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!!