Swimming And Christmas Parties

Dear Riley,
Some annoying little virus has invaded your cute little body, causing some occasional crankiness and some lovely discharge coming out of your nose. We took you to your first Christmas party last night, where we attempted to leave you with some babysitters in a separate part of the house and hang out with some adults, and you lasted a little over a half hour before the baby sitter came running down into the house with you in her arms and you had huge crocodile tears running down your face and you reached out for Daddy like you'd never see him again. So, you got to stay and play with the adults whom you seemed to enjoy much more than the kids. Dave and Tanya had a stainless steel trash can which you figured out that you could see yourself in and were soon in love with. You are a funny little critter, Miss Riley. You also had your last swimming lesson for this session yesterday and for once you didn't seem to mind "jumping" off the wall. You still won't blow bubbles, but laugh at Daddy whenever he does it. You are such a terror to all the other kids but you can't help it you just like to play with them! It's funny to see you go after kids who are bigger than you and they start crying.
Love you as big as the air that Shaun White got in the Grand Prix finals at Copper today,
Momma

Baby In The Mirror

Dear Riley,
Your most recent discovery is mirrors, and more specifically the fact that YOU are in fact, the baby in the mirror smiling back at yourself. It's horribly amusing to watch you as I think you forget it from time to time when you are away from a mirror but once brought back to it, it takes you a few minutes to remember that it's you you're looking at. You stare around for a second and then try to grab at yourself- Daddy and I are always commenting on your seeming lack of depth perception sometimes. Although you have discovered wheel barrowing yourself off the couch and enjoy it way too much! You continue to amaze us. We were talking this morning about how funny you are in the mornings, just laying around for awhile, staring off, as if you are contemplating what monumental things you should try to scratch off your to-do list today. Today I left the living room to go to the bathroom and didn't take you with me (not usually a great idea), but you seemed to be happy and fine with it at the time so off I went. I came back to find you halfway across the living room and almost to the kitchen, searching frantically everywhere you went as if you thought I had left you alone in the entire condo by yourself. As if.
Love you as big as The Horse Shoe,
Momma

Crank In Your Pants

Dear Riley,
If I could find the person who put the crank in your pants after about 4 o'clock today, I would promptly take them and smack them upside the head and then probably take them out back and flog them. Or let them listen to the Mexican neighbors we have who insist on blaring their music at all hours of the day. When you are older, I will let you listen to some of the oompa oompa music that could become part of the soundtrack of the first year of your life. To say you were unpleasant is putting it nicely. We had an awesome morning, complete with you eating your first full meal in your highchair in our house, which was more than slightly amusing. You are a smart cookie, kid, you figured out faster than Daddy or I thought you would that if you picked up the food we put in front of you it could go straight in your mouth and be CONSUMED, rather than just chewed on and soaked like everything else we put in front of you. We watched some football, because before you were born your completely sane parents decided that they needed to purchase a huge flat screen TV because we wouldn't be going out to bars to watch games. Just for the record, we have also changed cable companies and added on about 300 bucks in sports packages so that you could watch us scream and yell at the tv on Saturdays AND Sundays in the comfort of your own home. We love you kiddo. We are getting ready for your first Christmas, (as are your grandparents). You love to tear ornaments off the tree at Grandma Sharon's house and have managed to break three at last count, but the Christmas season is still young. Your latest trick today was waving at Daddy- he said hi to you and waved at you and you didn't even look at your hand but you picked it up and just held it out and waved at him for a few minutes, and we were both so proud and amazed that your teeny little brain had figured that out that we were both crying! I gave birth to you 7 months ago and maintain that my emotions have been out of control ever since, but I don't know what Daddy's excuse is. You are sleeping peacefully in your bed as of now, surrounded by the two frogs and the red dog and hopefully we won't see or hear from you anymore until 6 AM when you will squak but not open your eyes and expect to be brought into the bed with us to take over more room than a 7 month old should in a king size bed.
Love you to the moon and back,

Momma

Changing the Layout!

So, since my brain goes about 40023439 miles per minute- and that, unfortunately, is not a gross understatement, I've decided I want to change the way we have written this website- I'm going to start writing this in the form of letters to Riley- Ken and I want her to be able to have this one day so she'll be able to look back and see how insane her parents and her first year of life truly were, and I think that will enable her to have a better grasp! So from here on out, letters to Riley it will be!

The US Snowboard Team

So Ken told me earlier this week that the US Snowboard team was doing an autograph signing at the Cage at Copper on Saturday and did I think it would be cool if we got Riley a Woodward shirt and had them sign it- I was totally in! So we trekked up to Copper after swimming lessons today and bought her a Woodward shirt then waited in line with a bunch of ski school kiddos but finally made it up to the table- Gretchen Bleiler and Hannah Teter thought she was adorable and loved that her initials were RAD, and Louie Vito(who was on the past season's Dancing With The Stars and is a buckeye!!) and Mason Aguirre were commenting on how they wished they had a velour suit like hers. Kelly Clark took a picture holding her, and we got Shaun White to take a picture with her too! So awesome. Ken and I were both super excited afterwards- totally awesome. Here are the pics- we are going to frame the shirt and put the pictures in it for her. Kelly Clark and Shaun White are both Olympic Gold Medalists- not many 7 month olds can say they've got pictures with 2 olympic snowboarders!

Santa, Crawling, and Personalities Abound

Look who met Santa!

So we decided during a trip to Denver this past weekend that we ought to take Riley to meet Santa, since we weren't sure if we were going to make it to Denver again before Christmas and didn't want to feel like we needed to go down just to make sure we got a picture of her with Santa. She did great- until she realized he was holding her- she smiled for the picture but as soon as they were done he started talking to her and looked at her and then she reached right for Ken and started breathing all hard. It was pretty darn funny. This weekend she also figured out the power of her mobility via crawling! She can now get into anything- at least she thinks she can and feels the need to at least try to get into everything at any opportunity. It's pretty funny, while it definitely keeps us on our toes! She is cracking us up all the time lately- so much personality in such a little person! She gets excited when Ken comes home from work and sad when he leaves- it's pretty cute.

Sorry For Slacking!

I can stand up on my own!

Lobster For Halloween

Riley and her friend Sam

The snow is flying outside and we here have realized we have been rather neglectful in updating Riley's blog! Here are some highlights of the last few months:
Riley LOVES other kids. She loves other babies, and older kids, and usually will just sit there and stare and laugh at them.
Last Saturday she cut her first tooth! She had been waking up in the middle of the night a few times and just wouldn't go back to sleep. We thought she was just being a pain in the butt but then were totally excited to look in her mouth and feel the tooth. Overall she has been pretty chill with teething- not too bad at all.
She is taking swimming lessons at the Rec Center- the class is called Tadpoles and is full of kids under a year. There are 4 kids in the class that were all born within 2 weeks of each other- Riley is the oldest, and she loves it! She is really starting to enjoy swimming.
No more immobile child! As soon as she mastered rolling both ways (which was awhile ago) she has now moved on to rolling all over the condo and reaching for things. She can go from knees to sitting up (which she can do completely by herself) and is rarely in the same spot you set her down in when you come back to the room. I set her in the middle of the living room and came back and she had pulled herself up on the couch and was grabbing at the laptop and the remote.
She looooooooves keyboards. The other day she managed to shut off my laptop and Ken asked later "why did you turn off your computer?" and I responded "I didn't, Riley did!"
She is totally digging on solid foods. So far her favorites seems to be green beans and bananas. She also loves the little dissolvable gerber puffs.
So that's where we're at for now! Her first Iowa vs. Ohio State game is this weekend- this is a big one in our house! And awesome this year because it is a battle for the Rose Bowl! go buckssss! Riley will be in the scarlet and gray!

Riley's Big Swim

Well, we added another adventure to Riley's life this past Friday- swimming! She wasn't all that sure about it, but she was completely fascinated with the other kids that were in the pool. They were jumping in one after another and each time they would splash into the pool Riley would glare at them with the meanest of looks- we think she could feel the vibrations under the water and wasn't sure what was going on. It was pretty funny. We will definitely be taking her again, because it will be fun to see if later on she continues to feel the same way about it or if it grows on her. She doesn't HATE baths, but every night she stares up at you with the same look as if she still hasn't figured out what is going on, despite the fact that we have done the exact same bedtime routine since her umbilical cord fell out.

Riley had a pretty relaxing week last week- nothing huge to report! She is getting bigger and growing everyday, the last few days I have sworn she looks completely different to me. Ken doesn't think so, but I think she does! She is starting to figure things out- today she was sucking her thumb for the first time! She can definitely use her hands, but I'm not entirely sure that she is aware that she can use them and how she can use them. She grabs onto the toys on her bouncy seat now, but she doesn't seem to realize that she is the one making them move and make noise. It's pretty cute! Ken has been working on our closet building, and that's about all the exciting news from around here! Tessa is putting her crib on loan to Riley, so we are kind of excited to see how she does in a big girl bed rather than the pack and play or the little bed we've had her sleeping in. She seems to sleep better being closer to us, but hopefully we can teach her to sleep by herself!

Big Weekend!

All 3 of us at Rocky Mtn. National Park Love the overalls and love the barefeet and love the hat!

This kid is amazing.

Sunday at Grandma Sharon's!

Riley had a big weekend! Ken's best friend from college, Kristine came into visit, so Friday afternoon we headed off to Denver to pick her up and didn't come home till late. Riley was perfect- she loved looking at everything and everybody in the airport, and she should have been starving when she woke up, but she just looked around at everything and was so distracted she went about 4 hours without eating. I was needless to say, very impressed. She does really well in car rides, so going from home to Denver isn't a big deal for her. Saturday we headed for Rocky Mountain National Park, which was actually her second visit there. She was about as interested as she was the first time she was there. We headed into Grand Lake, which is the cutest little town, and checked out the brewery. Ken and I had picked up a sampler pack of their beers a few weeks ago and we were anxious to try everything they had. It is a pretty small operation, they don't even have separate mens and women's bathrooms! So we hung out there for awhile, and then headed back home and just hung out for the rest of the night. Sunday we had brunch at Red Mountain Grill, where they were running a bottomless mimosa special. Yummy. Then we headed to Denver to drop Kristine off at the airport, while leaving Riley with Grandma Sharon whom she hadn't really seen in awhile and was thrilled at the prospect of hanging out with the girl. We went to Home Depot in Denver on the way back- how is it that the Denver Home Depot can have so much more stuff than the one in Avon? So silly. Ken was in heaven and got a mitre saw so we can finish the bedroom and for future projects, and I was playing with my new phone, the Blackberry Storm. We came back, got Riley, and as soon as she went to bed, so did I. I was uploading pictures this morning from the camera and noticed that someone snuck a pic of me sleeping. I got the best call ever this morning, we finally get to take her off the oxygen!!! Heather, the nurse from Dr. Morano's office said she passed with flying colors. I can't wait to call Alpinaire and have them come get the dang tanks out of our house!! We are both (actually probably all three of us) pretty stoked about this!! Finally.

Yay! Riley's First Blog

So, after the askings of several friends and family, we finally decided to pull the trigger and here it is....(waiting for drumroll) Riley's blog! Woohoo. Since so many people are far away and some don't even have Facebook ;), here is another way to keep up on the life of Riley!
As of today we are at the 10 week mark, and as Ken and I keep saying, we haven't broken her yet! She had her 2 month appointment and her shots and it all went really well. She wasn't too bad after the shots, a little fussy that night but after that she was great. She even managed to survive her first trip to Ohio where she had the priviledge of meeting so many people, friends and family, got to experience Bob Evans and Steak N Shake, and see her first B10 Campus. (She's destined to be a buckeye now!) She has started sleeping longer at night, usually goes about 6 hours or longer before she needs to eat. The DR said she is growing great- she's 10 lbs, 4 oz, and 23 inches long. Her weight puts her right in the 50% but everyone continues to comment on how little she is. Safe to say Ken and I are still not convinced she's really going to grow up. She smiles all the time now, at the most random things. It's pretty cute. Anyways, this is more than enough for the first post...enjoy!