I haven't exactly been great about documenting much about this pregnancy. Not a single classic "bump" picture has been taken. My journaling has been pretty nonexistent. So the other day, as I tried to look past the exhaustion that I feel now and consider what I would want in the future I decided we should try to take some family maternity pictures. Riley loves looking at pictures from when she was a baby or when I was pregnant with her. I didn't want to have to explain to Nelson that I let this time go by without doing anything special for him. I also wanted to capture this rapidly decreasing timeframe when it's still just us and Riley.
So the day before my 35 week mark I tried to get us as ready as I felt necessary and we took some pictures! It started as a little photoshoot inside with just Riley and I and then Bo got involved to get some full family shots. It's hard for me to want pictures at this point in pregnancy because I never feel like I look good and it's easy to be critical of how I look. So are we took the pictures I knew I may not love everything about the outcome, but I love the moments in time that it's capturing.
(written years later so not a ton of detail haha) In February we planned a trip to visit both sets of Grandparents. We started in Idaho and had a lovely time. Riley loves the aquarium up there and of course the star of the visit each time is their dog Dobby. Poor Dobby doesn't get a break when Riley is around. She cracked me up with the nicknames she gave him, calling him Dobbs or Dobby-Dob-Dobbs. After one of our outings Riley realized Dobby was now all alone at home and sadly said, "Oh I bet Dobby is so confused!"
After spending a bit of time up in Idaho we headed down to Utah. We stayed at Ana's house because unfortunately COVID was scaring us again, and Mom needed to be extra careful again. While we were staying there Riley was very grateful that Andrew shared his toys with her (although he wasn't always aware he was sharing with her), but she didn't jive well with all of his toys. I saw her playing with the Daniel Tiger trolly and figurines, but Trolly was upside down. I said, "You can put the trolly up and then people can go in it." She responded, "No. It will talk again." Haha for whatever reason she was not a fan of what Trolly was saying!
Riley was so excited to get to play with the doll house at Grandma and Grandpas house. I was so impressed by her willingness to wear a mask and make sure to protect her grandparents. It was also so fun watching Riley play with Elena. Elena was so sweet with her, sharing her Elsa and Anna dolls.
Another fun part of the trip was that my sister-in-laws threw me a Winnie the Pooh themed baby shower. Unfortunately, Mom didn't feel comfortable going to the gathering for health reasons, but Ana and a few of my closest friends were there.
There was one casualty from this trip. On the way home we weren't thinking and we checked a bag with Riley's nightlight. Well the luggage must've been tossed around a bit because when we tried it at home the light function didn't work anymore. It's now just a sound machine. We can't live without that nightlight so Ben raced to Target to buy a similar product. Riley, of course, noticed the change and we tried to explain that her old one got damaged when we checked our bags on the plane. Later, she asked about her nightlight again and we asked her if she remembered what we told her had happened to it. She said, "Yeah, you gave it to someone to throw!"
I don’t follow too many “influencers” on Instagram, but the ones I do have to do with parenting. One of my favorites is a woman from Texas who preaches about positive parenting. I get her emails and near the end of November she sent out an email with some an advent calendar print out. She shared that she likes to do advent calendars filled with family activities to promote togetherness during the holidays. I thought it looked fun, so I printed out some of her ideas and added a few of my own to create 24 family activities to do during December. I will say part way through December it started to feel like a lot, to have to do an activity every day, but that’s why there were a lot of simple things in there. There were a few big activities, a few crafts that required a lot of oversight, but there were also things like have hot chocolate, watch a Christmas movie, sing Christmas songs at the piano, or have a Christmas music dance party. While the big activities were fun it was really fun to see what small things brought her a lot of joy as well.
One of our first activities was going to see Christmas lights! I love getting to see lights and luckily there was a big walk through display not too far from our house. I really prefer walking through lights to driving through, but I did plan it earlier in the month so it wouldn't be too cold. Turns out we planned it for a perfect night. When we arrived in our jackets we immediately put them back in the car because we didn't even need them! Jazmin joined us to everyone's delight and we had a lovely walk through the lights. There were lots of fun animal shapes that Riley loved. One of the first ones we saw was a wolf so I knew it would be a good night. She recently decided she was very fond of wolves. I've been trying to find more books at the library with wolves in them because of this fondness, but I will say it is hard to find them where the wolf isn't a villain! Also, why are there SO MANY children's books with bears as the main character?? I guess the whole teddy bear thing? Book writers really think kids are into bears! Anyways...so yeah lots of fun animal shaped lights.
This is the face of a girl watching a light show to the tune of "Let it Go"
There was some significance for this tree...I have no clue what it was now, but I'm gonna just say it was the Tree of Hope...or something.
Meeting Santa! ...Sort of. Last year Santa only did drive-bys. I was hoping he'd do one again, but I couldn't find any information about it and it was already December so I decided we'd have to go attend the Kensington City Tree Lighting to get our Santa fix because it was advertised he'd be there. I am not whole-heartedly encouraging the whole Santa thing, but I figured it's a fun outing either way. I did tell Riley that Santa had brought the Santa gift and the stocking things, but when she asked me if reindeer fly I told her that real reindeer can't fly, just Santa's pretend ones. I feel like pretend things like Santa is such a weird place for a parent! I don't want to be lying to the child, especially when she asks direct questions, but the magic of the make believe is fun too. Although, this girl has so many imaginary friends that maybe knowing the Easter Bunny and Santa aren't real would be a good thing for her. Bring a little piece of reality into her very imaginative life haha.
Anyways...so the Sunday of the lighting arrived. It was at 5:30 and around 5:15 I remembered it was happening. So we quickly had to decide if it was actually worth it to get ready and go, we decided to just go for it and in record time we got out the door. Kensington isn't a big town and we live just 4 minutes away from town hall so it wasn't too bad to get there in time. We arrived, got some cookies and cider, and awaited our famous guest! After 15 minutes or so they told us Santa was on his way and boy he sure made an entrance. As you'll see in the video at one point I lost hope we'd ever see him when truck after truck went by without him in it. Like how big of a posse does Santa really need?? Riley was not sure about the whole thing, Santa frightens her a bit in general, and with all the sounds and lights she was definitely taken aback. Then it was time for Santa to light the tree! Oh boy was that anticlimactic. I have a suggestion. If you are going to advertise a "tree lighting" maybe spring for more than just one single row of cheap lights strung around the tree. Santa wasn't able to meet any kiddos, but Riley got a candy cane from one of his firefighter helpers so she was satisfied. The whole thing lasted about 30 minutes and then we were out of there and right back home. Short and sweet.
Frozen- the Musical!! After our night at the lights we went to the food court at the mall for dinner. While we were there I saw an add for a Frozen I & II the Musical for the next Saturday. I mean that seemed AMAZING so I immediately tried to RSVP for it on the website, but all the spots were filled. It kind of seemed like something you could still show up for, but I worried about getting Riley's hopes up and not getting to see it. The day of the performance we ended up at the mall for other reasons and decided we could stick around and see if we could sneak in. Turns out sneaking wasn't even really necessary. We just waltzed in there and sat down. No one questioned us at all. It was a big open area and tons of people were just able to stand around and watch the show. We ended up putting Riley on this little rug area in the front when we realized she wouldn't be able to see super well in a chair and we stood near the rug and watched her have the time of her life. At first all the little girls were sitting still watching the show, but as soon as Let It Go started a few of the girls stood up, turned to the audience, and performed the song along with Elsa. Riley wasn't quite that bold, but she did start to sing along a little bit here and there. The cutest part was watching her catch on to the clapping at the end of each song. She just looked so grown-up clapping for the performers. Speaking of the performers, we were really impressed by them! I mean for a little mall performance they were pretty good! Kristof had room to improve, but still enjoyable.
We kept up our tradition of gingerbread houses! Honestly, when the night to do houses comes it always feels like it's gonna be so much work, but it always turns out to be a lot of fun. Riley loved making her own little house, and then once she was in bed the adults spent the next 3 hours building our own houses.
These videos are long and not much happens in them, but I just love watching her play and talk.
One of the fun, easy activities involved giving up a box of baking soda and sticking the pups in it. I told myself it was going to be a messy activity and once I embraced the fact that I'd need to vacuum after she was done I was able to enjoy watching Riley have a fun time playing in the snow with her pups.
Not a Riley activity, but proud of myself for sending out Christmas cards this year!
