Riley at 4 years old!

Favorite breakfast: All breakfast food! It's her best meal of the day, the one I can actually get her to eat.
Favorite Lunch and dinner: Mac and cheese (Can't wait till that changes!) Tamale pie, Sloppy joes...
Favorite song: Single Ladies by Beyonce; Country Boy by Allen Jackson
Favorite color: Rainbow colors
Favorite game: Hide and Seek
Favorite book: Favorite-go-to book is Rechenka's Eggs. (Thanks, Debbie, for introducing that book and author.)
Favorite movie: Cinderalla, Parts 1, 2 and 3.
Favorite type of clothing: Any "twirly" dress.
Favorite play: Going to the park!
Shoe size: 10
Clothing size: Size 4 in little girls. No more toddler!
Weight: 42 lbs.
Height: Not sure on this one, but she's tall compared to the other girls in her class, so we'll see!

Riley is a very spunky little girl who always knows exactly what she wants and how she wants it. She talks non-stop at this point, even in her sleep. One of the first sentences out of her mouth when she turned 4 was, "Now I'm grown up, and I can do what I want." She had this funny notion that life was going to be changing for her, 3 going on 16, I swear!

She has a heart of gold. For her school evaluation, the teacher wrote how sweet she was to all the other children. She has already a cute, quirky sense of humor and can come up with the most outrageous comments. She loves a good joke, a nice bubble bath, a visit to a park, making shapes out of clouds, snuggling, and the list goes on.

Happy Birthday!

My baby turns four today
How the time has flown...
For four wonderful years
What happiness I've known!

My baby turns four today
Yesterday she was only three
And each year I have my little one
The more she means to me!

My baby turns four today
While it was only moments ago
That they laid her on my tummy
And I whispered "Mommy loves you so!" (By Thena Smith)

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Riley was all ready for St. Patrick's Day, but imagine her dismay when leprechauns actually turned her eggs and milk green for breakfast. The leprechauns may have pushed it too far, because by the evening, she was wanting daddy to go upstairs and make sure the leprechauns were all gone.

Please, Riley.... Smile!

Oh, sometimes to get Riley to give a nice smile is impossible. She makes a great tough face though, huh? She's such a little comedian.

Happy New Year's!

Well, finally blogging about our New Year's! What a fun time we had. I had recieved a gift certificate for a restaurant in Tacoma, so we were off to a nice dinner. It was a seafood restaurant and was delicious. Then we were off to Zoo Lights in Tacoma. Wow - this was really fun. the lights were amazing, but unfortunately, didn't make for very good pics. Riley had such a good time and was very animated this evening. We went home and finished off our night with some WII and welcomed in the New Year's. What a year it will be!

Opy

So Riley got this dress from GG. I don't know how GG does it, but every year she seems to buy something that Riley really wanted. We had, just a week before this, had a big meltdown in the store as I refused to buy her this dress. I had just bought her her Christmas dress. She made her choice, and that was it. Riley was so thrilled when she opened this. She disappeared for a while, then came down with it on and these beautiful princess shoes. She came over to me and said, "Look, Mom, I look just like that woman you like, Opy."

Jason and I were stumped and had no idea what she was talking about. "You know, Mom, that show you like; I look just like the woman on it, Opy."

Jason finally asked her if she meant Oprah. With great annoyance and exasperation she said, "Yeeeesssss."

I don't know why I couldn't figure that out. Silly mommy...

Christmas 2008

As much as we missed being able to be with any family this Christmas, I must say it was a lot of fun starting some of our own traditions also. We started it off with a Christmas Eve church service. It was so nice. At the end of the service everyone stood around in the dark holding a candle up. Riley proudly pronounced, in the middle of prayer of course, "Look, Mommy, I didn't even light you on fire!" That night I pulled out some special Christmas books I had bought and we read stories. We opened up two special gifts, had a yummy dinner of clam chowder, crackers and cheese. Riley laid out her cookies she baked for Santa and put out some "magic" reindeer food for Santa's reindeer. Really, they do a lot of the hard work, too, so why not? Plus, Riley was most excited about feeding the deer more so than Santa!

Then Jason and I's work was just beginning. We had many toys to put together, batteries to get loaded, stockings to get ready, you name it. Riley really enjoyed her presents this year, so opening them was an all-day event. She wanted to play with each one after opening it. We were begging her at the end of the day to finish. It was a very quiet, relaxing day. We had a great dinner of prime rib, seafood, a baked potato bar for Riley, and way too many other things!

I put a photo album on the side, so go check it out. I loaded a new Picasa and, ever since, have had trouble loading in photo albums on. I finally figured it all out tonight, so hopefully I'm back up and running. Jeesh!