Bye Bye 3!

Four. FOUR!! Can you believe it? Today my oldest "baby" turned FOUR! The past year was one of change for Riley ... the biggest one being preschool. We had a conference with the teacher on Monday to go over his progress ... and she had great things to say about him. There were some things she mentioned where I was wondering if she was really talking about MY Riley ... but other things were so dead on it wasn’t even funny ... like his talkative personality. Ha ha. Yes, he can talk to anyone until he’s blue in the face.


I tried to make today special for him. We went out to the mall and he and Paige got to play in the children’s area. He got his favorite, mac-n-cheese, for lunch. I made him a cake that HE got to load up with sprinkles. He got to pick where we went out for dinner ... McD’s ... obviously. And while we were sitting there eating, I looked at Ryan and said, "Let’s take him bowling!" We have a place right down the road ... why not? So we stopped by home for mom to get her camera ... and we surprised him by going bowling. The little fart did pretty well. He even picked up a spare in the 10th frame. If you look at the last picture, you’ll see the scores ... He was the top one, mom was the middle and Ryan was the bottom one on the screen. Daddy was a little worried after Riley picked up that spare that Riley might beat him.

What Paige did during most of the bowling experience ...

Naked baby butt

As I was setting up for a shoot I have tomorrow, I thought I'd try naked baby butt pictures of Paige. She'll soon be too old for this so I figured I better get it in now while I could. (URRRR, I'm not sure why these keep showing up kind of pixelated ... )

And of course ... my little man model ...

Do toes get a bath in jail?

Sorry for the title ... but I couldn't come up with anything creative for the picture drop off below.

Not much is new here. We have auntie Tammy and cousin Weston coming down this weekend because uncle Clint is going north. Should be fun!!

Here are a few pictures from my new camera. I'm in love with it ... so much that I told Ryan the first night that I wanted to take it to bed with me. :)

Riley waiting for us to come home

from talking with the neighbors

so he could take a bath ....

Riley and Paige started taking
baths together now.
Paige LOVES taking baths
and Riley enjoys having someone
to play with in there.

My "date" with a younger boy at the playground ...

Yesterday after church, Riley and I took a walk to his school to try out the playground equipment. There isn't a ton to do so after a few times down the slide and a race across the field, mommy took a break. I took a seat at the top of the slide, looking backwards towards the rest of the slides and fun things. I sat and watched Riley run like he had all the energy in the world ... and then he did something I'll never forget. He came over, made room for himself on my lap and said, "Mom, let's just sit here and talk." *Sigh*

So we sat at the top of a slide, on the playground of his new school and chatted about how excited he was about being a "big boy" ... about how he was going to be learning new things ... and we even sang a couple songs. As I sat there playing with his hair, I realized that this is probably one of the last times that he'll ever want to do this with me. Soon he'll be too embarassed to sit on his mommy's lap where someone, especially one of his new friends, may see him. Soon he'll be telling me to leave his hair alone.

What happened to this little boy?

High and Dry!!

Well, maybe not so much high ... but we are dry! After 8 or 9 inches of rain in less than 24 hours, Our house became river-front property but we somehow stayed dry!! Unfortunately, not all of our neighbors had the same luck. It's kind of strange to drive by houses and see carpet from the basements sitting out on the curbs. The water did, however, finish my tomato plants for the year ... I couldn't get out to pick the tomatoes off and with all the extra rain they took on a growth spurt and ended up splitting open. Oh well, if that's the extent of our worries, I'm not complaining!!

Riley enjoyed getting out last night and playing with Wyatt, the neighbor boy. They rode bikes up and down the sidewalk ... and for quite a while they had an audience watching from the front window. Miss Paige has discovered there is a whole new world out the windows and doors. She gets quite the giggles when they actually acknowledge that she's there too.

Another "Awwwww" moment this morning ... we were trying to get Riley up so we laid Paige on top of him in bed. He smiled, wrapped her up and they snuggled for a few minutes.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from last night ...

Watching brother ...




Riley riding bike with Wyatt ....



All worn out and ready for bed .... (too bad she only slept for an hour and then was up for almost 2.5 hours.)



And a couple from Paige's bath the night before ...

Naked baby butt ...




Brother "helping" her play ....


Clean baby ...

Open Can ... Dump Contents ... Heat ... DONE!

I consider myself to be an okay cook. I love trying new recipes and try to introduce new foods every once in a while. And while Ryan has recently expressed desire for a few more "meat and potato" meals, I think he's surviving quite well.

Last fall sometime I made homemade chicken noodle soup. It's not as good as my moms but it's still mighty tasty. I had heard both Shelly and Riley mention that they'd had chicken noodle soup for lunches at daycare so I thought this would be a "safe" meal that Riley would eat without much fuss.

I was wrong. We sat down at the table and Riley looked into his bowl ... at which point he told me, "I don't like this." I reminded him that it was chicken noodle soup ... and that he eats it all the time at Shelley's house. Riley, as serious as he could be, replies with, "But Shelley makes the real stuff." The "real" stuff is made by Campbell's, I guess, as that's what Shelley uses.

Well, last night I made up another pot of homemade chicken noodle soup to have for dinner tonight. As Ryan and Riley were having a conversation about the "real" soup, Riley excitedly and very seriously said, "Shelley makes the BEST food!"

I think my 3 year old is either asking that I make more Kraft Mac and Cheese, Campbell's Soups and frozen chicken nuggets or is suggesting I take some cooking lessons.

PS ~ And Shelley ... if you're reading this, I hope you realize (and think you do) that this is no slam on YOUR cooking skills ... instead it's more of a "Riley moment" to remember! :)

Riley-speak

Below are common terms Riley uses ...

Lifesaver = Lightsaber (he's picked up a thing for Star Wars from somewhere)

Dinner = Any meal he may have already eaten during the day or any meal he may be eating soon.

Peanuts = Well, we've already covered this one! :)

Thank you for coming over! = Thanks for letting me come over. (Since he's been able to talk he's told Shelley every single day, "Thank you for coming over," as we're walking out her door at night. Someday when he gets it right we're all going to be shocked as all get out!)

Update ...

This is strictly an update post ... no pictures! :)

Riley Arthur
Riley has learned that there is a difference between boys and girls. We hear routinely about "peanuts" (we've tried to correct the way he says it but it still comes out as peanuts) and how mommy and sister don't have one. He proudly announced this new knowledge at daycare one morning last week when we were dropping him off. He seriously is NOT this old is he?

Riley is also learning what it really means to have a little sister who puts things in his mouth. This weekend him and dad went through the toy box upstairs to take out all the toys that are too small for Paige. He seemed fine with it but we shall see what happens in the future when he wants to bring something upstairs from the toy room (where all the small stuff ended up!).

Paige Caroline
Miss Paige is a girl on the move. She's still army crawling, however she gets up on her hands and knees and acts like she's ready to take off at any moment. She's also pulling herself up to her knees and has even made all the way to a standing position a few times. I was commenting to Ryan last night that she's growing up WAY too fast. It makes me sad that my "baby" will be 9 months this week. I feel like it was yesterday that big brother Riley came up to the hospital to meet her for the first time.

She's all girl though. I pulled out a little doll that she had received as a gift and let her play with it yesterday. She sat contently and played/chewed on it for a good 15 minutes while I was prepping dinner ... and then picked it up randomly throughout the rest of the day.


Swimming
Last Friday both Ryan and I were done with work early so we took the kids swimming at a pool in Rochester. The swimming lessons we had Riley in did wonders for him as he's now just a FISH! His favorite thing to do is to jump off the side of the pool to dad who is waiting to catch him. Ryan keeps going further and further out to see how far Riley can jump ... and I must say, the kid does pretty well! Miss Paige LOVES the water as well. After being in the big pool for a while she was shivering because it had gotten cloudy so I took her out and wrapped her up in a towel. Well, she didn't want that, she wanted to be in the water!! She loves splashing (and trying to drink) the water.

It's the Red Dress!!

I had an offer for two free photo wrapped canvases so we headed out Saturday around dinner time to see if we could get a couple good shots of the kids (you know, because I didn't have ANY already). I pulled out the red dress for Paige to wear. I fell in love with this dress last year at Gymboree. We had just found out a few weeks before that we were having a girl ... it was full price but once Ryan saw the look in my eye he knew we weren't leaving the store without it. I'm so lucky I have a husband who is willing to give into my need to have such cute clothes for the kids.

Anyway, Paige cooperated REALLY well. She's in that age where she makes faces, still sits in one spot for a little more than two seconds and is just fun. Her brother on the other hand, while he was dressed in a handsome Gymboree vest, didn't want to cooperate. It had been a long day for Riley and mom (growing pains on his part ... thinking he doesn't need to listen to us) and I think we were both a little tired of each other. These pictures have a bit of a blue cast to them that I need to fix but I still had to share them with everyone. I think these will officially be Paiges 9 month pictures.

Enjoy!

What we chose for the canvas for Paige ...





And Riley's canvas picture ...

Puppies in the Tummy!

Last night Riley and I were sitting at the counter eating dinner by ourselves since daddy had school stuff he was at ... and we were talking about how sister had been in my belly ... then about how Riley had been in my tummy ... and all of a sudden he asks me, "Mommy, was Pumba in your tummy too?"

Oh my, oh my!!!

Camp Knudson

Riley has been asking lately to put the tent up in the backyard and sleep outside ... so him and Ryan put the tent up on Saturday afternoon while I was coordinating a wedding. After I'd gotten home and we got Miss Paige to bed, we all headed outside to experience the "wilderness".

After mommy helped daddy start a fire ( ha ha ), we warmed cheesy hotdogs over the flames for dinner. And of course we couldn't have a fire without smores. Riley did his usual, "Mom, I just want a mushroom" (mushrooms = marshmellows ... I have no idea why ... we don't even eat mushrooms in our house!) and "Mom, I want some crackers" and then ... "Mom, I want some chocolate!" Heaven forbid we actually eat those three things together. BUT THEN, he shocked both Ryan and I when he asked for an actual smore.

Anyway, it started getting dark out so we let the fire die down and the two wilderness campers headed off to the tent (which was partially filled with stuffed animals) for a night of sleeping under the stars. At this point I went inside and tried to go to sleep (but Miss Paige had other plans).

At 6 a.m., Ryan said that Riley popped his head up and said, "Dad, it's morning time!!" Yes, the joys of camping out with a three year old ... if the sun is out, it's time to get up and play. So dad and Riley came back in the house ... I don't fully remember if Riley crawled in bed with us or if he watched cartoons ... I think it was the latter.

Riley thought the whole experience was pretty cool. He told me that him and dad told each other secrets before they went to bed and that there were cars on 14 (the highway a mile or so away) that he could hear ... but it doesn't sound like he was scared at all ... which is a good thing because in three weeks the whole family gets to do it at Auntie Cheryl's and Uncle Kevin's!!

Pictures are below!!

Weekend Highlights ...

Just a few highlights (and one lowlight) from this past weekend ...

• Miss Paige has been scooting her way around the past week or so ... but on Sunday she really took off with the army crawl. She made her way from the living room into the kitchen where I was prepping dinner. Yes, now will really be the test between Riley and Paige as I'm sure she'll be getting into his things.
• Miss Paige has also been a bit cranky because she's getting 5 teeth all at once ... the four front ones across the top and one more on the bottom (she already has her two bottom, center teeth.
• Riley decided he liked using the word "adorable" on Saturday. He told me his sister looked "adorable" in her outfit ... and that something at my moms house was "adorable".
• Miss Paige is out of her infant car carrier. Last Tuesday we bought Riley new seats and gave his old ones to Paige. This means now that we're actually stuck at home during her nap times.
• Riley was (for the most part) a really good kid this past weekend. I was watching him on Sunday and was just amazed at how polite he can be when he wants to. Ryan and I were also commenting on how smart he is ... he can figure out how to do just about anything he puts his mind to (which isn't always the best thing).
• And finally for the lowlight of the weekend ... Riley and I were at the house next door petting "Durby" a beagle who Riley loves. Pumba had followed us over a bit and evidently was a bit peeved that he wasn't getting any attention ... so Pumba "marked" Riley as his. Yes, my dog raised his leg and peed on my son. Riley had pee all over his shoulder and all down his arm. Luckly I saw Pumba doing it right away so there wasn't a ton ... but obviously we had to go in and scrub Rileys shoulder/hands/arm and change clothes. Riley didn't really have much to say about it ... I think he was more shocked than anything.

So there were the highlights of our weekend. It was pretty busy for us ... garage sale at my moms (for which Ryan and I made almost $250), I had two photo shoots and Ryan had school.

Vacation is bliss!!

Hey everyone!

Just stopping in quickly. Ryan and I are on "vacation" this week ... well, it's a vacation from work ... not a vacation from Byron. :) Our daycare provider took the week off so we decided to both take it off as well and spend a week stress free. Since we didn't have any true vacation plans I was a bit worried about getting bored but so far we've been having a great time. Here are a few highlights ....

Riley ~ Ryan and I dropped Paige off at my moms today and took Riley to one of the pools in Rochester. This pool has a great little children's area that's zero depth, fountains ... the works. Towards the end of our visit there, Riley was playing with one of four little water fountains (maybe the correct word isn't fountains ... but it's water that bubbles up out of the water about a foot high). There were five middle school boys who had wandered over from the big pool also playing with them. At first my motherly instincts popped in ... thinking that they'd try to kick him off the one so that they could control them all ... but instead what happened was HILARIOUS!!

Three of the boys were covering the holes for three of the fountains ... meaning the water was super high and forceful coming out of the one Riley was at. The poor kid was trying to keep up with the bigger kids ... he'd try to cover the hole with his foot but the force was just too much so it'd end up squirting ALL OVER. Never one to give up, Riley decided to use the full force of water to his advantage ... buy straddling over it and laughing to beat heck. Not only were the middle school boys laughing hard ... but so were we. They "played" with Riley a little ... covering and uncovering each fountain to give him some sprays in the face as he looked to see why the water had slowed down. Over all it was just a hilarious thing to watch. The middle school kids couldn't believe Riley. :) Yep, that's our son.

Miss Paige ... While Paige didn't get to go with us today, she has gotten some pool action this week. On Monday we took out Riley's toddler tub and filled it with warm water. Paige was decked out in her baby bikini and everything. I have pictures but don't have them downloaded yet. All this as she's now SEVEN MONTHS old. *gasp* Where does the time go? :(

She's started some new things this week too ... she's beginning to say the sound "da" and "ma" ... but I don't think she knows what she's saying yet. She's also started holding her bottle when she decides she wants to.

I feel like I'm forgetting stuff but that's it for now. Really, for not having any plans I really am having a blast on this vacation. It's been great to have EVERYONE home ... and believe it or not, we've all gotten along too. ;)

I'll post back later this week with pictures!! Enjoy the rest of the week!!

They like to snuggle!

This morning I dressed Paige then put her in bed with her still-sleeping brother. I put her right on his belly, thinking that she'd start banging away with those wild arms of hers and eventually wake him up. Instead, she laid her head down and he woke up just enough to realize she was there, then wrapped her up in his arms to snuggle.

They were both as content as could be.

PLEASE tell me they'll love each other this much forever. :)

PS ~ Don't forget to check out the new pictures of (mostly) Paige below.

Bad, bad mommy!!

You know it's been a while since you've last updated when even your husband mentions it. :) Yes, Ryan reminded me that I hadn't updated in a while. I have no pictures to share but I'll do a quick run-down of our past two weeks.

We spent half of Memorial Day weekend down in Jackson and Worthington. We had an High school graduation open house on Saturday for Kristin's second cousin then spent the night in a hotel in Jackson with grandma, Uncle Jim, Auntie (or Unkie ~ as Riley says for all of his aunties) Krys and cousins Nate and Ben. I'm not sure if it was the water readiness classes for Riley or just the fact that he's a year older than he was last summer ... but he LOVES the water now. The kid who had the death grip mastered while in the water is now telling Ryan to move further out into the pool so he can jump further (off the edge). So, yes, we had a great time at the hotel ... the kids (including Paige in her little bikini that grandma Karen bought her last year) swam, we all ate way too much snacky food and my brother tried harassing beer out of our cousins in the next hotel. Sunday we went to our yearly family reunion in Jackson. It was good to see everyone ... but there were about a million little gnats that LOVED my hairspray so we ended up cutting out of there a little earlier than normal. Riley had a great time though. It's kind of funny to see how times have changed ... for the longest time, I was always the one out at the park with everyone elses kids and now those kids are the ones out at the park with mine.

Other than that we haven't been up to much. Ryan had school this past weekend so the kids and I kidnapped Grandma Karen and took her to Old Navy. We also had a birthday party for cousins Katelyn and Jack on Sunday.

We have a busy couple of weeks coming up. Ryan's parents are coming down this weekend for a visit, Ryan and I are taking all of next week off because we didn't have daycare, Ryan has school again and then the next weekend we (along with our other neighbors, Jason, Leah and Micah) off to Steve and Charina's new home up in Becker. Riley is VERY excited about this visit. We're looking forward to having all three families together again.

I promise to try and post more often. Since it's gotten nice out again we've been spending a lot of time outside and I haven't been on the computer much. Anyway, hope everyone has a great day!!

Remind me not to worry about Paige not eating ....

Despite the fact that Paige isn't eating nearly enough out of the bottle (according to what all the books say she should be eating), she's gaining weight! My chubby thighed little girl weighed in at 15 pounds and 24 inches yesterday. Some of you may be thinking, "She only weighs 15 pounds at 6 months?" ... but compared to Riley who was at 19 pounds at 1 year, this is a bit different for us. I think she comes in right around the 50 percentile ... so in other words ... she's perfect. :) But I already knew this.

Mother's Day was good. We woke up early and went out to breakfast with Big Hill Grandma (Grandma Karen) and Uncle Jim's family. I got two cards (one from Riley/Paige and one from Ryan), an adorable bucket of foam flowers that Shelley had Riley make at daycare and Ryan and the kids came along with me to pick out all my outside flowers for the year. It was a GREAT day spent with the family.

Nothing else is new. We've just been busy with outside projects. Ryan and I have been trying to add a bit of curb appeal to our house. We planted a tree for Paige this past weekend (we did the same for Riley when he was born) and have a few new bushes to plant. If anyone feels like painting trim, shutters or a couple doors, let me know. I'll be around on Friday to set you up with paint and a brush. :)

I haven't taken any pictures lately. We had a wedding this past weekend and I tried to take pictures there but was shot down by their photographer ... boo hoo. I'm sure I'll get some new pictures up soon though.

As Quiet as a Mouse ...

I'm here ... trying to get rid of the cobwebs that may have gathered on my page after a whole week without a typed word. *gasp*

We've been BUSY. Busy printing programs for a wedding this next weekend, busy with swim lessons, busy grocery shopping (it was payday ... whooo hoooo!) and most importantly ... busy playing!

Riley
Riley just completed his fourth week of "Water Readiness" through Rochester Community Ed. He goes once a week with dad and they play games in the water to try to get him more comfortable. I think it's working. He still didn't want dad to let go this past week when they were in the water with the life jackets but he's not holding on to dad for dear life anymore either. (Remember ... you can click on the pictures to see them bigger!!)

On a walk one night, Riley took a tumble off the edge of the path and scraped up his knee. We got home and cleaned it up ... all the while insisting that it have a band-aid on it. Well, below is what happens when daddy and Riley are the ones putting on the "band-aid" ... you end up with the whole knee covered with gauze. The next morning, we couldn't take it off ... and he went to daycare with that pant leg rolled up over his knee. That lasted the whole entire day at daycare and even through a visit to Grandma Karen's house. Needless to say, he gave everyone a huge sob story about how he was hurt ... and took any sympathy he could get.




















Just a random shot from last night ....

Miss Paige
One of Miss Paige's favorite things right now is swinging outside. She especially loves it when daddy pretends to be hit and hurt by her feet. (Auntie Cheryl ... if you're reading ... I think we have enough pictures of the kids enjoying the Rainbow that we could supply a whole advertising campaign. Ha ha)

A weekend full of fun!!!

It was a GORGEOUS weekend! Weather in the upper 80's by Sunday, we got to spend a good amount of family time together and for the most part, everyone was happy!

Here is a run down of how we kept ourselves busy ... what did you do?

We laughed while we ate our veggies ...














And we laughed a little more ...














Then we laughed at each other ...







And got in a little cuddle time ....







We picked "flowers" all. weekend. long. (And gave them to mom because she's "pretty". Riley's actual word!)















We gave new meaning to the words "Family Bed" ...







We shared our toes to be munched on ...







Practiced our "Miss Hollywood" face ... (anyone remember the picture of me sitting on Uncle Donalds lap with the big sunglasses on?)







Cuddled a bit more before getting up to eat breakfast ...







Had friends over to play ... LOTS!







Helped mom work up the garden (thus the extremely dirty little boy) then took a break to play ...

That was our weekend ... hope yours was just as fun!