Watkins' Wedding: Revealed - Part 2

So I believe that I left off the night before the wedding....

Saturday morning Riley and I stayed around the house playing and getting our things prepared for the day while Daddy was off playing golf for the second day in a row!  Lucky Daddy!  Around 11:45 am I dropped Riley off at Grandma Sheryl's house to eat lunch, nap, and bathe before her big flower girl appearance.  Thanks to Grandma Sheryl, I was able to go to the hotel and get my hair and make-up done.  It was fun hanging out with Libby and all of her girlfriends...and enjoying a couple pre-wedding cocktails.

After taking pictures we headed over to the Jasper Winery to wait for the ceremony.  Riley arrived with plenty of time to get her dress and headband on.  Remember how we were worried that we would see a repeat of Friday night....we were even more worried when our fear was coming true.  Riley was shy and unsure of all the commotion around her.  Luckily the winery had some magnetic letters that seemed to occupy her for the final minutes leading up to the wedding.  Last minute we decided that it would be best for Riley to walk down the aisle hand in hand with her mommy.  I was so surprised that she walked all the way down the aisle without crying or sitting down.  She did great and we were so proud! And then...Riley took in her surroundings and decided that she just couldn't handle it.  After some frantic nonverbal communication Grandma Sheryl took her back inside the winery building and everyone else enjoyed the rest of the wedding.  Despite the 90 degree weather, the wedding was perfect.

After the wedding we finished up pictures of the entire wedding party and the family.  I'm pretty sure that we only got two pictures of Riley.  Both of which her face is bright red from crying.  I'm also pretty sure that neither of them includes a picture of smiling flower girl.  Oh well.

The reception was great and Riley was eating up all of the attention.  She loved wearing her pretty dress and running around EVERYWHERE!  She had fun dancing, twirling, and flirting.  I wish I had taken some more pictures, but didn't feel like carrying my camera around with me everywhere.  Grandma and Grandpa Burch took Riley home around 9 pm and then the real party started...!

I'm hoping to steal some pictures off of Facebook to upload in a separate post.  Hopefully that will come later in the week.  In the meantime, here's a peek at Riley in her dress: 

Summer Fun!

Watkins' Wedding Revealed

The big weekend day finally came and went.  The Watkins' Wedding went off without a hitch.  Libby was beautiful in her white dress.  David was handsome in his gray suit.  And Miss Riley made it all the way down the aisle hand in hand with Mommy!! Whew.  She had me worried up until the minute we began walking.  Here's the story of our weekend...

We began the festivities with a Cocktail Buffet on Thursday night.  All of Libby and David's family and closest friends who were in town enjoyed some cocktails and some great food at the Neumann's.  Riley loved the piano and had so much fun "playing" it.  In true fashion Riley refused to eat.  It seems that any time we are at an event Riley decides she doesn't need to eat!

Friday, Riley and I attended the bridal luncheon.  Before we headed over I decided to make an impromptu stop at Kohl's to find us each a new outfit.  We ended up spending 20 minutes in the Kohl's break room while the tornado sirens went off.  Then, quickly paid for our stuff and ran to the car in a downpour.  It was great and I was super excited to go to the luncheon with my rain-soaked hair!  The luncheon was great, with a "mini" theme.  Everything from mini champagnes, to mini deserts, to mini food.   It was all delicious!  Riley loved everything about the luncheon - the mini food, all the ladies, and of course watching her dress fly up while standing on the air vent!

After a quick nap we headed out for the rehearsal, "meet and greet" event at the Marriott, and the rehearsal dinner.  Riley fought us all the way through the rehearsal.  It didn't help that it was outside at the Summerset Winery, a billion degrees, and humid.  She refused to do any walking with the ring bearer, but did like the car that he shared with her.  So, we left there praying that Saturday night would be a much better night.  The highlight of the meet and greet was eating meatballs from a toothpick, watching the waterfall in the lobby, trying as hard as she could to get her fingers in the water and taking the escalator up and down many times over.  After running after her all day we were super excited to head over to the rehearsal dinner (at Dos Rios).  Riley nearly made it through the entire rehearsal dinner.  I ended up taking her home around 9:30 with our food in to-go containers.  We missed out on the wedding party's speeches, but I made Brett recite them to me nearly word for word. 

To Be Continued...

Father's Day 2010

Riley loves her Daddy for so many reasons, but this may be her favorite...

Endless rides on the escalator!!

Giddy Up!

Sneak Peek #2

I made this cute headband that Riley will be wearing with her fancy shoes and dress this Saturday.

No, Riley's not upset about being in the wedding, she's just showing her disdain for her mother taking 1000 pictures of her!  I swear, she loves her headband and her Aunt Libby!  Let's hope this crabby pants doesn't show up on Saturday!!

Riley Nicole At 1 Year, 10 Months Old

It's that time of the month again...another update on Miss Riley!  I don't even know where to start this month.  She's tiptoeing her way right into the terrible twos.  I don't think we're going to be lucky enough to detour her around this fun stage. I've been trying to tune out my mom's horror stories with me and have been hoping that it's possible for Riley to skip this whole stage...but, I think I'm out of luck.  She's proving to be a real handful ball of independent, sassy, energy zapper!

Here's a few examples, along with the usual stuff:

• Riley weighs in at 24 lbs 3 oz and is 32 1/4 inches tall.  She's barely fitting into her size 5 shoes and can still squeeze into her size 4s.  She wearing all size 2T clothes.  Most of her shirts fit great, but all of her shorts are barely staying up thanks to her diaper. 
• She is talking like crazy and actually picking up new concepts daily.  She's started using me, hurt, scared, hot, cold, tired, up, and down accurately.
• Her go-to color is blue.  I always ask her what color something is and she always say blue.  She can point to each color when asked about 60% of the time.
• If you ask her she's TWO with one finger in the air.  I'm just rolling with it since she'll be two soon enough. 
• She will try to count.  Usually saying one, two, three, five, six, eight, and then numbers that I can't make out.
• She's starting to say everyday phrases that Brett and I find ourselves saying.  Like, "lets go" or "here we go." 
• She still loves to say "no, no, no" while shaking her head. 
• She loves to point out every bus, truck, semi on the road.  She'll be the first to tell you she's right if you try to correct her.
• She still likes to listen to her "songs please" in the car.  We had to start telling her that we must listen to all of the songs because she was yelling "NO, NO, NO!" after five seconds into each song.  It's fun to watch her try to sing along and do hand motions.  She usually gets the last couple words of each line right.  When she likes a song she immediately bops her head left and right to the beat.
• She loves watering the flowers, plants, grass, trees, weeds...you name it, she's watering it.
• She also loves to wear her fancy shoes and dress.  So far, we've only worn them around the house to practice in before the big wedding this weekend. 
• She loves to make "bunny soup" with her toy kitchen.  She usually brings it over and as you take a sip she yells "hot, hot" and we have to blow on it and then take another sip.
• She likes to play with her little people and little animals.  She usually sits them in their little chairs and lines them up.  She also likes to throw them!
• She now swims in the bath tub.  She'll lay on her tummy for her entire bath (except when I forcer her to turn over to wash her hair) and kick her legs and moves her arms.  She hates when we have to wash her hair.  She constantly says "eyes, eyes" because she doesn't want water in her eyes.
• She's gone pee pee on the potty two more times.  Both times were flukes and she was very confused about what was going on.
• She loves horses.  She especially loves the horse toy that is in our neighbor's garage.  If we don't watch her closely she heads straight to their garage.