Coasters

I know I mentioned in a previous post a while back that I had been working on a craft project that I had planned on giving out as gifts. Like the title gives away, I made coasters for Riley's grandparents.  I got the idea from another blogger who was making them as gifts for her family.  So, I set out to make them and prayed that they turned out as cute as the pictures I'd seen. Luckily, they did!

To get started you need:
Mod Podge
Foam Brush
felt with sticky backing
white (or whatever color) tiles - like from Lowes or Home Depot
Photographs

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  To get started decide how many coasters you wantt to make and pick out what pictures you want to use.  I decided to make a set of 4 (times three for three matching sets).
  
  
  
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  Then trim your pictures so that they fit on your tile.  I decided to leave a little space between the edge of the pictures and the edge of the tile.
  
  
  
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  Attach your pictures to the tile by using your foam brush and Mod Podge.
  
  
  

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  Once the pictures are attached and somewhat dry apply Mod Podge over the top  of the picture and tile.  Use as many coats as you feel needed.  I decided to do two coats and they looked fine.
  
  
  

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      Once the tiles are completely dry turn over and apply Felt squares to the bottom of the coaster.
  
  
  

And here is the finished product!

These were truly great gifts from Riley to her grandparents.  They can be made with photographs, scrapbook paper, napkin designs, or even printed monograms.  They turned out so well that we are going to make a set of monograms for our house, as well!

Riley's Sticker Book

Riley absolutely loves stickers.  She loves to stick them to herself and whoever is close.  She's even got in the habit of sticking them in her hair!  She still doesn't understand why it hurts when we pull them out.  Just last night I noticed that she had stuck a couple to the wall.  Luckily I was able to get them off, but it made me think what we might have in store for us in the future.  So, I decided that it would be good to try and make Riley her very own sticker book.  I remember having one of my own growing up and LOVED it.  So with a little waxed paper, scrapbooking paper, hole puncher, and pipe cleaners here is what we came up with:

Ice Storm Day With Mom

My work closed the office on Wednesday due to the monstrous ice storm.  Riley and I had fun making a fort, playing with her puzzles, running around the house, playing dress up, eating snacks, playing with stickers, doing dishes, and laundry! 

A Night Out

Brett and I were able to get out of the house for a Riley-free night last Saturday.  My company had their annual recognition dinner, which I received my pin for 3 years of service.  I've actually been with Link for almost 4 years now, but the recognition dinner recognizes people from the previous year.  I work with a great bunch of people and we had a lot of fun.  I'm not sure if Kareoke is the best thing to end a recognition dinner with, but we were living it up on stage (me-40% of the songs, Brett 95% of the songs)!  The party was at the Elks Lodge and we ended up closing down their "members only" bar.  Brett made some new friends and they let him "pretend" to be a bartender by standing behing the bar.  We even came home with an application to join - Brett loved it that much. :) Then we felt like we should stay out a little later and play some Taboo at one of my co-workes house.  We somehow found ourselves crawling into bed around 4am!  I haven't been up that late by choice in years!  I think it took me all week to catch up on sleep! 

Here's our night in pictures:

Before Kareoke

Backroom Friends

(we all sit in "the backroom" of our office.  It used to be a closet!)

With my friends as Brett was busy with this...

Feeling the music

Singing his heart out.

Still singing...

Rooten' on the lead singer

And yes, I sang too!

Riley Nicole At 17 Months!

Wow!  Riley is 17 months old today.  This past month flew by with all of the holiday celebrations.  It was definitely one of the most fun months with Riley.  She is really growing into her personality and showing it off plenty!  Here is a glimpse of Riley at 17 months old:

• She knows a few colors.  Red, blue, and yellow are the ones that she gets right most of the time.
• She can identify anything after you tell her what it is once or twice.  She likes to point, and will hardly ever repeat a word if you ask her to.
• She is saying some new words: "Ta Daaaa" (This stands for "look at me" or "hot dog."  Not sure how those two are linked, but in Riley's mind they are the same word). "Go," "hot," "eeeeee" (Please), "Car-der" (her friend, Carter), and lots of babbling.
• She is deathly afraid of the word hot and will most of the time start crying when she hears it.  She burned her little finger on our space heater a couple months ago and still hasn't forgotten it.
• She loves to blow on her food.  She thinks every bit is hot and blows on it.
• She can search and find anything you ask for.  She definitely inherited her looking skills from her mommy!
• She likes to do puzzles.  She does a great job of matching the animals or shapes, but needs some help fitting them into their spot.
• She loves to play with cars.  Sadly, she doesn't have any at home.  While at daycare, she takes the cars from the boys and then gives them back to them like she found them just for them.
• She has a great arm!  She loves to throw anything: balls, magnets, dolls, etc.  She especially likes to throw things down the cat door. 
• We have officially started timeout.  We started with sitting in the corner and counting till 10, but she thought this was fun.  So now we sit in a corner for a minute and talk to Riley about why she is in timeout.  She knows throwing things down the cat door equals a timeout.  She throws something down there with a smile and walks herself right over to timeout. 
• She claps after everything she does.
• She loves to drink from a straw.
• Her hair is growing so fast, and she is very close to sporting a rat tail!  I can't wait to buy more fun hair stuff for her!
• She loves Pablo from the Backyardigans.
• She just started liking pillows to sleep with.  We will find her in her crib with her head on her comforter wadded up at the end of her crib.
• She loves to be chased.
• She loves to play with her dolls.  She carries them around and pats them on the back.
• She is wearing all 18 month clothes.  They are actually fitting her pretty well and some of them are even a bit small.  She's grown so much in the past 5 months! 
• Riley will eat anything if she can dip it in something.
• She is a huge flirt!  She'll flirt with anyone!
• And lastly,  she is only one month away from becoming a star at Chow's Gymnastics and Dance Institute.  Yep, that's right, Riley will be starting tumbling classes in February.  I keep asking her if she wants to do "flips" and she gives me her one swift head nod down, which means YES!

Here are some pictures:

Cheese

Whatchu talkin bout' Willis?

Incredible Pizza

We met the Coppola's at Incredible Pizza for some food and fun on Friday night.  Riley was still coughing, but we felt she was feeling well enough for a little fun with Carter!  It was our first trip to Incredible Pizza and we decided that we would definitely go back.  Riley loved riding the carousel and the car.  She also loved all of the lights and noise around her. Here area  few pictures of Riley and Carter: 

There was even fun had by the adults!

Ali was awesome at this virtual jump rope game.  The rest of us proved to be not so good.  Especially Brett, who couldn't even make it over the "rope" once!

Sick Little Girl

Tuesday night Riley woke up about 11pm wheezing, coughing, and had a high fever (highest she's ever been at 102.4).  She acted fine all night and then boom, it just hit her.  She was up for the next 4 1/2 hours, which means Brett and I didn't get to sleep until 3:30 am Wednesday morning.  We took Riley in to see Dr. Fred and after an hour of crying, a finger prick, throat swab, and a shot we were out of there with a prescription and a diagnosis of Croupe and Leringitis!  Poor thing was miserable.  She is feeling much better, but still has her barking cough and is pretty clingy.  We did let her go to daycare today and I think she was happy to be there.  While at the doctor's office she weighed in at 22 lb 10 oz.  Here are a couple pictures of her from last night. 

I think she's feeling much better.  At least she's still smiling...