Blog Archives

Some big news...

6/29/2011

Riley has something to share with you:

She's going to be a big sister, hooray!!! I'm currently 6 weeks pregnant, and I debated waiting until the end of the first trimester to share the news, but I'm not really too worried about anything going wrong this time around, and I'm not very good at keeping secrets, so I decided to share now! Plus then I have an excuse for my potential lack of blogging. :)

It's funny, I can't really remember if I'm feeling worse or the same as last pregnancy. I'm thinking that I'm feeling worse this time around. I'm really starting to get quite tired, but luckily I'm able to nap while Riley naps, which helps. Food has pretty much lost its appeal (even Jamba Juice!), so it's a bit of a struggle to eat these days. I got around to making my first prenatal appointment, which apparently is really just an informational meeting with a nurse where I give blood and take a few tests and share my medical history, and then after that I schedule my next appointment with my OB the following week (at 10 weeks pregnant). The whole process is a bit different in the US than in New Zealand. All very exciting!

So far there are definitely a few difference with this pregnancy. (1) I'm not as anxious. Last time I refused to believe I was pregnant until I either heard a heartbeat or saw the baby via ultrasound. This time? I saw the two lines on the pregnancy test, and didn't even question it. I only took one test, rather than the two I took last time. I also waited almost 10 days before trying to make a Dr. appt, whereas last time I literally made it the day I found out I was pregnant. This time, pregnancy does not consume my every thought all day long... except for when I feel totally sick, then it's hard to stop thinking about it. :) I can already tell it's going to go by much faster than last time with a busy one year old to look after.

Anyway, due date is late February, and Riley will be 20 months, so we're in for quite an adventure, but we couldn't be happier!!!

8 Comments

My baby the fishy.

6/28/2011

2 Comments

We've started up with swim lessons again, and when Riley is in the water, she's the happiest baby in the whole world. She LOVES the pool. In the next pictures? She's so excited, she's clenching her fists, shaking her head, and squealing all at the same time.

She's a pro at going under water. She doesn't cry, and when she comes up, she looks at us like, "what? it's no big deal."

She LOVES when her daddy throws her up in the air and catches her juuuuuuust before she hits the water, just close enough so she makes a big splash, but doesn't go all the way in. She signs for more more more more, and would gladly be thrown around all day.

But she's also happy just chillin' with her daddy. As long as he doesn't dare try and take her out of the pool...

For some reason, this time around, she decided she really really wanted to drink the water. We'd take our eye off her for two seconds, and she'd dunk her face right in to take a big gulp. Yuck.

But of course, all good things must come to an end, and eventually we had to get her out. And boy did she protest. She screamed and cried and arched her little back and threw her arms up and went all floppy in hopes of convincing us she really should get to keep swimming. And she cried all the way until we were out of the complex and the pool was no longer in sight. I guess the baby loves her swimming time. :)

2 Comments

Some more birthday pictures

6/28/2011

3 Comments

So okay, I may have taken way too many birthday pictures of my child. But she only turns one once, right? Right.

This next one cracks me up. No idea why she's making that face, but it's funny so I thought I'd share. :)

Getting that balloon to stay where I wanted was no easy task, let me tell you. It kept blowing on to the ground, behind her head, hitting her in the head, she kept trying to grab it or eat it, but luckily we got a few good ones.

Anyway, that's the last of the birthday pictures!!

3 Comments

The birthday party

6/27/2011

1 Comment

If you read my blog regularly, you may have noticed the number of posts per week has decreased dramatically in the last few weeks. There are a few reasons for this, but one of them has been the planning/preparing for Riley's birthday party! Now, some people think first birthday parties are stupid, since the birthday girl won't even remember it anyway, but clearly I do not feel that way. I think her birthday is something that should be celebrated each and every year, and I had tons of fun decorating, and I know our guests really enjoyed it! So prepare for LOTS of pictures! We'll start with the decor:

We went with a pink/green ladybug theme, which I thought appropriate since we call her "Riley Bug" or sometimes, just "Buggy." Everything you see here I made by hand (unless otherwise mentioned). That banner has a picture of her at each month, and then some of her one year cake smash pictures in the middle.

At the last minute (like 10 minutes before the party), my awesome sister decided to make that little "R" out of crepe paper... took her like 25 minutes, but it was super cute, so she's the best Auntie ever. :)

The food table, errr, at least one of the food tables. We had berries and candy and cookies, and the CUTEST little tomato and cream cheese ladybug snacks, again made by my awesome sister Jennie.

See that book on the right? That's Riley first year album I made and ordered from shutterfly. It turned out GREAT and it was a big hit at the party!!

And then there was the cake... ohhhhh the cake. I ordered the cake from Studio Cake in Menlo Park, and she custom made it to match the colors of the party, and it was maybe the cutest cake in the whole entire world. And, it was delicious too.

The timing of everything worked out perfectly. Riley woke up literally minutes before the first guest arrived, and was in a wonderful mood and excited about life. She was also excited to see her baby friends that she hasn't seen since our last visit in December!

T-shirt bought from etsy seller cuteasabuttondesigns. I LOVED it.

Totally excited about her new alphabet tower, and even more excited that my cousins would rebuild over and over and over again after she or one of the other babies knocked it down (thanks Tommy and Kristin!).

We moved on to opening gifts, and Riley was a pro! She ripped all the paper off (with a little help from Mark), although I think she liked opening the presents better than the presents themselves. To be expected, I suppose.

She got an adorable birthday crown and flower hat, which stayed on juuuuust long enough for me to snap a half-decent photo, and then they were tossed off. Although later in the day she kept that crown on for a good 15 minutes or so. No such luck with the hat.

Riley was in heaven during her party. She loved being the center of attention, and having everyone look at her and want to play with her. She walked all over the house, from person to person, smiling at everyone, clapping, trying to get everyone else to clap for her, oh, and trying to pull off her shirt. Silly baby.

This picture sums it up pretty nicely... sitting in the center of the room, surrounded by people looking at her, being entertained by multiple people with multiple toys. Doesn't get any better than this when you're one.

And of course, no birthday party is complete without some cake and everyone singing happy birthday to the birthday girl. She was mesmerized by the candle and the 30 people all singing to her at the same time. :) Grandma was in charge of keeping baby fingers out of the fire. :)

I'd say the cake was a hit.

All in all, it was a fabulous day!! Riley had a blast, we had fun watching her have so much fun and celebrating her first year of life!

1 Comment

Riley is ONE!!!

6/25/2011

3 Comments

Happy birthday to my little peanut!!!!! We did her cake smash portraits yesterday, and while I haven't had time to edit them all, I've gone through a few and they turned out pretty cute!

This month Riley really started chatting up a storm. I mean, she's been babbling for quite a while now, and has always been really loud, but this month she seems to babble with purpose, if that makes sense. She'll repeats the sounds we make, rather than just make any sound. Her fave thing to say is dada, but she'll say mama, nana, yum yum, baba, shh, and thhhh. She's signing "more," and occasionally "all done" and still loves to play chase and peek-a-boo. If we say "where's Riley?" she'll pull a blanket over her head, and then pull it down like it's the best game in the whole world. She learned to clap this month, and now does it all the time and expects anyone standing anywhere near her to clap for her as well.

She's extremely social, and pretty generous with the smiles. Although if she's feeling a bit shy, she'll bury her head into my neck when I'm holding her if we meet someone new. She LOVES other kids and babies, and just want to touch and grab and play with them. She is getting SO good at walking, and rarely crawls anymore. She still walks with her hands in the air. She LOVES to be outside, and loves riding in the shopping cart while running errands.

This month she has figured out how to take her diaper off, which means we need to have pants on her constantly otherwise she ends up naked. She HATES having her diaper changed, and it has become a serious battle. And this child is strong, which makes it really tough to keep her still! Her newest favorite toy is the bike that my parents bought her for Christmas, she LOVES it!

I thought she was dropping down to one nap, but I was wrong. Definitely still a 2 nap baby. She had FINALLY started sleeping in (waking up at 6:30-ish rather than 5am) but then of course we moved across the world to a different time zone, so we're still adjusting. Currently she's going to bed at 8:30/9:00pm and waking at 7am. She started swim lessons again, and absolutely LOVES it, but throws the hugest fit when she has to get out of the pool.

She loves whole milk, and now loves blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. She oinks like a pig and growls like a lion on command. She knows a TON of words, and if you ask her, "Where's ___?" she'll go and get it. I won't list them all, but she knows over 50 words and will go to that item when asked. She understands "no", "come here", "sit down," "stand up," and "give it to mama" (or "ta" as we like to say in New Zealand). She likes to share food and try to feed her snacks to us, and stick her paci in our mouth. She's learned to point, and will point things out in books, or point to things she likes or sees.

Basically, she's the cutest, smartest, best one year old in the whole entire world. And we're having her birthday party tomorrow so there will be LOTS of pictures to follow very soon!

3 Comments

An almost one year old.

6/21/2011

1 Comment

It's hard to believe in just 5 days, my baby girl is going to be one. She already seems so much less like a baby and more like a toddler every single day. She hardly ever crawls anymore. She toddles around everywhere, and she is getting faster by the day. I'll save all the other fun and toddler-like things she's doing for her "one year post," but each and every day I think to myself, wow, where did my baby go??

Yes she always walks with her hands in the air like that. :)

I always thought that I would want her to stay a baby forever. Ever since I was little I have loved babies. Yes, I loved kids too, but I LOVED babies. And I thought I wanted a baby forever because babies were the best thing in the world. But you know what, as Riley gets older and older, I'm realizing how much fun there is in store for me as she leaves babyhood behind. I don't want her to be a baby forever. I enjoyed her as a newborn. I enjoyed her as a little blob that started to smile, but stayed put when I put her on a blanket. I enjoyed when she started to sit up, and roll over, and scoot and crawl and pull up to stand. I wouldn't fast forward through any of that, but I also don't wish to go back. I am loving each and every new stage with this little bubba, and I know it's just going to keep getting better from here.

Riley signing "more" for me to read to her yet again.

1 Comment

What a day!!

6/19/2011

1 Comment

We had quite the day around here. It started with a family breakfast at a local restaurant, followed by a trip to the farmer's market and local playground. Riley discovered the water area at the park and is absolutely in love.

She was totally soaked, but soooo happy! She cried when we had to take her out of the water and go home, she was having too much fun. Then later in the day we all (me, Mark, my parents, and Riley) went to the bowling alley for a few games, and then Mark and I went out on a date, sans baby, to celebrate our anniversary! All in all, an action packed, fun day with the family! Happy father's day!!

1 Comment

Blog slacker = ME.

6/18/2011

0 Comments

To say we're a little bit in limbo here would be an understatement. We're at my parents house, but we move in to our apartment next week, so we haven't really unpacked or put clothes away, since we'll just be re-packing them in a short while. So this has mostly led to most of our clothes being sprawled all over the floor. My old computer is pretty much dying, but my new computer doesn't have all my old stuff transferred over yet (like my photo editing software), so I'm back and forth between computers and really not getting much done. But, all will be resolved soon enough, and hopefully I'll get back to regular postings again. Especially since one week from tomorrow, Riley turns ONE!

Lots of things have been happening since my last post. (1) Riley's rash is pretty much all gone, thank goodness. (2) She is now a full time walker. She gets faster and steadier each day, but she definitely prefers to walk over crawl, and she's pretty darn good at it. (3) She as fallen in love with raspberries and blueberries, and would eat those all day long if I let her. (4) She's become obsessed with her grandma. (5) She's become almost equally obsessed with the big black dog, and she'll chase her all around the house. (6) She had her first taste of Jamba Juice and Noah's Bagels, and is in love. She even gets her own baby cup and straw and it's just about the cutest thing ever.

Anyway, so many pictures to come tomorrow, don't you worry. :)

0 Comments

This is what an amoxicillin allergy looks like (apparently).

6/14/2011

3 Comments

Yesterday morning , Riley started to get some splotchy patches on her face. A little weird, but nothing too concerning. Then by the afternoon it was worse... much worse. It had also spread a little to her body and hands. Then this morning? Oh my goodness she looked awful. She had a horrible rash all over her body, and if she wasn't in her usual happy mood I would have probably rushed her to the emergency room. No seriously. We did try and take her to the doctor, but our insurance is still getting all worked out since we just moved into the country, so we didn't really know who to go see or who would take us. We did end up taking her to see a nurse who made sure Riley wasn't in need of urgent care (she wasn't), and who suggested that Riley most likely was suffering from an allergic reaction the the penicillin. Which apparently, can look like this:

It is honestly the saddest little sight you've ever seen. She is so red and splotchy, I just want to make her better! It should (fingers crossed) go away on its own in the next 3-5 days, and I'm hoping it's not going to get any worse before it gets better!

3 Comments

One happy baby!

6/12/2011

1 Comment

We're still adjusting over here. The time change is definitely hard on the baby, but you wouldn't know it by looking at her (at least in the day time). She's happy as can be.

The first night Riley went to sleep at midnight. The next night, midnight again. Then? Around 10:00. Tonight? She was in bed at 9:15 but cried on and off and needed some help getting to sleep until around 10 when she finally got to sleep. We're trying to get her to bed earlier and earlier each night, but it's tough! She's having a harder time adjusting than we are, which is understandable. Last night she woke up every single hour. Not really sure why, but she did.

At this point, I'm just hoping that eventually we can get her in bed before 9:00. :) Although I do like the 8am wake-ups a bit better than the 5am ones. :) Guess we'll just have to play it by ear for a while.

Oh and did I mention ONLY TWO WEEKS UNTIL SHE TURNS ONE??? Yup, my baby is turning into a toddler. Sigh.

1 Comment

<<Previous

Archives

Categories