Party Party!

This past weekend we had Denton's birthday party. We had lots of friends and family come out to celebrate Denton turning One. We had a blast and Denton loved being the center of attention. Hmmm....wonder where he got that from?

Now that D is one, I guess I should do a little update on his milestones. He is walking, probably 90% of the time. He has 4 teeth fully in and two or three more just poking thru. He doesn't talk much still, he still just says Daddy and occasionally I will get a Momma here or there. He points to what he wants and then shakes his head yes or no to let us know we got it right. He loves to throw tennis balls (pretty good arm I must say) and he loves to wrestle with his Daddy and play tag/chase around the house. He is off of the bottle but refuses to drink milk - at all. Not strawberry, not chocolate, not thru a straw, not in various sippy cups, not in a cup without a lid, not warmed, not cold, not diluted with water. I do not like green eggs and ham.....oh wait wrong story. Anyway I guess we will still just keep trying. He is a funny little dude and always making us laugh. And he and his sister are still the dynamic duo. I am dreading the time he will realize that he is programmed to fight with her 24 hours a day. For now, we are just enjoying out time as a happy little unit.

Enjoy the pics..........
Us 4

Denton and Antonio

Lily and Denton

Lindsay and Ryder

Steph, Mike, Savannah and Tara

Mommy love

Angie, Scott, Tati, Tony and Kim. LSS represent!

Granddad and Grandma

Happy Birthday to you................

Riley and Gabe
yummmm cake
Opening presents, loving the boxes and ribbon
After party at our house...doesn't have the same meaning all these years later

Denton turns ONE!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe that one year ago today my little man came into this world. This past year just FLEW by and here we are celebrating his first year of life!!

I am just so beside myself with love for both of my kids. When you have one child you love that child with everything that you have, every ounce of your being. When you are about to have a second child, you worry that you can't possibly love another being as much as you already love your one child....where will that extra love come from as it is all being given to your first child? An amazing thing happens, the love you have to give multiplies and you suddenly have this overwhelming sense of completness. Or at least that is how I feel anyway.

Denton being one, feels a lot different than Riley being one. He just seems like so much more of a baby than Riley did at that age. Must be because Riley was talking, and Denton is not yet.

BUT...BUT....Denton is WALKING! He started taking steps 3 or so weeks ago and has progressively gotten better. He now walks most of the time at home and only crawls part of the time. He is so cute doing his little Frankenstein walk.

Check out the video below....(and pics of Denton's party will be added after the weekend)

Hair today...gone tomorrow!

My precious Riley girl has been growing her hair out to donate to locks of love. We told her whenever she was ready to cut it, give us the word and we will do it. This weekend was when she wanted to cut it, so we headed over to one of those walk in salons and chopped it all off!

I thought I might get a little sad, but I actually didn't. I think I am just glad that I don't have to go thru the morning ritual of brushing and styling all that hair!! Riley LOVES her new do! She spent the entire day afterwards (yesterday) checking herself out in the mirror and saying "I like my new haircut".


Before
13 inches!!!!!!!!

After!

Later in the day we went swimming....(so much for 'salon hair')

Riley showing off her do before we hit the pool!

We have a tooth!!!!

After 11 months, Denton finally has his first official tooth! I can't believe how long it took him. His sister had a mouth full of teeth at 8 months and here he is just getting his first one. It has officially poked thru the gums and is on its way up! It felt like it was just a bump under the gums for months!! Looks like the one next to it will be next...but knowing Denton probably not for another 6 months! HA.

I will try to get pics soon, but I wanted to immortalize the date. It was actually Tuesday of last week (4/13, his sisters bday) that it made its debut but we have been a tad bit busy lately with all of the sickness and birthday party stuff.

It's Party Time

The morning of Riley's Birthday party, she and her friend Daisy went to get their hair and nails done for the party. They got the works! Nails painted, glitter stars on their faces and hair done up with glitter and a little tiara! They were in heaven and both were so adorable getting all beautified.

Riley and her friend/neighbor Gabe are just one day apart in age so for the second year in a row, we did a joint party for them. Seeing as how most of their friends are kids from the neighborhood it makes sense. For this year's party we headed over to Champion Gymnastics and Cheer down the street from our house. We didn't really know what to expect other than the fact that the kids would get to play in the gym and bounce house. Man was I impressed with the party they put on. They had a group of instructors with the kids and took them thru obstacle courses and played games and helped them swing on a rope and jump on trampolines and the bounce house etc. They really know how to tire those kids out, ha! Riley and Gabe had a great time as did the other kids. I know us parents had a blast watching the kids as well. Even Denton and his baby friends got into the action a bit. Nothing like being at a place where you can just set the babies down and let them do their thing!

Kids getting instruction on how to run the course

Listening intently to the rope instructions

Denton getting his gym on

Riley on the obstacle course

She was trying so hard not to show her fear!
Game Time!

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY RILEY!!!

Yesterday was Riley's 4th birthday. Instead of the usual cupcakes or cake to bring to school to celebrate with her friends, she wanted to bring donut holes to share with her class. So her Dad took her to the donut shop on the way to school and Riley picked out a special donut for herself and then some donut holes for her friends.

After school we let Riley pick where she wanted to eat dinner and she chose Chili's. The waitstaff brought her over a chocolate milkshake and sang Happy Birthday to her. She got very shy and hid her face in her Dad's shoulder. So cute!! She is looking forward to her party this Saturday and is already asking when she turns 5. Slow your roll girl!!

I am just so proud of my little girl. She has turned into the most amazing, funny, smart, talented, caring, sweet, ball of sunshine I could have ever dreamed of. She is equal parts girly-froofie-girl and get-down-and dirty-tomboy. She alternates "ballerina" dancing in the living room with showing off some serious karate moves (that she made up). Everyday that I look into those beautiful blue eyes of hers, I am more and more grateful that we have been blessed with such a precious little girl.

Ah but she is not so little anymore. She has now decided that she wants to take showers by herself. No more sharing the bathtub with little brother. Did I mention that she is TALL? She is all legs and in the 90th percentile for height. Which is truly amazing because she started out in the 5th percentile for height and weight. She can spell and write her first and last name. She knows more spanish than I do (thank you SDSU spanish classes) and can count to 100 and add and subtract basic numbers. She loves to color (within the lines, amazing) and paint and draw and she loves sing along to the music. She also loves to just sing on her own without any music playing. One of her most favorite things to do is to slow dance with her Daddy. What a heart melting scene that is!!

She constantly delights me with the things she says and she is the BEST big sister ever. Her brother lights up the minute he sees her. She can get him to stop crying on the spot with just a song and is Mommy's best little helper. She has even started cleaning around the house! She loves to vacuum with our little handheld attachment and she also loves to sweep.

I can go on and on about all of the wonderful things I love about Riley. But the one thing that I love most is that she is OURS!!

Happy Birthday to my Princess Riley!!!

Easter Weekend

We started Easter weekend by heading over to Sea World for a few hours. We like to go right when it opens and leave around lunch time when it starts to get really crowded. This time we checked out a few things that we had never seen before. And as usual, Riley had a blast playing in the Bay of Play. And from the looks of the pic below, Dan had fun as well ;)

Easter morning the kids woke up and went to check out the baskets that the Easter Bunny left. Riley was so impressed that the Easter Bunny knew that her brother was too young for candy which is why the Easter Bunny left him empty eggs in his basket, ha! *excuse Riley’s horrible case of bed head!

After checking out the goods we decided to go out for Easter Brunch, yum.

After brunch it was time for Riley to go hunt for Easter Eggs at our park. Her buddy Gabe was out there so he helped her to find her eggs!

Once Riley had all of her loot we headed back inside for a little R&R. Little did we know that we would be interrupted by the biggest earthquake to hit the area in 100 years!! That’s right, a magnitude 7.2 struck just below the Mexico/US border. Due to our close proximity to Mexico we felt it pretty dang good! In fact, they felt it all the way up to LA.

As soon as it hit, I yelled for my Mom to grab Denton and come under the doorway I was standing in. Dan and Riley were napping upstairs so I bolted up the stairs (hurdling the baby gate in the process, ha) to go grab Riley in case Dan was sleeping thru it. But of course, in Super Dad fashion he already had her and was standing under the doorway. I stayed with them until it ended (man it went on FOREVER) and then we all headed back downstairs to get info on it from the TV.

I must say in my 32 years as a Californian, that was by far the biggest one I have ever felt. Poor Riley was a little shook up (no pun intended). Probably because she saw the genuine fear in our faces, wondering if this was “the big one”. We calmed her down a little bit and then I suggested that she eat some of her Easter candy and suddenly she was all better - Smart girl, chocolate cures everything! All in all a pretty exciting few minutes, but we are eternally thankful that our house was built so well to withstand earthquakes!