Riley Roo is 2!

Happy Birthday to our sweet little girl!  It is so hard to imagine that 2 years have past since we first welcomed our Little Miss and yet we don't remember what we did before we had her.  There has never been a more joyful and fulfilling time in our lives since becoming parents to our beautiful, sweet, funny, vivacious and smiley Riley.

We had such a great time celebrating Riley's 2nd birthday...we actually spread the fun over 2 weekends.  Last weekend, Riley had an Elmo tutu birthday party with all of her best buddies.  Kris and I wanted to be able to just enjoy the day with Riley and so we hired my cousin, a photographe,r to handle the party pics and we don't have them just yet, but look for a toddler party post soon.  Riley had absolutely no complaints about cake, ice cream, presents and partying 2 weekends in a row and I'm pretty sure that "Happy Birthday to you" is now her theme song.  It might be a hard to explain the lack of fan fair next weekend.

Eating apples on mommy and daddy's bed, proof that you get to do 

whatever you want when it's your birthday

This weekend's birthday celebrations included a special outing to Build-a-Bear with Grandma and Grandpa yesterday afternoon.  Riley could not wait to go and told her daddy and I that she was going to build "a pony" any time we asked what she would make at Build-a-Bear.  She came home with a great big smile and a pretty new teddy bear, who even comes with a complete wardrobe of fun clothes that she picked out.  The piece de resistance is that her new bear sings a special birthday song when you press her paw...it never gets old (thanks Grandma and Grandpa).  She appropriately named her new friend "birthday bear".

Picking just the right one....

Giving her new friend a bath

and some kisses

Riley, Grandma and Birthday Bear

Today we celebrated Riley's 2nd birthday with a day that was all about her, just as it should be.  We surprised her this morning with her first present of the day, her very first tricycle!  She was smitten with her friend James' trike when she rode it last fall, but we wanted to wait until she was just a bit bigger to get her one of her own.  We had high hopes of being able to take a walk to a nearby coffee shwe op for breakfast, but good old Colorado spring time weather meant that it was cold and rainy out this morning, so she settled for a ride around the house and some blueberry buttermilk pancakes instead.

Loving that we can make noise with the bell on the handlebar

This afternoon, we took her to the Denver Children's Museum and as a bonus, Popdaddy and Gigi joined us too.  She had a fabulous time exploring and playing, she especially loved getting to drive the fire truck and I think we could she could easily have spend an entire day just climbing up and down a huge replica ant hill and crawling through the adjoining tunnels.  The art center and grocery store were also a big hit.  Lucky for us, one of Riley's birthday gifts from Gigi and Popdaddy was a membership to the museum and we are both looking forward to getting to use that!

We continued our day of celebrating the birthday girl with a family dinner.  We had Gigi, Popdaddy, Grandma, Grandpa, Great Aunt Phoebe, Great Uncle Mike, Maddie and Nick over to our house for one of Riley's favorite meals, spaghetti.  Miss R had so much fun playing with some of her favorite people.  She is so lucky to have so many people who love her so much. 

Teddy Bear Cake

Riley and her cousin Maddie

Riley and cousin Nick

Riley and Gruncle Mike

Tickles for the birthday girl

Riley giving kisses to her new "Rhinocius" from Great Aunt Judi and Great Uncle John. 

They also gaver her the bow in her hair which also has rhinos on it, too cute!

Sneaking a little bit of frosting....

Blowing out the candle with a little help!

It could not have been a more perfect day!  We love you so much Riley Roo!