Welcome my little Peanut

I have a wonderful friend that does photography so a few weeks after Blake was born I decided to do some family shots. This by far is my favorite picture. Since Blake was born Riley and Blake have been the best of buds. I love it!
I love this picture too. Aside from the first few weeks of his life Blake really isn't a crier. So when he does he makes the cutest face. Can't you just eat him up?
Blake Douglas Palmer you are a wonderful little boy!
Welcome to the Family our little peanut!

The Arrival of baby Blake Douglas Palmer

On July 1st Nolan and I packed our bags and headed to the hospital. This time around it was a lot less stressful. We knew when Blake was coming and were prepared. Where as with Riley we had a surprised C-section. So Friday bright and Early we headed down to Banner Gateway to welcome this new lil' boy into this world.
This is me in the Pre-op room. I handled everything very well but I will tell you I started having a panic attack about at this point because it actually hit me that I was going to be cut open again! A little scary if you ask me. Thank goodness I married a wonderful man that kept calm the whole time. I love Nolan so much. He literally is strong where I am weak :)
The c-section went well and everything went according to plan. Blake was born easily he had a knot in his cord but thankfully he was a c-section. He had a full head of hair an barely cried. He was born weighing 7 pounds 8 ounces and 20 inches long. Funny story though my CRNA was a guy I went to HS with. Weird to have someone you went to HS with see your bare bum among other things. LOL He was very professional though.
This is Baby blake and Me in our hospital room. I can't believe how little he was especially compared to Mr. Riley. Nolan and I kept calling him our lil' peanut. They gave me some medicine right after the surgery and it made me very loopy so to anyone I said crazy things to I do apologize.
Daddy and Baby Blake hanging out. Nolan seemed so much less scared with Blake. With Riley we were both so afraid he might brake but I think after the first one you know they are pretty durable. :)
Welcome our little Peanut to our family. We are so glad you decided to join us!

Riley and Mrs. Carolyn

This summer we thought Riley would be old enough to do swim lessons so a family friend informed us of Mrs. Carolyn. She is an awesome swim teacher. She is so nice but tough enough to not let them kiddos cry the whole time. The first lesson was a little rough but after that Riley became a fish.
He loves to sit and wade in the water. He's become so gutsy that now he will jump off the step to anyone near by. Which is brave but also a little scary. Apparently Riley is a little braver than me. I love this dare devil!!

Summer Fun

Since we have a teeny backyard I decided it would be a good idea for me and for Riley bear to have a baby pool. If you don't know it AZ gets EXTREMELY HOT! So even the lil' pool is a wonderful blessing in the middle of the summer. Riley loved it so much that every morning he would crawl through the doggy door and start playing in it first thing in the morning. I love that Riley isn't scared of anything.

Mothers Day! 2011

This year for mothers day we were going to be at my parents house. So Riley and Nolan surprised me a few days before mothers day when I got home from work. Nolan ordered my favorite Dinner and had these made for me. If you have never been lucky enough to eat a Sprinkles cupcake you should treat yourself! They are the best. I am so thankful for my wonderful hubby and my precious boy(s). Thank you boys for a wonderful mothers day.

EaStEr 2011

Happy Easter From the Palmers. This is Nolan and Riley Bear getting ready to hunt for Easter eggs. This year we did a big Easter egg hunt with both the Martineau side and the Palmer side. It was a lot of fun with all the little kiddos running around.

Riley got the hang of picking up the Easter eggs and putting them in his basket pretty quick. He just didn't realize the eggs were full of candy :)
Riley opened up his Easter basket from the Easter bunny after church. His favorite toy was the egg shaped chalk which he asks to play with everyday.

Riley Playing fetch

Riley is growing up so fast! He's at such a fun age because he's constantly learning and mimicking us. He's learned to throw the ball from Nolan and fudge is his biggest fan. They have to both run after the ball at the same time. It makes it interesting because Fudge knows to let Riley get it.

Baby and I at 27 weeks

Well let me update you a little on this lil' fun bundle. We are now 28 weeks along. We found out we are having a BOY! Riley is thrilled as well as mommy and daddy! Well if Riley could understand I'm pretty certain he would be at least :) I honestly did not believe Dr. Holmes it was a boy because this pregnancy is so different. I'm not sick (phew) and I barely even feel pregnant aside from my constantly growing belly. That's a BIG change from the last one. We are excited to add another boy to the mix especially since they will be 19 months apart. And yes this was planned, we know how babies are made lol.

Suprise!

Right before Christmas we found out there is a bun in the oven. Riley will get a sibling at the beginning out July. Because I have to have a c-section again I haven't picked a due date yet but we are thinking July 2nd so Riley and baby will be exactly 20 months apart. We are so thrilled and Riley is excited to become a big brother!!!

Christmas 2010

Riley's first memorable Christmas. Sadly I didn't get many pictures but he actually did enjoy more than just the wrapping paper. We spent Christmas eve day at Grandpa and nana Martineaus home. Then on Christmas eve Nolan worked so Riley and I ate Christmas eve dinner at the Police station with dad.
Ps Riley likes any and all strangers except for Santa! LOL We found this out this year.

Christmas Tree 2010

So growing up we never had a live christmas tree because of allergies in our home so this year Nolan and I put up our regular Christmas tree and then decided to purchase a live one as well. This is Riley's first Christmas tree that he might "remember". This is Daddy and Riley Bear at the Christmas tree lot.
Riley and I are deciding on which tree to get. We decided on a cute little 4 foot tall spruce. It smelled nice and made our house smell christmasy.

Riley's First Birthday

The Palmer Family was very excited to celebrate Riley's first birthday! So we did it with a party!! The theme was Carnival and it was like a circus with everyone there.

We had a popcorn machine that made fresh popcorn.

We had bottled sodas

And a whole lot of goodie treats. I think we had more junk food then we had real food. But hey thats what carnivals are for!!

We also had a bouncy house boxing ring which boys of all ages enjoyed. This is Riley's cousin Ryker boxing it up. We had a few other fun games as well like bobbing for doughnuts.

This is Riley eating his birthday cupcake. I've learned to de-clothes him when it comes to messy foods.

This is the birthday boy eating his dinner. This was a great birthday party with lots of friends and lots of family. Thank you all for participating in Riley's first birthday.

Riley's first Halloween

For halloween Riley was a monkey. It was such a cute costume but he didn't like the hat he had to wear. Riley for some reason hates hats. This was the best family picture I could find.
Here is Riley and Daddy going trick or treating for the first time! Riley participated but didn't really understand the concept... Maybe next year. :)

Halloween

For Halloween Nolan's family likes to do a haunted house which of course we participated in. I was the Queen of Hearts and he was the Mad hatter. There was an Alice and Wonderland theme if you didn't guess. It was so much fun to scare the little kids in his sisters neighborhood.

Pumpkin Patch

Yes this is a belated post but I'm trying to catch up on my ever so slacking list of posts I want to blog about. LOL

Nolan and I in October decided to take Riley to his first pumpkin patch, as well as mine too. Now a days they sell pumpkins at the grocery store but there's something about picking out a pumpkin at a pumpkin patch. Riley had fun playing in the pumpkins.

Riley is tapping the pumpkins trying to find the best one to take home and carve. I'm helping.

In the end we found this huge one that weighed about as much as Riley. Daddy had to carry it. It made for a great jack-o-lantern.

Happy Anniversary...5 years and counting! There are a couple of posts...

Nolan and I just celebrated our 5 year wedding Anniversary. Yeah that's right 5 years!! It's weird because it doesn't seem like that long but than I don't really remember what it's like to not have him in my life. I feel so blessed to be married to my best friend and the love of my life.

For our Anniversary Nolan surprised me with a night without Riley and a stay at the Hotel Valley Ho. If you've never heard of it it is a Hotel in Scottsdale that is very retro. I did a photo shoot a few years ago there and loved it! Everything is decorated and designed after the 60's. It's very Beattles and Nolan and I love 60's music and the 60's era. This is a picture of us at dinner in the hotel. Nolan of course was making a silly face.

This is our hotel room. Pretty nifty huh!

And this was waiting for us in our hotel room. Ain't like a mormon married couple to enjoy their evening with soda pop and candy. :)

Riley's first Swim

Riley got to experience swimming for the first time this summer. He did quite well. I was impressed. This is the beginning of starting him into the aqua world. I spent many summer days in the pool swimming like a fish and swam competitively for 15 years so I hope he will get some of that fun from me.
My toasted water baby boy. Oh how I love him!!

California Summer 2010 YAY beach!!

This summer was filled with a lot of fun filled family adventures. We started off the summer with a Trip to California with my family. My parents rented a beach house at huntington beach which was so much fun with everyone under one roof.

While we were at the beach house we also took a fun trip to the San Diego Zoo and Sea World. Both were so much fun and it was Rileys' first trip to Sea world.

This is Nolan not wanting to smile for a picture :)

Riley and I with our flemingo friends. Riley wouldn't wear his sun glasses so he ended up having to squint all the time. Poor kiddo!

Fourth of July

I have to document this. Our family was home for fourth of July so we decided to make a Red white and Blue cake to celebrate. Nolan and I enjoy cooking a lot and always find new ways to make things. We even purchased a few cook books and are starting to work our way through them. More on that later ;)

A Whirl Wind of Vacation

Three days after we got back from Cali my mom, Leah, me and the kiddos traveled up to Utah for a family reunion. I flew and they drove. Bless Leahs heart for traveling pregnant with two kiddos from Az to Utah and Idaho. You are a super hero. I chickened out :)

We went up and stayed with my cousins Wendy and Cari in Idaho. Chaos was the only way to explain it. Fun chaos though :)

Right when we arrived we went to Lagoon. Its a theme park in Utah that has a whole bunch of kid things. Riley unfortunately was too small to ride on a lot of rides so he ended up napping most of the time. My mom was nice enough to sit with him. Thanks mom :)

Riley was big enough though to ride the Marry go Round. He liked it for the first few minutes but got bored with it after a while. I'm trying to prepare him for Space mountain at Disneyland. This is a start.

This is Riley, Mills, and Jace. Jace is less than a month younger than Riley which is kind of cool so he will have a "cousin" very close to his age.

The last day we spent a couple of hours at my cousin wendy's bead shop. She has every bead you could think of. It was like a candy store for crafters! I wanted it all.

It was a wonderful trip full of chaos, missy's emotional break downs, and LoTs of fun! We already miss our cousins in Idaho. :)