Life and Times of the Murphy Five: Life

Life has seemed to slow down a bit now that we're in to November. Something that we've welcomed with open arms. We've actually been able to watch the last two Iowa football games in entirety. Just don't talk to Brett about last weeks game. Here's what we've been up to this November...

Riley started gymnastics at the Urbandale Dance Studio and Gymnastics Club. Parents aren't allowed in her class. We can only watch through a viewing window. Despite showing up 45 minutes late on the first day, it seems to be a perfect fit for Riley. She LOVES gymnastics. It may have been helpful to be late that first day because we were able to go to the parent/child class and it seemed to ease the typical first time apprehension. She is always so excited to go every morning. She loves her black, pink, and blue leotard. Her favorite thing is to do the bars and the bear crawl. She even lets me put her hair in a ponytail, which hardly happens these days.
Riley is in a clippy and "soft pants" phase. We started with sweat pants only, then added in some cotton pants, and now she's even letting me add in some leggings and jeggings.
We've stopped all solids with Harper. She doesn't seem to handle them the greatest at this time. The only food that she's really shown interest in is squash. She's also tried rice cereal, banana (can we say diarrhea!), sweet potato, and apples. We noticed that she's been more irritable and seems to have an upset tummy a lot. So, we'll wait.
We started a new incentive program for Riley a couple weeks ago (that sounds terrible, but it's the truth). We were struggling to get her to go to bed at night. Every night she would cry, get out of bed, and put up a fight for sometimes an hour each night. So, we started telling her that if she stayed in bed and didn't cry we would do something special on the weekends. It worked instantly. So far we've been to see Puss in Boots and bowling. Both were new to her and were "so much fun!" Next up on the list is Monkey Joe's and Disney on Ice.
Riley has been telling us that she loves us nonstop. It's really sweet. At least 4 times a night she will come up to us, hug us, and say "I love you Mommy" and "I love you Daddy."
Our basement is virtually complete. We have all of the basics in place. We are in the process of putting in a cabinet at the end of the stairs. It needs a counter and to be painted. We have a little corner electric fireplace with a new TV, couches, and way too many toys. We have a few little things to finish up like some trim that needs to be painted. We actually spend a lot of time down there. Riley loves it and is always going down there with or without us.
We finalized the purchase of new windows for 75% of the house. Hopefully they will be installed before Christmas. I haven't been this excited for something new in a long time. No more leaky windows and most importantly new blinds! We've been holding on to the original blinds until we replaced the windows - which wouldn't be that big of a deal except they are rose colored.
We're getting family pictures taken on Thursday. I'm so excited. I have only been searching for the perfect outfit combinations for two weeks now. :)

Here are a few pictures: