First Day of School

Today was Riley's first day of Pre-K today at her brand new school!  She will be in the preschool program at Meiklejohn Elementary Tuesday thru Friday this year.  Roo absolutely loves getting to go to school and while she loved her time at Happy Valley she has been really excited and ready for this new adventure.  She has been asking me since the begining of July how many day were left until school started...I love how excited they are about school at this age! 

Last night was Back to School Night so she saw her classroom, met her teachers and then ate popsicles and played with her classmates on the playground.  Today she was ready to go!  She was up and dressed in the first day of school outfit she picked really early this morning and so I tried use her fave breakfast, cinnamon rolls, to break the news that school didn't start until 12:00. 

The first day was great!  Riley loved it and could not stop talking about how much fun she had with new friends!  The highlight of the day seemed to be playing princess and getting to play on the playground.  The low point was probably when Mom locked the carkeys in the car at pick-up and we had to wait an hour for AAA...however, it did mean a little more playground time for Riley.

Piper will miss having her sister around for the 2 1/2 hours that she is at school, but we are so happy that Miss R is loving her new school and her new friends!

The Life of Riley

The end of our summer break came up on quickly!  Riley has had a pretty great summer filled with tons of pool time, lots of playdates with her friends, a zoo camp, a dance class and also plenty of just hanging out with no agenda at all.

We are really lucky to have friends in our neighborhood with kids that are close in age to ours.  Riley has 3 little girlfriends....Audrina, Camryn and Morgan who all live close by and they all have so much fun together.  As a special outing, we decided to take the little foursome for a little pampering  at a kids salon called Pigtails and Crewcuts.  They each got to have their fingernails and toenails painted and tinsel extensions added to their hair.  It was definitely a treat and they loved every girly minute of it!  Now I'm thinking since my 4 year old has had a pedicure more recently than I have, it's my turn....

Miss Piper gets no shortage of spoiling from all of these little girls too...

Purple finger nails!

 Four little pampered princesses!

Full contact hugging

Riley has done lots of swimming with her friend Zoe in Gigi and Pop's pool and so with our water time coming to a end, Zoe and her parents invited Riley and I to come with them to one of their fave places...WaterWorld.  I had not been there since I was a teenager and I wasn't sure what Miss R was going to think about the whole thing, she is an awesome swimmer but not too adventurous yet and the waterslides can be a little scary.  There we actually quite a few things for little kids to do there and she found one smaller water slide with an inner tube that was her fave.  She completely shocked me when she asked to ride down the Screamin' Mimi because to be honest...I was too chicken to go down that slide even as a teenager.  I sucked it up for Roo's sake and we rode down together...we made it safely back to the bottom, but safe say her reaction was about 25% excitement an 75% sheer terror.  After that her bravery was over for the day and we stuck to the easy going kid slides.

Riley and Zoe on the water slide

 Very blury pic, but Mommy and Roo at the top of the Screamin Mimi!

My Roo has been a indulging her inner mermaid this summer and as usual cannot get enough of the pool.   We watched a lot of the Olympics this summer and Riley needless to say absolutely loved the swimmers and the gymnasts too.  I think that she came up with some new ideas and she continues to amaze me with the things that she does pretty much all on her own.  Thanks to Missy Franklin's example our little Miss now swims the backstoke across the entire length of the pool.  There has also been a lot of diving from the side of the pool and to the bottom of the pool to collect treasures. 

It's been a fun summer, but now  it's back to school for Riley and she is soooo ready to get started! 

8 Months!

So I got an email yesterday from the company that created our birth announcements with the subject line "Looks like someone has a birthday coming up!", it took me a second and then I realized they were talking about my Piper!  Okay they may have been jumping the gun a bit, but in just 4 months our baby will be 1, Piper is 8 months old today!

A few things to know about our sweet girl at 8 months:

• There are 3 teeth in her little mouth...soon to be 4! 
• She makes an excellent "cheesy face" and is pretty adorable when she scrunches up her nose at us!
• My little mama's girl says "dada"...although I'm not giving this victory to Kris just yet.
• She is sweet, smiley and also very snuggly. 

• Having her back, belly, arms or legs rubbed will send her into a state of total bliss
• She loves books and enjoys both being read to and sinking her little chompers into the delicious pages!
• Our little peanut has an awesome appetite and has enjoyed pretty much every fruit and veggie that has crossed her palate and she has also started eating meats.

• Piper has discovered Cheerios and feeding herself these yummy little o's is a favorite new activity and perfect distraction.
• While she isn't crawling just yet (thank goodness says the mama!) she can turn around 360 degrees while she's sitting and has started to scoot around on her bum.
• She is kind of a tough critic, but when we do get her laughing (mostly Roo) it is fully invested, belly shaking giggles...the BEST noise there is!

My two girls absolutely melt my heart, I cannot get enough of their love for one another.  Piper has absolutely found her special place in our family and we are so unbelievably happy that she is ours!