Lovin' the Zoo

Last weekend while Jason was "working" in San Diego, Riley and I decided to head to the Sacramento Zoo with the Habbestads for a day of fun!

It was free day at the zoo and I fondly remember going to the Little Rock Zoo when it was free and being astonished at the crowd that it drew being free and all. Luckily the weather this past Saturday was "iffy" so the crowds weren't too bad although I have decided when anything is free it's a great opportunity to people watch!

We lucked out and missed the rain and had a great time...the zoo was better than any of us expected and despite not having naps both girls did well...as long as John kept the wagon moving!

Riley had a great time seeing all the cool animals!
Aren't they cuties?
Riley did finally get super tired and attempted to lay down on Maddie's lap and go to sleep...Maddie thought it was a game so Riley didn't get a nap but they had fun anyway!

Amanda and I...ready to hit up Chick Fil A after our day at the zoo!

(Notice how I'm bringing back the popped collar)

The girls had fun playing at Chick Fil A...they had a great little play place for them and they couldn't get into any trouble!

They both konked out in the car but were ready to go bonkers when we got back to the Habbestad's house!

They danced...and Riley insists on wearing bibs when she's with Maddie...peer pressure I suppose!

They jumped on the couch...

and jumped some more!

Then they got in Maddie's crib and chatted!

We had a great day...these girls sure know how to have fun!

Party Time!

Last weekend we had LOTS of partying to do!

Jason had gotten the itch to grill out and despite all the rain the week had brought we felt we might get just enough of a break to make it work so we just casually threw out an invitation to our friends, including all of my Bible study gals, to see who might be able to come over...and it turned out the pretty much everyone was able to come! We were thrilled and had to get ready for 25+ people to come and eat...woohoo!

Saturday morning all of us girls started out the morning showering Nicki with baby gifts for her soon to arrive baby boy Will!

We had a great breakfast spread, mimosas, and GREAT company!

Here's Nicki with all her gifts!
And here's the whole gang chatting, eating, and passing around babies...it's what we do best!

After the morning festivities were over it was time to get ready for our big cookout and we couldn't have asked for better weather... Jason was eating up his chance to put on shorts and grill outside!

Riley had a blast playing outside while we were getting ready!

Here's me and my little girl...notice her cute hairbands are being worn on her wrists as bracelets..this is her new trick and I have to watch her to make sure she doesn't have a hairband that's too tight on her little arm...she loves to accessorize!

I just love this pic...Dad and Daughter time!

Here's the grill man...he smoked three tri-tips and cooked 3 beer can chickens...we had a feast for sure!

Here's a few pics of the party...everyone brought sides and such and we had all kinds of good food!


And the kids...there were lots and they all played so well and had a blast!

Here's Riley and Zach playing ball together!
And the little ones...Katelyn, Oliver, and Levi...a baby dog pile if you will!

Kailey and Ashley came all dolled up in their fancy dresses and they were so cute with Riley!

Maddie had fun too, especially when Riley snuck her brownies and skittles! What are friends for, right?

Riley...my little mama! She saw Hannah and Becky sitting on the couch burping their babies so she decided she should burp her baby too!

To end the night we roasted some marshmallows and made s'mores...yummy!

It was a great night and we had a blast! It was so great to get all of our hubbies together because it's a rare chance that they are all home at the same time!

Just in case you needed prove that the kiddos had fun...here's an after pic of the playroom...haha!

Sunday we skipped church to recover from the late night before and to get ready for our family pictures in San Francisco!

I have known Wendy since August or so and she had photographed several of my friends. I wanted to get a family photo shoot in before Jason's deployment and really wanted to have them taken in the city with the Golden Gate Bridge...what a better way to remember our time in California?

So we headed out after Riley had lunch and she napped on the drive...just as we planned!

We went to Chrissy Field right on the water and traveled throughout the Presidio taking pictures. It was a beautiful day even though it got a bit chilly towards the end...and best of all we had so much fun! Wendy was GREAT with Riley and just let her be and worked around her!

She was pretty good but the "tricks" we used to get her smiling tended to backfire...ex: a small bottle of bubbles that would normally entertain a child ended up in some of our pictures because Riley wanted to hold the bubbles and Riley wanted to blow the bubbles...independence?

She loved Wendy and especially loved "playing" with her camera!

After a few hours of picture taking we wrapped things up and headed to Burma Superstar...a great Thai restaurant!

You can see a full slideshow of our photo shoot here...I was brought to tears watching this!

Wendy did such a great job and we will forever treasure these pictures!

If you want to check out all the photos she took the gallery is here!

What a fun filled weekend!

Tap Tap Tap Tap...

Last Thursday Riley started her first Dance Class...it's called "My Baby and Me" and involves at least one parent! They will work on both tap and ballet and it's offered through our local community center!

I was so excited when I saw this class and just had to get Riley in it...it's only about 5 weeks long and works out perfectly so Jason can attend most of the classes with her!

She was thrilled with seeing her cute little self in the mirror and thrilled with her own agenda! She had quite a hard time paying attention to the teacher, but we were warned that this was normal!

Poor girl heard the music and thought it was time for her to put on a show..she did well with the moves when we could get her to cooperate!
She was quite the social butterfly and had the best time meeting new friends and wanting to play with them and check out all of their dance attire!

A little ballerina in the making!

Riley had a few meltdowns during the first class...Jason and I just stared at each other and wondered who took over her our child! Jason was so great and just took her out of the room until she could gather herself and was ready to come back in!

We have been working on the moves she learned since last class and she seems to be getting things down!

Here's a cute video of her first class...you can see her desire to run around whenever she pleased...she's just so stinkin' cute!


On a bigger note, last Monday marked the start of potty training for Riley!

She teased us by having ZERO accidents on day one even with a two hour nap! She has had one other day with no accidents but other than that she's had quite a few accidents.

I have wanted to throw in the hat on more than one occasion but have been encouraged by other moms to stick it out and work with her...she's young but she knows what to do...just a matter of getting it down and being able to control herself even in distracting situations!

I'm considering staying home bound this weekend and letting Riley run around naked to get this down so we'll see if I can stick to it!

I have smelled more pee and done more laundry this past week than I care to remember!

In addition to potty training, Riley took a spill on the playground last week and got quite the boo boo!


She was tough and by the time they called me to let me know about the accident she was already back playing with the other kiddos...so I thought it was minor!


However, when I went to pick her up it was quite a bit more of a boo boo than I anticipated...she obviously caught her fall with her head so not only did she have a huge goose egg but she also scratched it up pretty good!
The cutest boo boo you've ever seen, right?

The timing of this boo boo was impeccable...we were having family photos taken the next weekend! I just knew it would happen like that!

However, our wonderful photographer, has already put up a super sneak peak and her photoshop skills completely took care of Riley's boo boo...check out the pic she posted on her blog here!

We can't wait to see the rest of the pics and hopefully this week will come with less potty accidents!

Another trek to Tahoe

Last weekend we made up for our missed weekend in Tahoe and headed up to ski! While we received 10 straight days of rain, Lake Tahoe received 4 - 8 feet of snow! The news kept referring to the skiing as being an "epic" event because of all the fresh snow so we weren't the only ones headed up to ski!

Originally the forecast showed the weekend being sunny and clear but in fact it snowed on us pretty much the entire weekend!

We left our house at 6:30 am (didn't even know we could do that) and started what turned out to be a 5 hour trek...whew!

The snow was coming down and the roads were pretty bad...we made it just fine but were glad to see that everyone was taking it slow and they were really checking people for chains!

As you can see visibility was not that great!

Check out the exit sign!
More piled up snow on the road signs...that's a lot of snow for us Texans!

Once we made it over the summit we encountered traffic due to the "epic" event, but honestly it didn't bother us to have to sit because it is just so beautiful...a winter wonderland!

We made it to Homewood to ski for several hours...we switched skiing and sledding with Riley!

She even tried just sliding down the hill without her sled!

This girl loves the snow!

After a few hours of skiing and a snow bunny that hadn't napped AT ALL we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed to the South Shore to get some sleep...or so we thought!

Here are some awesome pics of the lake we took on our drive...pictures just don't do this place justice!

So we had a great hotel room with a fabulous view and a big comfy bed...too bad Riley decided that sleep was not for her! She was quite congested and that kept her waking every hour and then she decided that 4 am would be a great time to wake up and play...until 7 am when she crashed HARD and it was time for us to get up...oh my lord! We were literally in bed for 12 hours but felt like we hadn't slept a wink!

Luckily we had arranged for Riley to go to Kids' Camp while we skied at Sierra so we were able to ski together and she pretty much slept the entire time!

It was really snowing on Sunday and we had to make a detour to the ski shop at the ski resort to purchase goggles and neck warmers...we went down the mountain once without those items and it was brutal!

Here we are sporting our new gear!

We had a blast skiing and got several good hours in before the snow kept getting worse and we were ready to call it a day!

Here's what we found when we went to pick up Riley!

Poor pumpkin was pooped...I wonder why!

She couldn't even wake up enough to snap a picture with us!

This is all the snow that had accumulated just while we had been skiing!

Luckily the roads weren't bad going home and we made it back, grabbed dinner, and were unpacked by 8 that night...we have the one night trip mastered!

We have one more weekend planned with a big group of friends and can't wait to get back up there!

Some of my favorite things...

Sharing Hot Cocoa

This was the first time Riley tasted hot cocoa and it was definitely a suitable day!

We have had rain, rain, and more rain over the past week...actually I think 10 days straight...and it's been cold! What better way to enjoy that weather than with a warm glass of cocoa with your favorite little gal!

She wasn't quite sure what hot chocolate was but since it had the word chocolate in it she was convinced it was a good thing!

She dove right in and loved it!
She was so cute as she kept saying "hot...hot" because she felt the warmth on her glass.

We both drank all of our hot chocolate and she then began referring to it as coffee because I was drinking mine in a mug...so we actually shared some cocoa but in Riley's world we shared a cup of coffee...something I love to do with my girlfriends and especially my daughter...this was just the first cup of many that we will share together in the years to come!

Check out her chocolate grin...

Reading Our Bibles Together

Sometime last week Riley saw me doing my Beth Moore Bible study while she was playing in the bath tub...she quickly became more interested in what I was doing than eating the bubbles so I promised her she could get her Bible after bath time was over!

She received the cutest Bible from her Nani this Christmas and I just love how excited she is about it!

This Bible is written in a children's translation so it will be great when she's a little older...for now we still read her storybook Bible, but she wanted to have a Bible just like her Mommy so we sat together and did Bible study!

The hard part was keeping her from scribbling all over her Bible...she saw that I had a pen and was writing and well...monkey see monkey do! She actually told me she would "be right back" and ran into my office, got a pen from my desk, and ran back into the living room so she could write in her Bible.

This is just the beginning of our time doing Bible studies together...perhaps in the future we can do it over "coffee"

Doing Hair

It's pretty obvious that I LOVE doing Riley's hair...it's hard during the week because cute hair accessories don't go far at school and they never seem to come home with her...bummer! So I usually resort to piggy tails or a ponytail during the week, but no bows or barrettes until the weekend!

Riley is pretty good while I do her hair...watching an episode of her favorite show (either Caillou or Elmo) doesn't hurt either!

Lately she has been intrigued with doing my hair and of course I oblige!

I can't help but think back to a story from when I was young and had fun playing with people's hair...so I was playing with one of my parent's friends long beautiful brown hair and I decided it would be fun to use a roller brush and roll all of her hair...not a good idea! They ended up having to cut the brush out of her hair...sorry Alma!

I have had a few painful moments letting Riley play with my hair but all in all she's pretty gentle!

My hair definitely looked much better after Riley "styled" it!

And most of all...I love this smile!

These are just a few of my favorite things!