Gotta love 'em!

Time for more pictures as promised! Lily got her hair cut this week. Short is better for her since she has such a tender head. This way I don't have to hear "Oww, oww, OWWW Mom!" every time I comb her hair (or even when she combs it herself ☺). Besides, Riley was starting to copy her...He is now in love with having his picture taken and hams it up whenever I give him a chance...
And then there's Lia. She's settling in nicely to the routine and I'm adjusting to the amount of sleep that comes with getting up several times a night to feed her.
I gotta say, I think I've got some pretty cute kids ☺

The newest addition

Lia Nicole joined the family on November 15 at 9:39 a.m. She is a wonderful addition to the clan and the kids love having her around. I can hardly believe she is almost 2 weeks old now. Having daddy home has been great for Lily & Riley (and me too!). Here are a couple of my favorite pictures. Hours old... Just home from the hospital... In the blissful state just after eating...9 days old, looking a little yellow from the jaundice, thankfully that's passing. I'll take new pictures on Monday when she's officially 2 weeks old....stay tuned :)
Oh, and I can't forget one of my favorite shots.... Lia and one of her Great Grandmas (how lucky is she to have 3 of them??)

Halloween

Even though this picture is a month old, I thought I'd post it anyway... here's the kids, all dressed in their costumes. Lily was a Star Wars character named Ahsoka. Riley was obviously a monkey.

For your enjoyment...

Pictures of the babies' room, all decorated...


Now we're just waiting for Lia....62 days to go. (Not like we're counting or anything.) Oh wait, we are ☺ We have a chart and everything LOL

The PROJECT

I thought I would share pictures of the backyard project that is in progress right now. As some of you know this has been a long time coming. I'm really pushing to get this done in the next month or so, so stay tuned for the finished product....We've come a long way from the 6 ft weeds... Now to get the dirt leveled off in front of the slider and lay down the cinder block patio, in this pattern ↓↓↓↓

This long portion where the grass is supposed to go...after I finish digging the rest of the weed roots out. Also on the to-do list, sprinklers. Hopefully that won't take too long to figure out. The plan is to create a 30" wide flower bed next to the house. We dug out a section by the faucet and are going to bury some of the gravel we have to help with drainage since there isn't a gutter over that area. And that's where things stand for now. I'm so ready for it to be done! All the sweat will be worth it in the end though. Can't wait to post the "after" pictures....

The Quilt...

I just had to share a picture of the quilt Dylan's grandma made for the new baby! I think it turned out BEAUTIFUL! It took me about 2 minutes after she left to go and hang it up on the wall, I was that excited ☺ Anyway, the nursery is coming together. I'm searching for the right rug and I'm going to attempt to make the crib skirt with leftovers from the quilt (you know, tie it all together). I'm not much of a sewer but I think I can handle it. We'll see how it works out...

First Grade

Lily was very excited to be starting school again. Here she is all dressed and ready to go. Daddy even got to go since the first day of school was on a Wednesday...both of them were very happy about that!And here she is lined up with her class waiting to go in. I think she may be one of the smallest in class...She came home with lots of stories and very tired. The most amazing thing, in her own words was, "Mom, we have so MUCH recess!". I'm sure it seems that way after the 20 minutes they got at the end of the day in kindergarten for snack and play.
Now mommy and Riley just have to adjust to a new schedule....

Miracle Grow or Love???

We decided to plant a little garden in the front flower bed. It started off as a couple tomato plants and expanded to some cilantro, 2 pepper plants, some strawberries and a cantaloupe plant.As you can see, the tomato plants are doing very well. I like to think it's love that's making them grow, but I have a feeling it's the nice shot of Miracle Grow that Dylan gave them. Or maybe it's the special watering that Riley gives them with the squirt gun?The cherry tomato plant is taller than the kids...My biggest romas...I'm looking forward to them ripening.
And then the cherries...awfully big for cherry tomatoes don'tcha think??? These are just the biggest, but the bush is loaded! I'm going to have cherry tomatoes coming out my ears soon...

VIPS 5K

June 19th I ran a local 5k. I ended up placing 1st in my age group. A few days ago I got my medal in the mail...which is pretty rare. Normally if you leave without picking up your medal, you are out of luck. The organizers of this race were nice enough to look up my registration info and mail me my medal along with a nice note. As you can see in the picture, the medals are quite nice. This will definitely be a race that I continue running in the years to come. Great cause (visually impaired persons) and a great race!

School Picture #2

This is Lily's newest school picture. Getting copies made and sent out is on my list of things to do. Until then, here's the preview....

My little ballplayer...

We signed Lily up for T-ball this year so she can experience a new sport. While she doesn't seem particularly adept at baseball, she is having fun. Her first game was today. I think she looks adorable in her uniform!
Here she is attempting to hit the ball. We still need to work on getting her to swing hard!!
And finally, she was hold her helmet, waiting to run home...

Momma Goes Running

I ran my second half marathon this weekend and had a blast! I placed 3rd in my age group and 32 overall in the womens division. Woo-hoo! I gotta say, I ♥ running...

Look What Daddy Brought Home...

Don't they look happy? How can you NOT love it when their eyes light up? While I wasn't super excited that Dylan brought this home, it was free, and the kids love it. Period.

Family Fun!

We truly enjoy playing as a family. Here are a few pictures of us trying out Lily's new Play-doh kitchen. While I'm not usually hip on alot of gadgets and silly toys with lots of parts, this is actually pretty fun....

Smash!

Riley got to experience his very first visit to Urgent Care on Thursday. I took this picture several hours after his hand got slammed in the door by Lily. All in all he's handling it well. Getting x-rays was a nightmare as you can imagine with a 17 month old. Hopefully we won't have to make any more trips to Urgent Care for a long time!

The newest...

It was haircut time in our house (for the kids anyway)....Lily loves her new 'do! We hadn't cut it since Nov '08 and it was definitely time. It makes life so much simpler when getting ready for school...I don't have to hear "Ow, Ow, OWWWW" over and over again. Momma is happy, Lily is happy...
Riley actually did well with his haircut too (much to my surprise). It was just getting so shaggy, but not anymore. He's losing the "baby" and becoming more "toddler" every day. He's getting such a personality. What a crack up.

Lily is loving school...shocker! Riley is talking more and more every day. His favorite phrase is "whass 'at?" {to the un-mommy peeps, "what's that?" is what he's asking}. He's very curious, like Lily. He's doing great learning to follow directions...something that Lily seems to be forgetting how to do now. Haha! They are both learning and growing so fast these days. Lily is reading, and she's getting better and better every day. We've entered the stage where she reads to me at bedtime first, then I read to her. It's fantastic, I love it.
Oh, and Riley FINALLY started walking unassisted! Yay. Now he's a regular walkin' machine. He's also really interested in animals and loves to woof-woof at dogs (and the occasional cat). I also started introducing the potty to get him used to the concept. Now he pulls at his diaper and wants to sit on the potty after he does his dirty work...we're trying to get it before, but it hasn't quite clicked. No big rush though (he's only 16 months!).
So that's the newest....till next time.

Books & More...

I finally got my tush in gear and put together Riley's new book shelf. I think it's a great addition to his room. He loves his books and now there's a place to put them, instead of thrown in the toy box...
He also loves the drawer at the bottom {of course} since it's the perfect little "hiding spot" for his favorite toys.

OCEAN!!

We took a whirlwind trip to San Luis Obispo. Thankfully my grandma agreed to come along so Dylan and I were able to get out on our own for a few hours. Before coming home we visited the beach....which was so beautiful. Here are a few pictures.




Lily sitting on the pier looking out at the surfers....













Daddy and Riley. Riley was obsessed with the birds....and the dogs.















Searching for shells...
















And yep, a swing set on the beach. Lily loves swinging so this was perfect!







I love this picture! Many years from now we'll have this picture to remember our trip with grandma and the kids. We had such a great time and we're looking forward to more short jaunts in the future. One of the problems with Dylan's job is that he very rarely gets 2 days off in a row so weekend trips don't happen. Now I know that we can do it fairly easily and I'm going to push for more :)

Itchy, Itchy

It's hard to tell in this picture, but Riley was having an allergic reaction to something. If you look closely around his mouth you can see some of the redness and bumps. Thankfully Benedryl kept the reaction from getting too bad. He was still in good spirits though even though he was itchy. Happy, happy boy!