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Late Night Laughter

Late night laughter that is almost crying

But it is still contagious :)

The Time of Sleeping In and Long Showers

I know it has been quite a few weeks since blogging. You know how when you are on vacation, your time is filled with something, but it is never something productive? And the sound of doing something sounds like the most unappealing thing you could ever do?

Yeah, that has been the last few weeks.

And it has been awesome!!

Chris and I volunteered to make one dinner a week. This is so that we can help out a bit, but also so we don't become so rusty on making food that we starve once we are set out on our own in 6 months. We also pitch in here and there with cleaning, but all in all, there is no way we can repay Chris' family for all that they do for us! It has been a huge blessing that they have allowed us to live here with them, and we couldn't ask for more gracious hosts.

She loves having her own chair at the table!

We are loving the weather here! It is still a tad nippy from the humidity, but it has been great to be able to go out on walks when the sun is out.

First walk with the carrier

She likes it as much as we do! ...at least how it tastes

Mimi and Papa are so cute with Riley! I love that she has been able to get to know her grandparents (and Ben) while we have been here.

She has become more adventurous in the tub! She seems to enjoy kicking around these days. And then sometimes she enjoys lounging back on her dad and licking his elbows. Just depends on the day.

I am really going to miss having Chris and the family around so much as they go to work, but I am looking forward to being a stay-at-home mom now!! This is what I have always wanted to be since I was a little girl, so I want to enjoy it! However, the time of Sleeping In and Long Showers has now come to an end.

Reaching for toys

Samus Boot leggings

Embarrassment

The first time Riley is embarrassed by her dad is officially caught on film

Copycat

Chris wiggles his toes, and Riley tries to mimic him by kicking her leg. Not quite the same thing, but she has the general idea :)

Four Months

 Our sweet little girl turned 4 months today!

These days whenever Riley is held, she assumes her position of facing outward and leaning forward. If she is tired you can get away with holding her looking over your shoulder or lying horizontally, but normally she will only tolerate these positions for .75 seconds before she starts fidgeting.

Riley is doing really well eating solid foods! She seems to like rice cereal and bananas, but she is not so keen on the applesauce.

 She has always liked to have her diaper changed, but now as soon as her pants, socks and/or diaper go off, the legs go up and she begins to enthusiastically play with her feet.

 She started bath time with dad! I have never seen her so cautious about something! In the beginning, she mostly just observed the water dripping from the faucet and looked around a whole lot. Now she is beginning to kick more and want to play with her toys.

 She is getting to the stage where SHE wants to hold her bottle, and no one else! ...even though she can't exactly hold it straight.

When she gets tired these days, there are many times that she will just fall asleep in your arms if you are talking, or lie on your shoulder as you walk around. This picture below is from when we went to Mimi's work to show her off, and she was so tired that she was staring at me like this for a couple minutes straight!

She has advanced leaps and bounds when it comes to holding up her head and tolerating tummy time. She is getting good at grabbing things rather than just swatting at them, and she is trying to figure out scooting when her toys are out of reach. Her scooting results in a lot of aggravated wriggling and face plants, so hopefully she will figure out her arms soon, for her face's sake...

Utah Dash

The time came all too soon to return to Utah.

We already had return tickets to Utah (since we didn't hear back about the internship until a week before we left for Christmas break) so we used the time to dash back to our storage for essential items for the next six months. We flew back on Friday evening, Jon picked us up from the airport (at 11pm, bless that man's heart!) and he gave us a lift to our car. We then went to the storage unit, packed up our car, then crashed over at R&Js at midnight for some much needed sleep. We arouse early in the morning (8:30am... hehe. A little later than we had anticipated...) and winded our way back to our new California home. Thankfully, Mimi and Papa graciously allowed Riley to party with them these couple days while we travelled.

Papa sleeping on the job

Although it was hard to leave Riley for any length of time, I was extremely grateful to know that she was in good hands, and that she was not screaming in the back of the car the entire way. Especially when we hit horrendous traffic in the mountains that delayed our journey for a couple hours. We received little updates here and there on how Riley was doing fine, which I really appreciated.

Happy Riley!

When we arrived back home around 9:30pm, it was so nice to be out of that car! And even though Riley woke up multiple times that night, I don't remember being so happy to hear her cry and be able to hold her again.