Swimming Lessons

Riley is taking swimming lessons again this summer. It has been a rough start with the cold temperatures and freezing water! Each week she asks if she "has" to and we tell her yes. She is by no means a future olympic swimmer, but most times shedoes try and do the things they ask of her. Here are a few pictures of her "play time" at the end of the lesson. I don't take many pictures because they would ALL look the same:)

Would you like fries with that?

For her birthday, we got Riley the McDonald's drive-thru. She has been loving taking our orders and serving our food. Sometimes we are the worker and she "drives" through. Today Payton was on her car and did the driving up. It was SO cute to see them playing together and I just couldn't resist taking a few pictures of them playing.

Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there! I feel so blessed that the girls have such an awesome day and that I have an amazing dad too! We hope that everyone had a great day surrounded by the ones you love. We had a low key day but we were all together and that is what made the day special. Here is a picture of Mike and Payton from his friend's pool party yesterday. Which by the way the kids had a blast at! Payton enjoyed her first treat from the ice cream man, a tweety bird, and Riley was brave and tried the "euro bounce". Which she LOVED!! It took us until they were almost leaving to want to try it and then she went twice. She also said that "next" time she is going to go on it right away. I was brave and did it too. I even managed to accomplish two back sommersaults and a front one too. I was proud of myself and boy is it exhausting!

Happy 11 Months Payton!

Wow...11 months already! Time is just flying. Before we know it she will be 1!! At 11 months, Payton has 2 bottom teeth and the 3rd has started popping through on the top. (The 4th is not far behind) She loves to stand against furniture (or anything really) and has even begun trying to change direction on furniture and scoot down it...which scares the heck out of us because she is still kind of shaky. She has yet to figure out how to pull herself up, even though all he wants to do is stand and take steps holding fingers. Payton can only crawl backwards and gets rather mad when she does because she is not going the direction that she wants to. She also continues to love all food and would prefer the "big people" food. Only having 2 teeth does not get in her way of eating anything and everything we give her. Just a little more time and she will be on whole milk. She continues to light up our lives and we all love her so much!!

Father's Day Pictures

Here are the pictures that the girls and I took for Mike for Father's Day!

Sprinkler Fun

Riley got a new sprinkler for her birthday and today she got to try it out. Not before she got a big surprise by the hose...the large toad that you can see in the slideshow! She had a lot of fun, even though she said she was getting wet. She even got her umbrella to run through with, as she does so often. Thanks Granny and Papa Dan for the fun new toy....I know that it will bring much more enjoyment throughout the summer.

Happy Birthday Riley!!

Wow...it is amazing how much Riley has grown and changed since she came into our lives 5 years ago! She entered the world at just 5 pounds, 9 ounces and now is around 35 pounds. She has really changed in how much she has matured and turned into a "kid". Riley is such a little person now. She says that craziest things, is so tuned into everything going on, and is learning so much! We cannot believe that when the summer is over, she will be entering kindergarten. Makes mommy (and maybe daddy) sad for the baby that is no more, but so excited to see the young lady that she will continue to grow into!

Here is how she has grown over the years....
Here is Riley the day after she came home from the hospital.
At her first birthday.
Her 2 year pictures.
On her 3rd birthday.
Her 4 year pictures.
And here she is yesterday, ok technically still 4, super excited to be bringing her birthday treats to school!

I think that she has had a great 5th birthday! She started out the morning bright and early coming downstairs and finding her presents. Then she got to the cupcakes, balloons, and candles that daddy went out last night to get for her and rounded out the morning with a cupcake (complete with 2 candles) for breakfast! For lunch, Granny and Farrah came over and then we went to lunch at McDonald's where we met up with one of her friends from school and they played like crazy! Payton by the way had her first taste of McDonald's and LOVED it! No surprise there:) She had chicken nuggets, french fries, and apples....she is SO done with baby food! Currently Riley is napping now (which is why I can create this detailed post...obviously Payton too) to rest up for a big night of playing with daddy. She is all ready for him to make her a birthday fort and he is cooking her her favorite dinner....steak and cheesy potatoes. YUM!! A great birthday for a great little lady. We love you Riley!!
As you can see, Payton did NOT want a hug from the birthday girl! She wanted OUT!!!

Here are a few pictures from the evening of her birthday and from her making one of her birthday crafts from Grammy and Papa....

Spring Pictures

I am going to just compile all the photos from the spring into one slideshow. Then hopefully I will be up to date and can maybe have a fresh start for the summer and stay on top of things. This would make Chrissy so proud:) These pictures are from March up until this morning. I need to get better about taking out my camera and using it! I do take a fair amount of pictures with my phone and am trying to get these all emailed to myself and uploaded as well. Then I hope to get much better in my updating. Now that it is summer, we may even start doing some exciting things! I know one little person here is very excited for her 5th birthday on Wednesday and then there is a first birthday right around the corner too:)



Here are all the pictures from my phone....wow I take a lot of pictures with my phone!!!

Please be patient!

This should be the new title of my blog!! I know that I have been a SUPER slacker with updating my blog and I am sorry. It seems like having 2 kids did not dramatically change our lives. Apparently though, it has made updating my blog next to impossible, and I am not exactly sure why. I can just never seem to find the time or energy to turn the computer on and add some pictures. (By the way, I have not been good at taking pictures either, and when I do...they stay on the camera!!) I am going to try and get better now that we are on summer vacation around here and Payton is a super napper.

In the time being, here is one photo to tide you over:) I took this of the girls last night. Riley was wanting them to have matching pj's again....she loved the matching winter ones.....and I love all things monkey, so voila! Matching Monkey PJ's!!!

Riley's Soccer Season

This spring Riley decided that she wanted to play soccer. The next town over has a soccer club, so we signed her up. Her team had one practice a week and then a game on Saturday. The purpose of this first year was for them to learn the basics of soccer, get some exercise and have fun. Not sure about the first one, but she definitely accomplished the last two:) She had fun playing with the kids and running around, yet not real aggressive with the ball. She never really got in there and tried to kick the ball. Mike was a little disappointed that she was not the next Mia Hamm or Brandi Chastain out there I think, but it was good to see her have fun. When we asked her if she wanted to play in the fall or again next spring, she said "no" so I guess we will just wait and see what things she will do in the future. We would like to see her have at least one activity that she keeps busy doing. Up next....swim lessons:)

Here are some pictures from different games throughout the season. (And a few from the first practice.) You can also see her number 1 fan cheering her on too!