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Joy And Happiness Christmas 5x7 folded card

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We've Moved!

We haven't moved our physical location, just our cyberspace location. We'll leave this site up for those of you who don't know about the bookmark function on your toolbar.

4 Ring Circus

Enjoy the new site!

1st Snow of the Season

We got about 3 inches on Monday night and another 2-3 on Wednesday night. Made for some great sledding for little C!

On a side note: the bun I'm cooking in my human oven kicks a lot! Charlie barely kicked at all so I feel like I'm experiencing something totally new. People always say every pregnancy is different, guess there's truth to that!

Cruise to the North Pole

On Sunday we took Charlie on a 'cruise to the North Pole'. Apparently the north pole is at the far end of Lake Coeur d'Alene. The 2 hour boat ride included hot cocoa and unlimited cookies (a fat pregnant girl's dream!). After about an hour of cruising the captain comes over the speaker and tells everyone to go outside on the bow. Once we get close to the 'Pole' the tree and house light up.

Then Santa and Mrs. Claus appear in a boat house off to the left. They have the 'nice list' and read off all the names of the kids on the boat. The kids all around us went nuts for this.

Charlie looks upset here but he was eating all this up.

Definitely a new Ring Family tradition.

Apple Cup

The Finnegan's and the Anda's came over to watch the big game with us yesterday. Since Charlie's currently out of Cougar gear that fits him he was forced to wear his vintage Huskies shirt (I believe it was Matt's? Cheryl correct me if I'm wrong). Charlie's face is priceless in this photo. If he knew how to form sentences I'm sure Caden would be getting an earful. Instead he just sat there and looked pissed.

This was taken in the 4th quarter and Matt was all smiles thinking the game was locked up. Sorry Huskies, not this time!

Matt Jr.

Back when we were choosing names I suggested Junior. Matt said he didn't want a junior though. This holiday season though it seems like we may have made a mistake.

Matt loves everything about Christmas and it appears that its in Charlie's blood because he is crazy about it. We've been reading Christmas books now for about a month. Charlie can say ho ho, pretty (whenever he sees lights), candy cane, nut (odd I know, but there are a lot of nuts in holiday books), tree, frosty and coal. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of his other holiday words but these are the ones we hear the most.

Yesterday we took him out to Greenbluff and we cut down a tree. He loved trudging through the tree farm in his Napoleon boots with dad looking for the perfect tree.

When we got home he went down for a nap and Matt and I got out all the decorations. We left the finishing touches for Charlie. When he got up his head pretty much exploded. The tree was up with lights on it, decorations were everywhere, Christmas music was playing.

He spent about 10 minutes just walking around the house pointing at everything saying 'pretty...ho ho...pretty...tree'.

He helped us put up the ornaments so beware if you come by in the next month or so. He'll want to show you where every Santa, snowman, moose, etc. is on our tree.

Matt keeps asking Charlie if this is his best Christmas ever, however I think its Charlie that should be asking Matt. He's seriously so happy that his mini-me is following in his footsteps its ridiculous!

Thanksgiving

I managed to take only 1 picture the whole day. Maybe it was because I felt like the day was total chaos. Maybe I just didn't think of it. Who knows.

We had the entire Anda crew (pictured below) as well as the entire Ring clan (not pictured below) over at our house for the big day. I managed to not burn the turkey so I felt like the dinner was a success. Everyone pitched in and brought something to share so I was actually responsible for very little, which was kind of my condition for hosting.


I thought I'd throw this picture on for Aunt Katie and Uncle Cage. Thanks for the early Christmas present! It fits great and Charlie loves the dog on the inside of the coat. He doesn't really love the dog hat but if you hold a regular hat and then pull a switch-a-roo as you're putting it on his head he's none the wiser. Now we just need some snow so we can try the whole outfit out - thank you!

Naming Poll

Update: So far the 'other' write-ins are: 4 Ring Circus and Ring A Ding Ding. Both are very strong possibilities right now.

Bathing Buddies

While my sister's in Milwaukee on a business trip we're watching little Caden in the evenings. Matt suggested we bathe them together and it actually worked out really well. They got along great and when we asked Charlie if he liked having a friend in the bath tub with him he replied with a very definite 'YES'.