A slideshow to look back at the past year!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Time flies!!

Ok, so I have been really really really bad about updating. So here is my attempt to update what is new in our lives!! Riley is 21 months and VERY chatty. She repeats everything, says 3-4 word sentences, lets us know what she does and doesn't want, says her please and thank yous for everything, apologizes if she does something wrong and gives LOTS and LOTS of hugs and kisses. We have gotten back into the swing of things with me back to work and her back to Gigi's full time. She loves seeing all of her friends and talks about them all day. We just had a great Christmas and are getting ready to ring in the New Years. We have finally dug out from the big Blizzard of 09, but Riley was not a fan of the snow. It took 15 minutes to bundle her up, got out there and she was wanting nothing to do with it! So in we went. She would rather play with her toys and take care of her baby. We are getting close to her 2 year birthday, which I don't want to think about! She is getting WAY too grown up!!

Yesterday she seemed to have a bit of a virus and was pretty sick. But we stuck it out with pedialite and Motrin and she woke up this morning as if nothing was wrong!! Riley is still a GREAT sleeper. Bed at 7:30 and if you let her she will sleep until 8:30 or 9:00....plus a good 2+ hour nap in the afternoon. This makes Joe and I very happy!! Well, here are some pictures from over the last few months!!!

18 months - climbing on the chairs

19 months - hiking at Bull Run

19 months - Our little Halloween Lion

20 months - at a little bounce house for a birthday party

21 months:

Not wanting to be out in the blizzard

Riley and Buster discussing how they both don't want to be out there.

Visiting Santa

Standing at her table enjoying some juice.

Christmas:

Helping get the tree ready

Heading to church on Christmas Eve

Christmas morning!! ELMO!!

Rileys new play station!!

Her new bike from Aunt Tara and Uncle Tommy!!

Christmas #3 at Grandma and Papa's house with her cousins Jack and Gavin.

Making "music" with Gavin

Growing so Fast!!

I am sorry for the delay in posts. We have been too busy enjoying our summer!! We have been just going on day trips - zoos, petting animals, walks, beach, visiting family, and talking up a storm! We went to the beach last week and Riley had mixed feelings about it. We arrived at Virginia Beach on Monday and she was not a fan of the sand at all! She liked the ocean and the pigeons. Every time she got sand on her she cried, which meant we had to carry her from the towels to the ocean. On Tuesday she was a little better and she figured out that she liked the wet sand too. By Wednesday she was totally fine and was running everywhere. I think she figured out that the sand would come off in the water. Overall it was a great trip and we loved introducing her to the beach. Riley has gotten her 4 molars (making it a total of 12 teeth now) and we are very luck that she has had no problem breaking in teeth. It doesn't seem to bother her and we would never know she got new teeth if she wasn't constantly laughing with her mouth wide open! She is still a very good listener and still has no problem with us telling her NO. She may put up a little fight but it usually lasts about 5 seconds and she will find something else to play with or distract her. Unless she is tired, she is a very happy little girl. We are hoping this will continue and she will coast through her "terrible 2's" with no problems......I know - FAT CHANCE!! But we will try to hold off on that as long as we can!

Riley LOVES to dance - whether we are a store and she hears the music in the background or if we are taking a walk and a car passes by with music playing, she will stop what she is doing and dance. Riley knows that when we are walking if we are going in a street she has to be holding our hands.

We are very lucky that she is still a great sleeper - 12+ hours at night and 2 2+ hour naps a day. Actually when we were at the beach she had a hard time sleeping the first night because she was not used to us sleeping in the same room as her. Around 2am when she woke up crying I tried to put her in the bed with me but she thought it was time to play. She has never slept in a bed with us, so didn't want to do it with us that night either...I brought her right back to the crib and she was out in no time. She has no fear of water and enjoys putting her head under water. She would have run straight out into the ocean if we let her!

Riley is chatting up a storm:
* ba-bye (with a open-close wave)
* hi (with a side to side wave) - interesting that she waves differently if she is saying hi or bye!!
*Puppy
* sky
* bird
* Boppy - which is for a bunny
* truck
* big truck (with hand motions to show that it is a BIG truck),
* car
* kitty cat
* no
* uh-oh when she drops something,
* mommy, daddy
* baby
* book
* Uppy - when she wants to be picked up
* mine - not in a possessive way, just stating that something is hers

She totally comprehends things when we ask her to do something "go sit in your chair" or "put your shirt in the dresser", "two hands please" "do you want this or this?" (she will point to the one she wants). If we ask her if she wants to go "night-night" she will lay down in her Night-Night position if she is tired. She is like a little girl now!! We are slowly getting rid of the paci....only in the bed or car (or if she hurts herself!). If Riley is awake then we are not sitting still! She loves to go for walks and pull her lawn mower or her baby stroller with her doll in it. Each walk is .5 of a mile and we do the walk on average 2-3 times a day (on her request!) as we walk she points to every house that has a "puppy" or "kitty cat" and every truck or car and tells us that they are "car", "truck"(SUV), or "BIG truck" (Pick-up trucks or delivery trucks). We are sad that she is growing up so fast, yet love that she is still such a little girl and so dependant on us.

I am really sad that I only have a week left with her until I head back to work. Here are a few updated pictures!!
Playing with her cousin Ike
Chasing the birds (notice that I was not a fan of them!!) Our family beach picture

16 Months and Talking

We have just turned 16 months and Riley is talking up a storm!! We went blackberry picking a week ago and had a great time. It was at Great Country Farms where they have animals to feed, a playground, a balloon thing to jump on, peaches to pick and blackberries to pick. We had a great time.

Riley loves to go for walks. She and I tend to take on average 4-5 walks a day! Our walks take up around our block (.4 of a mile) We just walk and talk. She points to all the houses that have dogs and says "puppy". I point to trucks and she says "truck". She also now says "Stop it Puppy" usually when he is chasing her for food!! I am trying to ensure she understands that she has to hold my hand while crossing the streets....that is usually the only time she don't want to hold my hand!!

Riley will grab all of her paci's from her crib when you go in to get her out. But she has now learned the the paci's stay in her crib. We are trying to only allow her to use her paci while she sleeps and in the car. It seems to be working out very well. Of course if she falls or gets upset we give her it to comfort her, but that is it. She talks so much more without it, so we are really keeping the paci use to a minimum. But if she has one we can say, "Riley, go put your paci in your bed." and she will go out and do it. Riley totally understands what we are saying usually.

Doing some shopping at Giant!

This is an AMAZING age! She is so inquisitive and active. We are loving watching her grow into a little girl!!

4th of July and the Reston Zoo

We had a great 4th of July weekend. We played at the park for a while in the morning. Riley LOVES the slide. She just goes up and down, up and down, up and down. After about an hour she was too tired to walk home! After a nice nap we went over to our friends Adam and Jacque's house for a little afternoon BBQ. We returned home in time for bed so Riley wasn't able to stay awake for some fireworks. She only had one nap on Saturday, so she was exhausted by 8pm. Which was fine, I am sure the noise would have scared her. Perhaps next year!!

Riley enjoys going "grocery shopping" in our pantry. She will take things out one at a time and place them on the window sill. She then sits down with them and takes an inventory of everything she has. She did pick up some spaghetti that was already opened....and well, the rest went on the floor! No biggie, she just kept shopping right around it!

Sunday we just had some quality family time. Joe works on Saturdays so Sundays are really just family day! But today Riley and I met my sister Nicole and her kids Gavin and Jack at the Reston Petting Zoo. She seemed to love it. So really liked the monkeys and the goats. If she was allowed to I think she would have jumped in with the kangaroo and ducks! Gavin had a great time riding the pony and feeding the pigs.

Talking....in Her Sleep!!

Last evening I was laying in bed watching tv when I hear Riley making noise through the monitor. She has not been sleeping well for the last week or so and wakes up one or two times at night. SO I assumed she was needing a little TLC, so I walked to her door and looked in. She was still laying down, but making noises. Then, I heard her say, "mommy, asdlj alsjdkjfk asldmlsdj alskdk, mommy". Basically, she kept saying Mommy and then rambling on as if we were having one of our daily "conversations". So I went to her crib and she was sound asleep!! She was just talking in her sleep. She did this a number of times throughout the night. It was really cute!!

15 months!! WOW!!!

Today Riley turns 15 months old!! Time sure does fly!! We have been playing in her pool a lot and had a WONDERFUL play date with Madeline on Sunday. Joe and I were commenting last night about even though Riley and Madeline don't really "play" together, we sure do love hanging out with Jackie and Chris. We are very excited for the girls to continue to grow up together. They are so much alike!! Another big deal is that she has some new teeth!! We are at a grand total of9 teeth!! Four up top in the front, 3 on the bottom in the front and 2 molars have come in. On on each side up top!! No wonder she is eating corn on the cob!!

POOL TIME!!!



Play Date with the Hydocks

Hanging out with Madeline!!


We were not prepared for the pool....but we had a great time anyways playing in the pool with the Hydocks!! Thanks for having us over!