HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

We just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy New Year's! Hope you all have a wonderful holiday.

Fun Videos

Here are some fun videos from Christmas. The first is Riley opening some of her Santa presents. (We told her that she had to be a good girl and use her potty or Santa would give her kitchen to the other kids at daycare. That is why she is talking about her potty.) The other video is Kelsey and Riley making their monkey bread.

Bouncetown

Mike is off this week, so we are trying to do some family things that he misses out on when I am off with Riley. Today we met Chrissy and Lucas at Bouncetown, an inflatable indoor play place. Lucas and Riley had so much fun jumping and climbing. It was also fun for the grownups, especially Chrissy...check her out in the velcro jumpsuit! After a lot of playing, we had some much needed lunch at Portillo's and the kids exchanged their Christmas gifts to one another. On the way home, Riley asked if she could go again-I guess she had fun. What a great way to spend our day together!
(There are also some pictures of Riley in the slideshow playing with her pet pamper parlor from Christmas....she loves playdoh! Mommy does too:) )

Holiday Magic at the Zoo

As a last fun thing to do with Kris and the kids, we all bundled up and went to the zoo. It was so nice to have everyone together and to see all the beautiful decorations and lights. Riley had so much fun hanging out with her cousins and was in "big girl" mode. We had dinner at the zoo and took in the laser show. After finding that many of the animals were asleep because it was dark out and we all were starting to get cold, we headed for home. What a fun night for some magic at the zoo!

Christmas Fun

Thanks to both of our families for helping us to have such a wonderful Christmas! Since I have not had a chance until today to blog about Christmas, I am going to just make one huge posting.



Christmas Eve was spent with Mike's family. A great big thank you to his sister Shannon for hosting the wonderful event. We had a great meal, lots of fun, and a wonderful time with family. Riley had a great time playing with everyone and before we even left the subdivision, asked if she could go back. Riley is very thankful to everyone for all the fabulous gifts. Mommy has a job now of finding homes for all of them. She is already putting them to good use. What a wonderful night we all had!!



Christmas morning we had more fun opening all of the gifts from Santa. When Riley woke up, Mike told her to go downstairs and see if Santa had come. She never came back up and we heard ripping paper coming from downstairs. When I got there, she had already begun opening the presents!! I guess she is not very patient...I wonder where she gets that from? Riley had so much fun opening all of her presents and kept going back and forth between her stocking and her gifts. After presents, we had breakfast and then went to church. Riley was a very good girl at church and during mass there was even a visit from Santa Claus! After church, Mike had the job of putting together Riley's kitchen and Riley was trying her best to help. It was a great family Christmas morning.




The rest of Christmas day was spent with Amy's family. My sister Kris and family were in from New Jersey. We were very excited to have them with us since they have not been back for a Christmas Day since moving 6 years ago. Riley had so much fun playing with her cousin's, Kelsey and Nick. She was so excited to see them. It was great to have the whole family together. We all had a great time opening presents (thanks again for your generosity), sharing a wonderful meal (too much actually) and just having time to be together. After dinner, Riley made monkey bread with Kelsey and the fun continued. The day was a wonderful ending to a fabulous Christmas Holiday!!!!

We hope that everyone had as great a Christmas as we did. Thank you to everyone for all of the presents, food, and great times. I have a few videos as well that I will try to add soon. I may need to get some help figuring out how to post them.

Snow What Fun!!!

The weather outside is frightful, but Riley still wanted to go out! So we bundled up and played in the snow. It was blowing and Riley spent most of her time bringing the snow into the garage and falling on the large amounts of ice we still have on our driveway, but she still had fun as you can see. She wanted another ride on the shovel, but with the layer of ice on our hill and the snow drifts, I was not brave enough to try, so she had to settle for a ride around the front yard. We had lots of fun, but it was time to come in when the snot started running down her face. Thanks in part to the weather and the molars that she is cutting:) It is a great day to be inside. I hope safe travel for everyone driving to a Christmas destination and those trying to just make it home from work today! Be prepared for more posts over the coming days from all the Christmas celebrating we will be doing!! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!

Cookies for Santa

With the man in the red suit coming tomorrow, Riley and I decided to make some cookies. And since I have not yet been bitten by the christmas cookie bug, Pillsbury will have to do the trick. Riley had a a lot of fun putting the cookies on the tray and watching them bake. She even sampled one to make sure that they were delicious. She is getting all ready for tomorrow night. She has cookies and reindeer food. (thanks Granny!) (And thanks to Grammy for the beautiful Santa plate!) Today is turning out to be a yucky day so were are having some fun inside. There was fun outside too as you can also see. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas!!!!

Snowed In

We have all had a great long, although wintry weekend. It started out Friday with a "snice" day for all. It was too yucky to go outside and our efforts at scraping off the inch and a half of ice were not successful, but we still had fun hanging out. Rley has also found a favorite "old" new movie....the Care Bears. I am positive that it is the exact same ones I watched when I was about 6. I just have to say that the technology of making movies has come a long way!! The rest of the weekend was much the same, but this morning we did have some snowman pancakes. Well actually Riley only, and she was very interested in what shapes Daddy and Mommy were having. (We just had plain old circle ones). What a fun weekend we had. Now Riley and I are on vacation, with the holidays coming up soon and Daddy also on vacation starting Wednesday, so hopefully we will have more exciting things to blog about soon.

More Winter Fun

Like many of you, we got a few inches of snow on Tuesday. Riley was a big help to us in shoveling the driveway. She had lots of fun pushing the snow with her little shovel and even more fun making herself fall down repeatedly. After the driveway, she enjoyed her ride down the hill in our backyard on a shovel(yes, we still have not gotten her a sled) and "flying" down her slide in her snow pants. She was only ready to come in when she said her face hurt. Like everyone else in Illinois, we may have more winter weather in store tonight. As my students are hoping, there may be a "snice" day tomorrow. I guess we will just have to see. Maybe we will have even more winter fun tomorrow. And sorry there are no pictures-the photographer was busy shoveling.

Ladies Day Fun!!

Today Riley and I headed out with my friend Colleen and her daughter Clare to see Laurie Berkner. For all of you without young kids, she is a kid friendly singer. We all had a blast...yes we have to admit, even the mom's. The girls had a great time dancing and singing. We finished out the day's events with McDonald's and some playing. What a fun day!!! This is our second concert together...the first one was to Ralph's World (another kid singer). I guess you could say we are addicted to kid's music! (Sorry all the pictures seem the same, they were enthralled with Laurie. And the band is hard to see because the theater was pitch black.)

THANKS!!!

If you are enjoying all the fun new things on this page, a big thanks goes out to Chrissy! With her coaxing, I started this page and now she is passing on her blogging wisdom. She taught me how to do slideshows and coming soon....music. Soon my page will be just as official as hers:) If you would like to check out her page, go to The Ensign Family. THANKS CHRISSY!!!

Riley's First Snow Adventure

Yesterday Mike and Riley ventured out for her first time to play in the snow. She loved it....although she is not so sure about using the frozen slide in snow pants. Last night she also stayed at her Grammy's and headed out this morning to play in some more snow. Let's hope the next time it snows it is a little warmer!