family picture sneak peek

We had our family pictures taken last week and it went well.  Of course Riley ran & ran, but we managed to get some good shots!  Thank goodness the photographer had an assistant.  I'm sure she passed out when she left our shoot from mere exhaustion!  ;)  This is a little sneak peek of one of my favs with my little man.  He's not looking like a toddler anymore.  More boyish.  Sniff, sniff!  Love his sweet little heart. 

5 things I am loving right now

Wall flowers from Bath & Body works... Have you tried the new fall scents?  OMG!  Autumn is my favorite and sweet cinnamon pumpkin!  Oh, and this cute little owl!  I [heart] owls!

Yes, this is a Chick-fil-A chocolate chip cookie.  Have you tried these??  A-mazing!  Melt. in. your. mouth. good!

Reid's bird house he painted.  Put it inside my cloche'.  LOVE! 

Reid's new little school supply box.  I [LOVE] school supplies. This isn't new... I  just pulled greenery out of this caddy to use when he does homework.  It's silly, but it makes me happy! 

My new pumpkin sign... :)  Happy Fall everybody!  What are your favorite things about fall?

Riley time

Took this picture with instagram.  Not sure why it turned out so blurry!

Yesterday Rodney took Reid to his t-ball game & I stayed home with Roo-Roo.  When it's a 6:15 game, I figured I should probably keep him home & let Daddy & Reid have time together.  Thus, we had Mommy & Riley time! I took him to the park by myself for the first time last night.  The weather was [amazing]..  oh. my. goodness!  

I realized last night how much I miss doing things like this with just Riley since I rarely get time to just be with him now.  He is *full* of energy and wants to climb, run, and jump off high places.  

I LOVE it!  Riley has zero fear of anything and will take almost anything on without hesitation.  It's awesome & I love everything God created this sweet boy to be! 

Rocking Chairs

Reid ~ October 11, 2008 ~ 12 months

Oh. my. word.  Just wanna eat that face up!

Riley ~ October 7, 2012 ~ Age 2

I can NOT believe how big this boy is!!

Yes, Reid is still sucking his thumb at age 5.  We try to stop him from doing it and he's only allowed to while he's sleeping, but sometimes we *catch* him in action when he's watching tv!

These chairs were handcrafted by Rod's best friend's dad.  Reid got his little rocking chair at his 1st birthday.  They are precious.  Riley got his this weekend from Rodney's best friend. His dad recently made it for Riley.  They are handmade from wood he finds and he carves their name & birth date on the back.  It's precious!  I love these little chairs & Reid has decided he wants to bring his down from his room and they have both been sitting in them all week.  Love it! Thank you Gene Keith!  The boys LOVE their chairs!!

What to do with fall leaves

 I found this neat craft on a web site a couple of weeks ago & decided it was too cool not to share!  The boys & I went on a nature walk the next day to hunt for fall leaves to start our project. 

Take your collected leaves & place them on a paper towel.  Take another paper towel and lay it over those.  Repeat the process if you have more leaves you collected.  Afterwards, lay 2 paper towels over the top layer. Then, lay a VERY heavy book on top of them & let sit for about a week so they can get nice & flat. 

 

Tear out pages of NOT your favorite book and cut a triangular shape on the bottom.  :)

Glue your leaves on the paper after cutting the triangle using a good adhesive.  We used Quick Grip. You can get this at Walmart.  Great stuff for so many craft projects!

After cutting out your book pages and gluing the leaves, fold over the top of the pages onto a piece of jute and staple at the top in order for it to stay in place.  I used 5 pages of a book since my mantle is pretty long. 

And voila!  You have a pretty mantle decoration that adds to your fall fun! The boys & I had such fun collecting leaves & Reid was a big helper gluing the leaves onto the paper for me.  What a fun memory I will hold on to!

And the other day we found this heart shaped leaf sitting out on our back patio. It was on top of Rodney's shoe!!  How cool is the Lord to show us this?? 

I want to remember...

How Reid likes to lay under the end table in the living room & watch tv.

Riley's sweet little face at age 2.

Reid wearing a policemen hat & badge he made at school this week and how he has wanted to wear it all week, every second of the day.  SO stinkin' cute!

I want to remember all these little things about the boys, but I know I'll forget.  Thank goodness for this blog.  I do it for my friends & family so they can see all the cute things our boys do, but mostly for Rodney & I so we can look back one day & see how funny & cute the boys were in their toddler years.  Precious & priceless.  I just love these 2 little guys.  They melt my heart everyday. 

Monday

This picture was taken on Sunday.... Reid decided he wanted to wear his boots with his shorts after church.  Why not?  You can get away with it when you're 5!

The boys decided to have a "yard sale" at home yesterday.  Pricing all of their toys they wanted to "sell."

My sweet, silly Riley.... trying on Mr. Potato Head's glasses.  Love this boy!