Last Post of 2009!

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! It's been a crazy, whirlwind of a year for us in 2009.

The high for us was definitely welcoming Riley into our family in January, it feels like she's always been a part of our family and we love every minute we get to spend with her. The low was saying good-bye to our sweet Homer, even though we have Riley to keep us on our toes I still miss him like crazy.

We hope 2010 brings much happiness, health, and prosperity for all of our friends and family! I'm sure we'll have many shenanigans to write about in 2010!

See you in 2010!

Love

Allie, Marc, and Riley

Family City Fun

Yesterday Marc, Riley and I drove into the city to meet up with Jenny and Jake for lunch and some shopping (poor Josh had to work, so we missed him) but we had a great time with the two J's! We haven't seen Jake in about a month and he's changed so much, he's sitting up like a big boy now and has grown 2 teeth! Riley's certainly jealous, since she's still toothless! And he is officially bigger than Riley, and 5 months younger, which good thing because Riley likes big, strong men! It was so cute watching them together, they both got so excited sitting next to each other and were talking to each other, most likely about being each other's prom dates! :) We exchanged holiday gifts, as you can see, Riley finally got a Sophie the giraffe and super cute ladybug pajamas! We had some lunch at the Westfield shopping center food court, probably the best food court around, and then walked around the mall there since it was a little cold and wet out. Since Riley has been eating solid foods, I have been sharing whatever I eat with her. I must say, it has been a good diet since I usually order something somewhat healthy so that she eats healthy and she is increasingly eating more and more which leaves me eating smaller portions. Yesterday she ate nearly half of my turkey burger, I was actually still a little hungry after lunch! After lunch we walked around and checked out some of the stores. I found the cutest ladybug ball at babyGap and when I tried to take it away from her to put it back, she pitched a major fit and since it was so cute, I broke down and bought her an early birthday present!

Here's Jake and Marc hanging out while Jenny went to get her lunch:

Mr. Jake!

Riley clapping at lunch:

Riley hugging her new ladybug ball:

That Was Then, This is Now

Here's a picture of Riley after her first bath at home, she was 10 days old...

This is Riley today, at just about 11 1/2 months, after her bath this morning...

CRAZY!!!

Bath Time is Fun!

Riley has always loved her bath but lately her zeal for the bath has grown. I think because running facets are pretty cool in her mind, Marc was getting her bath ready this morning and he couldn't get it prepared fast enough!

Amazing Girl!

Riley never ceases to amaze me. I remember last year at this time everything seemed like a big question mark. From labor and delivery to what clubfeet would mean to us and Riley's future. So many questions and so many worries. I am starting to get nostalgic since Riley's birthday is exactly three weeks from today. Last night we were looking at pictures of Riley from when she was a newborn and we can't believe how far she has come, from our 4lbs of Fury to the social, curious little girl she is today. She's been a little challenging the past few days (see Hurricane Riley post), she's definitely testing our limits and her independence and she throws the occasional temper tantrum but just when we are about to lose it, she does something so amazing or so sweet. Tonight I witnessed Riley walking with her push toy in her brace for the first time. Marc's seen her walk with it on a bunch but this was the first time I had seen it. This is a little girl who I was so worried about walking and developing and here she is, "walking" with her brace on. She had a couple of better runs but you get a sampling of her walking in her brace from this clip! After the video was over I was clapping and telling her what a great job she did and she started clapping for herself too, it was too cute!

After the initial scare and sadness of having a baby with a birth defect wore off I decided that I never wanted Riley to be defined or limited by her clubfeet, and I think from this video that you can see how truly determined Riley is, nothing stands in her way and nothing holds her down. I hope she always stays so tenacious. Sometimes I think she is so determined because of her clubfeet, she's always had to learn how to do things two ways, with her brace and without her brace. And I really think being around so many Drs since she was a newborn has helped make her so sociable. There is still a whole lot of worry (which will probably never go away!) and still some unanswered questions but in many ways maybe clubfeet has benefited her and us, after all, we've learned a ton in the last year as well. Or maybe Riley would have been just as determined if she didn't have clubfeet. Who knows! All I know, is we couldn't be more proud of our Little Bug and everything she achieves is just that much sweeter for us! And I loved watching her "walk" around the living room with her brace on like it was nothing!

Hurricane Riley

Hurricane Riley hit Dublin, CA with great force today, generating about 30 cruising steps per minute using anything and everything to help walk through the path of destruction. Nothing was safe in the path of Hurricane Riley which cause great destruction in the living room. There were several casualties - a page from Momma's planner, a book, and a Fisher Price Little People chair was missing but was later found underneath the Bumbo chair safe and sound and returned with the rest of the set.

The first round of dinner was also a lost, luckily there were reserves and helped calm the Hurricane for several minutes. Adult residents are now recovering with a giant glass of wine and an extra early bedtime.

The Peeps Have Spoken

and the iPhone has been ordered (the 2 "No" votes were indeed Marc). I should be receiving my wonderful new iPhone (which turned out to be a birthday present from Marc) within a week!

Thanks for all of your votes!

Hanukkah Party

Well Hanukkah is over. :( I had so much fun sharing my favorite holiday with Riley this year, she really figured out after a few nights that not only did she get to rip the wrapping paper without it getting taken away from her but that there was usually a pretty cool new toy underneath that magical paper. She really racked up a bunch of new toys. I think at her birthday next month I am going to have to put a lot of the toys away and take them out throughout the year for her so that she gets some new stuff in a few months, one of the disadvantages of having a January birthday, no more presents for the rest of the year!



Even though Hanukkah ended on Friday we had a Hanukkah party for her playgroup at our house. We had about 10 people over and I made latkes and sufganiyot (jelly filled donuts). I also had dreidels for everyone to play with and for the older kids we made marshmallow dreidels. It was a bit chaotic over with some of the older kids but Riley had a great time.


The Marshmallow Dreidel making table:


















A Marshmallow Dreidel:



















My sufganiyot (the latkes were still cooking):

Riley drinking her milk before the party starts - she just looks so "grown up" to me here!

Playing at the party!





















Now that Hanukkah is over, it's time to start planning Riley's 1st birthday party!

Arts and Crafts

This is Riley's first arts and craft that she made in school! They do arts and crafts nearly every day in the toddler class so I am sure it will lose it's excitement after a while but tonight we were both very excited to see the creation she brought home!

Riley was pretty proud of her art work too, she didn't even try to eat it!

And we put her creation on the refrigerator!!!

Our Big Girl

Ok, I'm going to warn you, this is a major brag post but I just had to share. Yesterday day care tested Riley in the Toddler class (ages 1-2) and she did FANTASTIC! Which was exactly what I needed after a rough morning. They told me they originally planned for her to be there for an hour but she was there from about 9:30 - 3:00! She ate lunch with the big kids (even had a tuna sandwich, which Marc was not happy about since he hates tuna, and tomato soup!), sitting in a real chair, not a high chair, and even napped on a cot, yes a cot, with all of the big kids! Two of the boys from her class that she plays with just moved up there and there are two other kids that moved up a few months ago so she had some playmates that she knew over there, not that Riley cares, she'll go up to anyone! But they said she had so much fun and did great, her only area of improvement was nap time, big shock there, Riley is not a great napper. They said she had a hard time staying in one place but nothing too bad for a baby who has never slept anywhere other than a crib and eventually caught on and napped for almost an hour! I personally think she will do better there because they all nap at the same time so she won't be distracted by other kids playing which is what's happening in her infant class. The toddler class is very scheduled so I think she's going to thrive over there! Today they even asked me to start bringing her in shoes from now on since she will be going over there!

Our girl is so grown up now!

On a side note, last night when I was putting her to bed she threw her arms around my neck and put her head on my shoulder and squeezed me, she hugged me for several minutes, looking up every so often at my face and then nuzzling back down. I didn't want to put her in her crib! It was too sweet!

All Grown Up!

Wow, I can hardly believe Riley is 11 months old today. We were in Babies R Us together on Thursday and passed the preemie clothes rack. It's so hard to believe that those clothes were once big on her and that she wore preemie clothes for months and now they look so little next to her!

First Hanukkah

Tonight was the first night of Hanukkah and after a great checkup we were all in the mood for a Hanukkah celebration. I've been cooking for two days, I made brisket and green bean casserole yesterday and latkes tonight. We lit the Menorah for Riley and she loved looking at the candles (totally my girl, that's my favorite part of Hanukkah) and then opened presents. Riley picked up on the whole presents thing after a couple (she got to open a bunch from other people tonight). She was a little more interested in the paper than the actual gifts, finally paper I will let her rip! Then we had a huge feast, I think the Hanukkah flavors were a bit over developed for her pallate. She ended up eating cheese, yogurt melts, puffs and apple sauce. Oh well, maybe next year she will be into the latkes and brisket! But I was so happy to share my favorite holiday with Riley!


Riley opening her first Hanukkah present:

Riley and her new Menorah:

Riley is more interested in the paper than what's inside (but she definitely liked her new Hippo books once she saw them!)

It's a Hippo book!!!

Cautiously checking out Hanukkah dinner:

I'm not so sure about this Momma!

Playing with her Little People Hanukkah set!

Successful Day

I took yesterday and today off, I have a ton of vacation and personal days off and work has been kind of slow for me so I figured I should take a few days off and not worry about having to work on my days off. I had planned to take today off for a while since Riley had a checkup at Dr. H. It just so happened that after months of stalking her pediatricians website they were also having an H1N1 vaccine clinic that Riley was finally eligible for! So at 11:30 I headed down there and got in line for the 12-4 clinic, we were done by 11:45 and with only a few tears. I was shocked at how fast the line moved and Riley was a total trooper.

After her shot we headed to get my parents at the airport before heading to Dr. H for a checkup. I always get a little stressed out about her feet the week of her checkups because I just worry so much about her. I knew they were excited to see Riley because Dr. H's assistant called this morning to see if we could come later and told me she was excited to see Riley, she absolutely loves Riley and used to rock her when Riley was hysterical during her casting phase. We walked in and all of the ladies were at the front of the office and pretty much jumped up and down when they saw Riley. Dr. H's assistant walked her back to the exam room like she was royalty. Then Dr. H came in and Riley was standing there looking all cute and he came in and said she looked like a little princess. After saying hi to her and getting her comfortable (he is really a great Dr!) he examined her feet and she passed with flying colors. Her left is still a little tighter than the right but he said it could end up being her better foot down the line but that the crease on the bottom of her left is working itself out. Great news! He continued to say that she's right where they would want her to be and that he doesn't foresee any problems or relapses down the road...he thinks were good! Best news! Riley's been crawling with the soles of her feet flat on the ground, almost like she's walking on her hands and feet, he said that as far as she's probably concerned, she's walking even though she's not upright. He did say he can't wait to see her walk for real and I told him I couldn't wait either because I would feel much better, he said, no you will still worry. Ha! He knows me too well. So funny story, Marc got Riley up a few days ago and one of her straps was undone, he asked if I could have missed securing it when I put it on the night before. I looked at him like, are you kidding me? Do you know I am the shoe enforcer. I check the shoes three times after I put them on. So I told Dr. H this story and he basically said "Oh no he didn't!" Apparently I have a reputation as the shoe enforcer that even he knows about. Anyway I really think Riley did undo her middle strap, she undid my belt last night which is the same mechanism as her shoes. We're in trouble now, I thought we had at least a year before she attempted to take them off! But back to our appointment, it was great, she's doing great and we don't have to go back until March! I am so glad he's our Dr.!

Where Do I Live?

It is currently 27 degrees outside! Riley is clearly a Cali girl and wanted nothing to do with her puffer jacket (to her defense she does look like the Pillsbury doughboy in it and can't move and removes her hat whenever I look away). I'm decked out in my scarf, gloves and winter coat! Someone remind me again where we live? This is crazy talk, fortunately we have our pipes insulated so we had no frozen pipes but I am having flashbacks of my good times at IU - unfortunately on cold days like today, I typically skipped class (...ssshh don't tell my mom), which is not an option when you are an adult!

More Fun at Gymboee

We made our weekly trip to Gymboree and as usual, Riley had a blast! She loves bubbles, parachutes and most of all Gymbo!!!















We worked on walking today in class and Riley loved every minute of it!