Happy 4th of July!!!

We started off this past week with a sick little girl...lo and behold only hours after Grammie and JoePa left she started running a fever...she was so sad they left she made herself sick...poor baby!

Monday she was rather clingy and just didn't know what she wanted and still hadn't shook the fever...I suspected it was an ear infection because she had been messing with both of her ears since Saturday. She stayed in her PJ's all day Monday and we made an appointment for the doctor on Tuesday.

The doctor's office was in pandemonium because the swine flu is running pretty rampant around here. They had the peds clinic divided for kids with swine flu symptoms and those without...I knew Riley didn't have the swine flu but since she had fever we HAD to go to the "bad" side...there were some sick kids over there and they all had masks on...I stayed as much in the middle as possible and didn't let her out of my arms...how sad would it be to contract swine flu while at the doctor's office? My intuition was right and she did have an ear infection...by the time we went to the doctor Tuesday afternoon she was already in much better spirits and had broke her fever but we still had to get her on antibiotics. She SCREAMED when the doc examined her ears...she cried harder than I've ever heard her cry...it was awful! I tried my trusty trick of giving her a snack to make things better and she was screaming so hard she nearly choked on her goldfish...it was slightly dramatic. The doctor left so I could calm her down and I feared that the hysteria would start all over once the doctor came back in the room but Riley must have forgotten because she was still whimpering but kindly smiled and said "Hi" when she came back in...whew!

Once Miss Thang was back to herself we were back to school and having fun! She ended her session of "pre-school" this past Thursday and started her new one today...she is now going three days a week and she has so much fun!

This past weekend we hung out with friends, went to the farmer's market, went to the pool, and of course celebrated the 4th! I so wished we were at the lake with my parents...where we have spent almost 100% of all 4th of July's...but we'll get there soon!

Riley had on this cute dress that I only got a pic of with my phone because once we got to the BBQ at our friends' Amanda and John's house she was down to her bathing suit and strutting her stuff!

LOVE this smile...and check out her tattoo!

There were lots of kiddos and they all had fun playing together...until they had to share toys!

Here's Riley and I...if you're wondering where Jason is...he had to leave the party for a bit because Kadie and Hank escaped our backyard! Luckily some nice people in the neighborhood next to us snatched them up, put them in their backyard, and gave us a call! Jason went and rescued the dogs and fixed our gate so no one can get in our out...apparently the wind blew the gate open and off the dogs went to explore!

So who knew that Riley would still be interested in getting IN an exersaucer...look at her legs all bent...she wanted in and she stayed in there for over 10 minutes until she realized she couldn't move around...haha!

Riley's friend Maddie has a chair very similar to hers and therefore Riley claimed it as her own. When Cooper tried to sit in it things went downhill...he was pointing his finger at her saying "NoNo" and she was standing with this pose expecting him to obey her will!

Sunday we started our church hunt...we'll have to keep hunting! After church I made us some BLT's and we all took a nap...so nice! After our naps Riley and I headed to the pool and Jason went to hit golf balls...I jogged to the pool which meant I had to jog home which was fine except we got a last minute invite to dinner so I was busting my tail to get home so we could make it in time...it was good exercise though! We went to Chipotle with friends and to ColdStone afterwards...SOOOOOO good!

I will leave you with this video of Riley reading her first book...I think she has memorized the gestures of the babies rather than learned the words but we have read this book zillions of times and one day this past week I took it out to read it to her before nap time and realized she was saying the correct word on every page...it blew my mind!!! Jason read it with her that evening and he was amazed too! We wanted to get it on video but I had to do it sneakily so she didn't know I was videoing...is that even a word? Anyways, it's a cute video and you can even see how well she says her favorite word "No"...hehe!