2 years

Dear Riley,

I can't believe it has already been two years since you came into our lives. So much has happened during that time and yet it has gone so fast.

0-3 months

During your first three months you struggled with colic. It was a painful experience and I wanted to do everything I could to make your world better. Regardless of how difficult it could be I knew you were a special little girl and I was grateful to be your mom.

3 - 6 months

Somewhere between 3 and 4 months you stopped crying. Well, you stopped the torturous crying. We started to see that you were a happy, delightful kid. Were you trying to make up for the first three months? I don't know and I don't care. I was just glad to see you no longer in pain.

6 - 9 months

Six months was truly my first favorite age for you (and then it turned out to be every month after that as well). It was about this time that your personality really started to come through and you became so responsive. Everyone warned me that once you started crawling that I would miss the days when you didn't, but that couldn't have been farther from the truth. I loved that you were becoming more mobile as each development was an amazement to me.

9 - 12 months

I didn't know it could get any cooler watching you develop, but then you started sitting up and really crawling (I will always miss that army crawl you had). You were always wanting to explore... I'm pretty sure our electricity bill skyrocketed between your 9th and 12th month as you ALWAYS wanted to be in the fridge.

12 - 15 months

One whole year! Even though you didn't fully start walking until about 15 months you were all over the place. I would often catch you taking steps when you thought we weren't watching and it instantly reminded me of myself. We were definitely starting to see more and more of our personalities coming out in you.

15 - 18 months

Oh my gosh, what a hambone you've become (but so is your dad). You make me laugh all the time whether it's the things you try to say, the things you do or your never ending facial expressions. It's been fun to see what you like and what you don't like. It makes me wonder what goes on in that head of yours.

18 - 21 months

You are certainly an outdoors type of girl. Any chance you had you'd want to be walking the sidewalk or playing at the park. Turns out we like the outdoors a lot too so you fit right in. You also love your books and really started embracing your ABC's and 123's at this age.

21 - 24 months

When I think back to even a couple months ago it amazes me how much you've changed. Your vocabulary grows by leaps and bounds every day. Often you surprise me with something I didn't think you'd know. You have certainly become more stubborn at this age, but I know it's because you want to be able to do things yourself and I suppose to assert your Independence.

I can't wait for what the future will bring. I might have started the journey a little late, but am so grateful that your dad and I have you. While I hope that I have been a good mother and taught you well you have also taught me so much about the value of patience, love, laughter, and kindness. Thank you for being the amazing little girl you are. I couldn't imagine my world without you.

Happy Birthday!


Love,

Mommy

Day in the life...

After reading numerous other bloggers describe a day in their lives I've decided to share mine as well. It seems that most I read are either SAHM's or working mom's that document their weekend. The few I've seen of the working mom's working day have been quite helpful for me to see how other's handle that sort of schedule so here is my working day.

5:47 - Wake up. My alarm is set for 6 am, but I'm already up. I'm actually grateful that I slept in this late as the last couple weeks I have been waking up at 4 or 5 am. If I am able to fall back to sleep it has been light, scattered sleep until the alarm goes off. When I wake up this morning I debate about turning the alarm off so it doesn't wake my daughter across the hall, but the cat decides to open Riley's creaky bedroom door at 5:55 which wakes her right up. Immediately, my husband and I hear her calling for "mommy", "daddy", and saying "It's all gone". I'm not sure what's all gone. Perhaps she's referring to her sleep. Yes, sweetie, your sleep is all gone and you're now awake. Jesse goes to get Riley while I put on the clothes I set out the night before. I don't trust myself to make a quick decision in the morning, plus my husband and daughter usually sleep until around 6:30 so I often get dressed in the dark.

6:00 - I go downstairs and finish getting ready. Jesse and Riley follow shortly after. He gets her set up with some cereal and heads back upstairs to get dressed. Once he comes back down we all sit at the table and eat breakfast. This is a rarity as we are usually rushing around a bit more in the morning. After breakfast, Riley gets to color and go into the basement to play for a little bit. This never happens.

Decide to take a couple pictures of myself since I am doing this post. Obviously, I didn't put a lot of work into getting ready as my hair looks uncombed, my shirt is crooked , and there is lint all over my sweater. I don't notice this until after I get home and look at this picture.

And one of me all bundled up. It's actually been quite warm for a Minnesota winter so I'm probably overdressed, but since I wait outside for a bus I'd rather be too warm than not warm enough. And, yes, I know I'm a dork for taking these pictures of myself.

6:53 - We head out the door together and hop in the car. Three days a week it works out that Jesse drives me a few blocks to a bus stop, then another couple blocks to drop off Riley at daycare, and then a couple miles to his work. I love the days that we can all leave together as a family.

7:04 - Get on the bus and use the time to catch up on the book I'm reading right now "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana De Rosnay. My bus drops me off right in front of my building around 7:25. I take my regular walk through the skyway level to the back elevators. This will soon change as my team will be moving sometime this month. Most days I expect to see the same things happen: The bank lady heads towards the door to unlock it, the woman with the headphones walks past me in the opposite direction sometimes with her mom, one hair salon guy is seated behind the front desk while the other guy is sitting at his station reading the news paper... I don't necessarily see these things every single day, but the hair salon scenario is the same about 99.9% of the time. Today? The front desk guy was actually cutting a woman's hair. Totally throws me off.

7:30 - Log in and start working. Typically, I sit in a cubicle all day fielding calls and emails with a couple meetings scattered in between. Some days I feel like I am in meetings all day (like Wednesday), but today (Thursday) I don't have a single meeting.

10:10 - It's been pretty steady all morning, but I need a snack to refuel. Grab my cut up apple and cheese and dig in while working on a project.

12:00 - Today I'm having lunch with a former team mate. We both still work at the same company, but our team was split up a couple years ago. We see each other in meetings, but try and find occasional time to get lunch or go to happy hour. Today we are trying The Burger Place as I have heard good things about it.

1:00 - Back at my desk. The burgers were good, but everything was a little greasy and I smell like a  burger joint. All I want to do is go home and shower. Decide to swap out my sweater for a fleece I have at the office. Hope the smell dissipates soon.

4:34 - Done with work for the day. Head out to the bus stop which is a couple blocks from the office. My bus usually doesn't come until 4:48 so I read a little while waiting for the bus.

5:10 - Arrive home a few minutes early because I caught the earlier bus. Riley is eating dinner and Jesse is just about to sit down with his. I warm up some leftovers, but by the time I am ready to eat they are done. So much for eating as a family, but honestly this is the closest we get to it most days. After dinner Riley and I color, and play 'sleep and wake up' which is her new favorite game that she made up. Basically, we pretend to sleep and then she wakes us up. She thinks it is hilarious. Here's a really bad video of it. I love seeing her pretend sleeping face.

6:00 - Time for Riley's bath. I start the water and then ask my husband to remind me to wear red tomorrow in honor of women's heart health. He tells me I might be better off if I don't eat another greasy burger tomorrow. Point taken.

6:25 - Finished with bath. Have Riley say good night to daddy and head upstairs where we finish getting ready for bed, play, and read books. Riley usually sits on my lap to read books, but recently she decided she wants to sit on the chair herself while I am on the floor. She seems more engaged in the book this way and is more likely to read the book herself. When I do read she will watch my mouth. It's like I can see her brain working. I love this, but I miss our lap time too.

7:20 - Riley is finally down a little later than usual. She seemed pretty riled up so I rocked with her for a bit until she mellowed out. I head downstairs and start the banana bread I am making for my co-worker, Delena, whose birthday is the next day. Delena mentioned a couple weeks ago that she doesn't like store bought treats... only homemade. I only have enough banana's to make one loaf of banana bread, but that won't be enough for everyone. Delena's not a fan of chocolate, but I have brownie mix so I decide to make that as well (which I fully recognize is not technically homemade since it's from a box). She can have the banana bread while the rest of the team can eat the brownie cake pops I'm going to attempt to make. While the banana bread is cooking I jump in the shower. I get out, work on this post a little, blow dry my hair, and then mix up the brownies.

8:40 - The brownies are in the oven and the banana bread is almost done. I am trying to make brownie pops with a new silicone pan I bought. They didn't turn out last time, but I also had tried it with a gluten free brownie mix. Let's see what happens tonight. I work on making Delena a card with her new tagline "I'm gonna need you to...". There's a back story to that line, but she and some other teammates will get the humor in this. The inside will then say "...have a Happy Birthday". Nothing crazy, but she should like it.

8:50 - Pull banana bread out of oven. Realize I am exhausted and getting a headache. Decide to eat some yogurt. Go back to making Delena's card. After finishing the card I check on the brownie pops. Hmmm, they turned out better than last time, but didn't quite work. Throw rest of brownie mixture into flat pan and put in oven. I then open mail, fold laundry, add items to the grocery list, empty dishwasher and clean up the rest of the kitchen. My husband is down in the basement catching up on "American Horror Story" which I refuse to watch as I get easily scared. It's 9:30 and I just want to go to bed, but have to wait for the rest of the brownies. Time to take something for this headache.

9:40 - Try doing my physical therapy stretches, but barely do them. I'm just too tired and my head is really starting to hurt. Run upstairs and pick out an outfit for tomorrow. Try and fix the Xfinity app on my iPad that suddenly isn't working so I can't get my emails from that account, but it's just not cooperating. Realize I didn't prep lunch or a snack for tomorrow. Guess I might be buying lunch again.

9:58 - Get brownies out of oven and head straight up to bed. Toss and turn a bit before falling asleep. I wake up a couple times during the night and then find myself awake at 5:15 the next morning with Riley waking shortly after. What the...?! One day soon I hope to get a good night's sleep.

My Birthday aka "The Dryer Diaries"

I recently celebrated my 40th birthday. I wasn't really scared of turning 40, but it wasn't as breezy as turning 30 was. Now I am clearly older, achier, wrinklier (and hopefully, wiser)... age has made itself known. On the other hand I don't have any 'outstandings' as I did when I was 30 (not married, no child, struggling career...) so I feel a little more settled and comfortable with where I am at. And that's a good thing. A very good thing.

As far as my actual birthday celebration  I was feeling a little down because I wasn't sure my husband got that on my birthday I wanted to be really celebrated... especially since it was a milestone. Based on some comments he made (and some previous b-day and mother's day experiences) I thought I might be headed towards a 'meh' kind of birthday. For one, he told me a couple times that I would not be receiving my gift on my birthday and indicated that it might be awhile before I got it. I'm not one that needs anything big like a party (although I am not opposed to one) - I just want to feel special. And when Jesse forgot to say Happy Birthday to me before I left for work I sorta tailspinned into feeling very non-special. He quickly apologized and wished me a Happy Birthday in a text, but by that time I was already bummed out. I sat on it for awhile as I received birthday wishes from all my co-workers, but it kept sinking down deeper. I sent an email to Jesse telling him how I was feeling, but acknowledged that he is awesome to me and that I knew it was still early in the day. I felt like I just needed to get it off my chest.

Turns out I really didn't need to worry. My husband came through and then some. Although, I could have done without the attempt to throw me off my saying I wouldn't get a gift on my birthday. Turns out that wasn't really funny nor was it a delightful surprise. At any rate, in the end it was a mighty fine way to turn 40. But before I get to my husband's part of the fun I need to talk about my awesome co-workers.

We have a system at work where we bring in a treat to share with the whole team on a team mate's birthday. Basically, whoever last had their birthday brings in the treat for the next birthday and so on. Lucky for me Ben's birthday is before mine. Ben has a wife and 4 kids so I am guessing he has some practice in the birthday department. Plus, he's an all around nice guy. Besides the fancy fonted birthday email he sent he also brought in Age Gyoza (crispy Japanese-style chicken dumplings) and edamame from Zen Box Japanese Eatery.  Zen Box is one of my favorite places to grab lunch so I was delighted to get a treat from there (and so was the team).

My team then went above and beyond by decorating my cube with cat pictures and balloons. My co-worker, Ashley, is a huge fan of cats so it was no surprise that cats made their way into my birthday somehow, but she went above expectations by purchasing a cat balloon that hovers just over the ground so it looks like you are walking a cat. A balloon cat, that is. I agreed to have my picture taken with it as I figured this was my only chance to: 1. have a picture taken of me on my birthday, and 2. document the balloons. I was wrong, but more on that later.

One of the many cat pictures placed in my cube.

As I was packing up for the day I decided to bring the cat balloon home for my daughter. I awkwardly stuffed it into a plastic Target bag with it's tail sticking out. Ashley requested that I walk the cat onto the bus, but I brushed off her foolishness. But as I got closer to my bus stop I started to rethink her request. And then this happened when I got on the bus:

Just because I am 40 doesn't mean the 14 year old in me can't be let out from time to time.

Please note that there is only one guy looking up. No one else is paying attention. DO THEY NOT SEE THE CAT ON THE BUS?! Apparently, they don't know what it took for this picture to happen. I'd like to say I am just that brave and cool, but it took a lot of self talk to get here and the luck of having my neighbor on the bus to take the picture. All in all it was so worth it as I was able to bring joy to Ashley's life and apparently made a bunch of other people laugh.

I was also hoping to bring joy to my daughter's life with the kitty balloon, but I should have known better. As soon as she saw it she said "Idon'twantthisIdon'twantthisIdon'twantthisIdon'twantthis..." until I removed it from site. I put it in the guest room and later found our cat, Lucy, sniffing it's butt. I guess to a cat a butt is a butt.

Caught in the act

After eating the burgers Jesse picked up for dinner he and Riley gave me my card. Well, Jesse attempted to. As soon as Riley saw it she equated it with coloring and insisted on coloring it some more. We had to do a little switcheroo with a coloring book and then I was able to get my hands on this:

Riley also got me the "Mother to Daughter" book, but the card was my favorite. As you can see the first letter in the words spell out 'dryer'. Jesse and I have a bit of a dryer theme when it comes to exchanging gifts (or getting engaged). I started it, but I think that might be the only time I put anything in the dryer. He, on the other hand, has embraced the dryer over and over.

Seeing that Jesse made it clear that I wouldn't receive my gift for some time I thought he was just being cute with the card saying 'dryer' - like he was trying to work it in there somewhere. But after having some delicious cake he asked if I read my card. "Yes", I commented, "it said 'dryer'. Cute". He gave me a look that I now know meant "good lord, you are daft" and then gently nudged me towards the basement. I opened the dryer to find:

Balloons! and something white... We'd been talking about getting me a tablet for some time so I was pretty darn sure that was going to be my gift. We'd been looking at a variety of brands, but we both agreed that an iPad was more than I needed (or wanted to pay for), but when I saw that white bag I knew.

And I was a little stunned. I said something silly like "You got me an iPad" as if he didn't know. And then being the gracious wife I am I ran right past him to get my camera to capture this moment. But once the stun started to wear off I made sure he knew how grateful I was.

Since my birthday fell on a Thursday we decided to go out for a nice dinner on Saturday when grandma Suzie, and grandpa Michael could babysit Riley. We decided to go to Red Stone Grill after it had been suggested numerous times to us (one of which was my oldest sister, Judy, who just celebrated her 40th wedding anniversary there).

The food, surroundings, and company was fantastic, and I would highly recommend dining there. We had the Buffalo Shrimp appetizer, the Steak Salad, and the Wasabi Crusted Tuna, along with some fantastic wine. The atmosphere was warm and cozy and we even got a nice secluded spot in the corner. I can't wait to go back.

Jesse trying to avoid being in the picture.

In the end turning 40 was pretty awesome. And I felt incredibly special thanks to my family and friends.

Book Review

I am a bit of a book junkie. I don't get a lot of opportunity to read when I am at home, but luckily I ride the bus to and from work 4 days a week which provides me with ample time to read. And sometimes, especially if I am reading a 'can't put down' book, I will sneak in extra moments at home.

I haven't always been a book reader. When I was young I rarely read except for the Sweet Valley High series which a friend convinced me to read (oh, that Jessica and Elizabeth). I often say that I rarely read then because I really needed to focus on my homework. Anytime I would pick up a novel I would devote all my time to that and not to homework so it didn't seem worth it. But it was actually more than that. Book reading wasn't really encouraged. I never saw others at home reading a book. My dad read the newspaper, but there were no novels, biographies, or even self help books sitting around the house (which there probably was a real need for). I know I had books when I was really little, but not so much as I got older. In fact one of my favorites was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton.

Years ago I bought this book for a friend's daughter and another for my future child. I still had my copy from childhood, but wanted a fresh, new one so my future daughter or son could have their own. It has a lot of words so Riley hasn't really embraced it yet, but she did patiently flip through the whole book while I told her the abbreviated story this past week and it made my day.

I know that not everyone is a book reader or has to be, but now that I have become one I see what value it can have. My daughter already has quite a book collection and it is the one thing that I am ok with her having 'too' much of. I hope she continues to love reading books. I know I will keep reading and I hope that inspires her to do so as well.

So how did I become a book reader? Well, it didn't happen overnight. As an adult I subscribed to the newspaper and then some magazines. These were great as I continued my education and I could quickly read an article in between homework assignments. I'd read a novel here and there, but it wasn't really until I had forced time to read (such as on the bus) and found a genre that I like (historical fiction, memoirs...). A few years back I started an informal book exchange at work. Leave a book, take a book... whatever. I'm not one to want to keep books (I only read them once),  I don't want to spend a lot on them either (I have found a lot of great books on clearance shelves, thrift stores, and garage sales), and I don't want them cluttering up space at home. The book exchange has worked out great and has encouraged me to read books that I might not have originally.

So this year I decided to keep track of the books I read. Partly out of curiosity as to how many books I read in a year and partly so I can refer back to which books I'd recommend and which ones I wouldn't. The first book of 2012 was The Last Girls by Lee Smith. Apparently, Smith's best known books are often set in the Appalachian Mountains or around the time of the Civil War. This book was neither of those things and  was actually inspired by her own trip down the Mississippi when she was in college.

The book follows the tale of 4 women who travel down the Mississippi river together years after taking a raft down the river with 8 other women in 1965. Smith does a great job of intertwining present with past and a good job of creating 4 very different characters. She does focus a bit more on one of the four women which felt a little awkward and clunky at first, but then she found a decent story telling groove. Overall, I would rate this as a good read. If you don't identify with one character you might identify with another. I probably would have found this even more enjoyable if I were in my 50's or if I was a young woman in the 1960's as there were pieces that just didn't speak to me, but I would still recommend this book. Grade: B

I have to admit that my next reading selection was chosen more for it's size than anything. When I scour the shelves at the book store I usually start with the look of the book. Is it a paperback (hardcovers are often more expensive and heavier to carry around)? Is it a small to medium book? Is the cover pleasing? I know, I know... a book should not be judged by it's cover, but I have to start somewhere. There are a lot of books on the shelves. But once I get past looking at the outside of the book I read the description. Does it appeal to me? Yes? Buy the book. No? Put it back on the shelf no matter how pretty the cover is. I felt like I had been reading a lot of books that were a little heavier (in the weight department) so when I grabbed Montana 1948 by Larry Watson I gave it a second chance even though the cover did not inspire me. Why? Because it was small. A mere 175 pages.

And I'm glad I did give it a second chance. This may have been a fast read, but it was very well written. I assumed it might be lacking details, but I had a definite vision of how the house and the town looked... even if he didn't give his reader a ton of description. The story, as you might imagine, is set in 1948 in Montana. It's a tale of a family and their Sioux housekeeper where a difficult choice has to be made between family and justice. This book was clear, and concise. It didn't wander in ways that didn't benefit the story. It was clean and refreshing, and I look forward to reading more of Mr. Watson's work. Grade: A


Next book review: A disturbing, but can't put down read and another Lee Smith book.

Another winter weekend

This weekend we left the house to go to the nursing home to visit grandma Ann and grandpa Frank, but were a bit delayed when Riley decided to wander around outside. Might as well let her explore and burn off some energy before sticking her in the car... because car rides can often look like this:

Earlier in the week... upset about being in the car.

We just had a light snowfall so it was a little surprising that Riley wanted to run around as she hasn't been that fond of snow so far, but it seems that she's coming around. She kept scooping up snow and throwing it at us and wandering around on neighbor's sidewalks. I wonder what the neighbors think of us... I never see other neighbors randomly hanging out in our yard. "Don't they have their own yard to play in?".

Not our house.

When I wrote her name in the snow it led her to asking me to write a 'B', a 'P', etc. She loves to have us write letters over and over for her. B still seems to be her favorite, but she's starting to branch out with others. By this time we were down at the park and were having a bit of a challenge convincing her we needed to go home. Solution? Grab a stick and write letters in the snow for her. With each letter move about 5 feet up until you arrive home conveniently at the letter Z.

Once we got home we jumped in the car and headed to the nursing home. She had a fun time there and discovered a few new things to play with such as the singing snowman and this flowerpot full of rocks.

You can't see it, but she was throwing pebbles around.

Later in the day my dad (grandpa Frank) stopped by as he was in the neighborhood to see a friend of his. And grandma Suzie and grandpa Michael stopped by at the same time. What a treat to have all these visitors. My dad even shared stories of when he worked at Coca Cola during the war many years ago. He explained that because of the war bottle production had stopped so they had to get used bottles back, clean them out, and refill them. He said they were extremely short on bottles when he backed his truck into a large pallet of bottles and broke them all. Lucky for him it all worked out and he said he even got a new truck out of the deal. I love hearing my dad talk about these things because most of the time he talks as if nothing important or exciting happened in the past.

Jesse asked me to destroy this picture, but it's so rare that we get a picture together as a family I couldn't help but keep it.

Grandpa Michael was a good sport playing with Riley. It was fun to see him crawling around on the ground with her. And she was loving it.

There was a family on the ice skating and sledding around. It was fun to watch and think that this may be us in the near future.

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful except for Monday when I had the day off, but Riley had daycare and Jesse had to work. I ran more errands in day than I have since before Riley was born. It was pretty exciting to get that much done in one day. I almost forgot that was possible. I spent part of the day planning for Riley's birthday party which is coming up in February. We've decided to keep the party somewhat small... some family, some friends. I hope no one is offended if they aren't invited, but we have such a huge family we needed to keep it manageable for her age. I have been debating birthday party ideas (owls, abc's...), but decided that the one consistent thing that she has been interested in is books so we are having a book party (and we can include the alphabet easily with this). The invites I made are bookmarks and have a little rhyme explaining that books are a great gift. She got so many toys for Christmas that she doesn't even know what to do with them, but she always loves her books. I can't wait for it to all come together.

And, to be honest, I can't wait to get her some new books!

Randomness

I was looking through some recent pictures I took and realized I'd like to share them, but really don't have a  topic to write about that would tie them all together. So I shall proceed with a very random post.

Here my child lovingly demonstrates her solidarity with the cat by eating with him. We are pretty inconsistent about eating together as a family (something I would love to do more often) so perhaps she is sending us a message here "you won't eat with me, then I'll eat with the cat".

I got this owl t-shirt for Riley for Christmas. She was obsessed with owls for awhile so I thought this would be the perfect item for her. Turns out as soon as I hit 'submit' and ordered the shirt owls went out of fashion with her. Oh, she still likes them, but her love for them has waned a bit.

This was the first time I gave her pizza (I also fed her apple slices for those food police type people). She loved the pizza and proceeded to get it everywhere but her white shirt which was AMAZING. At any rate, I walked out of the room for a moment only to come back to this scene - foot on tray. Guess she was done with her food and just wanted to touch her toes.

Another trip to the Children's Museum. There was a new exhibit that revolved around books. She absolutely loved it, of course. This was the first display we came to. When you opened the doors music played. Here she is clapping and dancing to the music. It was a little hard to convince her that there were other things to check out as she found this so awesome.

Later at the museum we checked out the water area. Nothing that exciting happened here except that she had fun and looked cute in her pigtails.

First official ponytail. On the back on her head, that is. I've been debating whether to get her hair cut or let it grow some more. Her hair is still pretty fine, but seems to be thickening up. Her hair is nothing like my thick, wavy hair, but perhaps mine wasn't either at that age.

New Year's Eve dinner from Christos Greek Restaurant. We thought about going there with Riley, but she seemed pretty wound up. I knew that we wouldn't be able to enjoy our meal there so we ordered it to go. This worked out way better. Riley got to run around and play once she ate and we didn't have to pay for spendy wine at a restaurant. The food turned out perfect. They really do have the best Greek food around.

So that pretty much sums up some of the random moments of the last couple weeks. Christmas and New Years are done, but my 40th and Riley's 2nd birthdays are right around the corner. More fun to come...

Merry Christmas again... sorta

This past weekend we had a couple opportunities to exchange more Christmas gifts. My birth dad, Leo (I'm adopted) has been trying to coordinate a day and he and his family could all come visit us. They live a couple hours away so it was nice that they made the trek up to see us on Saturday. (We're still working on Riley tolerating car rides - some days are better than others.) Leo came with his wife, Debbie; my birth siblings, Lindsey and Derek; and their respective spouses, Jeremiah and Tara. It's been quite some time since I saw them in person so it was nice to see them even if it was only for a couple hours.

Most of my life I haven't been able to look at another person and see me. My mom and dad (the people that adopted me) had features similar to me, but I could never say "I have my dad's nose"... but now I can. The first time I saw a picture of someone who resembled me was when I was in my 30's. Finally. It was pretty cool. I always thought the first time I would experience that would be looking at my child, but it turns out that when she finally came around she looks just like her daddy. Lindsey (above) and I share different mom's, but we look a lot alike. The cheeks, the crease down our nose (affectionately known as 'butt crack' nose), our worry lines...

Riley got a couple more gifts from our visitors. She had a fun time playing with her new grocery scanner set, but needs a little time to warm up to the doll with the big blinking eyes. Riley's never been a huge milk drinker, but has become a little milk junkie lately and was asking for it above. See the blur around her hand? That's the shakes from not having enough milk to her liking... I'm sure.

For most people this picture won't make sense, but I had to include it. Derek, keep your feet to yourself.  You're grossing out your sister. Nothing more to say about that.

Riley was a little hesitant about getting too close to all these people she wasn't very familiar with, but Lindsey figured out a way to get Riley to sit on her lap... she showed her pictures on her phone. That kid likes her pictures, especially ones that include her in it. It took her awhile, but in the end Riley gave everyone a hug and kiss goodbye when they left.

This picture is pretty amazing... first and only shot and everyone looks great. It's like a miracle occurred. A big thanks for the gifts and the visit. Hope to see everyone again soon.


On Sunday I went to my mom's nursing home to visit with her and my dad. My sister, Judy, happened to be visiting so we got to catch up with her as well. This was the first time I was able to see my dad since mid-December. The stomach flu ran through my mom's nursing home twice and my dad spends a portion of each day there so he was concerned he could have the bug too. Finally, we had the all clear so we could not only visit, but I could finally give my dad his Christmas gift.

Every year I make my dad a calendar with family photos. He always posts it in my mom's room at the nursing home so everyone can see the pictures.

I also made my dad a bunch of food. He has pretty much everything he needs and then some so I know he appreciates the food (at least I hope he does). I made him some meatloaf with lots of onions, Easy Crockpot Fiesta Chicken, Banana bread, and some nuts. Ok, so I didn't make the nuts... but you get the idea.

I totally forgot that I was going to put this outfit on Riley the day before because Leo and Debbie bought it for her last year. She was really excited about putting the tutu on herself - I didn't have to help at all, but then she wanted it off. OFF. After awhile she apparently forgot about it - plus I pulled her shirt over it a little bit so she wasn't reminded about it constantly.

Now Christmas is over. Oh wait, I still have one more gift I need to drop off to my friend, Josie. Every year I get Josie Almond Roca... except last year when I bought it, but never got it over to Josie's... and it ended up in my belly. It would be a shame for that to happen again. : )