Riley's 1 year pictures - 3 months late

Well, once again I am behind on putting up pictures that I meant to put up months ago. Riley got his 1 year pictures taken and my nice brain already convinced me that I had put them up on the blog. See you don't even need Leo to come into your dreams for inception, you can make it do it all by itself and then make yourself forget you even implanted the thought. My inception wisdom just for all of you. Anyways, here are Riley's 1 year pictures and some day I might even remember to put up some old vacation pictures - maybe.

Cooking on the side

In my spare time, well what's left of it, I like to cook and do some occasional baking. I have been trying to take pictures to remember what I have tried. Turns out there is a whole art to photographing food, which I have not mastered AT ALL, but here's worth trying:

Ribeye steak with heirloom tomato relish

Baked tofu nuggets

Chive dumplings (Aunt's recipe from Taiwan)

Baked chinese eggplant with chili and coriander chutney

And frito chili pie of course! (apparently Brian never had it before - SAY WHAT?)

1st haircut

Riley was overdue for his 1st haircut, but I was stalling because I didn't want to cut my baby's hair off. All that hair was me clinging onto him still being a baby, but we have ventured into toddlerhood. So I relented and let Brian use his clippers and buzz away. Riley was very good throughout seeing that this weekend was chock full of cutting molars, skipping naps and meltdowns in numerous public places.

Before.....

After!

Now, do we look even more like daddy or???

Riley turns 1

Riley had his big 1st birthday on July 30, and we had a party the next day. We had been on a family vacation (pictures someday) with Grandma and cousin Shaelyn exploring the mountains of Colorado. We came back to prepare for the big 1 for Mr. Riles. We were very lucky and had a bunch of family come in town and some neighbors come celebrate with us. I found a cooking blog where the lady did a Dr. Seuss theme for her son's birthday. She was very creative and I decided to take some ideas, but by no means could recreate her awesomeness. I did keep the Thing 1 and Thing 2 theme by using red and blue with some green eggs and ham too. Rhyming also helps.

Riley posing with all of his gifts.

His birthday cake was from another blog and was a 2-layer yellow cake with chocolate icing covered in M&Ms and surrounded by Kit Kats. Cake from scratch, icing courtesy of Duncan Hines.

Green eggs and ham: Ham and cheese melts, green deviled eggs and a fruit salad for balance.

Riley trying out his new wheely bug from Aunt Laura and Grandpa Keith. Anyone have grandpa nickname suggestions??

Opening up gifts and the one shot where he was actually paying attention

Turns out Riley didn't want to make a mess in front of everyone, so I missed that classic messy face shot at the 1st birthday. He just wanted to eat his M&Ms one by one off the cake.

Some silly string fun

Brian's cousin Serena and her son Jacob came to party

Our neighbors brought Riley's girlfriend for the party. Cousin Shaelyn and Brian's cousin Amy in the middle.

3 generations of Stepps

Riley's Expressions

I have been trying to figure out how to use iMovie on my new Mac. Haven't really figured out everything, which may be due to me not sitting down and spending some one on one time with my Mac. Well blogger said to upload it to youtube (as a private video) and then put it on here. I am not sure how the quality will turn out, but here goes nothing. These were some pictures that Grandma took of Riley back in May. I also have some water damage on my camera so I have been using my phone to take pictures and video, but Blackberry and Apple don't seem to play nice and I can't get them off of my phone other than to facebook. Oh technology, how I hate you.



Well, it looks like it cut the video on the right - cutting off some of the photos. If anyone knows how to fix that, PLEASE help me!

First Mother's Day

For my first Mother's Day, Grandma came into town to visit and help out. Now some people might not be so excited for your mother-in-law to come visit, but I am completely the opposite. I have hands-down the greatest mother-in-law. She even slept in Riley's room and got up each day with him so we could remember what it was like to sleep past 6:30am! It was a sad day, because I only lasted until 9:30, seriously? I used to sleep until 11 on the weekends. Oh long gone are those days. We went down to Colorado Springs to visit Cousin Serena (yep, Brian has 10 1st cousins), Bobby and their son, Jacob. We got to go check out the Cave of the Winds and some pretty awesome mountain views. Funny, none of our cave pics really turned out, bad lighting maybe?

Riley and Grandma outside of the caves

Riley and Jacob playing human sandwich

"The Thing" by King Chef's Diner as seen on Food Network: 2 texas toasts, 2 eggs, 2 potatoes, sausage, cheese and green chili. Brian made the clean plate club and so did I (but I had the 1/4 thing)

View from the Cave of the Winds

The weekend was finished with a night at The Melting Pot. A personal favorite of mine but I mistakenly let Grandma give Riley a whole apple dumpling (whose sauce had Mountain Dew in it) and he ended the night with his very first sugar crash.

Headed back to the South

We made a quick trip to Hendersonville, NC back in April to see family. Unfortunately, it was due to a funeral, Brian's 2nd cousin, Phil, passed away. Despite the circumstance of the trip, it was nice to see family. Brian has such a huge extended family that after 10 years together I am STILL meeting new family! Lucky for Riley he has 2 full sets of great-grandparents on Brian's side and we got to show them how much Riley has grown since November. And all of Esther's sisters were there too! It is so great to be a part of such a huge family, maybe they will adopt our small little Caviness clan :)

Riley and Cousin (princess) Cristi hanging out for the first time (4th cousin?)

Riley the flirt with Cristina, Cristi's momma (3rd cousin?)

The Hoots' Sisters (Grandma's sisters)

Phil's parents - Dot and Elmer with Aunt Eileen and Cristi

(great, great-aunt and uncle and great-aunt???)

Hanging out with Grandpa