riley is pretty obsessed with her dolls - - - her american girl baby that my mom gave her for her 1st birthday, in particular. as you know, her name is darcy (and as a sidenote, my sister martha solved the mystery about the origin of darcy: elmo has a fish named darcy!) anyway, often at meal time riley will drag her little chair into the kitchen and sit her baby on the chair next to her.

so the other day riley did this and after she was finished eating she put darcy in her booster and told me, "mom, take a picture of me and darcy"

then she said, "and take a picture of my milky" (yes she calls it milky and on this particular day she wanted her milk in a baby's bottle)

and finally she said, "take a picture of darcy" and as i was snapping the picture she said, "ok darcy, now smile"

here's another picture i took yesterday - a girl after my own heart, snuggled up with a good book!

happy wednesday!

our valentines day

we had a very nice sunday celebrating the day o' love...we started by cooking a yummy breakfast for ourselves and some friends (quiche, waffles, fruit, coffee, mimosas) then did church and came home for some naps and lounging time. in the afternoon we ventured down to boulevard park on the water and got a treat at woods coffee then played on the play structure as well as near the water. we ended the day with a home-cooked dinner by tyler (a very nice and rare treat!)

here are some pictures from our park time:

tyler bought these flip-flops for riley for our upcoming trip to maui. she decided she had to wear them all weekend, even to the wet park.

i'm not sure why riley is making that face, but it is very silly. and please excuse my awful hair color! i went darker a while back and as it fades, it is not reacting very nicely with my once blonde hair. i am going even darker next week.

today we received more good news from andrew's doctors in houston. he has not had any new tumor growth or spread - which is just the news we want. he flew to houston yesterday and is en route back to seattle now. we are thrilled! be sure to check out his blog over the next few days, as he'll post an update.

tomorrow we leave for leavenworth for two nights for some girl time with my mom, martha and henry. we can't wait to get away and breathe some mountain air. have a happy weekend!

happy valentines day!

we have been busy little valentines over here this week. having a toddler who is excited about arts & crafts and baking makes me so happy. it's motivated me this year to do a few little projects.

we spent a few days making valentine cards for all of our far-away family members. it was so fun to sit with riley and make cards together. of course i had to interject and remind her to not use so much glue or glitter, but we managed to survive.

yesterday i made a huge batch of sugar cookies during naptime and once she woke up we rolled and cut out heart-shaped cookies. we frosted the cookies and will add all the "frinkles" today. we even bought some cute little plates to use to transport to a few of riley's friends.

as a totally random sidenote, i have to tell a story about the other night.

after we got back from our fun date and brought riley home she was in crazy hyper mode after being with her friends. tyler was in the bathroom with her and was asking her to stop doing whatever obnoxious behavior she was doing. she continued on her merry way so tyler started to raise his voice. (all the while i am laying in bed listening to all of this). she then tells him, in a very calm voice, "no freaking out" and repeats herself over and over. i was almost in tears i was laughing so hard, which in turn amped her up even more. so she then started running around and ran into her room and slammed the door. she decided she didn't like being stuck inside her room so she started knocking on her door and saying, over and over again, "hey, what's going on here?". needless to say it was difficult to get her to fall asleep and it wasn't until just after 9 that she finally went down.

have a happy valentines day!

a big surprise

yesterday tyler texted me half way through the day, "can you get someone to babysit tonight? let's go on a date, i have a surprise for you".

i was curious and thought i had it figured out but was anxious to find someone to watch riley. my normal babysitters were busy so finally at 4 i called kari and asked if riley could come play and she said yes! i put riley in front of a video so i could hop in the shower (i was still in sweats, of course) and hastily made myself presentable for this mysterious date. we dropped riley off and were on our way.

he asked if anything sounded good/bad but that he had a place in mind because it was fitting for the surprise. as soon as we pulled up to coconut kenny's, i knew. i waited patiently while we ordered and chit chatted and got our food. FINALLY half way through eating tyler presented me with a card and inside it read: "Thinking of you, me, and riley in Maui".

an early anniversary gift - to return to the place where our marriage and new life together began almost 7 years ago! i am still in total and utter shock and beyond excited. we will go in may (we'll be there on our anniversary) and it will have been almost 5 years since i've been back. we spent the rest of our date talking about every single thing we wanted to do, places we wanted to go, a few friends we wanted to see...oh the sweet memories we have from that place! and to take riley will be amazing. what more does a little kid need than a shovel and miles and miles of sand and ocean?

we are excited over here and totally consumed with thoughts of beach and sun!!!

oh, and in case you were wondering, tyler scored an AMAZING deal on tickets, plus used some air miles. very, very affordable. so go find yourself a deal!

*us enjoying another amazing bbq and sunset in kihei*

*me cooking in our first apartment together, just a few blocks from the beach*

*i can't believe i used to be so young, tan and blonde!*

i am excited for some new maui memories!

A bit about Riley

It's been almost a month since I last posted! I guess I've been a bit distracted and busy lately. And also just been having a lot of fun hanging with Riley, friends and family. I've really been wanting to record some of Riley's daily antics, sayings and favorites, just so I don't forget this awesome toddler stage (she will be 27 months old next week!):

~ Riley insists on keeping her door open whenever she naps and goes down at night and she reminds us several times, "Keep the door ALL the way open"

~ She also requests that I change her into her pj's when she goes down for her nap

~ She asks me almost daily, "Mom, did you have a good day?" or "Mom, did you have fun?"

~ Her favorites right now are to mother her babies, do puppet shows, take her babies on walks around the block and ride her trike

~ And speaking of trike, just this week she has been pedaling all by herself! We spend a lot of time in front of our house, riding up and down the blocks on her trike

~ Just this week she also learned how to do a proper somersault. And the cutest is that while she is doing it she is explaining what she's doing step by step..."You bend your knees, put your hands down here, then you do a somersault!"

~ She uses the words "fascinating", "amazing" and "anymore" in context

~ If you ask her the name of any stuffed animal, little person or baby she will answer, "Darcy". We have no friends named Darcy, nor do I remember reading a book with that name in it. We seriously have no idea where that name came from. But Darcy might also be an imaginary friend as well because she will occasionally tell us that she's "going to Darcy's house" then will march into her room and slam the door.

~ I think this is my brother Andrew's favorite, but she can not say her "L's". The phrase she says all the time is "Yook at my yeg" aka look at my leg. This always makes us smile!

I'm sure there are others...but I just had to write some of these down. There is so much I already forget. This next picture is of Riley dressing up and about to dance to her music in the living room. The last one is of her sitting on her potty with a jelly bean on her finger. We are in the beginning stages of potty training. Wish us luck!