Spring Flowers, Plastic Eggs, and a Stuffed Bunny

What do those three things have in common? If possible, Riley looks even cuter surrounded by all of them.

Allow me to explain.

As I have mentioned before, Riley LOVES being outside. We go for a long walk around our neighborhood almost every day, and he is completely calm and quiet whenever he’s being pushed around outside in his stroller. I usually follow the same route, cutting out a street or two if it’s too windy, getting close to naptime, etc. Most of the time we’re able to walk the whole route, which takes about 35 minutes.

  

A few weeks ago I began to notice of all of the freshly planted flowers in a lot of gardens, but there is a particularly full and lush garden on the third block of our street. I also noted that the light cast on one spot of this garden was especially pretty at around 11 in the morning.

So I decided I wanted to do a mini spring photo shoot with Riley in that spot.

The next time the light was right, we loaded up for our walk with a few extra items in the basket of the stroller: a few of the plastic eggs I picked up at Rouse’s for 99 cents and his stuffed bunny that Aunts Elisabeth and Margaret gave to him before he was born. Instead of turning left out of the driveway like we normally do, we went directly to the third block house. I knocked on the door to run my request by the owners, lest they emerge and wonder what a grown woman was doing laying down in their front lawn taking pictures of their garden. Since I was greeted only by barking I decided it was okay to proceed.

The sun was a little glaring, as evidenced by Riley’s squint in a couple of the shots. This one is my favorite, though. For some reason I caption it the same way in my head every time I look at it: “I coulda been a contenda.”

I know not why I think these things sometimes, but I do.

Riley wasn’t in a particularly smiley mood this day, so I had to take what I got. Plus I didn’t want to spend a lot of time in a stranger’s front yard without their permission. A couple of times I heard a car coming down the street and I was petrified it might be the owners returning to find me prone on my belly on their property. Luckily, we were in and out fairly quickly and they’ll never know we were there.

     

I was finally rewarded with a good smile from my boy at the very end of the mini photo shoot.

Totally worth the trespassing risk.