Happy 5th Birthday Riley Mae!

I can't believe that you're 5 today!! Time really flies. Here are a few pictures of you from your previous birthdays. You've changed so much and have become quite a nice young lady. Just don't grow up too fast. Daddy and I love you very much!

On February 19, 2004, we welcomed Riley Mae into the world at 3:25 AM. I went to the hospital at 11:30 on Feb.18th, thinking that my water broke only to find out that my contractions were 1 1/2 minutes apart. You were ready for us to meet you 10 days early. Your due date was Leap Day, Feb. 29. You came into this world at 7 lbs 4 oz, 20.5 inches long, and a head full of red hair.

Here you are at 1. You were quite the pudge! You were enamored with anything you could dump out or get into, notice the items on the floor in my bathroom, a-hem.

Here you are at 2. I have some pretty good pictures of you completely covering your clothes in red lipstick, coloring on the walls and still getting into everything.

We always knew you were destined to be a princess. You definitely played the part at your 3rd birthday party. You realized that your favorite color was in fact pink and that you only liked to wear dresses. Some things never change I guess!

At 4 you were definitely embracing your "character" side. You crack us up with the stories you tell. You've got quite an imagination at this point too! Another thing that has just grown even more as you're growing.

My big 5 year old! Here's what we've learned so far. You're favorite color is still pink, you still love to wear dresses and you still get into everything. I can't wait to see what else this year holds! I love you!

It's all in my head

The answer to the staining on Caroline's hands is this. I went to the doctor yesterday and found out that I have vertigo. I'm glad that it's something, but now I have to go to an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor to have my crystals reset. I didn't know we had crystals in our heads, but from what I understand they're what keep us steady and keeps our equilibrium, well, equal I guess. Balanced would be a better word. Peyton had to drive me to my appointment and on the way there he was telling me that I didn't have any issues when we got married. He didn't know he was "getting a defective model". HA HA!

I knew that I never liked cleaning house, but after cleaning anything for the past year everytime I cleaned, I ended up so nauseous that it was awful. The vertigo explains that too. Fun Fun, I guess I have no excuse for not keeping the house clean now. I'm already impressed with the medicine, I cleaned the living room ceiling to floor and no signs of nausea and dizziness. It's a miracle little blue pill. Well, now on to tackle the kitchen, my least favorite room to clean in the house, I'd rather clean bathrooms than the kitchen.

Can you guess?

Can you guess what a 2 year old can get into that stains her hands like this? It's probably not what you're thinking.

Here she is admiring her handiwork. It took a lot of soap and water over 2 days to finally come off. She's such a mess!

Terrific Kid

Here's my Terrific Kid. Ethan was chosen as the Terrific Kid of the Month for January by his teacher. We went to the award ceremony on Monday at his school. The month's award was for a child that exhibited self control in class. For Ethan to get this award was a huge step in the right direction. He had a tough time adjusting at the beginning of the school year. Ethan doesn't do well with change and moving and changing schools took its toll on him. But since then he's really thriving in school and doing very well. He's as smart as a whip and continues to amaze me with the things he's doing now. He's writing complete sentences and already has spelling tests and has aced them all so far. I've been working with Ethan and Riley to learn our phone number and address. One day Ethan was reciting it to me and then added, "wouldn't it be silly if I thought our phone number was" and started spouting out numbers. I didn't think anything of it until I realized that the numbers sounded familiar. He had recited our phone number backwards. What kid does that, especially at 5. I thought I'd test him a little further and asked him to spell his and Riley's names backwards and he spelled them almost as fast backwards as forward. I think we have a gifted child on our hands, but then again I'm a little biased.
As a reward, Peyton took him to pick out something, of course he picked out a video game, and a cooking one at that, and we let him pick where we went for dinner on Friday night. His first choice was Chuck E. Cheese. We had to turn him down on that one, we don't venture to Chuck E. Cheese on a weekend night, it's pretty crazy. His next choice was McDonald's and he wanted to go inside. I was quite surprised at our Mickey D's. Their indoor playground was cleaner and more convenient than Chick-fil-A. I prefer Chick-fil-A's food, but the kids loved the playground.
He was so proud! So were we!Me and my Terrific Kid

And Daddy


And Ethan and his Terrific Sisters, he might not agree with me on this one.

We're so proud of you buddy, keep up the good work!