Tag Archives: celebrate

To My Mom and Wife: Happy Mother’s Day!

05/08/2016 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day to all wonderful mothers out there! I truly respect those of you who work so hard day in and day out and always seem to smile no matter what. The love of a mother is everlasting, and I am lucky enough to have two wonderful ladies in my life as proof.

My mom, Avery’s G-Ma, has always been there for me and now she’s always here for Avery. It’s obvious how much Avery loves G-Ma since every time we see her, mommy and daddy move down on the list of favorites. They even turn their backs on us!

mother's day, mom, love, g-ma

And if we were to ask Avery for a bite of her snack, there would be no way she’d share, but for G-Ma, well…

Of course, when with her Mommy, my beautiful wife/Going Mom, I seem to get the cold shoulder too.

mother's day, mom, love, g-ma

Geez, how do I survive as a stay-at-home dad with this kind of treatment?!

Can’t blame her, they are both beautiful and amazing women that I’m happy just to have in my life. Not just on Mother’s Day, but every day.

Mom and Kelley, I love you so much and can’t thank you enough for everything you do and all the love you give. Hope you have a wonderful Mother’s Day and many, many, MANY more to come!

I wish the same to all of you wonderful moms out there as well. Have a great day, I hope you’re celebrating with the ones you love today. I’ll be spending mine with these two girls.

Family Selfie in Playroom

We’ll see G-Ma in another week to celebrate again. Maybe we should consolidate Mother’s and Father’s Day to just one day, Parent’s Day. That sure would make things a little simpler.

What’s that, retail industry? Oh, yes, yes, sorry, I’ll shut my mouth!

Life, Parenting

From Full of Mush to Full of Life: Our Baby’s 2nd Thanksgiving

11/27/2014 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

To those who are celebrating, Happy Thanksgiving! To those who are not, Happy Day…..hopefully!

It’s Avery’s second Thanksgiving and we’re celebrating at our house just like last year, only this time it’s just Going Mom, Avery, and myself. We’ll miss seeing our families, but it just worked out this way and that’s okay. Plus, I know we’ll have many more future holidays to spend with our family.

Looking back at pictures from Thanksgiving last year, I can’t believe our little ball of mush has grown into a bigger (but still little) ball of life!

Here she is, motionless, last year…

…and one more, still motionless…

But noooowwww, we’re lucky to get her to sleep during the day (or ever!), and she’s full of life and gives us wide-grinned smiles every day.

Letting us know she's fluent in tongue. — Letting us know she’s fluent in tongue.

Yeah, they grow too fast, huh? Now we have an active little girl on the verge of walking (we think), talking (we also think), and constantly learning about the world around her. Hopefully, she’ll start learning how to help in the kitchen and maybe lend a hand next Thanksgiving. Too early?

I cooked everything but the turkey yesterday and the plan is to drink copious amounts of coffee, go for a family run/walk around the neighborhood, and watch as much of the videos we’ve taken since Avery was born last November. Oh yeah, and enjoy our small Thanksgiving feast.

Our menu for day includes goat cheese garlic mashed potatoes (Kelley’s favorite and #1 request), mashed sweet potatoes with cinnamon and stevia to sweeten, roasted brussels sprouts and garlic (my favorite), microwave cranberry sauce sweetened with stevia, free-range turkey, and crust-less no-bake pumpkin pie.

It’s not much, but I’m excited, and as long as we have goat cheese paired with mashed potatoes, my wife is excited too! Hopefully Avery will enjoy the spread too, and maybe NOT throw it on the floor.

Whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving or not, hope you have a great day!

Do you have any traditions you must do every year? We don’t, but I’m hoping to create them now and celebrate them every year with Avery and Kelley.

Life, Parenting, Photo Journal

Pictures of the Day Our Baby Turned Into a Toddler

11/19/2014 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

Phew, we survived her first birthday! Better yet, so did she! There were more people around than Avery was used to and way too much going on, but she eventually warmed up to the crowd.

The cake, being the first time she’s had sugar, might’ve helped a little. Her cake was actually a pumpkin brownie recipe I used as a base but cut out some of the sugar called for and used stevia in place. This is what we served as dessert to our guests and no one said they didn’t like it, so that’s good, right?

We are still in recovery mode after the long weekend, so I’m cutting it short and just making this a photo dump of the big day. Enjoy!

You spend hours creating my cake, I'll reduce it to rubble in under a minute! — You spend hours creating my cake, I’ll reduce it to rubble in under a minute!

Ummm, dad, your nose is in my eye and both of you are in the way of my cake!

While demolishing her cake, it suddenly hit her......"I'm one!!!" — While demolishing her cake, it suddenly hit her……”I’m one!!!”

It only makes sense to be in your birthday suit, opening birthday gifts, on your birthday, right?

Chocolate Pumpkin Brownies for the guests. We had a lot left over!!

Seriously, anything that lights up is an instant win!

Going Mom opens gifts, I write who they were from, Avery plays with wand and paper. Sums up most of the party!

I hope she always feels this way about sugary food!

We made cake from the chocolate pumpkin brownie batches I baked and Kelley used Greek yogurt for icing and blueberries for the "1" — We made cake from the chocolate pumpkin brownie batches I baked and Kelley used Greek yogurt for icing and blueberries for the “1”

Fun times indeed! Hoping to post a follow up with a quick summary of events and more photos of the fun Avery has been having with her new toys. Maybe she’ll even be walking by then. Hmmm, how long have I been saying that now???