Riley Turned 2!!

It is hard to imagine that our baby girl turned 2 just a month ago! We had so much fun at her party and I had fun getting everything together and ready. Riley had an "Alphabet Party". I was excited because she got lots of "alphabet things" that we can play with. It is crazy to think that by her next birthday she will be able to sing the alphabet! Anyways... her banner was hung, all the food was labeled, letters fell from the ceiling, there were presents, cake, family, and friends. We had a great time.

Mom- thank you SO much for cutting out the letters and making her "abc" book. It is one of favorite things.

Mrs. Bergren- thanks for making our "b is for balls" they were wonderful!

Cait/Hannah/GG- thanks for letting me steal some pictures for this post!

Everyone: Thank you SO much for coming and celebrating Riley's birth and life with us.

Riley,

We love you so much. You constantly make us laugh and are always keeping us on our toes. We love how you have a servants heart and always want to "help". We love how you are such a good big sister and how your love extends to all that you meet. We enjoyed celebrating your 2nd birthday with you and are excited for many more birthdays to come!

Love,

Mom and Dad

December just flew right on by. Ryne and I had finals, Riley turned 2, we traveled for Christmas, attended parties and just enjoyed out time together. I have so much that I want to blog about but I find myself enjoying this extra time with my family. So... I want to document how wonderful these past few weeks have been but it will have to wait.
So, belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I finally have a Brother!!!

That's right. I have been wanting to learn how to sew for quite sometime and someone gave me a sewing machine! -a brother :) This is my very first sewing project! It was practice for what you will see below...
Grandmother working hard...



But just for proof... I did sew as well! She was a great teacher and I am in love with my new brother!

What we are making: I was super excited to get my sewing machine because I had my eye on a project. I made/am makeing a banner for each of the kids that says "hooray for Riley (Sam)" The idea is that we can not only use it at Birthday parties but also for special occasions such as passing a test, accomplishing a goal, etc. The idea is that we can use it as they get older. I know that it might get a little cheesy when they get older and there might be some years when they say "mom, do we really have to get that thing out", but I think in the end it will have a lot of memories.

Sew, here is what we did:
I had to cut out all the letters in the font that I wanted and then draw it onto my fabric and cut them again.

We cut out squares for the letters to go on. You wouldn't believe how long it took us to make a template of a square. Geesh!

Then we used some sort of adhesive to iron the letters onto the squares.

This process took a LOT of trial and errors. However, after we finally figured it out, I loved the stuff we used!

So my letters went from paper, to white fabric, to adhesive fabric, to white letter on a blue square!

After that I cut out all of my triangles! (that template didn't take near as long)

I laid it out to get an idea of how it was going to look

Then I put a front triangle with a back triangle and got it all ready to sew!

First we sewed the squares to the front triangle, then the triangles together, then we pinned the binding, sewed and....

The Final pictures will come in a couple of weeks at Riley's Birthday Party!!! But I am SO happy with how it turned out. I can't wait to go buy fabric for Sam's!

Meanwhile.....

Riley and Sam were playing dress up. (oh and did I mention Riley was playing in the bathroom sink. Even though she knows that is a no-no, I let her think she was getting away with it because she wasn't in my way while sewing...hence the really wet shirt)

Beautiful. Love that cheesy grin.

She gave her brother some jewelry too!

Sam had lots of fun!

Riley liked to play in all the nooks and cranny's at Grandmother's house.

This was also a couple of weekends ago but I just hadn't had time to blog about it. My visit time with Grandmother was short but I enjoyed the time that I did have. I really liked sewing and visiting while doing it. She was a great teacher and I look forward to learning lots and lots more. I see so many projects that I want to learn how to do, but I guess I should just slow down a little... Thanks Grandmother for helping me on this project. I had a SUPER time with you and will always think of you when I pull out her banner.

It is crazy because Riley will be 2 in just a couple of weeks! My SamMan is 10 months old today as well! It won't be long before he is 1.

I hope other people enjoyed reading my Give Thanks posts in November. I know that I really enjoyed thinking and blogging about it. It just goes to show that we have so much to be thankful for. It was good for me to be thinking those positive thoughts. November was a rough, long month. I have to say, I am really glad it is December!

Family Photos

I have no idea why some of these are big and some are small, but here are a few family photo's...

My sister-in-law Caitlin took some family photo's of us while we were down at Thanksgiving. I was really excited to get some pictures of the kids and of Ryne and I. These are only a few of what we got but I was really excited with how they turned out. Who knows maybe they will be showing up in mailboxes soon... (hopefully)

Thanks Cait for taking time out of your break to snap some shots. We love them and we love you!

Random Riley Pics

(she totally accesorized this outfit all on her own)