Yippie For Piggies!

After several "owwie!"s and "no, mama"s we ended up with some pretty cute piggies.  Unfortunately they were pulled out an hour or two later.  But, we're making progress! 

Notice how she couldn't pull her eyes away from Toy Story.  Nice, huh?  We've started limiting TV again...

Iowa State Fair 2010...And Hives

The Iowa State Fair is one of my favorite things to do every year.  When I was younger, it wasn't a stretch to say that my family went to the fair 4-5 times each year.  This year, my parents went at least 6 times (possibly more).  Unfortunately, this year we found ourselves caught in the middle of 10 year high school reunion festivities, birthdays, extreme heat, crazy work schedules, and illness (more on this below) all in the span of two weeks so we barely made it there.  Looking back on it, August has been exhausting!  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a calm and relaxing September!  Which, holy crap, is it really almost September??  Where has 2010 gone?
Back to the Iowa State Fair.  We were able to squeeze in a trip to the fair the last Saturday of the 10 day stretch.  Unfortunately we picked a 90 degree day to check it all out.  We started the day an hour and half behind schedule (of course, forgetting our camera) so we decided to just park in the fair parking lot.  Would you believe that they charge $10?  I couldn't believe it, but it was nice to get back to our car quickly when we'd had enough fun.  Riley loved seeing all of the animals.  She petted her first cow.  She thought that was pretty neat, but would only touch it with three fingers at a time.  She especially loved looking at the horses. Horses seem to be a favorite of hers right now. Later in the day we met up with my brother and his family.  They had some extra tickets for pony rides.  Riley was really excited to ride the pony, until she'd been on it for a minute or 2.  Luckily I was standing next to her because she jumped right off into my arms after we'd gone around the circle two times.  Maybe horse back riding is not in her future! 

What is the fair without food?  We had our usual picks for fair food...corn dogs, gyros, tenderloin and fries, apple slushy, lemonade, and some pineapple whip.  Riley was a fan of everything, but the pineapple whip. 

Oh, and we were totally "those people" this year.  We let our kid run through the fountain IN HER CLOTHES!  Then, to top it off, I was that mom who stripped her kid in the middle of the fair (because in all actuality, a tree didn't hide anything) and changed her clothes.  I'm glad I was "that mom" because it was Riley's favorite activity of the day!

4 1/2 hours later, and only checking out 1/2 of what the fair had to offer, we called it a day.  I'm just glad that we were able to make it to the fair this year.  Next year, I'm shooting for 2 days!

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About that illness thing...

Riley broke out in hives again last Friday.  That makes the third time including the first outbreak!  Brett called the doctor yesterday to see if we could have her seen for a 2 year check-up and also for the hives.  She was just seen in June for her last shots so he didn't need to see her.  But, he was surprised that she's had hives three times now.  Now we have to take her to see an allergist.  From what Dr. Fred and the Internet tell me, there's not much an allergist can do for children at 2 years old.  It's just weird that we can't figure out what is causing the outbreaks.  Although, I have my suspicions.  I think it may be related to heat.  I have no idea what caused the first outbreak, but the last two I think could possibly be linked to heat.  The second outbreak came when Riley was in the bath tub. Randomly.  But the water was warm.  This last outbreak came during her nap.  When she woke up she had a low grade fever along with the hives.  The fever lasted until Saturday morning (which is why we made it to the Fair so late).  I'm fairly certain that the feverr was caused by teething, but who knows at this point.  So, now we get to see an allergist.   Hopefully we'll get some answers...            

Riley's Two Year Pictures

These are the best pictures yet!

Riley Nicole At 2 Years Old

At 2 years old...

• Riley has such a fun personality.  She has so much spunk and sass.  I've never seen a little girl roll her eyes or Hmm and Ha over things.  It's so funny.
• She is talking up a storm, but is still in the toddler mumble stage.  I understand about 70% of what she says.  Daddy understands about 50% of what she says.
• She loves Toy Story.  Buzz and  Woddy (Wuwee) are her favorite characters.  She still loves to watch Tinker Bell, Backyardigans, and Special Agent Oso.
• She is still in her 2T clothes and size 5 shoes.  Her legs just keep thinning out.  The older she gets the more they look like her dad's.  Her size 18 mth jeans fit perfectly.  We picked up a winter coat that is size 2T.  It's a good 2-3 inches too long in the sleeves right now.  We're hoping for a growth spurt sometime this winter.
• She has become a bit of a picky eater.  If you ask her what she wants to eat she'll always say macaroni and cheese, noodles ("noonels"), soup, or apple juice.  Funny thing is she hardly ever drinks apple juice. She refers to all juices as "apple juice."
• She loves to play with toys, her zhu zhu pet, any stuffed animal, books, her toy farm and doll house, balls, her stroller/shopping cart, and toy kitchen.
• She often calls Sam "Samm-o."  I sometimes call Sam "Sam-bo" for fun, and she's followed suite.
• Her hair is finally growing!!  I think it keeps getting blonder.  She now has the best mullet ever - with the cutest curls.
• She now has 2 more molars.  I'll be glad when they are all in.  She's much happier when she doesn't have her fingers jammed in her mouth!
• I think she's going to be a lefty like her mommy.  She uses her left hand the most and Daddy swears that she does everything better with her left hand.

Guess Who's Two?

Riley celebrated her second birthday yesterday.  What a perfect day for a birthday!  She started it off in style by watching Toy Story 1 (and possibly 2) while Mommy and Daddy cleaned the house for her party.  What a lucky girl! 

After lunch and a nap we had all of the family over for Riley's Tinker Bell Party.  Riley had SO much fun.  She loved playing with her cousins and running around like a two year old. 

She was so spoiled this year and had a ton of gifts to open - all of which she loved. 

Grandpa and Grandma Murphy bought Riley her very own fish which stole the show.

Wow! Thanks Grandma!

It's my party and I'll pout if I want to! (Riley's reaction after Daddy said that she needed to put the fish down and open the rest of her gifts!

Riley loved her Tinker Bell Cake. She thought it was kind of weird to have everyone sing Happy Birthday to her, but she sure did love blowing out her candle!

After everyone went home we set up Riley's new fish tank.  She LOVES the fish and everything about the fish tank.  It's all purple (Riley's favorite color).  The tank is purple, this fish is purple, the rocks are purple, and the little rock house is purple and pink.  It's just perfect!  Oh, and what did Riley decide to name her fish?  "Ice-a-wa-wa" aka: Ice Water.  We're going with "Ice" for short. 

One problem:

Riley's Trip To La Crosse

We had a great time in La Crosse over the weekend.  Friday we headed north to visit our friends, The Donnenwerth's.  Mike and Amy moved with their little girl, Macy, to La Crosse in June for Mike's residency at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital.  Shortly after moving the welcomed Drew Michael into the family.  We, along with the Coppola's, decided that a road trip was in store.  Friday night we had a small shower for Drew and a couple birthday gifts for Macy, who turns three in a couple weeks.  

Riley just LOVES playing with Macy and Carter.  She also liked watching baby Drew!  Saturday we hung around the Donnenwerth house and enjoyed coffee, breakfast, and watching the kids play together again.  We then headed out to the top of a bluff that overlooked the city.  It was very neat. 

After lunch we all headed back to the house to get in some much needed naps.  Saturday evening we ate pizza in and then headed down to a local ice cream shop and for a walk down by the river.  The weather was perfect and the kids loved seeing the water and running and dancing.  Riley especially loved seeing the fountain, and throwing all of our change into the water.

Sunday morning we headed down to a local favorite for breakfast and then hit the road for our 4 hour drive home.  It was great to get all of us together again, and hopefully we'll be able to road trip some more in the near future!    Riley came home with some new favorites...zhu,zhu pets (thanks to Macy for the great birthday gift!), and Toy Story dolls.  She loves Buzz.  Maybe she'll get a Buzz doll wrapped in Tinker Bell paper this weekend.  I came home with a couple new favorite family photos...

Catch-Up Post

I've been missing for a few weeks.  Sorry!  It's been crazy around our house (and mommy's work) so I put blogging to the bottom of my to-do list.  BUT...I think I'm back!  Lets start with Riley's HIVES:

Sunday the 25th I put Riley in her chair to eat breakfast and within 2 minutes she was hitting her foot on the chair saying "owie" over and over.  I automatically thought (and said) "well, quit kicking the chair."  I took her out of her chair to check her foot and noticed that it was bright red.  Then looked at her leg...bright red with red splotches.  Took her diaper and shirt off; same thing.  Imagine this...everywhere.

Her tush was the worst.  Poor baby.  Brett and I automatically went into panic mode.  Like debating on whether or not we needed to take her to the ER.  Thankfully Brett has the doctor (his Godfather) on speed dial. After talking with him and wracking our brain for anything new that she could have been exposed to I put Riley in a baking soda filled bath while Brett ran to the store to pick up some Benadryl  and calamine lotion.  Don't tell the doc, but in the panic of things, Brett accidentally gave Riley TWO doses of Benadryl.  Oops.  Just one more thing, right?   After the bath we covered her in calamine lotion.

She was happy to watch "toy stoey" and eventually the bumps started to clear.  About every 3-4 hours they would reappear and we would go through the bath, calamine, Benadryl routine again. 

The only way she would take her medicine

Sam wasn't scared of the hives.

We kept her home on Monday and by that evening she was doing much better with only a couple outbreaks.  She did have them pop up once each day for the next couple days.  We still have no idea what caused the hives which leads us to believe that it was just a virus.  I'm really thankful we didn't totally overreact and take her to the ER! 

So what else have we been up to?

We've been gardening. 

My favorite of the season: fresh green beans!

Lots of gardening going on at the Murphy house.  Riley loves to help out.  Usually that consists of picking 8 sun gold "tomoes" straight from the vine and popping in her mouth.  She absolutely loves them.  She also likes to help with the weeding...usually by picking leaves off of the plants or pulling the onions from the ground.  But most of all, she loves to carry around her bucket with all of the fresh produce in it.

What's in here?

Oh, wait...not the jalapenos, Riley!  (don't worry, I made it there in time to stop her from biting in)

Oops...Caught in the act.

Riley's been learning to put her shoes on all by herself

Look Momma, I did it!

All by herself.  She wanted to go outside really bad!

Now things are back to normal...

Wearing Daddy's socks! I love this picture because it looks like my little girl is ready to run outside and play soccer!

Look at how crazy her hair is these days!

Oh, and I almost forgot...we're busy planning her 2nd Birthday Party.  This year's party has been scaled down to just her immediate family.  She's very excited and every time I ask her what she wants for her birthday she responds with "apple juice."  So easy to please.  We're going with a Tinker Bell theme.  Think this picture mixed with Tinker Bell for the invites:

Next week, we'll be talking about birthday number 2 and our trip to Wisconson!