Pool Day!

Okay so I tried all day yesterday and all night to upload a video of Riley singing, "Happy Birthday" to her Mimi BUT for whatever reason, the video upload isn't working AGAIN. I have been having trouble with this lately trying to get it to upload the squeaky shoes (hillarious video) AND the singing and it's not doing either. Yeesh! I thought if I hit "upload" right before bed, that it would SURELY be uploaded by this morning and of course, it's not. Soooo, without further delay, Happy Birthday Mimi! Can't wait to see you and Poppy on Thursday! We will have so much fun together :-) Riley is already saying, "Mimi? Poppy?" cause I have been saying it these last few days and she's like, "Okay mommy. You've mentioned them like a gazillion times so when am I gonna see them already?!" Hee-hee :-)

I thought I would post some pictures of Riley at the pool the other day with her friends. I am starting to notice a trend with Riley's swimsuits though and it's super annoying! We received about 3 bathing suits last year when we got a HUGE amount of clothing from one family that my mom knows. Now don't get me wrong, I am SUPER grateful for the clothes because as my aunt commented recently, she has a ton of outfits from this one family! :-)

So I have put 2 of the bathing suits on Riley and would you believe that with both of them, her shoulder straps just keep coming down! At one point I heard another mom say, "Riley honey, let me fix your strap." Riley was to my left (I was sitting on the edge of the pool) but I was helping the girl on my right for a second and when I turned behind me, both straps were down and she was kinda being FREE for a moment, ha-ha :-) Yikes! Sooooo, you will notice a few pictures with the strap down but that's because right before I went to shoot, it would fall off. I did get a couple with the strap up though, yay :-)

These girls all are my neighbors and what fun and sweet neighbors they are! I just love em and am so happy we are all so close :-)

Here is my little stinker poo with a shovel :-)

Here are all the girls taking ALL of the toys out and making the kid's pool area as messy as possible! After all, what fun would it be if the toys weren't everywhere? :-)
Testing the temp of the water a bit more with her foot :-)

In this picture is Keira (far left), Riley, Izzy and Jules

Riley finally made it in. Yay! Her friends had some KEWL PEWL toys, hee-hee :-)

Little Miss Izzy is a shoe NUT! Here she is modeling off my flip flops. I thought it was absolutely hillarious! I didn't even see her swipe them and the next thing I know, she's walking around the corner modeling them off. Hee-hee :-)

Little Miss Keira was just blowing bubbles right before this picture. She is so cute!

Here is Marianne my neighbor :-) She's like, the superhero mom who does EVERYTHING with her girls,...playgroups, Sea World, church events, etc. She is ALWAYS super busy and doing fun stuff with the family :-)

If only Riley would KEEP the hat on her head! She refuses to wear it, therefore the constant squinting.

Hi sweetpea!

I'm sure there will be lots more pool pics to come as it gets hotter and hotter here! Whew!

Just an fyi, Thursday we leave for Virginia and I am SO SUPER EXCITED! As most of you know, I'm not only going to spend time with my family, but I'm also participating in the Race for Hope 5k in Washington, DC. It's basically a fundraiser to raise money for people with brain cancer. People run to either honor a loved one that has passed on OR they run to celebrate their cancer remission and survival. The website is:

http://www.braintumorcommunity.org/site/PageServer?pagename=RFH_DC_HomePage

I'll be running for my brother Tyler who passed from cancer 4 years ago now. I am excited but also know that it will probably be emotional for me as well. I will be thinking of him during my entire run and wearing a picture of him on my shirt as well!

I'll try to have my dad and stepmom take lots of pictures and I'll be sure to post them on my blog later! The race isn't until Sunday though so still a few days away :-)

Okay gotta run. Ta-ta for now!

Run for the Trees 5K

The day for my Run for the Trees 5K dawned absolutely bright and beautiful! It was actually a bit cool that morning and I LOVED it because later, WOW did we SWEAT!

The race start time was 7:30am...yes, VERY early, so I set all my stuff out the night before and got ready to hop out of bed at 5:45am. Let me just tell you, I am NOT a morning person so this hopping out of bed was actually more like a FALL out of the bed, ha-ha :-)

For this particular race I ran with my friend Katie Catterfeld. Bob and her husband Derek work together and we met through the guys and the many work functions Superchips has had over the years.

Now you have to understand, Katie is a PRO at this running thing. She's been running since before she's had kids, popped out 3 and ran in between all of those babies and recently after the birth of her 3rd child, she ran a marathon! The girl is both crazy AND inspirational, hee-hee. I definitely don't think I could do that cause I'm not sure I have the drive but Katie...definitely has that runner's drive! :-)

I arrived at Winter Park High School's track and field around 6:45am and walked around to snap a few pictures before the race AND warm up on the track while I waited for Katie and her family to arrive.

Here is a picture of basically the sponsoring organization's flag and their trees they would be giving out to the top contestants in both the male and female category. It was all set up in the center of the track and field.

I took this picture that they had set up of all of the different kinds of trees they were giving out.

THEN, back at the front of the stadium, they had huge tables set up full of small trees for each contestant to take. Yay! I got a tree too! :-) And believe me, I have NO idea what trees are pretty and nice and what trees aren't so great. So since I had some time to spare I went up to one of the guys unloading the trees and asked him which was the best to take. He told me the Magnolia trees were gorgeous when in bloom and showed me where they were. So of course, that's the one I quickly grabbed after the race! :-)

A few minutes later I ran into my friend Andy who is also a professional runner. When I say professional, I mean they have a few marathons under their belt! :-)

Here is my friend Katie that I ran with. She picked up my registration packet the day before (I was at Disney so couldn't do so) so she brought my running bib and stuff with her. Here we are all ready for the race!Same pic...closer up :-)

This was right at the start line before we began. As you can see, Katie is super outnumbered with the guy/girl ratio in her family! All the boys are so beautiful and well-behaved though. She is one proud mamma :-)

Awe :-) There to cheer on their mommy! :-)
Okay so I don't have any pictures of us during the race, for obvious reasons, but I seriously ALMOST stopped for one picture of which I'll tell you about it a minute. First, the race started in Winter Park through probably the most expensive, gorgeous neighborhoods that I have NEVER seen before...and I grew up there!

We then entered the tree preserve, which is closed off all year long ALWAYS to outsiders. They only open it once a year for THIS RACE and it was just absolutely gorgeous. There were police officers and a few groundskeepers as we ran the race and let me just tell you, entering that gorgeous preserve was so serene and beautiful!

The craziest part was seeing all of the peacocks! And THAT'S the picture that I almost stopped for. Peacocks everywhere! At first we heard them far off. And then as we ran, there was one on the side of the road and then another in a tree, etc. So gorgeous! They were bright blue and their featheres were crazy green and all sorts of colors. I have to say that I've never seen a peacock before and these creatures were just BEAUTIFUL.

Okay so the weirdest part. This tree preserve is completely closed off...no outside visitors...no outside access. And then all of a sudden, through all the trees and dense forest, there is a random house with an elderly lady sitting out front. She was living in the tree preserve. So the only thing I can think is that she owns it? Or maybe she's like the mayor's wife of Winter Park? Who KNOWS. But there she was sitting in a lounge chair at the end of her driveway sipping her coffee and watching all of us run by. I just thought it was the oddest sight! AND she was in her pajamas with slippers on like this was a normal every day occurence to have hundreds of people running by your house through a tree preserve that no one is allowed into. Hee-hee, so weird! And oh yeah, did I mention that there were peacocks ALL OVER the roof of her HUGE HOUSE too?

So then we ran through these massive wooden doors that reached really, really high and we were out of the tree preserve. And that's when I saw it. A mansion that seriously took like 5 minutes to run by. It wasn't even so much high as it was LOOOOOOOOOOONG. Like how long that word is that I just typed is like how LONG that house was. I really don't even think I could FIND it again if I went to Winter Park but I do remember that it was right against the huge wall on the outside of the tree preserve. So gorgeous and huge, this house! And the craziest part is that this enormous LONG house is neighbors with the elderly lady IN the tree preserve. The only problem is that there is a wall that goes on forever AND a million trees separating the both of them. So I'm sure they don't even know each other!! So odd to be so closed off from the rest of the world.

Allrighty, here is a picture of Katie and I at the sign from earlier. We ran the race in 33 minutes, 17 seconds and boy were we sweaty and yucky afterwards!

And here we are with our trees that we got after the race! :-) Both are gorgeous magnolias! Here is my goofy, solitary pose with my goofy, solitary tree :-) What a dorky picture, ha-ha. Well this is a dorky blog anyhow, so it'll go just great! :-)
Planet Smoothie was there (as well as other vendors) and here we are splurging on strawberry smoothies! I had like 5 samples cause they were SO GOOD!
They had a kid's race afterwards for all the kids that were there and I said, "Oh Katie! They got number 1? So awesome!" And she said, "No, ALL the kids got a number 1." Awe, so cute :-) All the kids are number 1 winners! Bob stayed home with Riley on this particular morning because both she and he were SPENT after our day at Disney the day before (pictures soon to follow!) Here are Katie's boys with their running bibs on.

Here is Katie getting her youngest boy pysched up for the race :-)

Katie you are such a hoot! :-) Love ya!

Birthday Party at Chuck E. Cheese for Gavin!

Tuesday was SO fun for Riley and I as we got her all decked out in a cute party dress and headed off to Chuck E. Cheese for her buddy Gavin's 2nd birthday. First we stopped at the post office to mail a few things and her favorite thing to do is go and play with the empty post office boxes that aren't being used (don't worry, I checked). So I got a few pictures of her having fun in the post office :-)

Riley was SUPER anxious to get to Chuck E. Cheese though and kept saying, "Chucky Cheeeeeese!" "Chucky Cheeeeese!" So we quickly hopped in the car and we were off! When we first arrived, I snapped a quick picture of Katie, Gavin's mommy, AND her newborn Ethan. He is still soooo tiny and soooo cute! I seriously can't believe how AMAZING Katie looks too right after having a child! I don't think I left my house for like 6 months after I had Riley! Just kidding :-) But WOW! She's already out and about and having birthday parties! :-) You go girl!!

And here is the beautiful family of 4 with the birthday boy Gavin! Such a good looking family :-)

Below are all 3 of my buddies with their newborns :-) There is Tracie and Isaac to the far left, Heather and little baby girl Laila in the middle and then Katie and little Ethan to the far right. ALL 3 of these mommies have toddlers Riley's age!

Awe :-)

When the kids got there, Katie passed out tokens in cups to all the kids. Riley just stood there in awe and happiness over her cup of tokens. Seriously, she was just thrilled to hold the cup, hee-hee :-)

Jacob and Riley went to the little sound stage and were smacking buttons left and right! "Hmmmm...what does this button do?"
Nate joined in on the fun! :-)
Snack time! We LUUUUV our gummies!! :-)
This picture is so cute :-) All the lil buddies playing ski ball together :-)
Katie said you pay a package deal and Chuck E. Cheese does everything else! The only thing you are responsible for is the cake :-) So Katie had professional cupcakes done and they were adorable!! Pizza time! Riley sucked down that juice box. These things are VERY dangerous to give a toddler though. Let me tell you, no sooner had I SAID that they were dangerous (because Riley loves to squeeze them really hard and watch the juice squirt everywhere) than little Miss Ava next to Riley squeezed the juicebox REALLY HARD and juice went flying everywhere! Hee-hee :-) Such cute little stinkers :-)
YUM....ICING
Mommy decided to CUT the cupcake :-)
Okay this was Riley's face JUUUUST as Chucky, the REAL in PERSON Chucky, was rounding the corner and coming out. She was like, "Um, what is the big mouse doing here?"
But then 2 seconds later she was fine and wanted down to DANCE with her little buddy Jacob! Chucky was dancing and playing music and Riley was LOVING it! I'll see if I can upload video tomorrow :-)
Gavin warmed up to Chucky after a bit :-)

Mommy, Riley and Chucky

Present time! Tracie's mom and dad are here from Wisconsin helping out Tracie and her hubby for the month. SUCH a nice family and such a great photo of the 3 generations here. They look SO MUCH ALIKE!

Heather with her sweet baby girl. Her older boy is little red-headed Jacob but little Miss Laila here has dark hair!

Almost time to go now. Both Riley and Gavin are working off all that extra sugar by playing on a few last minute things :-)
EVERY SINGLE TIME I've EVER been to Chuck E. Cheese with Riley, she does NOT want to go on the kiddie rides...Barnie, Clifford, etc. However today, maybe because of the sugar rush, she hopped right up on Barnie! Then she just stared at him. It was cute :-)
Little Gavin (and his custom made shirt for his bday) going down the slide!
Riley's last turn on the slide :-)

And that about sums up our crazy, fun morning at Chuck E. Cheese! Let me just tell you, what a FUN place to have a birthday party :-) I asked about birthday parties in June and how crowded the place gets and the lady said, "Honestly with all the day camps, field trips and day cares, it's crazy ALL SUMMER here." So that about answers my question about Riley ever having a birthday at Chuck E. Cheese! Totally out for us cause crowds cause chaos! (literation just for my aunt Susan, hee-hee)