Ryleigh's 3rd Birthday Party - Part 2

After we opened some big presents upstairs, we headed downstairs for the rest of the tour. There was a detour in the kitchen for some lunch.

From 2011 Fall

Then the tour continued out to the backyard to show off the pool. And there was another present waiting outside for Ryleigh. It was a basketball hoop. Now she can get outside and enjoy the nice weather that's finally coming!

From 2011 Fall

We all went back inside for PRESENTS!! Ryleigh was so excited! We let her choose her first present and of course she picked the one wrapped in Rapunzel paper. She LOVES Rapunzel!!

From 2011 Fall

Daddy read her the cards.

From 2011 Fall

She got a new scarf and hat from Auntie Kim and Uncle Bill. Love the color!

From 2011 Fall

Berenstain bears books from Grandma and Grandpa. Didn't know those books were still around. Apparently Mama and Papa Bear had a baby between the late '80s and now.

From 2011 Fall

Love her face. My mom found a princess card that sang when it was opened. Ryleigh was very confused/ perplexed/ in awe of it. Love her facial expressions.

From 2011 Fall

Disney Princess clothes from Grandma and Grandpa.

From 2011 Fall

Disney Princess PJs with ALL the princesses! (Including Rapunzel!)

From 2011 Fall

She had to show off the card, just like they show books they're reading at school.

From 2011 Fall

Ryleigh got a camera from Uncle Chris and Kristin. We saw it at Costco and she hated to part with it. Whenever I'd mention Costco, she'd tell me we were going to go down the toy aisle and find the toy and go "cheese!" You can tell how excited she was to open it (even with the blurry photo).

From 2011 Fall

She immediately made Chris and Kristin put it together for her.

From 2011 Fall

Purple Unicorn Pillow Pet from Uncle Cory that she had to sleep with for the past few nights. She begged to take it to school this morning.

From 2011 Fall

New boots for the winter.

From 2011 Fall

She is such a neat little girl. She picked up her own wrapping paper and put it right in the trash. Guess we have her trained well.

From 2011 Fall

New clothes from the Slavin Family. This would be a cute Christmas outfit.

From 2011 Fall

Apparently this one was hard to get open.

From 2011 Fall

Cute new sweater. She poses well.

From 2011 Fall

D-squared (my friend Courtney) got Ryleigh this adorable leotard. I love the lace of the sleeves and the skirt. It's gorgeous!

From 2011 Fall

I got Ryleigh a few necklaces from Miss Coco Designs made by a high school friend. As you can see by Ryeigh's face, she LOVED THEM!!! Thanks Corie :)

From 2011 Fall

She had to put it on immediately. She loved that it had a cupcake on it!

From 2011 Fall

Never seen a kid so proud to get a "noisy toothbrush."

From 2011 Fall

New PediPeds for the holidays.

From 2011 Fall

She couldn't be patient and keep opening presents any longer. She had to stop and read a book that she got.

From 2011 Fall

This is another Costco find. Ryleigh saw it and again, begged for it. I told her she'd have to wait until her birthday and maybe someone would get it for her. I hadn't told my mom that she wanted it, last weekend my mom sent me a picture of it saying she was getting it for Ryleigh. I knew Ryleigh would be super excited. And she definitely was.
"This is the one I wanted"

From 2011 Fall

She was so excited about it, she had to go grab her new camera to take a picture of her new baby.

From 2011 Fall

And last but not least, was a trampoline from GG. She has been holding onto counters, etc and jumping, so this is perfect!

From 2011 Fall

She loves it!!

From 2011 Fall

Ryleigh is one loved little girl! Stay tuned for play time and birthday cake...

Ryleigh's 3rd Birthday Party - Part 1

This weekend we had Ryleigh's birthday party. My grandma (GG) came with my Aunt Kim and Uncle Bill from California for the party. Chris and Kristin came over and Cory drove up from Tucson. We all had a lot of fun! Ryleigh was completely spoiled and loved being the center of attention :)

All decorated and ready for the party!

From 2011 Fall

From 2011 Fall

Mini Cupcakes, cookies, and brownies. And Ryleigh's special 3 year old cupcake she picked out for the special day.

From 2011 Fall

That's the table runner I made. I wanted to find the cupcake fabric I used for my camera strap cover, but they didn't carry it anymore. This was girly enough to use for the cupcake party.

From 2011 Fall

I found a cupcake hole punch!! I was so excited. Was perfect for Ryleigh's cupcake theme.

From 2011 Fall

Ryleigh's cupcake

From 2011 Fall

I wanted to get a picture of the birthday girl before everyone arrived. She had other plans.

From 2011 Fall

Once everyone arrived, we gave them the house tour since everyone from California hadn't seen our house yet. On the tour of the upstairs, we gave Ryleigh 2 of her presents that we had hiding under sheets in the loft. The first was an easel from Grandma G and Papa in Ohio.

From 2011 Fall

The next was a table and chair set from Chris and I. We have been dying to get her bigger items for a while now and we're so happy that we're finally able to do so. Now she has the space to put the bigger items. She's already put the table to use coloring and puts all the letters up and down on the easel.

From 2011 Fall

Stay tuned for more birthday party photos...

MRHS football 2011

At the beginning of October, we started to going to my old high school's football games. My mom still works there, so she knows everyone working the games. Ryleigh sorta remembered going to the game last year, but she definitely enjoyed it more this year. She loved the mascots. There's a boy and a girl mountain lion. She was a little timid and wouldn't go up to them until it was time to leave and we couldn't find the lions. At the first game she also brought her princess thermos. She somehow managed to drop it under the bleachers. We're convinced it had to have broken.

The next week we went to another game. It was the rival game against Sandra Day O'Connor. Ryleigh made sure she didn't bring a water bottle she could drop again. When I told her we were going to a game, she said "I no take drink today. I don't want to drop it down again." Every time we pass by the football field she says "field where I lost my princess cup!" It's funny she remembers, but it must have been traumatizing for the poor kid :(

This game she loved seeing the tunnel the players run through.

From 2011 Fall

Ryleigh was on the look out all game for the mascots. She had her mascot radar on. She spotted the "daddy lion" but was worried that the "mommy lion" wasn't out. We told her it was because she had to get her bows in her hair. The lions didn't come in the stands by half time, so we made my mom take her down to see the mascots. We tried to get their attention along the fence, but it was too busy, being half time and a big rival game and all. So my mom used her connections and called over one of the coaches. She handed Ryleigh over to the coach and the coach took her over to meet the mascots. Ryleigh was in heaven!

Here she is meeting Monty the Mountain Lion.

From 2011 Fall

And here is Loni the Mountain Lion. You can tell Ryleigh was so happy!

From 2011 Fall

I posted this picture on facebook because I thought it was adorable. A girl, Nicole, who I cheered with in high school was the mascot for a year or two. She commented that the girl mascot is her little sister!! Small world!! Apparently her brother was the mascot for a few years too. Guess it runs in her family :)

Homecoming is this friday. Hopefully I'll remember my camera to take better pictures this time!

Race for the Cure

Last weekend we participated in the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure in downtown Phoenix. We did it last year and did the walk. This year, since most of us had been running, we decided to do the 5K run instead. Even Ryleigh got to "run" with us since we got the jogging stroller. She had her own number and everything!

It was a bit chilly in the morning, but when we got downtown, it was a gorgeous warm day in the mid 70s by 8am.

From 2011 Fall

At the start line, ready to run!!

From 2011 Fall

Cory and Chris went off on their own. Chris quickly discovered that he couldn't finish the race without stopping if he ran at Cory's pace, so he had to slow down. Cory pushed to see how fast he could finish. After a half mile of dodging slow people (ie. walkers during the running race) with the jogging stroller, my mom decided she wanted to slow down and offered to take over stroller duties. So I caught up to my dad. We've been training on our long runs together, so we keep pace with each other well. Around mile 1.5 I was getting ready to stop, but my dad wanted to keep going. I realized I had no phone and it might be hard to find everyone at the finish if I got too far separated from him, so I kept on going. I mean if my DAD can keep running, so can I!! Around mile 2 I must have gotten my 2nd wind. This is also when a lot of people started slowing down and walking. So a lot more people dodging started. I'd get around one and need to speed up to get around another. According to my dad I was running under a 10 minute mile at that point, but I can't corroborate his story since my GPS watch turned off right before I hit the start button. It was at this time when I looked around and saw all the signs on people's backs in memory/honor of loved ones, and I kept thinking about my sorority sister (one of the founders of the sorority), Kat. She lost her mom, and then her aunt who was like a second mom in the past 5 years to breast cancer. She is 34 and was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. She underwent a double mastectomy in July followed by chemo. She also has been training for the Susan G Komen 3 day walk in memory of her mom and aunt. The strength she must have to go through all that and still train for the 3 day... if she can do that, I can run 3 miles! I made it to the finish line, running all the way. First time I've run that far without stopping at all. Our final time was 34 minutes! Chris finished in just under 30 minutes. Cory finished in 23 minutes!

See we made it!!

From 2011 Fall

All of us crossed the finish line!

From 2011 Fall

See!!

From 2011 Fall

We found this building with stairs just past the finish line. It proved to be a great spot to cool down and look for my mom and Ryleigh, and then later watch for Cory's friends who were walking. Here's Ryleigh chilling on the stairs.

From 2011 Fall

There were 40,000 people participating in the race (according to the announcers). Look how thick the pack of people was. We were so glad we avoided that this year! It was that thick almost throughout the entire walk.

From 2011 Fall

Dancing around to the music the DJ at the finish line was playing. See her new sneakers. When she started coming running with me, she said she needed purple running shoes (like the Merrell barefoots I wear on my long runs). Every time she said she wanted new sneakers, they HAD to be purple. We went shopping before the race to find purple running shoes. We found a pair (exactly like the ones she got) that were purple. But we had her try a pink pair on for sizing and she ended up picking the pink over the purple. Only figures!

From 2011 Fall

This is Cory and his group of friends (the "throwers"). Cory was on the track team in high school and threw discus and shotput. He became close with the throwers and his coach. Cory graduated high school in 2007. They all found out that the coach's wife was diagnosed with breast cancer recently and they all decided to form a team for the Race for the Cure. I thought that was really cool considering they have all graduated and are in college or graduated college now. Cory was the only one from the group that ran, so we all had to try to find them in the huge pack of people that were walking. And cell phone reception was spotty because of the volume of people in one area!

From 2011 Fall

It was a fun day. Chris and I both had the same feeling afterwards. We felt good, but it felt like we needed to do it again. We're so used to doing long runs on Sunday that we felt like slackers for only doing 3 miles. I think the break did us some good though because my dad and I were able to go 9 miles today without struggling too hard on those final miles. Working our way to those half marathons!!

First Dance Class!!

Ryleigh tried a dance class at the studio my friend teaches at in Colorado this summer. She really enjoyed it. I was happy I found a studio close to us that took potty trained 2.5 year olds in a 2.5-3.5 pre-combo (ballet/tap) class. Ever since I asked her if she wanted to take dance classes, she's been asking me daily if she can go TODAY. So when I told her it was dance class day, she was SUPER excited!!

Look how happy she is! She's got her tap and ballet shoes all ready in that bag.

From 2011.09 September

She's got her tap shoes on and is ready for class. She loves tap! According to my friend, Courtney, and Ryleigh's teacher, Irene, most kids are scared of tap. But Ryleigh loves making noise with her feet. Maybe she's a future tapper?

From 2011.09 September

Here she is warming up with Miss Irene and her helper Miss Samantha. There are 4 girls in the class, but only Ryleigh and another girl showed up. The other girl has 2 older sisters who dance there, but was too shy to dance in her own class. Her mom and sisters kept trying to encourage her, but she just sat in her mom's lap for most of class.

From 2011.09 September

Warming up those heels.

From 2011.09 September

Learning to do shuffles.

From 2011.09 September

Jump backs across the floor.

From 2011.09 September

Now on to ballet. Teaching her first position.

From 2011.09 September

Doing Plies. Umm yeah, obviously those need a little work!

From 2011.09 September

Chases across the floor. Not too bad the first time...

From 2011.09 September

But when the teacher made her put her arms out she decided it was much quicker to just run across the floor.

From 2011.09 September

Releve walks. Check out the hands on the hips.

From 2011.09 September

Free dance with scarves.

From 2011.09 September

She had so much fun! She's now counting down the days until she goes back to dance class. "4 more days of school before dance class."

House update - bathrooms

So we've been doing lots and lots of painting. What better way to spend the weekend when it's 110+ outside? I painted the downstairs bathroom and we switched out the light fixture. Like how warm and tropical it feels now.

From House Stuff

The photos on the wall were photos we took when were in Hawaii. Most were from Maui, but one may be from our Turtle Bay in Oahu.

From House Stuff

From House Stuff

From House Stuff

Then I moved on to Ryleigh's bathroom. This is the view from the playroom (which will eventually be Ryleigh's room).

From House Stuff

Looking from the playroom doorway into the water closet. Her wall of bows. I think she has a few ;)

From House Stuff

Shower curtain where all the colors came from. The green in the other part of the bathroom matches the green in the shower curtain perfectly. And the teal we used in the downstairs bathroom matched the curtain perfectly, so that's the blue we used in the other part of the bathroom.

From House Stuff

Changed out those light fixtures too.

From House Stuff

View from the doorway of Ryleigh's room.

From House Stuff

Closeup of Ryleigh's name. I painted the letters and flip flops with the same colors we painted the walls with. Put all those sample colors to good use!

From House Stuff

Love how both bathrooms turned out. Now on to the guest bathroom!!