Trip

I took Riley this week to see my Poppa with my parents.  I was a little worried about flying with her without Marc pregnant but Riley did SO well!  She really embraced her big-girl status and listened well and followed directions.  She had a few slight meltdowns on the way there but they were nothing major and she was distracted very easily by the next target, and considering that I had to wake her up at 3:30AM to catch our 6AM 51/2 hour flight, she did pretty darn well!  I got her to cooperate with promised of going swimming a lot so of course as soon as we got to the hotel and she spotted the pool we had to go down there.  She started to undress before I even had the bags unpacks.  Luckily we got in around 3:00PM so we were able to do a post-dinner swim and she was hooked from there!  After we came up from the pool, I was getting her ready for bed and she said "The pool is so fun in there!"  It was so adorable.  The first words out of her mouth each day was "I want to go swimming."  It was a great bargaining tool at the dinner table when she was misbehaving!

Tuesday we went to see Poppa Jack and spent some time with him in the morning.  We went to our favorite bagel place, the Bagel Snack and everyone just fawned over Riley.  She proceeded to tell everyone that her "baby sister is in mommy's tummy," I guess we still have some work to do on her acceptance of her baby brother.  But she was so sweet, she loves old people and they love her!  After our super yummy brunch, and my family's amazement over the amount of food I can no intake (no 4lbs of Fury this time!) we headed back for a nap and then what else?  A swim!  After we got cleaned up from the pool we headed to teppanyaki for dinner with 2 of my cousins, Poppa Jack of course, and my Aunt and Uncle.  Marc and I have often talked about taking Riley to teppanyaki but since she's generally not great at dinner we've not ventured out to do it.  Riley was in awe of the whole even and better yet, she actually ate, and ate, and ate!  I can't wait to weigh her when she wakes up because that girl ate more this week than I have ever seen her eat in my life. 

With Poppa Jack and Cousin Jason

Hanging with Poppa Jack

Happy Camper at her  first teppanyaki

All smiles because she has leftovers!

Black Friday

Marc tried to get me up at 2AM to go shopping for Black Friday, he got a big fat no chance on that one. Instead we went later in the morning, we hit up Target for some $5 Elmo slippers and some $7 fleece footless pajamas for Riley! SCORE! They were all out of the Elmo slippers so I was apologizing to Riley when all of a sudden she yells "Elmo!" I asked her where did she see Elmo, think she very well could have spotted a pair of slippers, Riley pointed to a shopping cart full of restocks and sure enough on the bottom of the cart was the very last pair of Elmo slippers in the entire store. Only my daughter would find them buried at the bottom of a cart! All in all it wasn't too crowded at Target, I was shocked. We ended up at 5 Targets over the course of the weekend so if they have bad profits it's not because of the Zimmermans!

Riley was very proud of her find!

After Target we headed over to Best Buy because they had the new Katy Perry CD for $6.99. Now Best Buy was packed but they were moving people through the line like a well oiled machine!

After our Black Friday shenanigans, we headed to the San Diego Zoo! Riley had a great time, she loved walking the zoo this year! Uncle Ed met us there and we checked out every one's favorite animals! It was a beautiful day to be at the zoo (even the kangaroo thought so)!

After Riley cashed out in her stroller, we decided to leave the zoo and go get some lunch before catching our flight. My bro took us to this really cool place called, The Station. It's a burger place with a sand lot in the back so kids can go play and adults can enjoy lunch and tasty beverages. Their tater tots were delicious and this place was perfect for Riley who can't really sit at a table for an extended amount of time just yet!

Then we were homeward bound, to a house with a smoke detector still going off! It even continued to go off for 2 hours after the batteries were removed. We finally figured out it was our bedroom detector that seemed faulty so we disconnected and all was silent in the house!

Turkey Day

Marc flew into town Thursday so in the morning we went over to my friend Erika's condo to grab some coffee and spend some time with her, she lives right by the airport so it was perfect. We grabbed our pumpkin lattes and went for a walk around Balboa Park, they were doing the Turkey Trot there so we didn't get to far into the park but it was nice to get out and get around until I checked my phone and I had emails from our neighbors that our alarm was going off! They thought it was our ADT alarm but I knew it was our smoke detector because Marc had called me that morning to tell me that they all went off at 4:25AM, just as his alarm was about to go off. He had replaced all of the batteries on Sunday and it seems one of the detectors shorted. The neighbors were worried and since they didn't hear back from us they called the fire department and they were on their way. Oy! I spent the next half hour talking to the Dublin Fire Captain, who was VERY nice! They checked the house out and it looked fine so they left the alarms going off.

I was a half hour late getting Marc but Riley was SUPER excited to see Daddy. We did a little family time, we hit up Old Navy and then had lunch at IHOP (that's all that was open) before heading home to put Riley down for a nap. My mom have 12 people over for Turkey Day including Marc's Aunt and Uncle who live in San Diego.

Riley dancing to the Wiggles again:

All dressed up for Turkey Day!

With Graunt Sandy and Gruncle Michael and Daddy:

Riley was "all done" so she amused herself:

If...

If there are any questions as to whether Marc is really Riley's dad, this should pretty much cover it! (He used to think it was funny to ask for a paternity test, I think this is better than any blood test could ever be!)

Riley is so her daddy's daughter!!!

Photo courtesy of Ralsto, thanks for the laugh Red Dawg!

Sisters and Their Girls

I think I may not have mentioned that Ralsto and I are sorority sisters, we were in the same pledge class in ADPi at IU, so it was awesome spending time with her again and it's so fun that we both have girls! I miss my college girls a ton and loved the girl time with Ralsto, especially the wine and the Glee marathon once the girls were asleep. But Friday came it was time to go, I was so sad to say goodbye to such an awesome friend and her sweet little girl (and Daisy too because Daisy and I became great friends!)

A couple of more photo ops with the girls before heading to the airport (with a stop at DD for some coffee of course!).

(I'm also loving how I look holding two girls! Hopefully one day Riley will have a little sister!) Then it was off to the airport, the guy at the airport was SO nice. He got me aisle seats, didn't charge me to check my bag and gave me Priority Access so I that I could board right after First Class. Riley was great on the flight from Buffalo to Chicago, she even fell asleep. I let her walk off the plane and since we were in the last row we were the last ones off. The pilot saw her and asked me if I wanted to take her picture in the cockpit. How cool is that!?! I really didn't think they did that anymore with all of the security but he let me put her up there so she wouldn't get scared and she sat up there with the co-pilot and the pilot put his headset on her. Seriously cool! It was a little American Eagle jet so everything was a bit more accessible but still so nice of him!

And it went downhill from here! Riley was SO tired, she threw many temper tantrums in the terminal at O'Hare, and when I counted to three before putting her into time out (yes, airports can have time out too!) she looked up at me and counted right back at me, proud of her for counting and it was seriously cute but do I not have any authority!?! Then she got upset when we left the stroller to put under the plane, even though she had no interest in sitting in it but it was "mine," (seriously hate the mine phase) then she wouldn't let me sit in the seat. I flew with her as a lap child and that is the LAST time I will do that. She said "no touch," "mine," "no sit, my chair" as everyone boarded. When I had to sit down so that we could take off she threw a massive fit, screaming bloody murder for over an hour before a flight attendant came and took her from me after asking if I was flying alone. She took her to the back and showed her all of the gadgets (we were in the second to last row) to give me a break from her difficultness, everyone was for the most part really nice about it but I broke down bawling because I was that mother who could not control their toddler on an airplane for 4 hours. I was so upset and she was so rotten on the flight that they brought be a complimentary bottle of wine! It was that bad. She stayed with Bonnie, the flight attendant, for about 45 minutes, Bonnie even brought her to first class and got her a cookie and some milk. Which made Riley feel really cool! When Riley was finally wanting me back she was good for an hour or so and then she started her screaming again, because I had to sit down and not let her sit in the seat by herself. Bonnie took her back and had her help her collect the trash so Riley walked up and down the aisles with her feeling like hot stuff. Thank goodness we landed early! I love you tailwinds! It was seriously awful! I left the plane with a killer migraine.

Despite our flight back it was an awesome trip! I'm so glad I got to spend a few days with an awesome friend. Many of our friends were extremely supportive during Riley's clubfoot treatment and our pregnancy scare but Ralsto was probably one of the most supportive and I am so glad I got to spend a few days with such a special friend and her beautiful daughter! Ralsto is a natural mommy and a wonderful friend! Audrey and I are both two lucky gals! Thanks for a great trip Ralsto!

When In Buffalo, Have Wings!

Well Riley really was not feeling well! Wednesday night she slept over 15 hours (how's that for brace wear!), woke up, drank a big cup of milk and then went back to bed for another 2 hours. It happened to be cold and rainy so Ralsto and I scrapped our plans to go wine tasting (boo! but I guess that's what motherhood is about) and opted to stay in instead. She was kind enough to run out and get us DD Coffee (did I mention how much she rocks!) and then she went out to get me some Buffalo Wings while I babysat two sleeping babies, not a bad gig! I guess the famous place, Anchor Bar is under new ownership/management and is not as good as it used to be, so the locals are split on two places, Elmos and another place that I can't remember the name of. Adam (her husband) likes Elmos better and well we're obsessed with Elmo around here so we went with them. They were delish!!! I got the Honey Mustard flavor because that's Adam's favorite and I knew I wouldn't eat them all so I wanted to get something he would polish off.

Riley woke up feeling much better and wanting to hold Audrey. She seriously loved holding Audrey. She was so adorable with her, when Audrey was in her swing she took a blanket and covered her and in the car she held her hand and touched her arm while we drove. She even turned on Audrey's mobile (they have the same one) for her. It was really sweet! I can't wait to see her as a big sister someday!

Oh and Audrey sits really well in the Bumbo, I had Sesame Street on in the background for Riley and I was blocking her view. Silly me for blocking Sesame Street!

Yes, they have matching outfits, Ralsto and I are fully aware that they will hate us for this one day but we didn't care because they were stinkin' adorable!

I guess I forgot to mention that Ralsto's husband is an offensive line coach (I think I got his position right, if not, let me know Red Dawg) for the University of Buffalo so he's knee deep in football season and didn't get home until super late on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday Ralsto and I waited up for him but Wednesday after two bottles of wine we both passed out before he got home but Thursday he was able to get home earlier so Riley met him Thursday, he's a pretty tall guy, so Riley was like "whoa!" when she saw him for the first time but she took to him right away! We recruited Adam to take a picture of Ralsto and I with our girls.

Silly Auntie Ralsto!

Water, Ey!

Thursday Ralsto took us to Niagara Falls, I knew it would be a hit since Riley just loves water and of course flowing water, so seriously Niagara Falls would be awesome. It was a perfect fall day, by east coast standards, not one of our crazy triple digit California fall days. We of course made a stop at Dunkin Donuts for some coffee because Ralsto pretty much rocks and knows how much I love DD coffee! (Seriously, we need one in CA!). She lives like maybe 20 minutes away from Niagara Falls, seriously so cool, we parked on the NY side and got the girls in their strollers. It was so gorgeous!

Our first view of the falls!

 

We walked a little farther into the park to get a better view. I am always in love with the beautiful fall days, it totally reminded me of my time at IU when the leaves used to change. I just love Midwest/East Coast fall days!

 

Enjoying the falls (even sweet Audrey enjoyed them despite being a Niagara Falls pro)!

After enjoying the falls on the US side we headed over the Canada. I was super excited because I had never been to Canada. We walked across the border, interestingly enough I had to have Marc write a letter saying it was ok for me to bring Riley across the border without him. Another fun fact, we had to pay $0.50 each (babies included) to come back across the border and back into the United States!

Welcome to Canada!

The Falls from Canada!

Enjoying a late lunch and the music at the Hard Rock Cafe! Riley was dancing and rocking out to the 80s music. And it appears that Riley might be right handed even though Marc and I are both left handed. Interesting! :)

Loving the view! (And refusing to nap, it was too exciting!!!)

Riley's souvenir, Monty, because nothing says Canada like a moose, ey!

We didn't do the Maid of the Mist because the girls are too young and we would have had to sit inside, so maybe next trip, but all in all we just loved the trip to Niagara Falls! Thanks Ralsto for being a great tour guide! When we got home, Riley felt really hot so we fed her some dinner, gave her some Motrin and put her to bed, then we got Audrey fed and ready for bed and then Ralsto and I opened a bottle of wine, then another, and watched a bunch of episodes of Glee. (Can we say Red Dawg!?!) Cheese and crackers and wine for dinner and an awesome friend to share girl time with after a fun day at Niagara Falls, doesn't get better than that!!!

Buffalo Bound

Tuesday Riley and I took off for Buffalo to visit my friend Ralsto and her new beautiful baby girl, Audrey. The trip out was fairly smooth, I was very worried about flying with Riley alone now that we've hit the terrible twos but we had a window seat and she slept for about an hour or so and then we managed to pass the time. We also got lucky and there was a 5 1/2 year old little boy sitting next to us so Riley was fascinated by him and his Narnia movie. We landed in Chicago and had an hour layover and then got on an American Eagle flight to Buffalo where Ralsto and Audrey were awaiting our arrival. Riley took right to baby Audrey, she loved looking at her and being near her. She did pretty well when I held her too, she got a little jealous but as long as I kept her involved. Audrey also has a "dogdog" named Daisy that Riley ended up having a love hate relationship with. Daisy is a GREAT dog but she gets excited and I think that intimidated Riley. Ralsto was great with Riley, putting her on her lap and letting her pet Daisy from behind. Unfortunately Daisy ended up spending most of the week in the bedroom behind a gate. Poor Daisy! Riley LOVED giving her treats though so Daisy got fattened up quite nicely while we were there. I will say I will miss playing tug of war with Daisy now that we are home!

Of course the first night there Riley just HAD to hold the baby, I think she actually held Audrey before I got to hold Audrey.