Birthday and a Baptism

It was an honor for Jim to share his birthday today with one of the newest members of our family of friends. We joined Cristina and her family to celebrate the baptism of her daughter Lillian Andrea. Lilli looked absolutely beautiful in her gown and was well behaved during the ceremony; not expected from an almost two month old. We are both blessed to have these two ladies in our lives.

Cristina and Lilli

Cristina with her mom and grandmother - 4 generations of strong women

My precious Lilli - oh how I love her

Happy 47th Birthday Jim - we all love you!!

A Rarity

With three little boys, it is a rare occasion that all three look absolutely adorable (aka "perfect") in any picture. Imagine my shock as I snapped this one in front of our tree. I truly am blessed with three perfect little boys!

After six months and a very crazy life, I've finally made my New Years resolution a week early. For 2011, I am back to blogging. Although I cannot guarantee daily updates, I am committed to updating everyone on our family at least once per week. I realize just how much we have going on and just how little time I have to call everyone and keep them aprised of our lives with a family of three little boys. Cheers to the new year and what 2011 will bring us.

8th Birthday Excitement

For the past week, Joshua has been excited to know what his "surprise" was for his birthday. Seeing as Dominic was with me when we picked it out, he was even more excited (or maybe I was) that he was able to keep a secret this long. Unfortunately, poor little Dommy thought that Joshua's gift was a "family" gift and that he got to share. Needless to say, Joshua is not the sharing type when it comes to his 5 year old brother. Words cannot express just how excited Joshua was when he opened his gift and found a Nintendo DS!! "FINALLY" he shouted. And since he didn't ask for one it was fun to watch his eyes light up.

Jim was nice enough to take both Joshua and Dominic to see Dispicable Me in 3-D....thank goodness because I probably wouldn't have gotten sick! We finished the evening with a special party at our local Sushi place (of course the boys ate Pizza from next door) accompanied by Uncle Jake. Thanks to everyone who called and sent cards to my big boy. He is so proud to now officially be 8!

Poor, poor, Dominic. He straightened up quickly!

Jake and Matty

Happy Birthday, Joshua

Eight years ago today, something great happened....the Riggio's officially became a family with the birth of our oldest son Joshua. As we celebrate the Big 8 today, we relish in not only Joshua's 8th year of life, but our 8th year as parents. Happy Birthday Joshua. Words cannot express just how lucky we are to share this special day with you!

Playing like a Pro

Last weekend, Jim got to fulfill a dream of his that has been on his "bucket list" of sorts for many years. Jim plays on a local baseball team and was invited to play a game at Giants Stadium and Joshua went along for the ride. It was not a "free" trip by any means, but the cost was not an issue since the opportunity to play on a professional baseball field was a priceless experience for him. Joshua was able to play bat boy and for me, as a mom, I am so happy to see father and son get to share this experience together. They both had a blast!

To top off the experience, Jim provided the walk off hit that scored two runs and ended the game.....at the bottom of the 9th Inning with 2 outs. How special is that?

It's Fair Time

Ah, the Mid State Fair. A treat that we all look forward to each summer. Normally the fair brings in the heat, but this year was the opposite.....and thank goodness for that. The boys and I joined our friends Cynthia and Daniel for fair food, farm animals, and fun rides! And the best part is mommy got to ride a few too since Matthew was below the height limit. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the mid week visit provided optimal wait times on rides. The boys and I had an absolute blast and cannot wait until next year!

The boys were smitten with the sheep

....especially Matthew

A Family Photo opp

Matthew was thrilled to have the opportunity to ride a bear. He roared the whole time and kept saying, "go, bear, go!"

Mr Dramatic - he certainly plays the part

Matthew and Daniel

Daniel and Matthew ride a daddy bike

My two hams

The coaster is always a hit

This one made me sick just watching it

Mommy and Matty took a few extra spins on the Merry go Round

Who'd have thought....the SLO Sheriff has a Viper!

Officer Hoops enjoyed visiting with us...and even turned the lights on for the boys

Nashville or Bust

I know, I know, I'm a little late on this post, but playing catch up can be time consuming. It's been over a month since I returned from Nashville, so I figured it was about time to share.

First off, the weather in Nashville is absolutely crazy! Never have I seen it go from bright, sunny 95 degree skies (with 60% humidity might I add), to a darkness of torrential rain, thunder, and lighntening. Even worse is when you are all dressed up in heels when said craziness erupts. God bless super hold hairspray....and several layers of it I must add. Brandie and I got all dressed up to attend the CMT Awards and were treated to front row seats on the Red (er, blue) Carpet where we got to see several stars up front. We even had a guest spot on the local news as we shot a clip with the local news anchor. We also learned that our mugs were on the Pre-Show on CMT. Wow!! The awards show was fantastic, that is, except for the multitude of breaks with silence in between. I always thought that when you attended these things you'd have music acts during commercial breaks. Boy was I wrong. At least I had great company to share the silence with.

The CMA Festival is a four day event with everything under the sun related to country. They close off downtown Nashville and the streets are filled with vendors, free samples, music acts, and tons and tons of fans. We were joined by Jenny, Kim, and Holly for the events and the five of us had an absolute blast!! The best of the music was in the evenings at LP Stadium where the Titan's play. Believe it or not the heat seemed worse in the stadium so we spent alot of our time sweating and singing.

On Saturday night we opted to leave the concerts early and head to downtown Nashville for some fun at Tootsie's; a world famous bar and night club. Crazy busy is all I can say. I refrained from drinking and enjoyed the sights of everyone else acting crazy and stupid. Let's just say there are some interesting people roaming around Nashville....very interesting. On the final day of the festival we stayed put at the house for the majority of the day to avoid the heat. Brandie and I spent some time visiting with a friend of her's before walking to the stadium which gave us an opportunity to save money on beverages. At $8 a pop in the stadium one drink is about all we could handle. Low and behold our night was a long one. On the way home, in the slums of Nashville, Brandie's transmission decided to stop working. We broke down in the middle of the street, on the wrong side to boot, and had to wait several hours for a tow truck. Thank goodness a local police officer was nice enough to sit with us to keep us safe. We arrived home after 2am and crashed.

Monday was spent shopping, eating sushi, and gabbing like girlfriends do. To top it off we had dinner at a local pizza restaurant, Old Chicago, and enjoyed the company of Brandie's neighbors, Scott, Kim, Holly, and Savannah. I was sad to leave, but I truly enjoyed my visit and to spend quality time with my bestie Brandie. I can't wait to make another trip!

CMT Awards Bound

Carrie Underwood

Melissa Peterman

Steel Magnolia


Jenny, Kim, and Me at Tootsie's

The ladies - Me, Brandie, Jenny, Holly, and Kim

Faith and Tim

Kid Rock

Hillbilly Bone - Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins

How Did you Celebrate?

.....at Disneyland, of course! What better way to celebrate a birthday than a day trip to everyone's favorite place. Seeing as we have barely used our annual passes this year, I thought a day at the park might be fun for my big 5 year old. I also thought that taking him solo might be fun, that is until he asked if he could bring a friend. So Wednesday morning we loaded up the Tahoe with Nana and our friend Coleman Silvas and headed out.

We arrived to fall like weather in Anaheim and were blessed with a few surprises from our friend Donny who works for Disney. Along with entry to the park and free parking, he presented Dominic with a special birthday gift, balloons, and front of the line passes for inside the park. Wow! He really knows how to treat the Riggio family and I must say that he has spoiled us for the past year since we met him.

First stop was California Adventure and a few rides. Coleman is a bit gun-shy when it comes to any type of ride so we simply dragged him on and didn't talk about what the ride was in an effort not to scare him. Every ride ended with reassurance that he liked it, but that he did not want to go on it again. And I laughed every single time. What a sweetheart he was all day. We enjoyed a fancy lunch in honor of Dominic's big day which was another surprise. Every now and then you see a finely decorated table at a restaurant inside the park that has a reserved sign on it. Little did we know that it was reserved for us on Wednesday. After learning it was Dominic's birthday, the hostess ushered us over to the reserved spot and proceeded to treat us like royalty. Wow! Our lunch was presented to us on real plates and we even got "refills" on our drinks. Dominic certainly felt like a king.

After lunch is was on to one of our all time favorite rides, Midway Mania (or as we call it Toy Story Mania). The boys both enjoyed the video game action and I was thrilled to not be a "beaver" at the end. For the first time ever I reached a new plateu on scoring AND was the top shooter in our car....yes everyone, #1 out of 8 players! We also loaded up the arcade card and took are hands at the REAL game booths. Unfortunate for us the boys won several times and had a furlough of stuffed animals in tow....wait, wait, wait...."mommy can you hold these?" I knew it was coming. A locker was definitely in our future.

The highlight of my day was the Aladdin show which is ending after next month. The boys both enjoyed the view from the nosebleed section, and I enjoyed singing along to all the tunes. It was late afternoon by the time we exited the theater so we decided to head to Disneyland for a few more rides; Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain (SOAKED!!), Big Thunder Mountain, and the Rockets. Thanks to the front of the line passes we were able to make it through in less than two hours. The boys both picked out light up swords and we were on our way.

We arrived back at the Paradise Pier (where we were parked) at 7:15pm and enjoyed a nice dinner at the PCH Grill before hitting the road. Dominic was serenaded with one final Happy Birthday song which was a great finish to his day. Needless to say we all enjoyed ourselves. Thank you, Nana, for joining us on the adventure! It was certainly easier with only two boys.