Big news!

Riley is now a walker!!! He seems to walk a lot better when the camera is off, but here are a few clips of him in action.

Here is a video of the boys playing with their basketball hoop. I doubt either of them will be tall enough to have a future in the sport, but they enjoy it now!

Photography by Tyler

Tyler LOVES taking pictures and he's getting pretty good at it. Here are some pictures he took the other day.

The joys of turning one...

Riley had his one year check up a couple of days after his birthday. He weighed in at 20 lbs 10 oz and was 18 3/4 in long. The doctor was very happy with his weight gain. Turning one turned out to be painful, Riley got 3 shots and then got to have his blood drawn. He was not the happiest boy, but he recovered quickly. Here is what Riley has been up to since the last update...

* He now has 4 teeth and two more that I think are going to break through any day now.

* He stands all on his own, but refuses to try walking solo. He will hold onto our fingers and walk around though.

* He finally says mama, but only when he wants something!

* A couple of months ago he discovered the stairs and now all he wants to do is go up them. All day, every day! We had to put up a make-shift baby gate that worked for about a week. Then Riley saw Tyler move it to go upstairs and that was the end of that. He now moves it aside whenever he wants to go up.

* He is no longer nursing. We made it to 11 1/2 months. I'm enjoying being free again, and Riley doesn't seem to miss it. He has also moved on from baby food. He thinks whatever we are eating he should be eating. Some of his favorites include: salmon, asparagus, bananas, blueberries, mangos, peas, tuna and beans. He pretty much eats everything we put on his high chair.

* He loves the pool, but he thinks he is too big for his floatie. He also thinks he can swim on his own. He literally fights to get out of my arms when I'm holding him, then he looks surprised when he goes under the water. He loves it though, and is all smiles when I pull him out.

* His favorite game is to go in the pantry and pull all the paper recycle out of the bin. When he's done doing that he takes one of my buckets of flour and pushes it around the house. It's not unusual to find flour, brown sugar or oatmeal by the front door! Thankfully he doesn't know how to open the buckets!

* He has discovered the fun of looking out windows and will sit patiently for 10 minutes or more waiting to see a car drive by. Every morning when he wakes up the first thing we do is stand by the window while Riley points things out to me.

A day at the beach.

We spent a day at the beach while my mom and sister were still in town. Even though we live 10 minutes from the beach this was only our 3rd trip this summer! I opt to take the boys to the pool most days since it's less work! My sister loves the beach though so we packed up our stuff and met one of Tyler's friends there. We had a fun day and Riley decided not to try and eat all the sand this time!

Mia and Tyler floating in the waves.

They are so cute together!

Our mini vacation.

It's always nice when you can go on vacation and only have to travel an hour from home. My family on the other hand had to travel a lot further! My mom and sister flew in from WV and my Aunt Rosemary, Uncle Michael and second cousins Alex and Joe flew in from England. We spent four days in Orlando visiting with everyone. The last time I saw my aunt and uncle I was 14, so it was really nice to spend time with them and introduce them to all three of my boys! We spent a day at Disney, and despite the heat we still had a great time! (FYI to all future visitors - the best time to visit any non water themed park in Orlando is in October! Even 'the happiest place on earth' looses a bit of it's happiness when it's a thousand degrees outside!) All Terri talked about was meeting the princesses and all Tyler talked about was meeting Mickey Mouse and seeing his house, so that was our first stop. Luckily they are all in the same area of the park AND they are indoors, which meant the time we spent in line to see them was air conditioned!!! Terri was the happiest person in the world when she met Cinderella, Belle and Sleeping Beauty. Tyler refused to have anything to do with the princesses and kept telling us, "Only Terri want's to see the princesses. I want to see Mickey Mouse." I didn't know how Tyler would actually react once he saw Mickey, I was afraid he would act shy. Boy was I wrong! When I told him it was his turn to meet Mickey he ran right up and gave him a hug. Unfortunetly the hug wasn't long enough to get a picture. He was so cute holding Mickey's hand and talking to him. You really appreciate the magic of Disney when you see how excited and happy it makes your kids! Tyler was also very excited to meet Tigger and Pooh. We could see them while we were waiting in line (outside that time) and Tyler climbed on the little fence and was yelling, "Tigger! Hey Tigger! Over here!" Then he would wave like crazy. Luckily at one point Tigger waved bye to whoever had just gotten their picture taken, and Tyler thought he was waving to him. He turns to me and yells, "Did you see mommy, he heard me!" Riley was not the least bit excited about meeting Tigger. He was fascinated just watching him, but as soon as Tigger tried to touch him he started crying (which is why Tigger had to keep his distance in the picture). Besides Disney we also went to Wet and Wild and spent a lot of time at the resort's pool. Here are the pictures...

First picture of the day at Disney.

Terri and Belle.

Tyler was way more excited than he looks in this picture!

Giving Pooh a hug...

...and Tigger too!

We spent a LOT of time waiting in line.

Getting ready to ride Dumbo.

The last picture taken at Disney!

We went bowling one night. My uncle, aunt and second cousins Joe and Alex.

Strike!

Sisters.

Tyler loved bowling until he dropped a ball on one of his fingers. Terri bowled the rest of his game and got a 132!

Tyler didn't want to take a nap one day and ended up passing out on the floor at 7:00.

Vacations are tiring!

The resort we stayed at had a huge pool with five water slides. Tyler could have spent every day there and been happy!

Riley liked the baby pool.

Can you guess who had a birthday?!?

My little man turned one yesterday! I can't believe a year has gone by already. Here is a look at how much Riley has changed!

Present and cake.

Riley had a fun birthday, well at least he seemed to. I'm pretty sure he had no clue what all the fuss was about, but he smiled a lot so I'll take that as enjoying his birthday! His day started by being serenaded by his Granny as soon as he woke up. After breakfast he was off for his one year photo shoot. Riley is usually the smiliest baby I have ever met, but put him in an unfamiliar setting where the only thing you want him to do is smile and what does he do? He sits there with a mixed look of confusion and fear on his face. Not so good for pictures. Luckily after about 10 minutes he got use to it and was back to his smiley self. We got some great pictures! The biggest hit of the day were the balloons we got him. He was fascinated by them! Jokingly I bonked him on the head with one and he thought it was hilarious. He kept pointing to the balloons and squawking at me to do it again. Present opening was much more exciting for Tyler than it was for Riley! Riley enjoyed tearing the paper off, but then had no interest in the actual present! He liked chewing on the wrapping paper though! For their first couple of birthdays I like to give the boys one present for every year old they are (for obvious reasons this tradition will not go past 4). Since it doesn't take long to open one present we had plenty of time for cake. And boy did we need it! Once we put the cake in front of him he got a little bit of icing on his finger and then just sat there. He'd stare at his finger then look around, then stare at his finger some more, then look at us. This went on for about 5 minutes before he attempted to put his finger in his mouth. He smeared most of the icing on his chin, but he must have gotten a taste of the icing because he was quicker to put his finger in his mouth the second time. For the first 20 minutes he was eating the icing one finger tip at a time and he managed to stay pretty clean. I was starting to think I wasn't going to get the messy cake pictures I really wanted. Then he discovered he could pick up the plate the cake was sitting on and the mess began! My friend Lindsey (who is the best cake maker I know) made two cakes, one for everyone to enjoy and a little one just for the birthday boy. When Tyler saw the two cakes he pointed to the little one and asked if it was for Riley, to which I said yes. Then his face lit up and his eyes got big when he pointed to the bigger cake and said, "And that one is for me!" Without further ado here are the pictures...

He wasn't a big fan of the hat!

Riley got to invite one friend over, so he picked Shilo (and her parents got to tag along too)!

"I'm suppose to do what with this?"

"I guess I'll have another taste."

"This stuff is pretty good!"

"Do I have to eat the whole thing?"

Finally a smile!

We literally took him out back and hosed him off after he was done!