One Last Hurrah

Riley got invited over to her friend Madeleine's house for an Emmy/First Day of School (Pleasanton started school today) Party.  Jacob of course spiked a fever while he was napping, I say of course because it was just yesterday I thought to myself "Jacob hasn't been sick in forever."  I also took the week off from work (thus all of the blog posts) and besides today when Riley had no day care and Wednesday, her first day of school, I was going to have some much needed "me" time.  Silly me for thinking I could get a bit of a break, de-stress, de-compress, because I will now have a moody, not feeling well 2 1/2 year old wanting to be held non-stop.  Oh well, I know Jacob could use the mommy time so I'll make the best of it, I was really wanting to go shopping but considering I have no idea if I will have a job in the next few months because of Safeway's merger with Albertson's, I guess it's for the best (oh yes, and that's the stress driver right there, I have no idea if I will have a job, just got a new boss who I am not a fan of, and I really don't like sales, so I really needed to decompress this week.  Hoping this is a very quick virus for little man and he can return to day care soon!)  But I digress, so Marc came home from work early and watched Jacob and I took Riley to the party.  I didn't bring her suit because a) she's not a good swimmer and b) we needed to get back to put Jacob to bed.  But....I got sucked into this!

 

One last hurrah for the summer!

End of the Summer

Wow, this summer has flown by!  Thursday we got invited back to Jacob's old day care for their annual end of the summer party.  Jacob still talks about all of his old friends and last weekend Riley asked if he missed anyone from his old school and he said "I miss my Ami!" (His teacher from his toddler class whom he adores) so we decided to stop by.  Everyone was so excited to see the kids and even more importantly, they were thrilled to hear that Jacob is doing so well at his new school.  Riley ran around with her old friends and we learned two kids from her Pre-K class will be in her kindergarten class, I think she now knows like 6 kids in her class.  I pity her teacher!!!  Jacob ate his way through the afternoon!  On the way home he said "Momma, me had fun party." 

Double fisting it!

Found a nice park bench to relax and snack

Snacking with his friends, that's Isaac, his buddy!  Jacob talks about Isaac all the time!

He cracks me up!

All smiles!

And FRIDAY, Riley's summer program had a parent's potluck at lunch time so I popped over there to have lunch with her.  Our neighbor Shari couldn't make it so I played surrogate to Ryan and Riley's friend Quinn's mom couldn't make it either so I ended up taking mommy duty with her too.  It was so much fun, though Riley wanted to come home with me after and I had SO much work to get done before I could go on vacation.  It was fun to see her interacting with all of the kids, even though she's only been there 3 months, they've gotten quite close and she has her own little group.  She can certainly hang with the boys!

Riley and Ryan, always together!

Lunch with my girl!

Riley and her boys from the 'hood.  All of these kids live on our street plus a few more not in the picture.  What a great group we have!

Playdates

Jacob is finally showing interest in being sociable and has been asking for a play date with his friend Isaac from school.  So last weekend we met at the park (early to beat the 100 weather) for a playdate.  I let Riley tag along because Isaac's older sister is Riley's age, it was a fun, albeit hot day!

After a morning at the park, we headed to meet Joey and Alex for lunch!  My busy bees!

Best buds!



These four, so much fun!

I don't know about these two...they are pretty darn cute together!!!

Super Fun Night

Our wonderful friends Jim and Jessica had us over for an East Coast New Year's Eve party for the second year in a row.  As you can tell by the title it was a hit once again.  We didn't see Riley once we walked in the door.  Ri tells me daily how much she loves Joey and misses him now that he's in kindergarten and as an added bonus her friend James was there so once she saw 2 of her favorite boys, she was off for the night.  Jim and Jessica as usual were awesome hosts we had fun catching up. We usually see each other in the halls of day care (their youngest Alex is in Jacob's class and is one of his best buds) or at a birthday party so we never really get a chance to chat but last night we were able to catch up while the kids played.  They hung balloons from their ceiling so at 9PM PST we dropped them.  Fun was had by all!

I picked the kids up early from school so after their naps we took a walk down to Peet's (don't worry, it's hot cocoa!)

Little dude likes to party (and Jelly Bellys)

Happy New Year!

She picked out her shirt yesterday!

All of the kids, I had to bribe Jacob with a Jelly Belly to sit for the picture and wear the hat!

What's NYE without a dance party???

Happy New Year!!!

My Girls

In Indy we stayed at my friend Woody's house, her kids are a little older than our kids.  Her daughter is about a year older than Ri and her son a few months older than Jake-Os.  It was so awesome to see her and her husband and spend time with them.  The one thing I've realized about my friends from college (mostly sorority sisters) is that they are real, true friendships.  You don't have to pretend to be anyone with them, you don't get judged, you can be just you.  And 12 years after graduation we can still rock the party and pick up like there is no 12 year gap in our friendship.

Friday we laid low, went to a park, had lunch and made sure the kids rested since the wedding was that night and we knew the babysitter would have complete chaos.  The wedding was a ton of fun!  There were probably a doze of us there and we had a great time.  It was almost like there weren't other guests there because we all had so much fun being together.  All I can say is photo booths are awesome and where were they when I got married!  We had so much fun taking pictures, photo bombing each other and waking up the next morning wondering when we took those pictures!

Fireworks

Mission:  Break Riley's fear of fireworks
Status:  SUCCESS!

Riley has been petrified of fireworks for years which is quite the bummer because Marc and I love them!  A couple of weeks ago after Riley's  friend Bella's birthday party we walked down to the park for fireworks.  The city has started a wine and art festival at our local park once a year and they end the day with a firework display so we walked down with Bella and her family and it was a great time!

Us adults made it a Red Solo cup night :)

Besties

Jake-Os was of course eating throughout the show

I got the kids light up sticks for the show

They are crazy together!

Love my big girl!

Breaking Up the Routine

Every Thursday night Marc has been staying in Morgan Hill to cut down on his commute time, I try to do something fun with the kids to keep things interesting and keep their minds off of Marc being gone.  Last Thursday my friend Jessica's husband was gone also so she invited us over for dinner.  Riley hasn't seen Joey since he left for kindergarten.  I told her I had a surprise for her after school but didn't tell her what so when I picked her up I surprised her with the news that she was going to see Joey.  To say that she was excited was an understatement.  On the way there she kept saying how much she loves Joey and how she's going to marry him.  WHere do they get this stuff!?!  When we got there Joey and Alex opened the door and they both greeted Riley with a huge hug!  Tons of fun with great friends!

Joey asked Riley to marry him

Cutie Alex in my shoes

Four silly monkeys!

Pool Party!

Riley's friend, Madeleine, invited Riley and a few other friends over for a pool party.  Marc stayed home with Jacob because he was napping when we left and I was not thrilled about having to get in a bathing suit in front of Riley's friend's parents but I took one for the team when she begged me to get in the pool with her.  I must say it was a super good time!  Their pool was awesome, a huge L-shaped pool and it was warm and better yet, was filled with salt water so we didn't smell like chemicals when we left.  Riley was hilarious, she kept asking if it was a giraffe pool like we had, I kept trying to explain to her that it was a real pool like at a hotel (except theirs was probably bigger than most hotels!) and she couldn't grasp that it wasn't a blow up pool like we had.  Needless to say once we got there and she saw it was indeed a real pool she was beyond thrilled and was ready to get right in and begged me to go with her!  We had tons of fun and she was ALL over the place in her swimmy, I can't wait for her to start swim lessons in a few weeks! 

And at this point, watching how much excitement and joy that she was filled with about going into the pool I was EXTREMELY thankful of Dr H for putting her in a brace rather than a cast.  Thank God for great doctors who think of their patients on all fronts, not only treatment but quality of life!  We are truly lucky to have found such a wonderful Dr. 

It was a great afternoon and a fantastic way to beat the 100+ degree heat that we've been having!

Hotter Than Hot

It has been Hotter Than Hot here lately, I think our car hit 109 on Saturday.  Ridiculous, so we've been staying in doors where there is plenty of AC available.  We did get a walk in Saturday morning but it was 81 degrees at 8:30 AM!  Riley was invited over to a friends for a swim play date on Sunday so I made some rice krispy treats to bring over, not just any rice krispy treat but these were s'mores rice krispy treats, a recipe that I made up but that I believe is Pinterest worthy! :)  Jacob woke up while I was making them so I had to share some ingredients with him, he went nuts over the Cocoa Krispies that I was using. 

I think cocoa krispies are his new favorite

cocoa krispies, broken graham crackers, and marshmallows mixed with the usual melted marshmallows.  YUM!

In the afternoon we had her friend Vikram's party, we went a little late as to avoid jumpy houses as they are off limits with her sprain but she had fun playing with her friends, bowling, and running around.  Jacob had fun too!

Dancing boy

Jacob does this new thing, when he wants you to sit down and play with him he'll pat the ground next to him for you to come sit with him.  It's so cute!

Robo-Riley bowling

Riley's friend Trevor and Jacob

Riley with Trevor's sister, Sophia, they did a sibling swap!