Birthday Princess Riley is 4!!

Riley celebrated her 4th birthday this past Sunday, April 22nd.  It's hard to believe that 4 years have come and gone so quickly.  I still remember the day I found out I was pregnant.  Oh boy did I cry.  Every emotion imaginable was running through me.  I never knew what joy she would bring into my life.  She is (for the most part) one of the sweetest girls I know.  She is so helpful to me in more ways than I can even begin to explain.  I love her with all of my heart.  I am so very proud of her and can't wait to see what year 4 has in store for us!  

Because it was her birthday and she is over wearing her sling, I let her take a break from it while opening her birthday gifts.  We didn't do a big party for her and didn't even have her friend Reese over because she's been sick and just got diagnosed with an ear infection.  We were trying to keep our germs to ourselves!  Despite no party, Riley had plenty of presents to open thanks to the family and friends that sent gifts.  

Riley is seriously into the Disney princesses these days.  Everything is princess!  So, of course a princess birthday cake was needed!!  We sang her happy birthday and Riley turned shy and started hiding her face.  But then got excited when it was time to blow out the candles!!

Really?  Riley is 4!!!  I can't believe it!  Look how big our girl is getting.  She's growing like a weed.  I swear she gets taller everyday.  

Potty Trained

Before Hadley even turned two she was asking to use the potty before bath every night and actually peeing in the potty.  I thought for sure she'd be trained by the time she was two.  It turns out she wasn't quite ready.  A couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to do potty bootcamp for Hadley.  I didn't even bother with pull ups because I found with Riley that they were useless.  Kids don't care if they pee in pull ups because it's still like a diaper.  I went straight to the panties.  Hadley was really excited to be wearing them too.  By the end of day 1 Hadley told me she needed to pee.  I used Easter candy as special treats every time she'd use the potty.  She also had a princess sticker chart to fill up thanks to Kiki.  Hadley has been doing marvelous with using the potty.  She is reluctant to tell me when she has to pee, but always tells me when she needs to poop.  I put her on the potty every hour now because that's when she seems to need to use it.  I'm so very proud of her!  Hadley, like her big sister, likes to run around the house in her panties now.  I have to force pants on her when we leave the house!  Here's to saving $50 a month on diapers!  

 She's got a cute little booty in those panties!!

Riley was my helper with encouraging Hadley to use the potty and cheering for her every time she did!!  Riley was happy to help, especially since she'd get a treat too when Hadley would receive one.  I don't give treats anymore now that she uses the potty all the time, but I have to keep reminding Riley of that.  I can always tell when Riley wants a treat because after Hadley goes to the bathroom, Riley says " it's time for your treat!"  

Easter 2012

 Easter turned out to be a fun day for the girls.  They were really excited to see the Easter bunny had left them a basket full of treats!  All three girls dug into their baskets like it was Christmas morning.  Their Nanny helped to fill their baskets by sending all sorts of little presents, like bubbles, light up toys, princess bunny ears and stickers.  I got them some little chocolate treats which they wanted to devour in seconds, so I hid them!  

We had dinner at our friends house, along with an Easter egg hunt for the girls.  Hadley didn't really care about the egg hunt, she just wanted to play in the little cottage.  Riley and their friend Reese darted for all the eggs.  Riley's broken collarbone didn't stop her from running after the eggs!  It was fun to watch!  We came home and Trey went to lay down for a bit because he had to work that night.  He has been working some awful hours, 5pm until 5 or 6am.  It's been rough.  But it was a nice Easter Sunday and the girls enjoyed themselves!

April Fools

First, I'd like to apologize for my lack of blogging.  I've had my hands full lately.  Especially because I've been watching my neighbors one year old little boy along with my three little ladies.  So, I've not had really any down time to keep you all updated.  I'm now attempting to get everyone caught up.  Of course, most of you probably already know about this!

It was April 1st and I had planned a date for Trey and I.  He leaves in May for deployment and we never get any time to ourselves.  I knew we needed some "us" time so I asked our friends Sara & Daniel if they would watch our girls for us so that we could catch a movie.  Sara insisted that we get dinner too.  So after Hadley and Emrey woke from their afternoon naps I took the girls down to Sara's house so Trey & I could enjoy some time to ourselves.  Sara told me not to bother calling and checking in, just turn my phone off.  I assured her that I wasn't going to call, but if she needed anything just to call me.  She has a little girl, who just turned 3 and a little boy who is about 4 months old.  So I felt a little bad throwing 3 more kids on her, but she really wanted to watch them for us.  

Trey and I went to see 21 Jump Street.  I loved it and was hysterically laughing throughout the movie.  Afterwards we had dinner at Gordon Biersch.  We love that place.  We sat out on the patio and enjoyed the gorgeous evening weather.  I was enjoying my delicious steak medallions until a gecko came out of the plants we were sitting next to and jumped on my steak.  I literally screamed and jumped out of my chair.  I was the crazy lady in the restaurant screaming, "there's a gecko on my steak!"  Poor Trey has to deal with my craziness!  Trey got the gecko off my plate and I was done with my dinner.  I pretty much lost my appetite after that!  Trey ordered dessert to go because we had left the girls for about 4 hours and didn't want to burden our friends too much longer.  As we are leaving dinner I looked at my phone and saw I had a missed call from Sara.  I knew that wasn't good.  I called her back and she said that Riley had fallen and hurt herself.  Riley was hysterically crying.  Sara said she thinks she might have hurt her neck.  Riley can tend to be a slight drama queen when it comes to her getting hurt, so I wasn't sure what to expect.  Sara had said she was playing on the sofa and fell.  

When we got to Sara's Riley was laying down on a chair, covered in a blanket, with tears pouring down her face.  I asked her where it hurt and she couldn't even talk.  Trey grabbed her and took her outside to scold her for not listening to adults and playing on furniture.  Daniel & Sara said not to get upset with her because they were concerned she was really hurt.  We walked home and got the girls ready for bath and bed.  Riley was screaming as I got her undressed.  I knew something was broken.  It wasn't Riley over exaggerating, she was truly hurt.  Trey suggested we wait until the morning to see how she was feeling.  I gave her some Tylenol and put her into bed.  I couldn't sleep thinking about her and knowing I should've just taken her to the ER.  Riley woke up around 3:30am in pain and crying.  I jumped out of bed, threw on clothes, and took her to the ER.  

We got checked in, triage, and then I walked her down to get her first set of X-rays.  Not an easy thing to do with a tired and hurting 3 year old.  Especially with how they wanted her to hold her arm up.  My  poor little princess.  She was a super trooper though.  After X-rays we got to go back into a room and she laid down.  I could tell she was nervous with the tears that were just running down her face.  She was breaking my heart.  Luckily a nurse made her happy by bringing a pink popsicle for her.  We were informed that her collarbone was broken and then the orthopedic doctor wanted more X-rays to decide if surgery would be necessary.  My heart sank at that news.  Surgery??  Somebody was going to need to medicate me.  I walked Riley back to X-ray and tried to keep her calm.  She didn't want anymore X-rays, but, again, was a trooper.  She just kept telling me she wanted to go home and go to bed.  We finished with the X-rays and went back to her hospital bed where I finally got her to fall asleep.  

After about an hour of waiting I was informed she wouldn't be getting surgery.  Praise the Lord!  Now we just had to wait for a sling to fit her little arm.  She's still in her sling now, but we go see the orthopedic doctor on Monday afternoon.  Hopefully we will hear that everything is healed perfectly!