Our Holiday Trip to Busch Gardens 2009!!!

I really cannot believe that we never posted any pictures from our holiday adventures! We had such a great couple of weeks around here and unfortunately the last couple of days that Kevin was off was a whirlwind to say the least! With all of us getting the stomach bug/flu whatever it may have been, we were not up to posting/updating....

So here we are, the middle of January and I am going to try to go back and remember how bright and wonderful our holidays were!

We took Peyton to Busch Gardens for the Christmas Town. They had transformed the entire park with holiday lights, smells and goodies. We had such a great evening besides that fact that it was freezing!!! Oh well, it just put us in the Christmas Spirit. We went to see the Sesame Street Holiday Show they had and Peyton loved it. He kept yelling "Elmo, Ernie, Cookie, Abby" all while eating his popcorn and drinking his coke!

Peyton was too afraid to go up to Elmo when we first saw him so we took a picture for him to look at!
Daddy and P on the tram...Love this picture of my boys!
My sweet baby boy...i am in love with this one!
And this one! We had such a hard time getting him to wear this hat. Now he asks to put it on every time we get out of the car. Sometimes he even wears my hot pink one...he looks fabulous in pink!
Little blurry but we tried to get a shot in front of the big tree..
We had so much fun walking around and freezing and we can't wait to go back next year.

Daddy Blogging Wednesday/Thursday

WOW...it is Thursday and I did not post yesterday or last Wednesday. What was I thinking? I hope I have not let down my couple followers :)

My life truly changed when we found out we were pregnant. Going through IVF was very trying, but the reward was so great. I was so excited to have a child of my own and could not wait until the day that I got to hold him. Little did I know how great the love would be, even in-utero. Everyone who had a child of their own always told me that it is hard to explain and it is. It has brought me a happiness that I have never experienced. I was driving to work this morning and watched a couple middle school children walking to school. They had their head down and did not look happy. That used to be me. I had a moment after watching them where I realized how extremely happy I am and how much I love my life. I walk around with my head held high, shoulders back and with a new lease on life...all thanks to Peyton & his wonderful mommy/my wonderful wife. It melts my heart when I watch them together (although we are approaching the terrible two's and there are times that...well...don't melt my heart). The love that the two of them share is different than the love that he and I share. He has a special bond with her and she is amazing. A couple days ago we were on the road and he was exhausted. He was trying to keep himself awake and was being very fussy. She reached back and gently rubbed his leg. He stopped being fussy and just sat in his carseat. If she stopped, he would be fussy again. That would only work with Amy. She has the magic touch with him (she is like SuperMommy and sometimes it frustrates me because I want to be able to employ my superpowers to calm him down, get him to sleep, etc). That is not to say that he does not love me. He does. He loves when I come home from work. He gives me big hugs and kisses. We roll around, tickle each other, etc. like fathers and sons do. I still rock him to sleep and I cannot let go of that (so now you can think back to the posts about him not sleeping and it kind of makes sense, but oh well...it's just me being a daddy to a son who gets rocked to sleep and gets to sleep in our bed if he wants and I am fine with that (i think). Last night I rocked him and put him in his crib. He was awake in the crib, but was laying perfectly still so i thought he was asleep...until I started to move towards the door and then I hear in the sweet little tired voice..."Dada". He does love me and he loves his Mommy, but those loves are different in character. I am good with however he wants to love us as long as he loves us. I certainly love him and always will. He is an amazing little boy and I am so happy that he came into my life and made me who I am today.

Update...Potty Time

Peyton successfully used his Big Boy Potty for the first time last night after his shower. He was so excited and needless to say, Mommy & Daddy were so proud.
And about 10 minutes after the excitement wore off, he needed to go again and went all over the floor...I guess he wasn't as excited as we thought about that singing toilet.
We will see how it goes over the next days, weeks, months...

Around the Riley Household...

So, I feel like it has been a long time since we updated...so tonight after bath time, Peyton went and hopped on his potty and that reminded me we never mentioned that we are trying to teach Peyton about the POTTY!! He has a lot of interest when Kevin and I are in the bathroom and he always talks about going pee pee or poopy! We figured that we might as well introduce him to a potty and see what happens. He has yet to do any "business" in it, but he is intrigued with it every single day. He always want to take his diaper off and go sit on it. He likes to sit naked on the potty all the time...
We are keeping our fingers crossed that one day he is going to actually do his "business" in the potty and not beside it!