Riley's 2yr Old Photos

Here's just a quick sampling of 4 of the shots from his 2 yr old photo shoot! He worked it for the camera as usual, but Ms. Jessica is great at capturing the essence of Riley and his playful personality b/c she just goes with it! She doesn't try to force him into poses, etc.

OMG! I LOVE HIM!!!!!! 

Mischievous! :)

What?! Where's my LITTLE boy?!

Seriously? Where is he?! At least we still have the cheeks and the rubber band wrists! WE haven't lost those YET! :)

More to come! These are the only 4 pics I've seen too! We just rushed these so I could have prints of them to put on the table at his birthday party!

iTwo! iTwo!

He and I had been practicing all week - I'd ask him how old he was going to be on his birthday, and he'd say iTwo! iTwo! And instead of holding up his 1st and 2nd fingers, he'd hold up his thumb and index finger! I was like that counts! It's still 2 fingers! 

MAN OH MAN has Riley had a record birthday!! We celebrated for 4 days straight!!

Day 1 - His actual birthday. Cupcakes with his class at school! Yummy! And he didn't cry when they sang Happy Birthday to him, so that was a success!

Here are his basketball cupcakes! Yummy!

Here he is at school with his buddy Jacob! 

His current classmates are the 4 along the bottom - Riley, Jacob, Kayla and Cody (with the plate to his face). 

A closeup of the birthday boy. You can see his face is still a little red from when they all sang to him! Sweet!

Day 2 - Splash Day at school! This was a coincidence, but one of Riley's FAVORITE things is Splash Parks, so it was meant to be!

Here he is all decked out for "splash day" in his board shorts and surfing shirt! So cute!! He looks like Daddy!

This is also one of his birthday presents! A Little People Race track!

Day 3 - His actual party at Pump It Up! OMG! I was worried he'd be too young for it, but that wasn't the case at ALL! He LOVED it!! He had a BLAST!! And I think everyone else did too! Adults included! :) It was a resounding success!! I can't think of one thing that didn't go as planned or that I would have changed, so we're 2 for 2 on successful birthday celebrations! But I'm setting the bar high! Not sure I can maintain these standards long term!

Photos to follow! We had Ms. Jessica (the girl that does ALL his photos) come to his party to take pictures too! That way I wouldn't be stressed about that as well as everything else going on! I did capture some cute videos I'll have to edit down small enough to post eventually! To say Riley had fun would be the UNDERSTATEMENT of the year! He was the life of the party!! Even our party "attendants" were carrying on about how into it he was for his age! 

Day 4 - He opened his presents from his birthday party! He had so much fun at the party, he was too pooped to open gifts! And at this age, it would have been torture! It basically took hours at home b/c he'd have to take a break from opening presents and play with each present he opened as he opened it! Good Times!!

I forgot to take pictures of him opening presents! Oops! I think we may have a few after he opened them on the good camera. You can tell all the pictures taken here were with our little point n shoot, and it just doesn't cut it anymore! He's too fast for me! So Kelly bought me a nice Nikon camera for my birthday last year. I'm just still not that great at all the features!! I'll add more pictures later though if I have them!

This N That!

Just a real quick post so I don't get too far behind again!

GiGi and I got all the preparations for Riley's birthday done last weekend, so I can relax for a couple of weeks before I'm sure I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off again for the final preparations! I know! I know! Riley doesn't know, care and won't remember! But I WILL! :) Of course the theme is none other than BASKETBALL! I mean! What did you expect?!?!

I'm a little nervous the party may be too much or too long for Riley, but we'll see! It's difficult to plan when all our friends' and family's children that will be attending range in age from 8 months to 10 years old to find something accommodating for everyone! Including Riley! We're having it at Pump It Up which is an inflatable bounce house wonderland INSIDE, so it's climate controlled! Very important for a July 31st birthday party!

We went to my friend's little boys 2nd birthday party yesterday. All went well until the birthday cake and singing of the song - then Riley just started crying as everyone was singing Happy Birthday! It totally reminded me of when he used to cry when I would play the little Kindermusik harmonica for him, but then he still wanted me to keep doing it! We joked that someone must have been out of tune by his standards! I hope that's not a sign of how well his birthday party is going to go!

So as of this week - Riley's new "filler word" meaning the word he says for everything whether he doesn't know the word, or he would normally just be saying ummmm, while he's thinking of the word is Mommy! My dream come true! ha! But it's Kelly's nightmare! I went to see the Beauty and the Beast musical (LOVED IT!!!!!) with my girl friends this week, and Kelly said all he heard the ENTIRE night was Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! I thought he was exaggerating until the next morning started out the SAME way! And it's been like that ever since! Careful what you wish for! But it has to be music to a Mommy's ears! :) However, it's a little weird b/c it's almost like he's taken 2 steps forward and 1 back on his vocabulary. Maybe this is the calm before the toddler talking storm! Oh and by the way, every day on my drive home after picking up Riley all I get to hear is DaDa, DaddYYYYY, DaDaDaddY, all the way home until the garage opens and there is full on squealing until Kelly opens the garage door to greet us! The days when Kelly isn't home before us aren't fun! I try to warn Riley that Daddy will be home later, but there's always a little bit of a let down if Daddy doesn't come to the door!

Riley LOVES pancakes! He'll eat them up like the last supper! We've been having them on the weekends, and watch your fingers b/c he's coming through!! :)

He loves the play area at McDonald's too. That's our go to indoor play area lately because it's been raining so much and preventing him from going outside at school or in the evenings.

Man! Do I ever wish his last 4 molars would just COME IN ALREADY!!! We've digressed to him waking up with them about 5 days out of the week for the last 4 weeks! And Kelly and I are out of practice on the lack of sleep front!!! It's NO fun!

OH yes! A milestone today! He FINALLY blew a bubble by himself!!! Yippee! He and I sat out on our patio for over an hour practicing..and then he finally got it!! And they were cute little baby bubbles!! Just his size! Of course it took 2 bottle of bubbles before he blew any successfully! He would get so distracted trying to blow the bubble..he'd just pour the bubbles out of the bottle in his other hand! And he was so excited! He said Yea!!! When he did it too!

Okay...that'll have to do for now! I've got to get to bed in case tonight is another sleepless night!