles and finished running 3.1 miles. I've always loved running but I have developed a new love for biking. I just rode an old mountain bike we had lying around for the race, but I have my eye on an inexpensive road bike and am considering getting it! Triathlon's are addicting. Crossing the finish line was such a good feeling. I'll tell you how the next one goes!!


The day before the race...at registration!!


Me and my sister Natalie setting up our bikes the day before the race. My brother Nate is lugging around Natalie's baby, he was such a trooper. He gets the best husband/brother award for running around the course on race day taking tons of pictures (he got a picture of each of us at every stage of the race), helping us get set up for the race, fixing our bikes, packing around all of our stuff while we raced, studying for school in the waiting room while we got massages after the race and I could go on. Sarah what can I say you pretty much have the best husband a girl could ask for, can't do any better than Nate! Love you Nate!



Before the race in our wet suits!


After the race...showing off our muscles and numbers


Alot of ladies from my ward did the tri too! Here is most of us.

The Chicken Dance

So I realize that Easter was a long time ago, but I got some cute pictures of Noah that I just had to post. We had such a fun Easter. We colored eggs, had an egg hunt in the backyard and Noah loved finding his Easter basket on Sunday morning. Especially when he realized there was candy in it!! His two favorite things in his Easter basket were, the duck that his grandma gave him. It sings the Chicken Dance Song and flaps its wings and Noah thought it was hilarous. He carried it around the house for a few days. And of course his nerf gun. He says, "shoot the mommy," then shoots me and laughs when I play dead. This is the funnest age!

Our Weekend at the Cabin

Noah and I spent the weekend at the cabin in Brian Head with the fam. I took him tubeing which he was extremely excited about at first. As he was pulled up the hill, he clapped and waved at me all stoked. However he soon became terrified, as he was pushed down one of the really steep, really long tubeing hills. The staff at the tubeing hills won't allow you to ride more than one person in a tube, even with little ones. So Noah was all alone in his tube, screaming as it went down the hill. By the time he made it to the bottom he was looking at me like, why would you do that to me, and saying, "mom, help me!" I felt really bad! Anyways he loves the snow and will play in it for hours regardless of how cold it is. Such a tough guy! I can only hope he forgets the traumatic tubeing incident as there will surely be many more trips to the cabin this year! We love the cabin and I can hardly wait for him to get big enough to get on a snowboard!

Blonder!

So it is getting warmer outside and blonder sounded fun! Not too drastic, but blonder.-Carrie

Training For IRON GIRL!!

So I have signed up for a sprint triathlon! It is called the Iron Girl and it is on April 12th out at Lake Las Vegas. A sprint triathlon is a about half of everything you would do in a normal triathlon. So it is about a 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike ride and 3 mile run, in that order. My sister Natalie and Nate's wife Sarah are doing it with me! I am pretty excited about it but a little nervous as well. The swim is in Lake Mead and it is going to be pretty cold so I will be wearing a wet suit. Hopefully I won't freeze to death! My goal with the swim is to not sustain any injuries, I have heard that people can get crazy at the start and I can totally see myself getting kicked in the face within the first two minutes of this thing! So I am going to try and not let that happen. I have been taking spin classes at the gym, which has been really fun actually, to prepare for the biking part and I am borrowing a road bike that I plan to start training on within the next week. And as for the run, I just hope I have enough energy to make it to the finish line! Just after the race is over Nat, Sarah and I have foot massages and pedicures scheduled at the spa! I totally think we deserve it. So I should have lots of pictures coming soon from the Iron Girl. Wish me luck!-Carrie

The Drums, Happy Helper and Phrase of the Week!!

THE DRUMS!!!
We went to a friend's house for dinner the other night and they have a drum set. Noah fell in love with the drums and was actually really good at them. It was so funny to watch him go crazy playing them. I am not going to lie, I am not thrilled that this is his instrument of choice. I would prefer something a little less loud. Noah on the other hand thinks the louder the better.

SUCH THE HAPPY HELPER
Noah is such a happy little helper! He loves to be busy, so he likes to help me and his grandma around the house. Some of his favorite chores are vacuuming, sweeping, watering the plants and helping with the dishes (he has his very own stool for this as you can see in the picture above). He ran away from me while I was changing his diaper, got up on his stool and proceeded to help grandma wash the dishes. Thus the bare butt shot!:) He is such a busy child.

PHRASE OF THE WEEK
I stubbed my toe on the door frame and other day and while is was hopping around saying ouch...Noah came over to me, looked at my toe and said, "Oh hunny," in a very sympathetic voice. It was so funny. I love this stage, he is talking so much and copies everything..I have to watch myself!!

Noah's First Haircut!

Here is the latest family picture of me and Noah...you likely?? I thought it would be so cute if we took a picture on my mom's front porch swing! After several attempts...this was as good as it gets. No really..in the other pictures Noah is not even in them because he is trying to escape! So just disregard the fact that Noah looks like he is possessed. We really need to get a new professional picture of the two of us.:)
So I still haven't changed my hair...don't hate!! I appreciate those who voted and have taken your comments into thoughtful consideration.:) I am making plans, so pics will be coming soon. Noah on the other hand got his first real haircut about a week ago. I figured I could just take him to Great Clips, give him a sucker(bribery), let him sit on my lap and he would do okay. Well I was mistaken. He screamed bloody murder the whole time while sitting on my lap. There was hair all over the both of us and the sucker by the time we were done!! Gross! Anywho...here is Noah's new look!!