Swimming!

Riley has been spending lots and lots of time enjoying one of her favorite summer activities...swimming!  Our little fish can spend hours just playin' in the water till she's pruney.  She's pretty good at jumping, diving under the water and swimming with her vest on and she has also discovered something new...swimming with no vest!  She decided to give it a try the other day and was she was so excited that she could do it all by herself.  We are so proud of her!

Takin a quick rest

Riley's 1st ice cream sandwich from the Ice Cream Man and she got to eat it in the pool, what could be better?

Riley's Big News!

We are very, very excited to announce that we will soon have a new addition to our family!  We are expecting a new baby this fall and Riley cannot wait to be a big sister!!!!

Random Rileyness

The whole month of May came and went so fast and I only just realized that it has been far too long without a new post.  We haven't been up to much lately, mostly just getting outside and enjoying the start of summer.  Riley has been doing lots work helping us with our community garden plot and she has also been having fun playing at the park, hanging with friends at the zoo and pretty much just enjoying the sushine when we get it.  So, here are just a few random Riley pics from the past few weeks....

Happy Birthday Riley Roo and Happy Easter Too!

Our Little Miss is 3 years old today!  It's so hard for me to believe that 3 years have passed since I became a mom and that my "baby" is no longer a baby or even a toddler for that matter, she every bit a little girl.

This year, Riley's birthday fell on Easter Sunday, an event that won't happen again until her 85th birthday.  The colliding of these two events, meant a full day of fun and celebration.  There were birthday presents, a basket of treats from the Easter Bunny, and egg hunt, a special birthday breakfast and our annual Easter lunch with family at Gigi and Popdaddy's house.  Oh, and candy, candy, candy and some cake too.  A pretty perfect birthday I think!

Finding eggs from the bunny

The birthday girl with her cinnamon roll, her special birthday breakfast request

She gasped with every egg she opened and then said "more M&Ms!"

The birthday girl won the head from the lamb cake this year, lucky Roo!

Daddy, helping Riley claim her prize

While the things that I love about my little princess are too numerous to count, here are a few things that we know and love about our 3 year old:

*She has an amazing imagination and can keep herself occupied with pretend play for hours.  She also has 2 imaginary friends, LaLa and Rosie, who conveniently take the fall for most of the hi jinx that happen around our house.
*She is still a little bookworm. Riley loves to be read to, look at her books by herself and has also become a great storyteller herself.  It makes us laugh when she corrects a missed or changed word on our part, she definitely pays close attention.  We love to listen as she "reads" to us too, her stories are the best!
*She's a little bit of a drama queen.  I love the inflection in her voice, her expressions and her gestures when she talks.  She also regularly catches me by surprise with her ever expanding vocabulary. 
*While she is somewhat discerning, she is anything but shy.  She tries to make friends wherever she goes and is more than willing to strike up a conversation with just about anybody about princesses, her favorite thing to eat, our cat Bella, pretty much whatever is on her mind.
*She also adores her friends and pretty much has the most fun ever when she's around her buddies. 
*She is still a great little snuggle bunny.  Riley has enjoyed being cuddled to sleep since she was a newborn and would still prefer to always sleep this way if at all possible.  As far as I'm concerned I hope she never out grows that. 
*Her favorite food is pasta, fruit and chocolate ice cream
*Her favorite color is purple.
*She loves to sing and dance.  Her songs are sometimes real songs, sometimes made up and most often a mixture of both.  She also loves for us to dance her around the living room, waltz style, while pretending to be a princess.

Riley Roo brings so much laughter and joy to our lives and we are so lucky that this sweet and sometimes silly little girl is ours.  Happy Birthday Riley!

Getting Ready for Easter

Riley got some practice hunting Easter eggs before the big day at our neighborhoods annual Easter egg hunt.  Unfortunately, it was cold and really windy that day so she had to bundle up and hold on tight, but she had a great time anyway.

Riley also had some fun in dying eggs for the Bunny

This year she was an expert at puting the eggs in and taking them out of the dye. Sadly there are no pictures of my proud little egg artist looking at the camera, she was way too busy to pose for me.

All ready for Easter!

A Party Fit For A Princess

Riley's 3rd birthday falls on Easter this year, so we decided to have her birthday party with all of her friends a week early.  When we asked Miss R what kind of birthday party she would like to have, there was absolutely no question in her mind, a princess party. 

We took her to the Disney store and let her choose a princess dress for her special day.  It was a tough decision, but after trying them on and twirling in each she decided that she wanted to be Cinderella for her party.  It was the perfect dress to match her favorite pair of "glass slippers" too.  She also got to wear the tiara that mommy wore for her wedding. 

On the morning of her party, she woke us up at 6:45 to let us know that it was time for her birthday party and she also wanted to remind us that we really needed to go get her Cinderella cake.  It may have been just a little too early to get the party started, but she was WAY too excited to go back to sleep.

 Riley got to have all of her very best friends at her party and she had so much fun!  We had a mix of princesses and some superheros too, so the girls decorated wands and tiaras while the boys had fun playing with their masks and swords. 

In honor of Riley's Easter birthday we thought it would fitting to have an Easter egg hunt....

 All the little ones got to dash around after prize filled eggs and then check out their loot.

Of course her perfect princess party would not have been complete without her Cinderella cake...

 and she enjoyed every bite!  Especially the frosting.

Riley loved every minute of her birthday party and we are so lucky to have such wonderful friends to help us celebrate our little princess!

Princess Riley

Riley's passion for pretend play has recently evolved into full on obsession with all things princess.  Her favorite princesses are Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Snow White and we usually read each of their stories at least once a day.  On any given day, she is any one of these 4 princesses and if we make the mistake of calling her Riley she will correct us saying "No Mommy, I'm Belle."

 

Having listened to her princess stories and songs on CD and watched the movies, she has memorized most of the songs and loves to waltz around the house singing.  Our little princess doesn't usually want her performance recorded, so the only video I've gotten so far is a brief rendition of Princess Aurora signing "Once Upon a Dream". 

She can also very accurately recite lines from the books and movie, particularly Beauty and the Beast.  She will pretend to be Belle and spin around with a book on her hand and sing "there must be more than this Provincial life" and sometimes she likes for us to role play with her. 

Right now, she has 2 dresses that are suitable princess attire, one is the her Easter dress and the other is a butterfly princess costume that her Grandma and Grandpa gave her. She also has a pair of silver ballet flats that she refers to as her glass slippers.

Who doesn't love a princess dress that can slip on over anything you're wearing? 

 

Our sleeping beauty, sound asleep in the middle of reading Beauty and the Beast

And of course, in this house Bella is never exempt from humiliation. 

Spring Fever

We have had a few really beautiful days over the past couple of weeks that are starting to make me ache for Spring. While we haven't had much snow this year, it has been bitterly cold so on the few emerging warm days we have been trying to take full advantage.

Riley loves going to the library and we love that our new house has a library close enough to walk to or ride her bike and lucky for Riley there is a playground on the way too. 

One day she decided that it was way too nice to stay inside so she said "Mommy, I think I will read outside today".  She then went to her room to pick out a book and came to sit out in the sunshine and read.

 

Last week, we met up with some friends for a playdate with the animals at the zoo.  Riley loves the zoo and it was even better with her friends James and Audrina.   

This was pretty much the view that we got of our toddlers for most of the afternoon. 

Riley and James riding the carousel.  Neither one wanted to hop up on an animal so they sat together on a bench and were actually having more fun than they looked like in pictures.

Topping off our zoo trip with a big bowl of ice cream, perfect!