Family Pictures

This past week saw steady improvement all over. My sinus infection slowly faded away and I regained a bit of energy that being ill had stolen. Still don’t have loads of energy, but at least I am better than I was last week!

On Tuesday evening I went and got my hair cut one more time before Carter’s arrival. When I last cut my hair I wasn’t sure if I would stick with the style, but it was the easiest hairstyle to maintain that I have ever had and when I got a 40% off coupon for salon services I decided to go ahead and get it re-cut one more time before I became a mommy of two. Unfortunately, it hasn't been as easy to style this time around and so I'm hoping as it grows out, I will find it easier to maintain...

On Friday night after dinner Chad, Riley & I went to Braum’s for dessert. I got a banana split which was way too big to finish, Riley got a chocolate frozen yogurt and Chad got a peppermint milkshake. Well, Riley decided to commandeer Chad’s milkshake and started calling it “my milkshake.” I got these shots of Chad holding Riley’s ice cream, while Riley drinks Chad’s milkshake. I think Chad’s expression says it all!

Riley has also taken to playing in the bin in the living room of all of the baby toys that are Carter’s. Most of them actually used to be his toys. He is especially enamored with a horse that clips to a car seat and he has been riding it around the house all weekend and taking it almost everywhere with him:

At one point this weekend he had emptied the entire bin of Carter’s toys on the floor and when I talked to him about those being Carter’s toys, he told me “No, Riley’s toys.” Uh oh!!

On Saturday morning we got up bright and early and I made some French toast for breakfast. Riley inhaled one whole piece and about half of a second piece! Then we all got ready to go to Portrait Innovations for Riley’s 2 ½ year old pictures. I try to get his pictures taken professionally every 6 months. Every other time we have gone I have taken him to Target, but a lot of people had been recommending Portrait Innovations, so I decided to check them out. There were some things I liked about Portrait Innovations and some things I didn’t. I liked that they had a cheap portrait package if you chose one pose. I think it was actually cheaper than Target’s by 5 cents. I liked the viewing screen that you choose your shots at and how quickly they were ready for viewing, since Target makes you wait about 15 minutes. I also liked that your pictures were printed 20 minutes after you made your purchase, where Target takes 2 weeks and you have to go back to get them. I did not like that their other Portrait packages were so expensive. At Target you can pay $5-$10 to get online access to your portraits and you can order extras later if you want. The only way to do this at Portrait Innovations was to pay for an expensive package, which came with a CD of your images. Also, I believe that to order single sheets of poses was more expensive at Portrait Innovations than at Target. I felt that the photographers were pretty equal overall. So, even though I have to wait two weeks to get my printed photos, I think I will be headed back to Target in the future. Here are the three shots we chose at Portrait Innovations:

(Riley is doing his "dinosaur" hands)

After the photo session we ran by Half Price books, where I sold back a box of books that was taking up space in our house. We then went to visit Grammy! Grammy is doing a lot better and was moved to a rehabilitation hospital just down the street from the hospital she was in. It is not the rehab hospital that she preferred and was at the last time, and it seems to be a bit short staffed, but Grammy is just using that as incentive to get better faster so she can get out of there! She is almost to the point where she can get herself up and to the bathroom on her own and she started therapy yesterday. She was still using some oxygen to help her breathe and seemed to be having a harder time breathing when laying down from what she told me, but overall she is doing pretty good. She was very excited to see Riley and we brought her one of his brand new pictures to keep with her in her room.

After visiting we left to go get some lunch and we went to Chick Fil A. On the way to see Grammy we passed the Chick Fil A and Riley tried to convince us that Grammy was inside the Chick Fil A! Silly (yet smart) boy! We laughed and told him we would go there after we saw Grammy. Riley did a great job of eating his lunch and then he played in the play area. Although he thought it was more fun to bounce on the bench next to Chad and stick his tongue on the glass at me. (GROSS!)

On the way home Riley fell asleep and then took a nap. Once he woke up he played outside for a bit with Chad and then they headed inside to watch Jumanji, which Riley LOVED! We think he was so glued to it that he forgot to blink because afterwards he was blinking a lot like his eyes were dry!

While the boys played and watched their movie, I went with Kate to get our nails done. Thank you sooo much again to Kate for this birthday treat! I hadn’t had my nails done in so long and it felt so nice to be pampered! Especially since I can’t really reach my feet very easily anymore!

That night we met up with Nana & Papa at Italy Pasta & Pizza by our house for dinner. I was having LOTS of Braxton-Hicks contractions (i.e. practice contractions – not real labor) at dinner and afterwards. And man, some of them were really hurting! It was really nice to see Nana & Papa who have been so busy with Grammy the past week that we had missed them.

On Sunday we slept in a bit and hung around the house in the morning. We went to Hooters for lunch where I got milder wings than I usually get hoping to keep the worst of the acid reflux at bay. After lunch we went to do our grocery shopping and I was so surprised that Riley was pretty well-behaved! He fell asleep in the car on the way home and then took a shorter than usual nap in the afternoon. I did some things around the house while he slept and also did some laundry. My friend, Rhonda dropped by some of Riley’s old clothes that I had let her borrow and it was fun to go through them and remember Riley wearing them. Some of them I set aside for Kate, since I don’t think they will be the right season for Carter. The rest I washed up and need to put away upstairs. Once I do that, the nursery will be 100% complete!

After Riley woke up we got ready and then went to Nana & Papa’s to watch the Super Bowl. My Aunt Tami & Uncle Todd came over also and brought a whole spread of Mexican food from Tres Joses. Chad had a rehearsal so he met us there about an hour into the game. The food was so good and we got to sit on my parent’s new couches, which were so comfortable! We bathed Riley at my parents while the game was going on and then as soon as the game ended we went home to put Riley to bed.

Last night Chad had a play reading to go to so Riley & I had a night to ourselves. We watched his new favorite movie Jumanji, ate dinner on the couch and then had bathtime before heading to bed. My silly boy with an active imagination tried to tell me there was a dinosaur outside of his bedroom, but is made him scared. Hope this is not a peek of things to come!

I'll try to post again after my doctor's appointment tomorrow.

Here is a short video of my boys playing video games together. Chad was teaching Riley how to duel on the Wii Sports Resort. Now Riley tries to duel Chad with his “sword” (i.e. a wand with a star on it) almost daily!