Riley is two and a half!

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!