A BEAUTIFUL day outdoors!

Last week I felt pretty yucky and had a bad head cold with all the extra "fun stuff"....snot, stuffy head, achy feeling, etc. Riley however felt GREAT so on this particular day when we had nothing planned, I thought we would get out of the house and enjoy the beautiful weather! We usually try to do this every day if we can but there have been a lot of rainy days mixed with cold days and then some sporadic warm weather recently!

Riley and I are HUGE outdoor girls and absolutely LOVE walks and everything nature related. I brought my new phone along and since it has this awesome camera that comes with it, I thought I would snap a few pics of my girl lookin all cute outdoors!

Here she is walking along with her water bottle that she absolutely LOVES! This is seriously what got Riley to start drinking water and liking it...this cute little pink thing. Wish I had thought of the cute little water bottle idea sooner!

We went ALL over including this huge outdoor sand volleyball court that she calls, "One BIG sandbox!" I didn't get pictures there but did capture some along the way. Here she is checkin out the view from one of the benches outdoors. I love this photo. It looks like she's just sitting there taking in all of earth's beauty and wonder!

Silly face :-)

She was eating her goldfish when a strong wind blew through! Here she is trying to push away all those wayward hairs :-)

Saying, "Cheese!"

She kept asking me to sit on the bench with her so I sat down and TRIED to take a picture of the both of us. It was nearly impossible though because the camera is on one side and you have to push the button from the other. So I did the best I could but didn't really get both of us fully in the shots below. Riley's expressions change throughout :-)

She was so relaxed by the water with the gorgeous sun and wind!

Mommy kept the same gooberific expression on her face for each pose, hee-hee :-)

There is one tree that Riley loves to dance around and play in and this is it below. So here she is holding on and kind of swinging around the tree.

Singing here! Notice the head tilt :-)

Standing in the tree!

Having some fun just hangin out!

LOVE this shot! Wish it was closer :-) She is peeking out at me.

Leaning on the tree now :-)

Love this shot too! It was super windy and sunny and she was trying to say "cheese" but it came out more as a squint :-)

This one is my new screen saver :-) I just think it's super cute, serene and beautiful! She looks so grown up to me here as well.

She and I are absolutely LOVING this weather right now except this week SHE is sick and I'm better! Hope we all recover quickly!

Fun at the Mall! :-)

In December, Riley and I went to the mall one day to finish our Christmas shopping. It was actually not crowded at all and we had a chance to run around and have fun together :-) This mall is also not a super crowded mall in general, which I LOVE! In one part of the mall they have these little kids rides set up and Riley always makes a beeline for them! Here she is having fun!

The School Bus!

I asked her to smile and say "cheese" and she said, "cheese" but she forgot the smile! :-)

Riley on the fire truck! :-)

Checkin out all the kewl stuff :-)

Cute smile :-)

I had run out of quarters by the time we got to this one so she just sat in it for a minute.

Staring at another kid who had came to go on the rides :-)

In one of the toy stores, she got a huge kick out of this snake!

She wrapped the snake around her and said the snake had gotten her :-)

Crawling/Slithering like a snake

Will be fun when she has a little partner in crime doing these fun things with her!...I think? Hee-hee :-)

Lovin my Tutu :-)

Mimi sent Riley this absolutely ADORABLE green, blue and purple tutu and Riley had an absolute BALL twirling around the kitchen and dancing for me :-) I snapped a few pictures with my phone so they might be a bit blurry. Thank you Mimi for the smiles and laughter! We LOVE it!!

Here is my little ham! :-)

Analyzing the tutu :-)

Thinking, "Wow, this makes my outfit look SO much prettier!"

Love you Mimi!

Messy-Messy-Messy!

Around Thanksgiving, my Aunt Brenda took Riley to Publix to pick up a few groceries. Among the few items they collected were a 6 pack of Thanksgiving cupcakes! Well apparently Riley really wanted to carry them around the store soooooo, Brenda let her,....hee-hee :-)

Then Riley wanted to hold them in the car on the way home. And THEN she wanted to carry them inside the house.

HERE is the final product! Aaaah! And the funniest part is that my sister Katie was really craving something sweet and REALLY wanted to eat one of these but she said she seriously couldn't after she took one look at them and saw their new state after Riley's ever so gentle handling :-)

Did it phase Riley at all? Oh NOOOOO! Here she is getting a mouthful!

Disassembling the cupcake!

YUM...don't you just really want one? hee-hee :-)

Afterwards, Riley decided to style Auntie Katie's hair with this clothespin :-)

Some seriously great afternoon fun with her 2 favorite aunts!! Love you Brenda and Katie!!

My Bday Dinner at Nana and Pa's :-)

Happy Monday everyone! I am super excited today because an old family friend, Ms. Betty, is coming over to analyze/assess the wall space she has in Riley's room to paint a Disney mural on Riley's wall! Woopee! Can't WAIT to see what it's going to look like :-) She is so incredibly artistic and talented so should be absolutely adorable! We are going to go over various Minnie and Mickey poses and stuff and see what Riley would like best. Then lunch afterwards...yay! I'll keep you posted and put up pictures later of what the final result is :-)

Here are pictures from my bday dinner 2 weeks ago at my mom's house :-) I think they are backwards cause the cake stuff should be at the end, but that's okay. My mom got the most amazing and wonderful carrot cake I've ever had..seriously! It had pieces of raisins, a layer of apricot jelly, nuts, pieces of carrots and other stuff that made it super amazing. YUM. This is why I told my doctor I gained too much weight this last month, hee-hee :-) Between Christmas, New Years and 2 bday celebrations, it was just too too hard to NOT eat all the yummy food!

Riley is ALL ABOUT birthday celebrations so the grin on her face as she walked toward me was priceless!

Running out of the way :-) She was SO EXCITED!

Singing, "Happy Birthday" and dancing!

I think I had just figured out what cake it was so my grin was totally huge here :-)

Riley getting ready to help me blow!

Candles done...yay!

Time for some singing :-)

Aunt Brenda came over to hang out with us! It was actually her bday yesterday so I brought her gift on this night to give her :-) For my bday, Brenda gave me this absolutely ADORABLE purse that I'll have to take a picture of and post. It's from Anthropologie and I absolutely LOVE it!

Riley LOVES to sing on this thing!

Later, she took a party blower and was teasing Elmo with it :-)

Hangin with Pa :-)

My mom made one of my favorite meals...homemade lasagna with this homemade sauce that was to die for! There was also a super yummy salad and this toasted garlic bread from Publix that I think I ate like, 20 million pieces of!

While letting my food digest, I went online really quick. There was a book that my mom used for me when I was little that she still had and I was looking on Amazon to see if it was still around :-)

Nana and Riley made homemade Playdo a few days before, the same recipe my mom used to make for my siblings and I when we were little, and it's got this consistency so that is so soft and awesome. This recipe is online I'm sure but also in that book I mentioned above. Here are Pa and Riley playing with it :-)

Nana playing Playdo too!

Another dinner picture! I had a HUGE mouthful of food here so was trying to disguise it. Instead my mouth and face just look even MORE huge than they already are!

I gave Aunt Brenda her bday gift in the kitchen so she started to open it right there cause Riley was dying to help!

I got her a bunch of bath stuff...back scrubber, scrubbie, shower gel, etc :-)

She was teasing here and saying she'll use the back scrubber for her hair. Riley was looking at her like, "Wha?"

Thanks Nana and Pa for the yummy food and great bday celebration together :-)