Happy New Years Eve!

I have no idea why I decided to post pictures of our dog for New Years Eve BUT it probably has something to do with that adorable lil fuzzy face and how cute he looks all dolled up in his Harley jacket :-)

It was early morning and FREEZING the other day and we dug into Elmo's winter wardrobe (is that pathetic or what that our dog has a wardrobe?) and we found his rockin Harley jacket :-) As you can see, he was still half asleep, but I still managed to get him to tilt his head for one pic! I know he was just thinking, "All I want to do is go back to bed! And all they want to do is play dress up on me!" I think he actually has a green tshirt on UNDER his Harley jacket too. That's how COLD it was outside! Burr! I do NOT do cold weather well at all!

Anyways, I realized that with typing this email, I probably need to mention some New Year's resolutions that I've made for myself for 2010. Yikes! I don't think I've EVER publicly proclaimed my New Year's resolutions to anyone but Bob, however hey! There is always a first, right? And maybe by saying them out loud, I will be more likely to follow through with them! Okay so what are they you might ask? Ha-ha...the funny part is...get this...are you ready? I have NO IDEA! Yep, I know. Horrible, isn't it? Each New Years comes and usually I am all set with my New Year's resolutions. But this year, I haven't even thought about it until NOW! Yikes! So I guess I need to get hopping on this and really think about it.

So over the next few days, that will be my mission....to come up with my New Year's resolutions. Usually Bob and I swap and share resolutions with each other but like I said, I have none at the moment! I will think about it and blog about it sometime over the next few days :-) Stay tuned! Oh yeah, and Hapy New Year! :-)

Lil Heart Outift :-)

Poppy and Mi-Mi sent Riley the cutest outifits for Christmas! Here is one of them with hearts all over it. Greens and blues look really awesome on Riley because of her blue eyes so this outfit looks so adorable on her :-) Thank you Mi-Mi and Poppy! Riley will keep extra warm in this lil ensemble; we will be sure to bring it with us to Virginia when we come in one and a half weeks!

Riley's 2nd Christmas :-)

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Bob, Riley and I had a really sweet morning together opening presents, playing with toys and eating sweet and sticky Cinnabon rolls :-) Yum!

We decided that from now on, the Christmas presents from Bob and I to Riley would be wrapped in advance and placed under the tree and then the "Santa gifts" would be either wrapped or unwrapped but those 1 or 2 big gifts would be the only ones that go out on Christmas Eve. This way I can wrap pretty much everything and only have 1 or 2 presents to deal with the night before Christmas :-) And this way years down the road, I won't have to explain why there are presents under the tree prior to Santa coming :-)

Most of our Christmas morning is on video, but I did manage to snap a few camera shots in the early stages of the morning. Once I started opening gifts along with Bob and Riley though, I completely forgot to take any more pictures! That's okay though. Our house just continually got messier and messier :-) You should still be able to get a small glimpse of the BOMB that went off in our house. I am definitely not complaining. It's just that it really did look like paper, boxes and toy bombs went off inside the middle of the living room! Hee-hee :-)

The one thing that Bob and I noticed with Riley this Christmas was that when she opened one gift, she really didn't care about anything else. She really just wanted to play exclusively with that one present. Bob and I would call her and try to get her to come to the tree to unwrap something else, but she was NOT having it! She really just wanted to play with the present she opened. So in the end, I opened a couple of her presents and Bob opened a couple of her presents and Riley would eventually walk over and start playing with something else. I almost wonder if maybe next year we should spread the gift opening out throughout the day for her? This way she can enjoy Christmas all day long and not be so overstimulated by everything around her!

Of course, we didn't forget our lil puppy Elmo (who USED to be our baby). Elmo got a bone, which you will see in the pictures, so he was happy and also occupied while we opened the gifts (mo-ha-ha...mommy had alterior motives)!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas as well! Can't believe it's over but I think I'm glad :-) I just can't BELIEVE the stores are already putting Valentines stuff up! Are you serious? I still haven't even taken my tree down yet!

Long Distance Christmas

WOW have Bob, Riley and I had a busy few days! It's been so fun though and we wouldn't trade this time for anything :-)

Christmas is always the best and perfect time to get together with family and it's just so hard when that family you love is separated from you by thousands upon thousands of miles! My dad, stepmom and siblings live right outside Washington, DC in Virginia and although I usually see them once a year, ever since I had Riley it has felt like once a year just isn't enough!

I created a holiday schedule since between Bob and I, we have 3 families to see. This Christmas wasn't my dad's official turn to spend Christmas together so we had to mail gifts to each other. To make it more fun and exciting though, we called each other up on Christmas morning and did the speaker phone thing to open presents. It was definitely fun and since I like talking anyways, I think I did a great job at commentating :-)

Dad and Jennifer always know the perfect gifts and each year are so thoughtful with their gift giving. They ALWAYS go all out and Bob and I love everything they give us!

Now one thing I do have to insert here is that I tend to be a bit sneaky about gifts. I mean, come on! It's hard for one to wait ALL THE WAY until Christmas to open stuff, ya know? I even called my Dad on Christmas Eve and was like, "Hey Dad, wanna do presents now?" Of course, I got the standard, "No, no, no! You have to wait until Christmas morning!" I just get SO GOOFY with excitement and it's hard for me to wait!

Well a few weeks before Christmas, Jennifer called up Bob and said, "Bob, I am going to mail you a gift to work and I want you to assemble it at work and just keep it hidden from Erica until Christmas morning. Then bring it out and it will be like Santa really came!" So cool huh?! So I had NO IDEA this was happening and apparently this adorable gift arrived in the mail to Bob and he assembled it and kept it a perfect little secret...that sneaky man-hubby!

So Christmas morning came and we did the standard routine. Riley started talking in the monitor...I got up to go to the bathroom and go get her...and then bam! Bob jumped in front of me and was like, "What are you doing?" I was kind of in a fog and I groggily said, "Um, I'm going to get Riley?" He was like, "Okay well you have to go directly into her room and don't look in the living room at all." So I said, "Okay" really too tired to question his odd behavior :-)

Then when I was changing Riley, he came in and was like, "Okay I'm going to sit on the couch and record your expression on the camera as you come down the hallway." I was like, "Um Bob? I know everything that's out there. I mean, I set it all up! Why are you acting so goofy?" He responded, "Honey, Santa came!" I of course had no idea what he meant by that.

So I finished changing Riley and we slowly walked down the hallway and there stood this adorable pink car! Here is the picture below:


The picture quality isn't so great because I copied it off of Bob's facebook, but oh well. You get the idea. It was just sitting there looking all cute and Riley started making this squeaking noise and jumping all around. She was ADORABLE! I mean seriously, it was the perfect reaction if you were the gift giver and were expecting this amazing reaction from someone.

Then Bob said that my Dad and Jennifer had arranged the entire thing because they wanted Christmas morning to be special and as if Santa really came! Well I was just as excited as Riley and it was fun to watch her walk around it and say, "Car!" a million times :-)

The funniest part is that after Bob assembled this entire thing, he kept it at work where of course, he tests performance vehicles for all kinds of things! They have this one particular machine called the "Dyno" where they strap vehicles down to this thing and then make them go from 0mph to 60+mph quite fast. This way they are able to test lots of things about the vehicle.

Anyways, Bob decided to have a little fun with this pink car at work and he took a few pictures of it on the "Dyno" machine. Hillarious! So funny :-) My hubby has such a funny sense of humor!

Here are the pictures of the pink car on the Dyno:

Just want to say thank you Dad, Jennifer and Emily for such wonderful and sweet Christmas presents that you all sent us. It really made our Christmas and we loved each and every one of them! Bob and I are also looking forward to going to Lowes when we return home to see what other Christmas gift awaits us there :-)

Riley and I can't wait to see Poppy and Mi-Mi next month! I went shopping today and picked up a few winter outfits for Riley at Gap Kids that were seriously marked down so we are prepared for the FREEZING TEMPS when we come up! Love you all and see you soon!

Christmas with Nana and Pa!

Proceed with caution! Erica does NOT have her face on in these pictures so BEWARE! Have the scroll button handy unless you are just remarkably BRAVE :-)

On Christmas Eve day Bob, Riley and I went to Nana and Pa's house to celebrate Christmas with them! We left around 8:30am and got there at 9 to eat and hang out. To begin the festivities, Bpb and I drank egg nog! Yes, good old fashioned egg nog. I was actually quite suprised that Bob likes that stuff (since he's not a big milk person) but drink it he did!

Next, we watched the movie Elf while we were waiting for my sister Katie to get ready. She had to fully do her routine so this took a while but Bob and I didn't mind chilling on the couch together while Riley played and my mom cooked Christmas brunch :-)

After my sister Katie was done getting ready, we opened presents! Nana played Santa first (notice Nana and Pa and Katie are all wearing Santa hats) and handed out the gifts to Bob, Riley and I. There was a TON of stuff and I honestly can't even remember it all at this moment! Bob got some really nice shirts, 2 gift cards, and other nice things :-) I got really nice shirts, a purse, gift cards, lotion, makeup and more! And Riley's big gift was her little tricycle! She probably won't be able to reach the pedals for some time yet, but she still enjoyed scooting herself around on the bike and also being pushed on the bike :-) She also got a booster seat, bathtub toys and more. So many things! Thank you Nana and Pa and Katie!

After gift time and Bob and I had handed out our gifts, we moved to eat brunch. Nana always goes all out making LOTS of yummy kinds of breakfast foods. There was bacon, sausage, a cheesy hashbrown casserole, cheese and ham keeshes (sp?), spinach keeshes, grapes, and french toast. VERY filling! Riley loved the bacon (first time she's had it) AND the french toast. She downed both of those. She is also an apple lover these days so Nana cut up an apple and she devoured it. One of her favorite words to say is, "apple." And for dessert? Cheesecake! Just to throw in there because it's so yummy and fun to eat :-)

These last 2 pictures were taken right before our Christmas Eve service. We were all set on taking Riley and going as a family but she has just NOT been feeling well these last few days so I was super bummed that we weren't going to be able to go. Fortunately Nana and Pa rescued us and were able to come for an hour to watch Riley so we could go. Yay! So Bob and I went and enjoyed ourselves while Riley stayed at home.

The service was so beautiful but partially sad as well. This time last year, our Pastor's wife Leigh Anne spoke about how things had taken a turn for the worse with her cancer. She was so strong though and talked about how God is in control of everything. She passed away right before Easter this year and Pastor Dale and his son Will took it very hard.

At the service last night, Pastor Dale asked his son to come up front for a minute. Will, who is about 10 now, walked up and Pastor Dale explained how it was a family tradition ever since Will was little for him to read the Christmas story aloud at the family dinner table. Last year Will did this for his mom and dad but this year Leigh Anne obviously isn't here anymore and it just wasn't the same. So Pastor Dale said, "Will, would you read the Christmas story aloud in front of the church on Christmas Eve?" And Will said, "Sure dad." And Pastor Dale thought, "I'm going to make a preacher out of him yet!" And then later Will said, "Can I have a dollar if I do it?" And Pastor Dale jokingly said to us, "Guess he'll be a baptist preacher!" :-) It was cute. For those of you that don't know, Pastor Dale was actually raised baptist. So Will read the Christmas story super fly fast at lightning speed but he did a great job :-)

Overall a busy but wonderful Christmas thus far! Bob and I are so blessed to have such wonderful family in our lives who love us and Riley as they do. More to come soon!