Halloween

Yeah, so Halloween was a couple weeks ago, but I've been so busy I haven't posted about it. Here are a few photos from the day.

She wanted to dress up as a firefighter. After her school party and horseback riding she wasn't very cooperative for photos in her costume. This one was about the best we got.

I think you can get the idea here of what our little photo shoot was like... Ha ha!

One of these days I'll have a few minutes to post some of the photos from her last horseback riding session.

Great Pumpkins

We decided to go ahead and carve our pumpkins yesterday. We bought three awesome pumpkins on our trip to Peach Tree Farm. They were so pretty in front of our house.

Well some jerk stole the one on right three days after we got it. We came home from work to find the broken stem lying in the driveway. Jerk! We had to replace that one and the little one is too small to carve. So we ended up buying two more pumpkins yesterday at the grocery store.

The best we could do in our attempts to get a pre-carving photo.

I told Ryleigh that we would have to cut the pumpkin open and take out all the guts.
Her response? "I don't know what 'guts' is." Ha ha!

Yummy, want a bite?

They carved a pumpkin at school last week and Ms. Jen told me that Ryleigh wanted absolutely nothing to do with touching the insides or the seeds. But she wanted to be right up close watching the teachers and the other kids do it. At home she was a little more into it, she touched some of the pumpkin insides and played with the seeds.

We told Ry she could decide what kind of face the pumpkin should have; happy, scary, mad... She decided one scary and one happy. The third was TBD. About half way through the carving process she was over it and decided that the pumpkin should have a sad face because she was sad. At that point we had to put the carving on hold until after dinner and bath.

Just look at that concentration

Ron and I finished up after Ry went to bed while we watched the Colts-Broncos game. I haven't carved a pumpkin in years. And Ron said he didn't remember ever carving one. But as it turns out we have some mad carving skills. I mean, these guys turned out AWESOME!

July 4th and Other Stuff

Here are some photos from the past week or so...

June 27 we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary with dinner at Les Bourgeois and gorgonzola cheesecake. YUM!
Thanks for the gift card Hugh!!

Hair accessories are becoming a BIG thing in our house.

Ryleigh loves this little people dollhouse and plays with it every day.

I mentioned the hair accessories... well "Misser Bear" likes to accessorize too.

We went out for a little 4th of July breakfast.

"Cheese!"

I discovered these Bud Light Lime Straw-ber-ritas.
Yeah, they're pretty good.

We enjoyed some relaxing stroller rides.

I found the Kona Shave Ice Truck! Whoop!!
Actually they kind of just came driving down our street, but still. 

Our 4th of July was pretty uneventful. Since Ron and I both had to work Friday morning, we didn't feel like keeping Ryleigh up late and trying to do the fireworks. We grilled and had a nice dinner at home. After Ry went to bed we sat outside and listened to everyone else blow stuff up.

Underneath all this fun is the story saga of our new patio. But that deserves a post of its own... Maybe one day soon I will share it.

Hope everyone had a happy 4th of July weekend!

Father's Day

We had a pretty nice little Father's Day this past Sunday. Breakfast at Ernie's, a bike ride on the trail, a temperamental toddler. Good times. I did get a few cute pics of Ry and daddy to celebrate daddy's special day.

Ack! I LOVE this picture!

She loves her daddy.

And for some reason my google is offering me this fun little option of a stop-action montage of our mini photoshoot. I must have watched this 10 times, it is cracking me up!

Happy Valentine's Day

...a little late.

blurry toddler on the go

yep, this is the best we could do

beautiful valentine flowers from the hubby :-)

Happy Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas!

Starting this post, I would like to note that my willful toddler is becoming increasingly difficult to photograph. she either will not sit still, or will not look at the camera without trying to grab it. So, with that disclaimer in mind, here are the photos of our little Christmas.

daddy is on duty

This photo was texted to me early in the day while I was at work. Yes, her shirt IS too small. And yes, her hat is on backwards. But she's pretty darn cute!

what? is there something on my face?

These were just kind of cute and silly. She had her first Oreo for dessert on Christmas eve.

christmas morning!

pure cuteness

Once she started playing with the dollhouse we had a hard time getting her interested in opening any of her other presents.

guess what? it's new jammies!

another winner (even though her face doesn't show it)

The piggy bank from Grandma Kim was also a big hit. It turns out this is a popular toddler gift with the grandma set...I hear Mimi bought the same thing!

ahhhhh. a little relaxation during nap time.

new christmas jams!

This was the best I could do with a jammie photo. She would NOT hold still. And when I turned the phone around she could see herself and kept saying "Yie Yie" - translation: Ry Ry as best we can figure. She always says it when she sees pics of herself. She "picked out" these jammies one day at the store. So of course I had to get them. They're Hello Kitty if you can't tell.

I hope everyone else had a great Christmas!

The Perfect Gift

The recipe for a perfect Christmas gift:
Find the cutest kid in America.
Add a Santa hat.
Take multiple photos.
Cut out said photos and glue them to pretty much any object (a CD works great).
Add some stickers...

Voila!

Ryleigh's daycare teachers made this for us and sent it home last week. I have to say I just LUV it! I love it so much I had to photograph it and post it on the blog. I mean how could I not? Just look at that face.  

Christmas Cheer

Well, shoot, I'm being a bad blogger again. I haven't posted in a while, but I have a pretty decent excuse. I started a new job about two and a half weeks ago, holiday parties to attend, a baby shower to host and Christmas shopping to do. Whew! Lots going on. Here are a few photos of our holiday season thus far, all courtesy of my iPhone of course.

christmas jammies + grumpy baby

We made a trip to the magic tree. Which is really just a regular tree covered in more LED Christmas lights than you have ever seen. It's pretty cool. And a popular photo spot as you can tell from all the people in the background. A Columbia holiday tradition, if you will. ;-)

and she fell asleep on the way home

We made our second annual trip to Bass Pro to see Santa.

looking a little apprehensive with Frosty and Rudolph lurking around

just testing out my camera on my new iPhone 5.  YAY!

uh oh

yep, we got the classic, "I hate Santa" photo
and I am totally a mean mommy because I think it is so funny.

had to get a pic on the wildcat bench
ok so maybe it's a bobcat, but close enough right?

And somewhere in there we got our Christmas tree. It was up with only lights for a week before I got the ornaments on. And I didn't even come close to getting them all on. But somebody in my house hates Christmas and is no help what so ever. Not pointing any fingers....

one of my favorite ornaments

Looking forward to Christmas with our little bug. I can't believe it's almost here!!