A few pics from Cozumel!

Here's a few of the pics the resort actually took. A cool feature where they take pics the entire time you're there then you can purchase them on the day you leave. You can see the now infamous black eye, and 2 of Riley's FAVORITE things - the shows at night (he wanted to go up for a picture EVERY night whether Mommy looked presentable or not!) and his new found toy - a cup of water in a BIG ol' pool to splash on Mommy and anyone else in the near vicinity! 

Wish I was back there now!!! :) 

Awe Man!

OMG! Kelly and I have NO idea where Riley got this! I'm sure one of us! But his new "saying" is "Awe Man!"' It's almost replaced "Uh-Oh". We just noticed him saying it A LOT this week! I have to try to capture it on video or voice soon before he moves on to the next thing!

Christmas Lights! WOW MOMMY!

So Christmas lights and fireworks are 2 of MY favorite things! And I think Riley maybe following suit! We on the spur of the moment decided to drive through Highland Park Friday night after we ate near there to see a few lights. We knew not everyone would have them up, but it was more of a test drive to see if Riley would really even notice them.

Notice them he did! It was the most adorable thing! Like everything he does is! :)

He was calling the trees - magical trees! Look Mommy! Wow! Magical Trees! Then he was calling the roofs that had just outline lights on them Mountains! Who would have thought of that! But that's why seeing the world again through a child's eyes is one of the greatest things!

One of my fondest memories growing up is riding around with my Grandparents on Christmas Eve looking at Christmas lights with our thermos of hot chocolate! I guess that's part of the reason I'm still so fond of it now! So I can't wait to create some new tradition around that with Riley!

Thanksgiving Week

So I'm suffering from the same personality ailment on the blog that I suffer from on home or organizational projects! I get stuck and can't get going b/c the thought of catching up is overwhelming! So....I'm just going to blog on current events, then I'll play catch up slowly but surely on the last couple of months. As usual, I want to include pictures and videos, so those things always make the process take quite a bit longer!

We had a great Thanksgiving week! We started off the weekend before with GiGi coming to watch Riley so Kelly, Josh, Nancy and I could go down to Austin and do the Warrior Dash for Kelly's birthday. Kelly and I have been wanting to do it for quite sometime, and we just missed the one near Dallas earlier this year. Our friend Hon from Austin did it with us too, so it was a lot of fun! I have a bum hamstring, and Nancy is nursing runners' knee so we walked/ran it, but we did all the obstacles and finished it! I have to admit it was WAY easier than I had mentally psyched myself up about it! Kelly and I ended in grand fashion - he did a front flip into the final mud pit and I did a face first belly dive! Good Times!!! :) Then we went out in Austin that night. We went to some private party at a bar of some of Hon's friends. And there was a guy there doing balloon figures or whatever. He was AWESOME! Here's a quick pic of my Star Wars nerd husband who happens to be trapped in a hot, jock body! LOL! Although I have to admit his friend ordered it for him for his birthday! Still pretty impressive though! And our friend Hon used it to pick up all sorts of chicks that night, so I guess every chick does secretly want to be Princess Leila! I think it took Kelly and I until Tuesday to feel normal though! We are definitely out of practice from how we used to be able to go out!

Then we actually sent Riley to school this week since he had been out of school since last Thursday ill so he'd be back on schedule, and we were totally self indulgent and had day dates and went to see 4 movies! We even went out with friends one night, and Talana watched Riley for us! So we almost had an entire 'adult' week if you count Saturday through Wed! :) It was fun! And we didn't really see any bad movies either, so that made it worth it! And Riley had a BLAST at school because they made each day a fun day - they watched Toy Story, played with Bubbles then brought their favorite snacks one day. It helped me feel less guilty and self absorbed when he didn't want to leave school when we went to pick him up! He LOVES it!

I'm sad to say we missed most of my family Thanksgiving Day, which is my favorite holiday of the year because usually everyone comes. What can you do?! Kelly and I overslept, and you can't just "get out the door" with a toddler like we can when it's just the 2 of us! It was still a good day! And we still got to have our FAVORITE Chicken and Dressing! Every year my Aunt Char's tastes more and more like my MemMaw's did! Yummy! It's Kelly's favorite now too! Which unfortunately, means less leftovers for me!

We got our tree up during Riley's nap yesterday, so now we just need some presents under it! And we got to see my Godson's family from Portland this afternoon, so I'd say we had a pretty good Thanksgiving/Kelly's Birthday/Vacation week! Now back to reality tomorrow!

Riley's Time Out Interview!

So I actually had this post ready to publish before we left for Mexico, but something happened with the video upload and I didn't have a chance to fix it before I left. AND I haven't forgotten about the blog! At the end of this month, I will have been out of the country 14 of the 31 days and traveled even more days when you include day trips for work! Somehow all my work trips AND our family vacation to Cozumel all hit in the same month! Add in I started a new management position in August - just in time for 2011 Annual Budget, and OVERWHELMED is the understatement of the year!

Anyway - I bought a new Flip Video HD for our trip to Cozumel so I can capture Riley's first "official" family vacation moments! Side note - ANY parent should invest in one of those! The challenge with our nice Sony video camera is that it takes too long to grab it and turn it on. Plus, you can't run around town with the Sony video camera in your purse. The Flip Vid is so small and takes 2 button clicks to turn on and start filming in like 2 seconds! 2 seconds is the equivalent of 2 stunts in our house, so you gotta be FAST! It ROCKS! Kelly LOVES it! Every time I turn around he has it on. And it's REALLY hard to catch Riley in pictures now b/c he's always moving! Almost impossible! So this was our answer to that challenge!

Anyway - Kelly captured this video that will surely be a timeless classic in the Sterne household! :) Although I don't think it would be admissible in a court of law because they would accuse Kelly of leading the witness just a bit! It's still a CLASSIC though! Ms. Dina is his teacher. I think he says Jory (another boy in his class did something too), then the main subject is Matthew who he sits next to at their table.

And let me just say this one post has been a labor of LOVE! I've been struggling with getting this video uploaded since the morning of October 15th before we left for Mexico! It's like they make it so simple - it took me a while to find the magic button to "prepare the video" for uploading/sharing! It would spend 20ish minutes acting like it was uploading only to error out in the end. Fingers crossed I figured it out now!  It's actually still "working" as I type this! Technology!! FINALLY! I'm posting this right now! The video FINALLY successfully uploaded!!

Riley still says "cheese" every time we hold this video camera up b/c it's small like a regular camera! And I love how he acts out pushing to Kelly in the beginning. Kelly actually said he had been telling him the story for over 10 minutes before he thought to video it. I think he's saying he and Matthew were fighting over the bicycle at school outSIDE and he pushed him, etc. This is actually the first "story" Riley has told us that we can understand! I think there will be many more Time Out stories to come! And the funny thing is one week later when we were on vacation, all of the sudden Riley says - Matthew pushing time out and runs and sits by the wall in our room!

They've even coined Riley's meltdowns at school a "Riley Fit". The only time he has them is when it's time to come in from outside, and when they take him away from the TV - I can't imagine where he got that!! For those of you that may not know, Kelly can't be in the house without the TV on! I on the other hand lived without a TV for years. Riley really only gets to watch 1 Barney episode a day, so I guess he views TV at school as a treat! They let them all watch a 15 minutes of tv at diaper change/potty time, so they now have a process where they tell everyone else to move out of the way so they don't get hurt when it's Riley's turn to go to the potty! Nice!! We'll give his Dad credit for that trait since it's related to TV watching! :)

Anyway! Hopefully the tv obsession will pay off on the plane ride to Cozumel in a few hours! I purchased new Barney videos just for this occasion!

I promise to catch up on the blog and post lots of pics and videos of another round of Riley's Firsts when we get back!

Adios for now!