Night Eyes 2010

We decided to take Riley out to Night Eyes this year.  We had never been and I really wanted to see what it was all about.  We chose one of the best nights in October to go and it turns out the rest of Des Moines decided to do the same.  It was packed!  Riley dressed up in her Minnie Mouse costume and looked adorable.  Despite the fact that we were stuck walking in lines with thousands of people, it was a great night.  The llamas, lions, and tigers were out and very active.  Riley loved seeing them and kept yelling, "Hi, guys" and trying to get them to walk over to her.

Howell's Pumpkin Patch 2010

We went to Howell's a couple weeks ago for our annual pumpkin patch visit!  Riley loved all of the activities, animals, pumpkins, and the hay rack ride.  Somehow, she ended up leaving with another scratch...to her face.  She fell off of a tire swing, while her finger was in her nose, and left with a nice little scratch.  Riley loved the little pumpkins and even found a way to smuggle one out withouy paying.  Her first shoplifting experience! 

Here are some pictures of our day:

 A quick family photo op!

THE

 BIG

 SLIDE!

She had a look of terror on her face as she emerged and then came the huge grin.  She went down the slide at least three times!

 Cousins!  Right before the big fall.

Riley's Big Girl Room: Updated

Originally we weren't planning on buying new bedding for Riley's toddler bed.  We felt that she would be fine with the bedding that we bought for her crib.  BUT, while shopping at Target I found the perfect bedding set on sale for $14.99 and couldn't pass it up.  Riley loves it, but is still getting used to sleeping under covers. 

Here's her bed with her new bedding and railing:

Notice Anything Different?

Riley's going to be a big sister May 2011!

Riley's Big Girl Room

It's not a great photo, but you get the idea.  She loves it!

Riley Nicole At 2 Years, 2 Months Old

Riley has grown so much over the past month.  She literally grew an inch in about 6-8 weeks.  She's 34 inches tall now which is between 50% -  75% now.  She has a super long torso and all of her 2T shirts are a bit short on her now.  We have her in most of her 2T pants and have had a couple reports that they've fallen off of her when she's running outside.  She is still wearing size 5 shoes, but we did get her a pair of 6 Nikes.  She loves them and is always saying "Ta Da! My new shoes."  Not sure why, but it makes me laugh!

Here's a few more fun things about Riley:

• She loves songs and can learn the words to them and actions to them after just a couple times.
• She is talking all the time.  40% of the time we have no clue what she is saying.  Lately, she'll say something that she thinks we should understand and then end it with "ok?" and then walk away.
• We've been having a terrible time with her throwing her food at the table.  We've implemented a new policy: throw food and dinner is over and she sits in timeout.  We'll see how well that works.
• She doesn't know it yet, but we officially turned Ice-a-wa-wa's tank off this morning.  He hadn't been eating for a couple days and we found him lying on his side this morning. RIP!
• She eats two gummy vitamins almost every day.
• She has been sleeping in her "big girl" toddler bed since Saturday.  We decided to take the side of her crib off and turn it into a toddler bed.  The first few days she fell out twice and several times slept half on/half off the bed.  We picked up a railing and she's been great ever since. 
• We took out her glider so now we're reading books in Mommy and Daddy's bed every night.  She did cry when we took it out, but she's been loving reading in Mommy and Daddy's room.
• She can identify most primary colors, purple, pink, brown, and black.  She does better when you ask her to point it at the color.  If you ask her "what color is this?" she has a harder time saying the color.
• She can identify most shapes.  It is really funny to hear her say "pentagon."
• She loves to tell people that she got her owie on her bike because she went "really really fast."
• Her favorite color is purple.
• She has been seeing a monkey around the house.  This monkey is imaginary.  She says that it scares her and generally appears to be scared.  The monkey is also blue.  She usually sees the monkey around the bathroom.
• She usually goes number 2 in the potty at least one time a day.  She now runs out of the bathroom and says that she had "monsta poop." We thank Daddy for that one!
• We overhear her counting all the time.  It usually goes likes this: "one, two, eight, nine, ten, nenen, nenen, ten!"  She is able to count all of the numbers to twelve when counting with someone.

Riley's First Wipe Out

Riley had her first major wipe out on her bike a couple days ago.  She did a somersault off the side of her trike.  It was in slow motion and neither Brett nor I could make it to her in time before she tumbled over.  Unfortunately, Riley is a dare devil and loves to ride her bike down our sloping driveway super fast.  Mommy at the top for a quick push and Daddy at the bottom to catch her.  This time she decided to steer and began wobbling all over the place before falling.  She didn't get her hands our in front of her and her head landed on the concrete before she flipped.  After a couple minutes of crying, peroxide, and triple antibiotic she was asking for outside again.  It's hard to tell in the pictures, but her forehead is banged up pretty good.  Poor baby!