The day after Christmas, Riley turned two and a half.  So this is a few days late, but it's sort of a big update, so I wanted to be able to sit down and write it and try to remember all the cool and funny things she's doing these days.  I love being able to look back at these monthly/milestone updates and see what she was doing!  So, without further adieu...  Ri Ri.... 2.5!

At 2.5, Riley is one funny, silly, energetic, strong-willed little girl.  Currently her favorite things include:  Minnie Mouse, playgrounds of any sort, trampolines (or really anything that she can jump on), puzzles, taking whatever her little brother is playing with, painting/drawing all over herself, riding her bike, and playing with playdoh.  She is also just starting to get into playing with her baby dolls... feeding them, carrying them, brushing their hair... but who knows if this will last. 

She is such a little smarty pants it blows me away.  She knows all her letters/numbers/colors/shapes, and has for many many months.  She can count to 20 in english, and to ten in spanish all by herself.  We've been introducing her to more and more spanish in preparation for her spanish immersion preschool she will probably be going to in the next 6 months or so. I got her a "my first spanish" sort of book, and she loves looking through it and having me tell her what each thing is in spanish!

She knows a ridiculous number of songs, and will sing all day long.  She makes up her own songs, and changes the words in the songs she knows to try and be funny.  She knows how to spell a couple of words (just memorized them), and she knows the sound every letter makes, and a bunch of words that start with each letter.   So if you ask her "what does monkey start with?" "Or "what letter makes a sssss sound," she knows all the answers.

She says some super funny things lately too.  For example, Mark was talking to Riley about the beach one day, and she goes "You can't eat the beach, but you can eat a SANDwich!!".... blows my mind that she could think of that all by herself!  And she still loves to make jokes by saying the wrong things... so things like "ABCDEF....K!!" or her new favorite... abbreviating words.  Or making up words and giggling hysterically when you ask her what in the world she just said.

She loves playing with my parents' two dogs.  She makes sure that you know that Penny (the puppy) is the crazy one and Bailey is the calm one.  When we let them in she yells "innnnnnnnnncoming dogs!!"  She loves to feed them and pet them and lay with Bailey (since Penny is too crazy).  She doesn't mind if they like her in the face, she just absolutely adores them.  She adores all dogs, really.

She's little miss independent.  She want to do everything herself... get dressed, take her pants off to use the potty, get her own water, climb into her car seat, buckle her car seat, wash her hands by herself, etc...  She can mostly get dressed herself (t-shirts can be a little tricky), put her shoes on by herself, and of course, work her ipad and our iphones better than most adults.  No seriously, she has passwords memorized, and finds all her apps and knows exactly what she is doing.  She can work the camera and loves to do "photo shoots like mama," and still adores watching videos of herself and her baby brother.

She asks us questions CONSTANTLY.  "Who is that?  What is that?  How do I do this?  Where is it?"  And on and on and on.  She wants to know about everything, and is constantly asking questions.  "What kind of moon is that?" (crescent moon), "Where is grandma going" "What are you eating"... the questions never end.  And some new phrases she has picked up: "Oh my goodness!"  "Man down!" (when she drops something), "look at that good standing baby!" and "Mama has two big boobies and Ri Ri has teeny tiny boobies" (thanks for that Ri Ri)...

Her manners are pretty darn good these days.  She says thank you more often than not, and is getting good at responding with either "yes please" or "no thank you."  The place where her manners could use some more work is when she wants someone to do something, sometimes it comes out as more of a demand rather than a request ("daddy i need a drink!") so we're working on it. :)  But there is nothing sweeter than hearing exclaim "oh thank you mama!" or respond with "ummm, yes please!!"

She loves swimming, and she goes with me in the hot tub a few nights a week since it's too cold for swimming!  Lately she's super into jewelry and hair accessories, and will say "mama I'm busy just trying to get super cute!" while putting on 15 bracelets and headbands.  She also frequently tells me "she's just gonna go write some emails" on her pretend computer.  She likes to boss grandpa around and tell him to "do exercise!!" on his exercise bike.  Speaking of exercise, she loves to jump around and do jumping jacks and workout exercises with mama and daddy, and she can do a mean push-up!

Now... tantrums.  Hooo boy, well, we definitely have them.  She has started hitting people in frustration, so if we tell her she can't do something, she will occasionally try to hit us.  That gets her a timeout, as does hitting/kicking her baby brother.  She has started occasionally hitting him if he tries to get into her stuff while she's playing with it.  90% of the time she is the sweetest, most loving big sister, and she likes to play with Jackson and she shares well with him, but 10% of the time she refuses to share, takes his toys, and tries to hit him or push or kick him if he gets in her way.  MOST of the time it's pretty easy to see it coming, and we can avoid it with a little re-direction, but sometimes we aren't so successful and in that gets her in big trouble and she knows it.

Mark has taught her how to use a computer mouse as well as the track pad, so she is now a computer master.  She can scroll along and click on her special nursery rhyme youtube videos.  She loves her music videos on youtube.  Favorites include "5 little monkeys" anything with ABCs, spanish twinkle twinkle little star, and probably more that I don't know about, she only watches them with my parents for the most part.

She still adores her baby brother, and gets so excited to see him.  In the morning when he wakes up she yells "BEEEEBEEEEEEE!" and runs to give him huge hugs and kisses.  And she does that after every little absence from him during the day.  She loves kissing him and hugging him, and she's mostly very loving towards him.  She calls him either baby (pronounced bee-bee). Jacky Boy, or boo boo.  She loves feeding him little snacks and playing chase with him, and she loves that she can say "come here baby!" and he will crawl to her. 

She got her first haircut this month, which, believe it or not, made her hair even MORE curly.  She likes to wear headbands and clips, but NOT ponytails.  No thank you.  So her hair is a disaster of curls 90% of the time.  And I love it.

Now let's talk sleep... she doesn't take a nap every day (although she definitely NEEDS a nap!), but when she does, it's normally a 2-3 hour nap.  She also rarely falls asleep on her own (she wants me to lay with her and give her tickles), and about 75% of the time she wakes up in the middle of the night and comes into our bed.  She is the snuggliest little toddler I know!  Luckily for us, for the most part she no longer wakes up before 6am, but she rarely sleeps past 6:30.

This little munchkin loves her books, and loves to pick out her favorite stories to read before bed time.  She often gets fixated on certain stories which we read over and over and over until she has them memorized and then maaaaybe I can convince her to read some new ones!  Her current faves involve a duck and a pigeon, and they are the stories her daddy bought her for Christmas. :) 

Overall, Riley is super fun, amazingly adorable, and so super smart I don't even know what to do with her!  Oh and?  Girl's got some killer dance moves. :)

I did a little 2.5 year on the fly interview with her, and here's what she said:

Favorite color: I want pink.
Favorite food: Ummm, I like strawberries (she doesn't).
Favorite drink: I like orange juice.
Favorite toy:  Ri Ri toys!  And baby's toys.
Favorite movie: Brave (she's only seen it once)
Favorite thing to do with daddy: ummm, paint his nails (insert laugh here, she was joking, she's never ever painted his nails before) and play Boom Blox
Favorite animal:  I like giraffes, and not crocodiles.  Oh and I like chickens too.
Favorite dessert:  MARSHMALLOWS!!  and ice cream too.
Favorite person:  Baby is my person.
What do you love: Baby.
Favorite number: 4 with green on it.
Favorite song: ABC song.
Favorite letter: R!

This month FLEW by.  Hard to believe Christmas has already come and gone!!!  December is definitely one of my favorite months of the year, and this year was no different.  We do lots of fun holiday things, lots of holiday traditions.  We hung all the ornaments on the trees, with "help" from the little ones.  Riley was really into it this year, and Jackson just wanted to eat the ornaments and pull them OFF the tree.

December is the season for holiday cards, and I wasn't organized enough to book family portraits for ourselves this fall, so I attempted to do them myself.  I swear it must be the photographer's curse, to have children that just do not want to cooperate for family photos.  And of course, despite finally getting a photo and ordering my cards on time... I still haven't sent them out.  So you may get one in January or so.

But hey, at least my kids looked cute, right?  Riley put that headband on herself and refused to take it off, which is why it's practically backwards, but that's alright.  Gives her outfit a little character.

We made sugar cookies and decorated gingerbread houses, which really mean Riley ate all the sprinkles and candies while I tried to make things look pretty.  But it was still fun, and very very messy!!

We had Christmas-themed movie nights and read stories in front of the Christmas tree. We read all kinds of Christmas books and talked about Santa and reindeer and elves, and all things Christmas-related.

Christmas trees are magical things to babies.  The lights, the texture, the ornaments... and Christmas trees with trains around them?  Even better.

I really really wanted ONE picture of my two little ones sitting next to each other in front of the tree.  Oh man I had to work so hard for it, now that Jackson doesn't sit still for a minute, and Riley is just a wild woman!  This might have been the best one I got!!

Since Riley loved Christmas lights so much, we decided to take her and Jackson to this special street in Alameda with tons and tons of amazing Christmas lights.  I thought it would be better to get out and walk so we could see them all up close and personal, but it was a little cold and I think Riley probably would have liked it better being in the car.  But it was still pretty awesome!

A few other highlights leading up to Christmas (actual Christmas photos have yet to be uploaded and edited...)
Jackson trying to attack the trains around the Christmas tree... kid can move at lightning speeds!

Riley's very first present she got to open from her Aunt Jennie.  Her very own Minnie Mouse power wheels.

And?  Her very first haircut.  She didn't even flinch, probably because Elmo was on and she got to sit in a cool car chair.  Mark practically forced me to take her to get her haircut, but I must say it looks pretty darn cute, and it's even MORE curly now!

We had a fabulous Christmas, full of lots of family, presents, food, and pictures!!! Coming soon, I hope!  Happy Holidays, friends and family!!!

I posted THIS on facebook:

Things i learned in the last 24 hours...
1. jackson is VERY allergic to eggs. like, stop breathing and turn blue kind of allergic.
2. if you call 911 and tell them your baby isn't breathing, the entire moraga fire department will show up at your house in about 4 minutes.
3. epinephrine is amazing. and apparently very expensive.
4. chubby baby arms make it impossible to find a vein for an IV.
5. there's nothing like a 24 hour stay in a children's hospital to make you realize how incredibly lucky we are to have two very healthy children.

So now, the real story with a few iphone pics to go along with it (since grabbing my real camera was pretty much the last thing on my mind)... in fact we were in such a hurry (obviously) we forgot the diaper bag, my wallet, my phone, and I rolled out in what was meant to be my PJs to the hospital... these are courtesy of Mark's phone.

We decided to give Jackson his first taste of egg last night.  He's never had egg, and we have been avoiding it just in case of any allergies, but decided to give it a go last night.  Mark scrambled some eggs, and gave Jackson some.  And he LOVED it.  He would've eaten a ton, but we only gave him about 5 or 6 bites.  He was really enjoying it, and he didn't get any immediate hives, so we thought that we were all good!  Then about 20 minutes later, he vomited a little bit... nothing too concerning, so we thought maybe the eggs upset his tummy a little.  He did another little vomit, and then he seemed alright after that.  So we gave him a bath, and got him all ready for bed.  I tried to nurse him and he wasn't that interested (which is unusual), so I just put him to bed anyway.  He fell asleep, and then I went to put Riley to bed.

Mark brought him in to Riley's room about 5 minutes later to show me he woke up crying, and now had hives all over his face.  I continued to put Riley to bed and Mark was going to keep Jack up so he could watch him.  he's gotten hives before, but that's as far as his allergic reactions (to unknown things) had progressed.  After I got Riley to sleep, I came down to see Jackson's hives had spread to his legs and his face looked much worse and he was itching like crazy.  I called urgent care, who said they couldn't take us, then called my mom to come watch Ri so we could take Jack to the ER.  My mom came home and as we were getting all packed up to go, Jackson vomited ALL over me.  Twice.  He was covered in hives, and then he started to get all calm, and his breathing slowed and slowed and slowed, until he wasn't breathing and his lips turned blue and he looked like he was just falling asleep, but he wasn't breathing.

I told my mom to call an ambulance, and I ran him outside into the cold air hoping it would wake him up a bit.  He opened his eyes really wide, but was still extremely lethargic, and kept closing his eyes and stopped breathing.  I had to keep saying his name and trying to keep him alert, and it seemed like forever but it was probably only 4 minutes before the ambulance and firetruck arrived.  When they got to our house Jack had regained color, but was still very lethargic and covered in hives.  This earned us an ambulance ride to children's hospital, obviously. 

When we got to the hospital and got all checked in and registered, we were brought back to a room to wait for a doctor, and the doc took one look at him, and said ummm we need to move him he needs to be upgraded to more urgent... so we brought him to another room where they gave him the epinephrine shot in his leg, followed by the worst baby torture ever.... getting in an IV.  It took multiple tries, and multiple doctors attempting to do it, all the while Jack is screaming like I've never heard before.  They finally got it in, and administered his medicine, and then I got him to sleep.  And then we waited.  And waited.  Sitting in this emergency room, waiting for a room to open up for him upstairs since he was being admitted for the night.   Finally a few hours later (like, 3am) we got upstairs where Jack got his crib so I could at least put him down to sleep.  Of course that only lasted about half an hour, and then he just wanted to be held, so he slept for another few hours on the couch with me.

When he woke up in the morning, he was back to his normal self.  His hives were gone, he was happy and talking and laughing, getting mad at me for not letting him get down and crawl, flirting with the nurses, trying to eat the little monitor that was attached to his toes, crawling all over his crib despite the IV still stuck in his arm.  He was a total trooper.  We had to stay for a few more hours so that they could observe him, but finally we got to go home, armed with epi pens and pages of literature on egg allergies.  Oh, and a HEFTY medical bill. But a healthy baby, so that's all that matters. 

Overall, it was totally stressful, incredibly scary experience, but everyone's okay.  Babies are resilient little things, I think it will take me a lot longer to recover from that whole experience than him!

I'll be honest, I hate sharing old old photos (like, almost a month old).  BUT, it motivates me to actually sit down and at least do a quick edit of them, which makes catching up on yearly albums so much faster, so here we are.  More Hawaii!  Yay!

We had some fun on the fake animals at a local hotel... and of course, we had tons and tons of beaches and pools, and Riley loved the tiny playground the most...

But we did manage to sneak over to the beach a few times!  These photos below were not easy to get!  Not when you have a toddler that is less than thrilled with the ocean! 

The next series is my fave.  Thinking about ordering one of them BIG.  On a canvas.

We tried every way we could think to try and get Riley to not be afraid of the ocean.  She watched us go in, she put her feet in, we held her close, we told her the dolphins and seahorses and fishies lived in there (yay!), but nothing worked.  She is clinging to Mark for dear life here...

And poor poor Jacky boy.  The kid does not do well in warm weather.  And it wasn't even THAT warm, maybe 80?  He gets all hot and breaks out in a rash, and he's uncomfortable and itchy, and so I decided to try and help cool him off, to give him a taste of frozen yogurt.  Well, not 10 minutes later, his face got all swollen and itchy and he was absolutely miserable.  Hello allergic reaction.  Luckily it was a wild one, and I was able to get him to sleep by walking him along the ocean, so it wasn't all bad.

Sigh.  So after realizing the beach was probably not our friend, we spent some more time at the playground.

Always guaranteed to get some smiles from this little munchkin!

My little boo boo is 10 months old, and 10 month old Jackson is the best version yet!

This past month has been FULL of changes.  Good changes.  FUN changes!  Let's start with... little man is CRAWLING!!!  he was up rocking on his hands and knees for a little while, and after we got back from Hawaii he decided it was time, and off he went!  He is now a full blown crawler, cruising around the house.  He's pretty darn fast now too!!

Speaking of crawling, now that he can get himself wherever he wants to go, that boy is trouble!  He can find any object he's not supposed to have, and he RACES over to get it.  He loves computers, keys, remotes, cords, anything teeny tiny (notice a theme here?)  He loves crawling races/chase, and for some reason he loves to crawl under coffee tables and through tiny spaces and tunnels under/between furniture.  He loves playing peek-a-boo with anyone and everyone.

He got his first tooth, but still only has just the one.  He is getting better with his food, and loves pretty much most fruits, any orange vegetable, and anything he can feed himself!  He would eat hundreds of puffs all day long if he could.  He's still nursing 3-4 times a day, and yes, still at night.  He's stubborn and we just can't seem to break him of the night feeding.  All in good time, right?

He has become fascinated with wheels- so he loves cars/trucks/bikes, etc.  He likes to spin them and touch them and will just watch them, fascinated!  He also loves this train we just bought that goes around the Christmas tree.  LOVES it.  He likes sticking stuff in his mouth and crawling around with it in there.  He is trying to pull up to stand, but has not been successful yet, but will stand holding on to things for a really long time.  He loves to open and close drawers and cabinets and doors.

He always wakes up happy in the morning, and just plays in his crib until someone comes to get him.  And as soon as you walk in the room he kicks and flaps and flails with happiness.  He takes 2 naps a day, that are usually 1.5-2 hours, although he had a 3 hour nap the other day!  He goes to bed around 7 at night, and then is up 3-4 times after that.

He loves jumping, and being tickled, and doing anything with Riley.  He's a smart little guy, and will sit there and play with his shape sorter truck until he figures out how to get the shape out that he wants.  He has a temper and gets super mad if you take something away or if he wants something he can't have.  He is not afraid to let you know when he isn't happy!

I have no idea how much he weighs, but he is in 12 month clothes.  He knows who mama and dada and Riley are, and he is one loud, chatty little duded.  He says lots of different sounds, but dadadada is definitely his favorite thing to say.  He loves the water (bath and pool) and cries every time he has to get out of the bath at night.  He LOVES dogs, and will crawl right over to Bailey and pet her and grab her and kiss her.  He has tons of amazing facial expressions, and the best is when he clenches his whole face in excitement. 

He is just the sweetest, cutest little monkey and he seriously gets more and more fun each and every day.  LOVE love love him sooo much!

Ooooookay, so... it's been a while.  So sit back, relax, this is going to be a long one!!

A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to go to Hawaii with my parents and my sister and her husband.  It was definitely a much needed vacation, although I'm not sure vacation ever really has the same meaning once you have kids!!!

A 5 hour flight should seem like nothing after multiple 14 hour plane adventures, but man was it challenging!  Now, I say that, but really both kids were pretty darn good, just Riley was a LOT of work to entertain!!  She's so go-go-go that 5 hours on a plane in the middle of the day is torture to her!  But we survived and landed in Hawaii, ready for fun!

So we stayed in a condo, which was nice because both kids could have their own room... only downside was, Riley's room had 2 single beds, which were set up in a way that you couldn't just put them together, but there was only like 2 feet between them.... so I basically stuffed that space with pillows and blankets and turned it into a HUGE bed.  Bigger than any bed she's slept in.  And wouldn't it figure, that she would fall out of that bed not once but TWICE in the middle of the night.  Talk about giving your mama a heart attack, nothing worse than hearing a huge THUD followed by screams at 2am!  But she recovered quickly and we were ready to start our days in Hawaii!

Now, one thing I totally did not expect?  Riley was terrified of the ocean.  Not really the ocean per se, but more the waves.  She's been around then ocean and water plenty of times in New Zealand, but the beach was smaller where we were in Hawaii, and the waves were pretty loud, and for some reason she was terrified!  I was totally perplexed!  She loved the pool, loved swimming, was alright sitting in the sand FAR away from the water, but was NOT happy to sit near the water, and wanted to be carried at all times!

Jackson, on the other hand, was totally not bothered by the sand or ocean... He was pretty much happy most of the time.  The tricky thing with vacation with the little ones is balancing doing fun things and playing outside with everyone getting enough rest and sleep.  One day we planned a trip out to the aquarium (more on that in a minute), and there was a miniature golf place right next to it, so we decided to give it a try.

Riley loved it for the first 10 minutes, then got pretty bored and just wanted to go on the bumper boats.  So I spent the next 30 minutes trying to convince her it was a good idea to wait until everyone else was ready before going on the boats.  30 minutes is a LONG time in toddler world, let me tell you.

Jack was well past due for a nap, and FINALLY fell asleep thanks to Grandpa who walked and walked and walked him around until he was out.  And Riley continued to make it impossible for anyone else to play golf...

Riley is so funny, we told her we were going mini golfing, and she says. "Mini golf?  Oh!  Not MICKEY golf, just MINNIE golf!"  Such a little goofball, that one. :)  Can you tell she has Minnie Mouse on the brain?

These pictures of Jackson below are before his skin started to freak out.  The kid has very sensitive skin, and does not do well in the Hawaii climate.  His eczema was pretty bad, and at one point his forehead was all rashy and red.  He also does not do well in the heat, and our condo had no air conditioning, so sleep was a bit of an issue for him during this trip, but you never would have known it during the day, he was a pretty happy little dude!

The boy LOVES to jump.  And jump.  And jump some more.

Only minimal amounts of sand were consumed while he was sitting there, surprisingly!

This is Riley's GET ME AWAY FROM THE WAVES face.... just before full blown meltdown.

All I wanted was one photo of the two kids together on the beach.  Riley was too scared, so we cheated.  It think Jennie is holding Jack, and my mom is holding Riley.  And we got buildings in the background instead of beach.  But they are sort of on the sand, so whatevs.

Jacky boy was not yet crawling, but he was so so so close (don't you worry, he is full blown crawling now, there's no stopping him!)  It's probably a good thing he wasn't crawling, since now he doesn't stay still for more than 2 seconds!  These two bottom pictures show just how awesome my kids' hair is... Jackson's little fluffy mohawk and Riley's ringlets.

We made it to the aquarium and of course, Riley LOVED it.  She loves all the fish and the ocean animals, so she was in heaven.  We could have stayed there for a very long time!

It has taken me so long to go through all these photos, and the ones in here a just small selection from the first few days of our trip!  I have so many more cute ones to go through and sort, PLUS today this little cutie patootie turns TEN months old, so I have an update coming for him too!

So more Hawaii photos, some videos, and a 10 month update coming soon!