Riley's First Sleep Over

Riley hosted her very first sleepover last weekend.  She had her cousins, Kennedy and Addie, over to spend the night with her.  She was so excited!  The girls came over around 8pm Friday night and stayed until 10 the next morning.  I wish I had taken some pictures, but I've been terrible at taking them lately.  They had fun playing in Riley's room (the kitchen and coloring were hits!), taking a bath together (tight squeeze), and watching a few minutes of the movie.  The girls did great.  It was fun to watch Riley with her cousins.  I caught her a couple times just smiling for no reason.  We attempted to have all three girls sleep in Riley's room, but Riley wasn't having it.  After Kennedy suggested that she and Addie should just sleep in the guest bedroom they were all fast asleep in 10 minutes.  Saturday morning the girls helped me make pancakes, picked tomatoes from the garden in the rain, and played until Casey came to pick them up.  Riley was sad to see them go and in need of an early nap!  What a great way to spend part of our weekend!

Riley Nicole At 2 Years, 1 Month Old

Riley has officially been two for one whole month.  Just a few changes over the past month...but they seem very BIG to us! 

• Terrible Twos are in full swing.  This kid has an attitude and is even more impatient than her mommy.  On several occasions she's received time outs at day care for hitting.  The problem is, she laughs when you try to talk to her about it.  Even worse, she laughs and hits more when you ask her to stop.  We've been talking a lot about this the past couple weeks and she will now say "no hit," "no hurt," and "be nice" when we talk about it in the mornings on the way to day care. 
• Riley still likes to feed "ice."  She will always pulls the chair over to his tank and drop in the food pellets.
• One of her favorite things to do is jump off of the fireplace onto her Tinker pull-out couch.  She also loves to do somersaults off of the fireplace too.  Not the safest, but at least she's not trying to somersault off the couches anymore.
• She now loves to put her hair back in a clippy.  Her hair is still very fine so we stick to the itty bitty clips.  Once in awhile she'll allow me to put a pony in her hair.
• She now is able to say her full name: Ry-Ry Mercy.
• She has an ear for melodies...unlike me.  She can hear the music to certain lullabies and yells what song it is.  Right now she's stuck on "little lamb."
• She still loves Mickey and can name all of the characters.  She also still loves Tinker, Backyardigans, Toy Story, and Finneas and Ferb. 
• She's been taking terrible naps...sometimes no nap until she's picked up in the evening and then she crashes.  She's also been terrible to get to go to bed.  It's been taking an average of 40-60 minutes to get her to actually go to sleep.  I have a "how to get a baby to sleep" book somewhere in the house and I think I need to pick it up and actually read it. This routine is getting old...especially after she was sleeping so well!
• She likes learning about numbers and the ABC's.  Last night she yelled... "1,2,3,8,9,10...yea!!!" She's starting to get the hang of it.  We're still working on getting her to hold two fingers up when she says how old she is.
• She hates being dirty.  She likes to have a wet rag or napkin at meals to wipe her hands and face.
• She's weighing in at about 24 lbs.  We haven't had her weighed in a awhile, but when she's on the scale at home it shows 24 lbs.  She's still wearing 2T shirts.  2T jeans and pants are still way too big, but the 18 month jeans and pants are now a bit short.  She's still wearing her size 5 shoes, but we're in need of some new kicks!
• We took her to see the allergist.  No answers, except: lets keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't happen again.  Since we have no insight in to what could be causing the hives it was kind of a pointless visit.  But it's good to know that it most likely was a random occurrence or virus.  If it happens again we have to do a food log and call the allergist back. 
• Anytime she sees a football game on TV she yells "GO HAWKEYES" and claps her hands.  We're teaching her right at a young age!

Mommy Learns To Sew

Over the weekend I worked with my new sewing machine.  Brett gave me a sewing machine for my birthday last month and I haven't really had a chance to use it - other than learning to thread the bobbin and needle.  This Sunday I took some time out of the day to make a couple things out of some remnants that I picked up at Hancock Fabrics.  First up, a pillow case.  I let Riley pick between two fleece remnants.  Brett wasn't too sure about my sewing skills (that are circa 8th grade home ec. class!).  I didn't measure "correctly, with a ruler," cut straight, or use pins.  I did wash may fabric before beginning and used the iron to make my folds crisp.  I used Riley's tinker pillow as my "ruler."  I totally set the pillow right on top of the fabric, wrapped it to cover both sides, and gave my self an extra couple inches and called it good.  To Brett's surprise it worked!  And it even looked cute!  We'll see if it is still sewn together in a couple weeks.  I'm not sure that I secured the end of the threads correctly... Here's the finished project:

Riley LOVES it!

My current work station.

I'm working on my next project.  I'm one test run down.  Now I just need to purchase my materials.  I'll do another post on that project!

Fall Evenings At The Park

A couple Fridays ago we took Riley to the park to blow off some steam.  She loves the park!  Here are a few pictures:

It may have been the windiest day of the season.

Sliding - her favorite

And Daddy's too, I guess.

Twirling with Mommy

Climbing with Daddy

Pretty Girl!

Purple Sunglasses

Riley's new glasses are awesome!  They're a bit big, but with the sun rising later and driving straight into it every morning these puppies are doing their job!! She follows her mommy with putting them on and moving them to the top of her head.  She thinks its the greatest thing...when she's not throwing them because she can't get them on just right!

Eating Out

Last Friday was ther perfect night for some grilling and dinner on the deck. It's been awhile since we've enjoyed a meal on the deck.  Riley thought it was the greatest thing.  Although, we had to drag her away from running around with the neighbor boy to get her to eat.  I see some more dinners on the deck in our future this fall!

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...