Merry Christmas!

comfort food

i love this time of year, because that means hot cocoa, stews, soups ect... I have been very busy trying to get creative and save myself some time and money lately. I have made a few batches of spaghetti sauce and out it in gallon sized freezer bags. laid it flat and let it freeze. so easy to stack..and then i take tape and label the end with the month so i know what to used first. and it defrosts super fast this. i had boiled a chicken with some veggies and then shredded the meat and added back to my stock and cooked for awhile longer and added some whole wheat egg noodles and viola..homemade chicken soup! i put it into snack sized ziploc bags and it is just enough for one bowl of soup. one of my favorite recipes riley and I have been making lately are some chocolate cookies.

i box chocolate cake mix (the darker the better)
2 cups pureed pumpkin ( not pumpkin pie filling)
a half a bag of semi sweet chocolate chips

mix and drop by the spoonfuls and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. let cool before eating. you cant taste the pumpkin i promise. it just replaces the oil and eggs. they cookies have more of a cake texture than a cookie texture. soo yummy. and easy for riley to help mix and dump together.

what's new?

know he turned 2 a little over a month ago, but things have been crazy and I am just now getting to blog about it. we kept things very small this year. we had a small party with an elmo theme. he was really into the birthday presents this year and blowing out the candles...but the cake itself..not so much. we went to a local park and had a few snacks and visited and played. I cant believe he is two! time has gone by way too fast! he wants to do everything himself and is saying soo mnay new words everyday. he finally had a growth spurt, but is still wearing his clothes from last fall :0) not that I mind too much. He is now weighing in at 26lbs and 33 inches tall. 3lbs and 3 inches gained in the last 6 months. a lady asked us at the oumpkin patch the other day if he was about 16 months. I chuckled and said no, hes just my little guy!

at the end of august (geez i havent blogged in a long time!) we were invited to the beach for a long weekend with our friends john and tracy. the house was beautiful and we had a great time. Jen showed up also with her little ones, lincoln who is 3 and amelia who will be 1 next month. riley and lincold had a great time playing cars all weekend! we woke up the last morning we were there to very stormy weather!

I have been very busy canning this last month making applesauce and applebutter to put out in the pantry. and I even started me xmas shopping. (which I normally refuse to do until after thanskgiving). 1 holiday at a time please :0) blogger isnt letting me post pics right now...so i will add thm later

want soft skin..?

try cucumbers!

big truck day!

oh my goodness! we had so much fun this morning at the conestoga rec center for their annual big truck day! it is a free event, though we would have deffinatley paid to get in. Riley loves big trucks so he was thrilled! while we were waiting in
line to get in, we got to see the life flight helicopter circle us and then land. when we got to the registration tent riley was given a contruction hat which he loved! (because it was like daddys at work) we got to see and climb on ambulances, a helicopter, swat cars, tractors, construction trucks, firetrucks, a recycling truck, tri met bus, franz break truck that gave us a small loaf of bread, big semi trucks, odot with graders and plow, pge with bucket trucks, coca cola truck with big screen for playing guitar hero, 2 excursion limos, 2 monster trucks, and an old 1918 fire truck. all were open for climbing and horn honking (except for the old fire truck) . and there was lots of horn honking going on. lots of vendors for eating, a big pile of sand to play in. I think half of it came home with us! this is deffinatley something we will be doing again!

6 years!

As of yesterday, dave and I have been married for 6 years! the time has flown by! I am a very lucky girl to have such a wonderful husband. happy anniversary dave! I love you!

kiss kiss!

today when we went to visit dave at work, we were getting ready to leave and I picked riley up and dave asked him for a kiss, so riley leaned over and gave daddy a kiss. then he said kiss so dave leaned over to him to give him another kiss and he pushed mine and dave's faces together and said kiss. he wanted us to kiss!

whoa!

ok, so I didnt realize how long it has been since I had added to my blog! So I thought maybe I should catch everyone up on what's been going on here lately! I wish I had something exciting to report..but I dont. We have been doing a lot of berry picking. Mostly "blues" as riley calls them, because theya re his favorite. I did pick some marionberries and boysenberries and made some jam. I cannot wait for apple season to make homemade applesauce to can! We have been trying to put some money aside so we can redo our deck and just overall trying to enojoy the beautiful summer weather! Awhile back dave and I picked up some $4.00 potty chairs at ikea for riley to play with. he started putting his doggies on it and carrying it around the house this last week he decided he wanted to sit on it, so I have been letting him..and he has even peed a few times! then we flush it away as he says bye bye pee pee. I am by no means trying to potty train, but if he wants to sit on his potty then great! He also has lots of new words..my favorite are when he says bless you after you sneeze and brings you a tissue, and the other night he said Love you. it was soo great! I have pictures, but I need to find my camera so I will have to post them later. I will try to not wait so long between posts!

when daddy's away...

riley and I will play! This morning dave go left for seattle with some buddies to attend the mariner/red sox game. we were both supposed to go...the reason for going was because my team was playing...but at the last minute I decided to not go..long story for another day...but none the less, I decided that riley and I were going to have a great day anyway! We started off the morning with a quick trip to ikea...and then after an early nap in the car...we had lunch and then headed outside for some water play! he was more interested in splashing in the water than getting in it.and VERY excited that he had Elbow (elmo) on his swim diaper! after playing in the water for a bit ..we ventured up to dairy queen ( I hate having one so close to my house..because I have a weakness for soft serve!) and got ice cream cones. he ahs had ice cream before..but never on a cone. he loved it and ended up a sticky mess! we watched elmo in grouchland twice...which is a treat in its self..I try not to have the tv on during the day/week because I will watch it! poor little man was so tired he crashed an hour early tonight!

redman WInery

Today we ventured out to newberg to go to a wine tasting out in newberg that we were invited to by mike, a man that david works with. His brother and sister in law own it and they were doing a wine tasting of some new wines they opened today. it was beautiful out there! but very warm. Riley had a great time entertaining everyone and being the center of attention as always. I would still like to know where he gets that from...its not from me! we would have loved to have stayed longer than we did but riley was getting very warm and he wouldnt stop moving! I cant blame him though..he had lots of room to run!

community policing

our neighbor randy works for the hillsboro police department and we saw tonight that he had his squad car at the house. So after dinner we headed next door to let riley check it out...since the little guy loves cars! Randy turned the lights on for him...and he even got to talk over the cars PA system!he had a great time checking it out as you can tell by the big smile on his face! thanks randy for letting us play in your car!

a morning at the zoo!

I know I already have a post about us at the zoo.but we had such a great time this morning and got some great pictures..I just had to share. the polar bears were giving us quite a show the lorakeets were very hungery..riley wanted so bad to pet them! the giraffe was looking out the window at all of us...so here are some fun pictures..enjoy

my little cheese ball!

Ducks!

this morning was beautiful! so we ventured over to dawsons creek..which is over by davids work..to feed the ducks! it was so much fun. Riley would laugh everytime the ducks chased each other. we walked around the pond and checked out the water fall and the pretty flowers. It felt so good to be outside in the sunshine! riley loved going over and under in the bike rack!

beach weekend!

Last weekend we headed down to manzanita with our good friends Karin, dave and their daughter linnea ( we missed lars, but hope he had a great time on his weekend adventure with a freind!) . It was soo nice to get out of town. We left friday and came home on sunday. On saturday we celebrated Dave's (karin's dave :0) ) 40th birthday! On sunday we woke up to some very stormy weather. this was rileys 3rd trip to the beach, and the first time he touched the sand. he didnt like very much. but he wasnt in the best of moods at th time either. here are a few pictures:
thanks dave and karin for a great relaxing weekend and inviting us to go!

Riley's favorite thing!

One of riley's most favorite things to do these days is to go to grandmas and play with her doggies jade and hannah. He likes to use the "chuck it" to throw the ball for the dogs and the laughs and giggles. he thinks it is soo funny!

easter bunny!

On tuesday I decided to take riley to see the easter bunny over at the all. I was a little worried..just because of our experience with santa. But I was soo suprised! he loved him! he had a hard time waiting for his tuen...he wanted to go right over!

It amazes me everytime we do things like this how expensive they are now! whatever happened to the 5.00 poloroid we got when we were little? While we were at the mall I decided to walk in an effort to wear out my little man. everytime we would walk by a store that was playing loud music he had to stop right outside and dance.

childrens museum

last week riley and I met our friends doreen and bryce for a morning at the childrens museum. We had such a good time! Riley and Bryce are about 7 weeks apart so its always fun wathing them play! we are soo excited that we get to see them more often now!