Riley and Ba Ba get a haircut together

While we were home for Thanksgiving my Dad took Riley with him to get their haircut at his barbershop. My dad has gone to Lee for as long as I can remember, so this was cute to see him cut 2 generations of Caviness'. Riley behaved VERY well during the haircut and we finally figure out why. We have started using our cat spray bottle at home to prevent Riley from getting into things. You know, just a 'gentle' squirt, when 'No' isn't working. Lee has a similar water bottle, so maybe the constant spraying of his face kept him still :)

Kiddo Playdate

A lot of my friends back home have kiddos, so we thought we would try a playdate over at Emily's mom's house. There were babies and toddlers everywhere and no meltdowns! Of course we made poor Sara come over at 9am even though she has no kid alarm clock like the rest of us.

Thanksgiving in Little Rock

My official last day at work was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So I extended our vacation home and stayed for a week. You would think I had more pictures to prove this, but it did not happen. Also, with all this new 'free' time since I am not working, I thought I would update the blog more....again, it did not happen. I must be the most inefficient stay at home mom (or I have a typical boy who is constantly getting into EVERYTHING and doesn't like to nap). Hopefully my job search will be more successful now that the holidays are over and I can go back to work! Here are the few pics I got.

Aunt Laura helping Riley grab a balloon at Grandpa's (Ba Ba) house.

GREAT SUCCESS!

My Aunt Cheryl and my cousin, Christine, came to visit! Can you tell they are the short ones in the family :) ?

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