My Little Pirate! & Happy Birthday, Dad!

I asked her to smile and she gave me "pirate"
Gotta love it!


On another note, Happy Birthday to my AMAZING DAD!!!


We love you more than words can express! Thanks for EVERYTHING you do for us!

Happy Father's Day!

Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad. ~Author Unknown

A father carries pictures where his money used to be. ~Author Unknown

Happy Father's Day, Nicholas! Your daughter loves you more than you know! You are her world!!

The greatest gift I ever had, came from God; I call him Dad!~Author Unknown

Happy Father's Day to my Dad!

Love you more than YOU know! Thank you for being the best dad a daughter could ever ask for!

Where the green grass grows....

Now, it grows in our backyard, finally! When we bought our house almost a year ago, we wanted to give ourselves a year to get as many projects finished as possible. We always said by Riley's 2nd birthday we wanted her to have a yard of beautiful, green grass to run and play in and when we moved in, all we had was a yard of very healthy green......weeds. Well, we finally got to do "Project Sod!" With the help of my wonderful Mom, Dad and "little" brother, Kyle, we now have a gorgeous and green backyard and I am SO HAPPY!

Here are a few "Before" pictures:


The "in between" pictures:


And the "after" pictures:





Now, pray for lots of rain so our grass grows and grows....next project? Paint the house!

Disney-The Hot Spot!

And I mean that in every way possible! Not only was the weather HOT, but I think the entire world was a Disney World. There were high school choir competitions, cheerleading competitions, Grad Nite, Proms, etc. You name it, and it was happening at Disney last weekend!
Naturally, I left most of the packing until the night before and Riley was going to make SURE that we did not leave her behind...


The moment we arrived in Orlando, we drove straight to Magic Kingdom and jumped right onto the ferry boat. This was a first for Riley and she loved it when the captain hit that horn! Uncle Erik was able to join us for just one day so we packed as much as we could into day 1!



We took a few pictures in front of Cinderella's Castle and from there we headed to Pirates of the Caribbean.


After we did a few rides at Magic Kingdom, Daddy and Riley headed to the hotel for a quick nap while Erik and I went to Animal Kingdom.




After spending a little bit of time at Animal Kingdom, we decided to head over to Epcot and finish up the night there. We wanted to check some of the Flower and Garden Festival. We only got to see a few things because we ended up spending a ton of time in the Tinkerbell section. They replicated all of the fairies so beautifully and the flowers and butterflies were all so colorful and relaxing. It was nice to just sit and take it all in instead of running around the park trying to fight our way on to more rides.




After visiting some of the gardens, we headed over to the Finding Nemo ride. This is probably Riley's favorite ride at Disney! I think on this night, we rode it 4 times! She loves Nemo, Dory and Nemo Daddy (which is what she calls him).


After Nemo, we watched just a few fireworks and said our goodbyes to Uncle Erik as he had to head back home.

On day 2 we started off our day at Hollywood Studios! We knew Riley would really enjoy the Playhouse Disney Live Show so it was a must on our list of things to do. After the show we stopped by and said hello to Manny, Leo and Annie. We did a bit of shopping and Riley picked up some new buddies!



Then we headed back over to Epcot because Nana and Grandpa drove up on day 2 to join us! We spent some quality time with Donald and loved him so much we had to get back in line so we could hug him again-so sweet!



We played for sometime on one of their "Little Kids" playground.



We figured out a new way to carry our cup...


And because we were in Epcot, you know we had to go back to see Nemo once again and all of his fishy friends!


Day 2 was long, but fun and putting Riley to sleep was a piece of cake!



On Day 3 we started out the day more low key.We took advantage of the hotel amenities. First, we had a big breakfast and headed over to the park where we all had fun going down the slide.





After the playground we suited up for the pool and splashed away!

We also took in a ton of wildlife while we ate our hot dogs!


After the pool and nap time, we ventured back to Hollywood Studios, but I think Riley had more fun on the tram driving in from the parking lot, than any other ride/show that was going on at HS that night.


"Look Mom, no hands!"


So, we ended the night at Disney's Port Orleans for a quick snack and some musical fun!


On Day 4, we were all pretty worn out but we still had enough energy for Minnie, Pluto and Goofy!



We decided to head back to Magic Kingdom one last time to ride Dumbo for the first time and a few other rides before we headed home.


It was hot and crowded but because it was Disney, you know it was all still Magical!