{Happy Birthday Riley}

our sweet, sweet riley grace is 9

we love you so very much honey

every day you fill our lives with light and sweetness

we are so very proud to be your mommy and daddy

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party with our neighbors

riley is the best gift receiver

she is so gracious and truly appreciates every gift

she makes you feel good when you pick out something for her....like you really hit a home run in the gift department

{favorite gifts: flip flops, gift cards, art easel, american girl book, lip gloss and sparkly powder,and a new outfit}

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every year we give the girls an option on their birthday to have a party with friends,
go out of town for the night with us,
or invite two friends out to a special dinner. 
this year riley chose dinner out with friends.

she chose her best friend and her little sister who we do lots of things with
and her restaurant of choice was fridays

these girls had so much fun and
were so polite and well behaved

all of them

we let them sit down at the end of a big table...they thought they were sooooo grown-up
they really acted that way too, which was a bit scary!:)

we totally embarrassed riley (but she kind of knew it was coming) and told the servers it was her birthday
they made her stand up on the chair and shake the salt and pepper shakers as they sang "happy birthday" to her in that special friday's way

she handled it all with such grace and charm
{i was totally having "wedding shower flash forwards" here people
could have been the "spotlight on her" moment
or the balloon tied to her arm
or the scene of all four of them giggling and running to the bathroom fawning all over riley and telling her how brave she was and how cute she looked up there....it was crazy!!:)}

afterwards we went to our favorite cupcake place for some fancy desserts

walking back to the car i saw this totally cool brick wall
i've alwasy wanted to take pictures of the girls in front of one
if i had the slightest idea what i was doing i think these could have really been amazing

they still turned out pretty awesome though right?

it was starting to rain and aubrey kept heading for the street
so we had to cut our photo session short
they loved it though and probably could have stayed there for an hour

love aubrey here!

bloopers and blurry ones can be kind of fun too

oh how i love the sound of happy
giggly girls
it's a good thing huh?

happy, happy birthday sweet riley grace

we love you!

love, mom, dad, janey and aubrey

riley turns 8