Mommy Goes on a Business Trip...

And all I get is a Tony the Tiger stuffed animal!  He's G-r-r-r-eat!

We (well I, since I travel more than Marc) have gotten into a bad habit of bringing Riley back presents from trips.  Mine are a lot lamer than Marc's because Marc goes to Singapore and Japan and I go to Omaha, Naperville, and now Battle Creek, MI.  And really, how can anything from Battle Creek compete with Japan Mickey???  They didn't have much at our company store so I ordered Tony the Tiger on-line and then also ordered her a Dolphin Pillow Pet from Amazon (so that I could get free shipping on a book that I wanted), at the airport I got her a toy airplane and an Elmo coloring book and crayons.  Yep, bad habits but it makes our time apart a little easier.  They told me at day care today that they could tell I was home because Riley was in a much better mood, last week she was pretty grumpy.  They also said that last week every time they played outside, Riley would point to the sky and say "Mommy on airplane!"  How stinkin' cute is that girl???

I'm Bringing Home A Baby Bumble Bee

Anyone in Girl Scouts remembers that song, Riley has been singing this song non-stop with me.  Friday I went to get Riley from Day Care and she ran up to me and said "Mommy I make bumble bee."  I had no idea what she was talking about until her teacher told her we had to give me my Mother's Day present. Riley insisted on handing me the present herself and carrying it out to the car, it was so cute the pride that she had in giving me my present, except that she told me again that it was a Bumble Bee (I had still had no idea what was in store for me though), we need to work on the surprise factor.  We went out into the car and Riley had me open my present, sure enough, inside was a Bumble Bee, an abstract Bumble Bee but it is most definitely going to work with me and will be front and center on my desk!  Riley even called Marc over when he got home from work to show him her handy work.

Riley's Professional Photos

I've pretty much wanted professional photos of Riley since she was born, Marc never wanted them.  We never did them when she was a newborn because of her casts (I know sounds horrible but we have plenty of pictures of her casts and couldn't see spending money on taking photos of them) and then we bought an expensive SLR camera about a year ago so why did we need professional photos?  But when Marc asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year I  told him I wanted professional photos of Riley, besides we didn't really have any good family photos and there are hardly any photos of just Riley and I because I'm the one taking the photos.  So Friday night we took Riley to Picture People in the mall for some professional photos.  I must say I fully prepared myself for an episode of the terrible 2s and fully expected to walk out of there with absolutely zero pictures.  However, Riley absolutely LOVED it.  She kept asking for more pictures and was a total ham, in fact the guy taking the photos asked us to sign a model release so that he could use some of the pictures in the store for displays. 

Oh and Marc is really glad that we had the pictures taken!

Bicycle

I worked at home on Thursday because I wasn't feeling well and since I had an hour web cast in the morning I decided to put together Riley's new storage bin for her toys (yes, she got too many Hanukkah presents) and also her new tricycle. Riley calls it a bicycle but that's just semantics. Poor girl is still a little short for it but it doesn't stop her...

Riley likes to make fun of me by saying "outside, no. outside, no." Apparently, I say "no" a lot to her requests to go outside, but to my defense, it's been either dark or raining when she asks, so this video is proof to Marc that I do say yes!

Early Birthday Present

Riley pretty much scored the best birthday present EVER this week. I've been wanting to get her a playhouse or slide/swing set for a while now but let's face it, we live in Cali so our yards aren't all that big, plus there's our whole HOA thing which ruins pretty much all of the fun and then Marc was worried that she would get bored quickly of a slide or swing set so it would be a waste of money. I was still searching the web for the perfect thing for her, oh and it had to be around $150, not an easy task. At the same time my mom asked me what I wanted she and my dad to get Riley for her birthday, I told her a playhouse. I told her I found this awesome one that has a slide, climbing wall and a picnic playhouse all combined but it was like $249 (actually Little Tikes had it listed for $499, Amazon for $299 but Toys R Us had it for $249). Still it was expensive but she said maybe we could just split it and it would be from Marc and I and she and my dad. I thought about it a bit, then the Sunday circular came out and I saw that Toys R Us had it for 20% off plus my 20% off coupon would bring it to $159 and put it right about in the budget range and Marc and I could pay the difference. So last Monday I called Toys R Us, they had 1 in stock, I asked them to hold it for me and asked just out of curiosity how much it was. The lady said $149! $149??? I finished up my meetings and rushed right over there, I thought for sure that she made a mistake but figured I would buy it and we could always return, it was the last one and it was pretty sweet. I didn't have my coupon with me so they said that I could just bring it back over the weekend with my receipt and they would adjust the price. I had them ring it up so that Marc could come back later that day with his SUV (there was no way it was going to fit into my lovely Impala), and sure enough it rang up as $149!!! Smoking deal, I got "the torch" for the deal of the week. Marc went and got it after work and the box was so huge that he had to take out the car seat and use his whole back seat.

My mom told me that we should put it together so that she could play with it some while it was still somewhat warm out so Sunday we set out to put it all together. Plus it was taking up a ton of room in our garage! It was quite the process but the end result was pretty cool! We tried to get it done while she was napping but unfortunately she woke up right before we were finished so she saw it for the first time as an unfinished process. She immediately ran to the slide. Riley LOVES her new playhouse, she climbs up the wall and goes down the slide and says "wewewe" all the way down. She loves that there are little seats inside the house with a table and sat there yesterday "talking" on the phone.

Thanks Nanna and Peppy for the AWESOME early birthday present for RiRi!

A couple of videos of Riley playing after school yesterday: