Singing

Warning this post contains me singing! Not for the faint of heart!!!

Riley has always been a music baby, I first felt her move when we were at a wedding and "SexyBack" came on and then she was all about Beyonce in my 3rd trimester up until birth. Recently she likes to rock out to KeSha. Well I've decided to go a little more appropriate than "brush my teeth with a bottle of jack" and have hit the nursery rhymes with Riley. She's always loved the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and has recently gotten the hand motions down. She turns around a lot in this video but I've been trying for a week to get a better video and she wants nothing to do with it. I'm sure tomorrow I will get the perfect video! :)

"The Wheels on the Bus" and "Row Row Row Your Boat" are also hits, wait until the end, it's pretty funny, I try to get her to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" with me and she wants nothing to do with it and she, very matter of factly lets me know it!

This final one, is a new song to us, "Slippery Fish," I had never heard it before but one day when she got hurt and I went to check on it they were singing it and Riley loves this song, there are often notes on her daily communication form that she loves this song. This is also where her very dramatic "oh no!" comes from. I downloaded it on iTunes yesterday and looked up the words so we've been singing it, it's kind of a catchy tune! She doesn't really do it here but most of the time we sing it, she flaps her arms around during the Octopus part. It's really fun to see how much she's changed and how much she interacts with songs these days.

Sorry for subjecting you all to my singing! I hope we didn't lose readers!

Sickie

I know that she's not feeling well when she climbs on the couch next to me and does this rather than trying to get involved with my laptop. Yes, it seems I have jinxed us by telling Riley's pediatrician that she hasn't been sick since we put the tubes in her ears. Riley came home yesterday with a drippy nose and looking like hell, she was pale with bright red cheeks and since she had green boogies (I know TMI) this morning, we are home together. I blame the crazy cool weather we have been having (50s in the morning and 70s in the afternoon, which is crazy cool for July for us). We probably could have gotten away with sending her to day care but since I don't want to deal with goopy ears, I kept her home to try to get her to rest more and get the cold out of her.

Book o Fun

I bought this book called the "Busy Toddler" on Amazon last week and I was reading it on Saturday night. I wanted some ideas on things that I could do with Riley because I feel like sometimes she gets bored with us. Most of the ideas are better suited for stay-at-home moms who are with their kids 24/7 but one of the ideas I read about I thought was super cute and so I wanted to give it shot on Sunday. It was sort of cool out last weekend so instead of Family Fun Day we did craft time. The idea was to take a box and make it into a bed for a baby doll. The book didn't say to decorate the box but I thought it would be fun to paint a box white and then let Riley paint it. So we took an old diaper box and I spent Riley's nap painting it with primer to make it white so that then we could paint it together after her nap, I figured it would be more fun (and a bit classier) than a box that said "Huggies" all over it!

Getting ready to paint:

Ok, so I'm probably not going to win Mother of the Year this year because a lot of paint ended up on Riley and in her mouth (no worries, it was non-toxic and I washed it out as soon as I caught her but she's pretty quick for a squirt!)

Riley was over the painting after a bit, because after all, it does require her to sit still so we decided that we would paint a little this weekend and then we could do some more next weekend so we let the bed dry and then brought it inside to show Riley what it was really for. I grabbed some old swaddling blankets from when she was an infant and lined the box with them and then showed her how her baby could lay down in it and go "night night." Riley thought it would make a better bed for her than for her baby:

We finally convinced her that the bed would be better for her baby than for her so she got busy tucking her baby into the bed (just for the record her baby doesn't have a name yet so that's why I keep referring to her as "her baby.")

Time to move the bed...

"Oops. I dropped my baby, better put her back in her bed!" (Notice the baby's legs hanging over the edge of the box! Marc and I were hysterical! Riley's definitely not a delicate girl!)

Finally Riley decided the box...er, bed was big enough for her and her baby!

The box bed ended up being a huge hit and Marc and I were cracking up watching Riley play with it and IN it!

Games

Riley is all about games, I'm not talking Chutes and Ladders games because that would be fun, I'm talking, throw things on the floor over and over and watch Momma get madder and madder games. She also likes this game, we play it all evening sometimes, tons of fun, let me tell you, we cut the video off after a few rounds of this but it went on a while longer...

I Think I'll Just Take a Nap Now...

Just Chillaxin'

watching Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse!

Practicing

I've been using anything as an excuse to practice with my new camera. Today after we got home from the mall Riley had a bit of free time to run around before it was "night night shoes" and dinner time and since she was cooped up in her stroller most of the afternoon she was quite active. This is one of the 90 shots I took in a 1/2 hour, how much do I love being able to take 3.4 shots per second!?! Mamarazzi in full effect!

Are all pictures going to look like this???

I'm loving the detail and vividness in the pictures from my new camera, you can even see Riley's 3rd tooth that finally cut through!

Arts and Crafts

One of the things that made me the was most excited about having a girl was the fact that we could do arts and crafts together, particularly scrapbooking when she was a little bit older. Now Riley doesn't really sit still too much but she is getting interested in coloring. Tuesday when I had her home sick I wanted to do something different with her while we waited for the exterminator to come (we had a bee hive inside of our roof that we had, well exterminated. Yeah, I know not very green and bees are endangered but I am deathly afraid of bees so they picked the wrong house for compassion.) I decided to give coloring another try. I know they color in day care and I tried it on the flight to Florida, which was fairly unsuccessful, but never really at home.

She was more interested in making her crayons dance as you can see above, but she did manage to to scribble some actual lines, generally she just pokes at the paper with her crayon! Dadda has a couple of nice pictures to take to work to decorate his office with though!

New Toy for Momma!

I've been coveting the Cannon Rebel T1i from Costco forever now and a couple weeks ago we found out what my bonus for the year was going to be. We were very pleasantly surprised so Marc gave me the two thumbs up to purchase the Costco package. After asking around and doing some research I decided it was the perfect SLR camera for me to get started in photography and so I placed my order - plus it was on sale this month at Costco. Can we say meant to be??? Of course it arrived the day I left for Phoenix for work so I was extra eager to get home last night. I promised Marc I wouldn't open it until my bonus was deposited in the checking account. It posted on line last night and so I rushed home from work (or attempted to rush home, a flat tire side tracked me for a bit. My wonderful co-worker changed it for me!) to play with my new toy! No more missed Riley shots because my camera is too slow for this lady!!!

Ok, off to play!!!

Catching My Breath!

Well the end of June/beginning of July was a busy month for us so since I am home with Riley today (she was up all night screaming bloody murder last night, which is very rare for her, so I took a sick day and let her sleep and rest up. I think it might just be teething though something is up because she's been walking around all day with her frog huggie and when I try to take it from her to put back in her crib she has a temper tantrum. She generally likes to put her frog and pacifier in her bed when asked and today she would just have nothing to do with it so something is going on with her.) I decided I would catch up on blogging before I head out tomorrow for yet another business trip - I am SO over it! This time I'm off to Phoenix where it is a very toasty 114 degrees!

The weekend after we got back from Florida, Marc's sister and brother-in-law came out for a visit from Virginia and I realize I never blogged about it. I've just been catching my breath from our trip and work and having company right after our vacation, I didn't even see Eclipse until last weekend! {Gasp!} Riley had a great time with her Aunt and Uncle. Uncle Edwin talks to her in a Bullwinkle voice so of course Riley thinks he's pretty funny and Aunt Jill brought bubbles so she was pretty cool in Riley's eyes. It was pretty funny watching Riley with her Aunt and Uncle, she was totally showing off, especially on her rocker where she practically flew off because she was rocking so hard. Saturday we all headed out to Lodi to check out some wineries out there. We found a few good places but we most likely won't be going back to Lodi any time soon, there's not much there, though we did find a yummy lunch place and brought home many yummy bottles of wine but the town just isn't that nice. Sunday we had a low key day around the house before Jill and Edwin left. We had some Family Fun Day in the backyard while barbecuing lunch. Here are some pictures from the weekend!

With Aunt Jill in Lodi, I forget the name of the winery but they make 7 Deadly Zins. They had a great garden in the back and a lawn that Riley could run across while we enjoyed some yummy wine:

What kind of trouble can I get into????

At lunch:

Ok, I'm all caught up now and I feel much better! :)

Bounce with Me

Here's a video of Riley's first experience on the bouncer before we moved it inside.

Riley is digging her new bouncer, which now takes up the majority of our living room. I am super envious of our friends on the East Coast who have basements. Sunday she tried to bring it everywhere that she went, Marc and I were in the kitchen getting her dinner ready and she tried to push it through the doorway and into the kitchen with her. Funny girl! She spent all yesterday afternoon in the bouncer after work and school so I can't complain!

Family Fun Day on Steroids

We amped up family fun day today. We were in Target yesterday and they are having a huge clearance sale on all of their summer stuff so we got ourselves a new pool, since Riley's other one wasn't big enough for her and Dadda, this one had a picture of an adult in it with two kids AND it was a Giraffalaf AND it was on sale for $12, so it was a no brainer. Then we found a Slip and Slide with a boogie board included for $6! Again, no brainer. The other round item you see in the picture - a bouncy house with 100 balls in it (though I need to count them because it does not look like 100 balls) that I found on clearance at Target on Monday. I love Target! So we spent Riley's 2 1/2 hour nap preparing for Family Fun Day on Steroids! We started with cleaning the garage in search of our electric pump. It was in car seat box with the air mattress! Go figure! After we were all pumped up we set up the backyard. And in case you are wondering, yes the Slip and Slide pretty much goes from one end to the other of our grass. There is a little bit of extra grass in case we flew off the end, we didn't want to land in the lava rocks, but not much room for error!


Riley was in awe of all of our new gear and she absolutely LOVED the Slip and Slide. And I will note that we broke all of the Slip and Slide rules, it says in big bold letters, "Not for Adult Use. Not for persons over 12 years of age or under 5 years of age." And we all went on it and had a blast. Riley kept asking for more and picking up the boogie board and trying to slide down. Our lawn may never be the same but it was a fun day. And of course we BBQ, usually we do turkey burgers but today we spiced it up and went with steak kebabs. Next week I think we will try a BBQ pizza, I've seen all of these recipes for pizzas on the grill so I think I will give it a whirl next week. I'll have a pack of hot dogs as a back up plan! :) So without further adieu!



First we checked out the Bouncy House because, well it had 100 balls in it, and they were too exciting to pass up for Riley.

We quickly moved the bouncy house inside because it was getting really hot in the sun so it's now in our living room. The good news is, it holds up to 88lbs so Riley should be able to use it up until high school! And I figure it will be good for strengthening Riley's ankle and feet tendons.

Dadda getting in the first run on the Slip and Slide. Make sure that you have your volume turned up, and if you're at work, not too loud!

You see my feet because I was laughing so hard that I was bent over and forgot I was still taping!

Riley's turn!

Marc did video me Slip and Sliding but since I own this blog I made the executive decision to not upload a video of me flopping on a wet piece of plastic in a bathing suit.

Hi Girafalaf, I love you!

Slip and Sliding!

MMMM cole slaw!

I don't want Family Fun Day to be over!!!

Riley cried when we emptied the water out of her pool and then climbed in the empty pool and waved bye bye (picture above) to her Girafalaf and blew kisses!

So true...

One of my clubfoot mommy friends had this posted on her Facebook status today. I liked it so much I decided it was better suited for a blog entry since Facebook statuses change so frequently.

"Cleaning and scrubbing will wait ’till tomorrow, but children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs! Dust go to sleep! I’m rocking my baby. Babies don’t keep."

– Ruth Hamilton

How true is this? I was talking to my friend Anne yesterday and her son Andrew will be 6 in 2 weeks, I was like how? I remember flying to Texas and holding him as a newborn and here is about to turn 6 and start kindergarten. And then there is my Ri-Bug, I feel like yesterday she was my 4lbs of Fury and here she is a full-blown 1 1/2 year old toddler! I feel like every time I blink Riley is bigger and older and doing something new. I constantly have to remind myself in the evenings, when I am tired from working all day, to cherish each moment with Riley because before I know it, she'll be a teenager and not want anything to do with me! So for now, I'm taking the advice above and I'm going to do the "Hot Dog Dance" with Riley before I am too embarrassing for her to even be around me!

Sass

Riley is pure Sass right now, she even walks with a bit of Sass in her step, shaking her little booty from side to side as she trots to and from. Miss Sass had her 18 month well check on Friday and here are her stats:

Weight: 20lbs 2oz (3rd percentile)
Length: 29 1/2 inches (5th percentile)

Such a peanut! She dropped a bit in percentiles but the Dr wasn't concerned. The important thing is, we finally hit that 20lb mark so now she can sit forward officially. The Dr asked if we had her facing forward yet and I had to tell her we've had her facing forward since 15 months because she wasn't tolerating sitting backwards anymore and I figured since she was 3 months past the year requirement and was only a pound below the weight requirement it was ok since she would scream and throw a fit when we had her rear facing. She was totally ok with that but now I feel better that she can be official! Riley got a perfect bill of health and her Dr continues to be pleased with Riley's clubfeet progress. She even said that she has the gait of a normal 18 month old! She called her a poster child for clubfoot treatment for the second time!!! I never thought those words would have so much meaning and I we are both flying high that two doctors think that Riley's feet are perfect! And of course we are thrilled that Riley continues to develop on track and is meeting all of her developmental milestones.

How it's possible for her to have her 18 month well check already is beyond me! This time two years ago we were having an ultrasound to confirm our pregnancy with her. And here she is a sassy toddler! Where has the time gone!?!

Riley continues to be a ton of fun, she loves saying "hi" to people. We were in Safeway Sunday morning and everyone we passed she waved and said "hi" to, it was absolutely adorable and I hope that her confidence and friendliness continues throughout her entire life. Riley loves to point out body parts, she's moved past "bee bo" and is obessed with showing us our eyes, nose, mouth and ears. Elmo is still a favorite but we've also added Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse to our list of TV favorites, which she really only watches two shoes, Sesame Street and now Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse. We all love to get up and do the hot dog dance at the end of Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse. She also loves using her sign language, especially "all done!"

I can't believe our little bug is getting that much closer to being 2!!!

Last Day in Florida

Saturday was our last day and Florida so I really wanted to hit up the beach since Riley has never been to the beach. What type of Cali girl has never been to the beach??? My brother and Lauren offered to drive us to South Beach since they still had a car, we returned ours when we got to Miami. We ran into my Poppa, his friend Joyce and my cousin, Travis (the groom) that morning so we ended up hijacking Travis and taking him with us to South Beach for lunch and a drink.

Poppa with his ladies and Ed:

Poppa, his friend Joyce, and Riley. I should add that Poppa just loved being with Riley this trip, I think last time he saw her he was a little nervous because she was so small but this year he loved holding her on his lap and talking to her and Riley loved showing him stuff and going up to him. It was so awesome to see Riley interacting with her Great Grandfathers. I remember my GG and feeding ducks outside of his home in Gainesville, FL so I hope Poppa lives long enough for Riley to have found memories of her Great Grand Poppa!

Watching the World Cup at the News Cafe in South Beach. Riley said "soccer" while we were watching it! I was trying to teach her to yell "Goal" since Germany was scoring a ton of them but I had no luck! She was very into soccer and she loves watching the kids at the park down the street from us playing so I think there is soccer in our future. I keep telling her when she can follow directions I will sign her up to play hoping it will encourage her to listen better! Ha!

On the beach in South Beach with Dadda and Pepy, unfortunately Cousin Travis thought it was going to storm pretty bad so we didn't get to play at the beach. :(

After we left the beach we headed back to the hotel so Riley could nap and so that we could get ready for the wedding. The wedding was at a restaurant on Key Biscayne that overlooked downtown Miami and the views were gorgeous!

Me and Poppa:

Ed and I with Poppa:

The happy couple - Travis and Kat:

Bust a move!

It was a seriously fun wedding!

Sunday we had a 9AM flight back home, which hurt really badly! It was a fun vacation but I will not be rushing back to a cross country flight with Riley anytime soon. Marc and I thought she was awful on the flight back (which was fortunately empty) but several flight attendants and passengers told us how good she was so maybe our expectations are too high on how she should behave. She had one meltdown for a half hour and Marc found a seat that was dark and empty and I went back there and got her to fall asleep which made the rest of the flight much better. It's just a long flight. We got back around Noon on Sunday and we were all so wiped out we didn't even see (or hear since we were all sleeping so soundly) any fireworks!

We celebrated July 4th on Monday, when we were all rested from sleeping in our own beds!

Heading to Miami

Friday we all woke up refreshed, Riley slept great, close to 12 hours and so we packed up our room and loaded up the car to head down to Miami for my cousin Travis' wedding. We stopped at the cemetery to visit my Nana and Marc's grandparents and then said hello to our old friend...

DD coffee!

We love our Dunkin Donuts coffee and look forward to our East Coast trips so that we can suck it down any chance we get! Riley fell asleep after we visited my Nana, she was so sweet at the cemetery. We put 3 rocks on her headstone and then Riley picked them up and dropped them in the vase for flowers, she then followed it up by blowing kisses to my Nana. I literally broke down, Nana would just love Riley to pieces and it makes me really sad that she is not here to know Riley. Riley slept through our visit to Marc's Grandpa and Grandma and slept all the way to Miami. We checked into our hotel, which was a hot mess, but all of the family was staying there. We met up with my brother and had lunch with Aunt Lauren and Uncle Ed:

Then we took at quick dip with Aunt Lauren and Uncle Ed before going up for a nap before the rehearsal dinner. Bad Mamma-razzi didn't take pictures of Riley swimming with her Aunt and Uncle, in fact I didn't get any of Riley with Uncle Ed and just the one above (which isn't very good) with Aunt Lauren. I guess they will need to come visit. Riley recognized them right away which was pretty cool to see. She ran right up to my brother and into his arms to play with his beard!

Riley with the bride, Kat, we're so happy to have another girl in the family, that brings us to 3 now (me, Lauren, and now Kat)!

The rehearsal dinner was at Bongo's, which is Gloria Estefan's restaurant so it was Cuban food. Riley rocked the Cuban appetizers, she LOVED them!

Riley had a great time running around Bongo's banging on all of the bongos!

Let the Fun Begin

Thursday morning we were all exhausted but we got up to meet my grandfather and parents for breakfast. It turned out that we were staying really close to my Poppa's old apartment which is also super close to favorite bagel place. My parent's picked him up at his retirement home and brought him over to the Bagel Snack for breakfast, he was super excited to see his great-granddaughter. Unfortunately since we had a bad night Riley fell asleep in the car and we were not about to wake the baby, so Marc sat in the car with her for over a half hour while she slept. But at 9:30 she woke up and the party started...

Drinking "wawa" with Poppa:

Riley and her Great Grand-Poppa, he looks pretty good for nearly 98!

After breakfast we went over to Riley's other Great Grandfather's (Marc's Grandfather) condo so that she could spend time with him and meet her Nana (Marc's mom). Nana drove down from St Petersburg, FL for the day just so that she could spend some time with Riley. We had a great time at Poppy's condo and in his pool. We had the "Poppy Special" lunch, croissants with turkey, cole slaw, Thousand Island dressing and potato chips and Diet Coke before invading his pool!

Here's RiRi with her other GG - lucky girl has two GGs!

Swimming with Dadda and Nana, Riley loved the pool!

Fun with Nana!

After swimming we headed back to the hotel for a nap, epic failure part 2. We finally gave up on the nap and got ready to go to dinner with GG Poppy and Nana at the Outback. We figured Outback was good in case Riley was loud and unruly since we never eat out with her at night. It was a good call, it wasn't one of her finer evenings.

Helping me open my Mother's Day present from Nana, an awesome charm bracelet with pictures of Riley from her first year on it!

Playing with Nana at dinner:

Feeding Dadda some his salad...

"Dadda, you always help me eat, now I'm going to return the favor."

"Poppy, you look like you need to blow your nose."

After dinner I sat in the back seat with Riley to keep her awake, I was not going to allow her to fall asleep in the car and then not be able to go to sleep at the hotel, we all needed a good night sleep!