Wordless Wednesday - Our little pumkin!

Enough with the pictures Mom!!!

To nana and pawpaws we go

Two weeks ago, we headed up to the DFW area again! Clay was invited by a friend/client to go hunting at an awesome hotel/ranch which just so happens to be where my parents live. I never pass up an opportunity to visit my family, I love being around them and they are so so helpful when it comes to Riley! It is also really relaxing to be out in the small town country-side. And Clay never (well hardly ever) passes up an opportunity to go hunting! While Clay was hunting we spent most of our time playing with Riley outside, enjoying the weather, relaxing and there was in a little shopping (browsing) thrown in the mix. One day I even braved the pool for all of like 1 minute, no polar bearing for me. Riley and I decided the hot tub was way more fun.



I got a few opportunites to photograph Riley. I am still just soaking in everything I can about photography. Sometimes I feel as though I take one step forward and 2 back with my pictures. But I can also be really hard on myself, however I do think I have a few in here that I can really be proud of!

15 months

Clay and I continue to be amazed at how much Riley is growing, changing, and learning! She has such a fun, sweet, yet determined personality. She is also one very busy toddler! Her new favorite thing to do is run sprints. She will start usually in the kitchen and run as fast as she can into the living room and sometimes around the ottoman. This is so funny and she is quite fast for such a small thing. I love when she flings her arms behind her in an attempt to get even faster.

Riley had her 15 month appointment with Dr Shuman on Friday. Dr Shuman thought she looked great, she is gaining weight still (slight as it may be), she is developmentally where she should be and she has lots of "spunk" as the Dr says.



And here's her measurements for my record keeping: 31.5 inches long (75-90%) and 19lbs 13oz (10%). She had 3 shots and despite the ear-piercing scream she took them pretty well, nothing long hugs with mommy couldn't fix. :) A couple of weeks ago Riley also got 6 more teeth all with in a week and a half of each other. Grand total is 10. 4 on top: two front and two molars and 6 on bottom: 2 front, 2 beside the front, and 2 molars.



She has picked up so many words over the last month, before 14 months she would hardly say anything. Her words are: momma, dada, nana, pawpaw, ridy (for aunt Kristi), wawa (water or waffle), bubba (for Scout), wow, up, uh oh, yum, nak (snack), ba (ball or bath), buhbye, ni ni (night night), and her favorite baby. She picks up a new word or sound all the time. I think her next word might be no :( She has heard it quite often lately and has tried to say it a few times.



Probably our favorite thing she does is make her animal noises. It started with elephant. Clay can make a really high squeaky noise with his mouth just like an elephant and Riley tries to make it as well. She will even lift up an arm just like the elephants truck. She will pant for a doggie sound. Bah for sheep, Ooh ooh ah ah for a monkey, mmmmm for a cow, and she pops her lips for a fish sound. I have tried to get her doing this on video and will hopefully post it soon.



Riley you are such an amazing, fun little girl. You amaze us daily with new discoveries and developments. Your hugs and kisses are the best! We are so blessed. We love you!

I'm famous!! Sort of, kind of...

Okay not really at all, but I am so excited because Pioneer Woman picked me!! For those that don't know who or what I'm talking about, I like think of the Pioneer Woman as the Oprah of blogland. Ree Drummond (her actual name) is wildly popular, a great writer, an awesome cook (or so I assume because of the amazing recipes she posts), and she is a self taught photographer. She has hundreds of thousands of readers, followers, and fans. I usually only subscribe to her food blog but a few days ago I was checking out her photography blog and I saw a contest she was hosting.

She posted a picture she had taken as was asking for any edits of the photo. The picture was of her brother in law riding a horse. You can see the original contest post here. I hardly ever participate in stuff like this, but this one intrigued me. I knew that I would never get her attention with just a simple edit of the photo. So I let my creativity run wild and my odd sense of humor took over as well, below is what I came up with.



So the Pioneer woman usually posts groups of her favorite entries (she will usually have thousands of entries per contest). Each group has around 10 or so entries. Well I made one of her groups for this contest. Did I win, no, there were such good edits and some other really creative funny ones too. But I am just excited to have been recognized!!!

Here is the link to my group.

Fun fun! Oh and interestingly enough this was her first editing challenge, most are photo challenges.

Loving the fall weather

The weather in Houston has been so fantastic for the past two weeks. Riley and I are enjoying it by playing in the front yard each afternoon. Sometimes Daddy comes home just in time to play with us!

Wordless Wednesday

A club and a cake

A couple of months ago, I was invited to join in on a newly forming book club. There are 6 of us that meet once a month to discuss our current book. So far I have really enjoyed the new friends I've made (I only knew 3 of the six from before) and the great books. I used to LOVE books when I was young. I would stay up so late reading and reading but then high school, college and laziness got in the way and I just stopped reading.

So Thursday was my month to host the book club and a neighbor had recommended the book The Help by Katheryn Stockett to me. I must say I loved this book and thought it was especially interesting because the setting is Jackson, MS in the 1960's. Clay's grandmother is from Canton, MS and Clay even lived in Jackson for a short while when he was very young. I didn't get any pics of the book club but I did get pics of the desssert I made. Several times the book mentions a caramel cake, and randomly enough Clay is obsessed with his Grannies caramel cake. So much so a few years back when we were visiting Grannie in Canton I copied down her recipe. I was always intimidated by it and never tried to make it. Book club was the perfect excuse to tackle this recipe.

The icing was the hardest part and while I'm sure the recipe makes perfect sense to Clay's Grannie, to me it might as well have been in Spanish. It mentions "boiling until a drop can be picked up out of cold water"??? What? So the first batch I boiled and boiled and dropped into water over and over again. Seriously I boiled that icing for like 1 hour waiting for like some kind of magic to happen and for it to scream "done" at me. It never happened and as soon as I took it off the stove it turned solid and rock hard. Whoops. Guess thats not what the recipe meant.



My second attempt was much better and Clay (and the rest of the book club) deemed the cake a success.






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Below are the books we've read so far and a few I've read on my own. I would recommend each of these books if you've not already read them and if you enjoy fiction.

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik(didn't think I'd like this one and surprisingly did)
Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Spendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Wordless wednesday

Randomness

Dove


Moon vine (blooms at night and the flower is huge like the size of my hand, I caught this before the morning sun hit the flower)


Large garden spider. Yuck.


Yummy grasshopper.




Sharing an apple with Pawpaw.


Smelling the flowers with Nana.

Houston zoo

Last weekend we took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed to the Houston Zoo. Riley enjoyed the zoo much more this time and she noticed so many more animals. We had a great time!



I could not decide which picture I liked best, so I thought I'd throw both of these in here (they are basically the same but on the first I focused on the monkey and the second my focus point fell on Clay.) Just having a little fun with my camera.







Riley's very favorite part of the zoo was petting the goats. She was so excited to brush them. In fact she had to go around and "brush" each and every goat. It was sweet to watch!