Tahoe for President's Day weekend

We had the pleasure of heading up to Tahoe this past weekend for President's Day long weekend. We were joined by our friends the Helder's who have been so gracious with lending us all the baby essentials and baby boy clothes for Riley over the past 2.5 years. There was snow but not heaps of it and it definately didn't snow while we were there (which is what the weather channel said it would do). We did however find a great hill to sled on both Saturday and Sunday. We all had a blast in the snow!

Above is Riley eating snow

Below- Saity enjoying the snow too. She also ate alot of snow!

One night after a long day in the cold, we got all the little boys dressed for bed and then they helped the dad's with a 500 piece puzzle. Very cute to witness

Although, the little ones were over the puzzle pretty quickly and opted to watch a Disney movie to wind down before bed.....

.... the dads powered through and finished the puzzle. See them flexing their muscles!

One night we had chocolate ice cream for dessert and Riley enjoyed it so much that he was not only the last one at the table, literally licking his bowl..... but as you can tell he was the messiest too!

I love this picture of Riley. He truly loved kicking the snow and would have stayed out there for hours had I not insisted he come inside and get warm!

Valentine Breakfast

Valentine's Day isn't going to be celebrated today by the Nahas family. We are officially doing Valentine's on February 15th because I have a meeting tonight and won't be home until 9:30-10pm plus our schedules are crazy all day.

But this morning, when Riley woke up, it just felt right to have a special breakfast with him. He and Garrett are going to be Valentine's tonight and do something fun together so I thought it would be fun to have a treat for him in the morning and the evening.

So, we went to Latte Da, a local coffee shop that also serves breakfast. We ate breakfast and had hot chocolate/coffee before heading off to the rest of our day. It was delightful!

There were a few funny moments when his comments caused me to laugh... like when he said "there is a man having breakfast too" then 2 minutes later, says pretty loud "that isn't a man, that is a woman". It was funny but I really hope it wasn't loud enough to be heard.

These are our Valentine tattoos that we put on yesterday. Riley LOVES to pull up his sleeve and point out his cupcake tattoo then mention that it didn't hurt at all! So cute!

San Luis Obispo

2 weekends ago we got the chance to head down to San Luis Obispo to see our good friends Jesse and Amy Cuellar. It was such a great weekend full of hikes, good food, and relaxing. We got to spend some time on the beach with the dogs as well a forraging for wild mushrooms in the hills around their house. The picture below was taken on our hike the morning/afternoon that we headed home. We hiked through the forest until we got to the beach! It was a great hike and thankfully left Riley and Saity tired before the long drive home.

We did have one scary moment of the weekend and that was on Friday night. Riley had developed a cough on Thursday and had not slept well Thursday night. On Friday night he woke up screaming and was acting really weird. He was really warm, shaking (almost convulsing), and answering questions as if he were on crack( Sure, that sounds great! Yeah lets do that)- mind you this was at 2:30am. Garrett and I decided to take him to the ER to see if there was something wrong. It was a truly scary drive because he got really listless and his eyes got really dull and he stopped talking except to answer my questions that I kept asking him... just to make sure he was still awake. When we arrived at the ER he had a 104.3 temperature and everyone agreed we had made the right choice to bring him in. They ended up giving him some meds and then we waited in the ER room to see if he would perk up. While waiting, I found the ice chip machine and brought back a cup full for Riley. He loved that! He literally inhaled them and started to perk up a bit after about 30 minutes. The doctor sent us home with instructions to keep giving him Tylenol to keep the fever down and to give him popsicles. Riley really liked that prescription! We got back to the house around 5am and crashed into bed for a few hours of sleep. It was a truly scary and exhausting night.

cute cousins

Aren't these the cutest little cousins you ever did see???

mini-steam train

Last weekend Garrett spent the entire time working on remodeling our house, so I decided to take Riley on some adventures around the area. We headed out on Saturday morning for Tilden Park in Berkeley. Our original destination was the Little Farm where we could feed cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, etc.... the lettuce we brought from home. It was fun but Riley became uninterested pretty soon as finishing feeding all our lettuce to the cow and goats.

When I was young I remember having ridden on a mini train in Tilden park, so Riley and I set off to find this train... and we were successful! We got to sit on and ride the train through the hills and back (we even when through a tunnel- TWICE!). It was so exhilarating for Riley and yet he just sat there looking around with wide eyes and a huge grin on his face!

When our ride ended and everyone got off to make room for the next crew of riders, Riley ran towards the engine and watched as the conductor poured water and oil into the engine and wheels to keep everything working correctly. I was able to snap a picture of Riley with the engine behind him right before it took off for another ride through the hills.

This was a very exciting day!

Except for the fact that although giraffe is pictured in the photo above, somehow he got lost between this picture and our house.

BIG bummer. Luckily we have 2 giraffes.

my garden actually produces!

Garrett built me a beautiful garden in the backyard this past spring and instead of planting yummy stuff right away I postponed until the only things really to plant were winter veggies. So I planted sugar snap peas (one of my favs!) and cauliflower. The sugar snap peas produced sweet pea pods a few months ago, which Riley and Cole thoroughly enjoyed snacking on while playing in the yard. My cauliflower plants however have been a bit more iffy.... and by that I mean I didn't even know if any would survive my lack of remembering to water them and the cats continually digging them up. BUT, at least one has prevailed! When we were playing outside the other day I came over to "tend" my garden and found the beginning of a cauliflower actually visible! I was so excited and showed Riley, who was excited because I was excited. Now, I'm showing all of you so you can be excited with me!

Bowling

Our weather here in California has finally decided that it is winter, so instead of sunny days we now have rainy gloomy days. So, we have taken advantage of that and gone bowling with Riley on rainy nights. It has proved to be SO much fun. Not only is it a pretty inexpensive way to tire out a 2.5 year old but he gets his own bowling shoes and ball at the alley! Below is a picture of Riley smiling the first time we went bowling as a family (we have been 2 times total now).

One of the most exciting things about going bowling to Riley is the "magic" part of when the ball is returned. You'll have to see for yourself what I am talking about in this video below!