30 days of me: DAY 4

Day 4: Your parents.

Meet my parents!  I must say, I have some amazing parents.  And it's funny, I don't think you can fully appreciate your parents until you have a child of your own.  I mean, you can love them, and think they are great and all that, but it's different once you become a parent yourself.  It's like you have a whole new understanding of what being a parent is about... about all the love, all the worries, all the joys, all the hard times, all the amazing times.  And I've only been doing this parenting thing for 5 months! 

So yes, my parents are the best.  They gave me and my sisters every possible opportunity when we were growing up without spoiling us.  They taught us all wonderful values, and set a great example for us in pretty much all aspects of life.  They've always been totally supportive of me.  One of the hardest parts about moving to New Zealand was the fact that I am so far away from my family.  And it's even harder now that we have a baby because I know my mom would love to hang out with Riley all the time if she was close by.    She loves being a grandma!  I'm so glad that we get to go back to California to spend Riley's 1st Christmas with my family!!  AND, Mark's parents are coming too!  Win-win.  I mean, who wouldn't want to spend Christmas with this face??

We had a little Christmas party for the babies in our coffee group today, and then we had a 3rd birthday party to go to, so we had a packed day.  Riley did really well, except was not happy at all to be passed around at the birthday party.  She's just so cute that everyone wants to hold her, but she is so afraid of strangers, so that's not a good combination! 

Here's Riley with some of her little friends.  This is some serious tummy time!  Can you find Riley?  She's the one with no hair...

I thought we were making progress in the stranger anxiety department, since Riley has in fact been letting more "strangers" hold her (and by strangers I mean my neighbors that we see quite often), but when Mark's parents came over for dinner this evening, she screamed if they so much as looked at her!  I think that was partly because she was so tired from a long day, but still!  Oh well, baby steps.

And to finish off, my favorite little girl with my favorite man...  PRECIOUS.