Catch Up Again..

Ok. Wow. I've been horrible at this lately. I guess when Riley was a little baby and took naps every two hours I had a lot of downtime to get on here and blog. Now-a-days it's a little different. I barely have free time to remember to even pull out my camera!

So, Riley is finally the "big" ONE! Well, technically now she's 13 months.. but, let's rewind a little. :) We had a party for her at my Dad's house in the backyard (thanks Dad & Rosa!!) and thank goodness the rain didn't come! She had a great time, really enjoyed stuffing her face with her cake before she went into a slight sugar coma and passed out in Jake's crib. Lol.

She is now 29 inches tall and weighs 20 lbs, 11 oz. Her one year checkup was good, we're still nice and healthy and growing normally. (except her feet.. this girl has the smallest feet ever, I still have to shop in the infant shoe section..she's ALMOST a size 3. LOL) We did have a little bit of a scare last week at her appt, her head circumfrence is pretty large, it always has been, but seems to keep growing rapidly. The Dr. felt her soft spot (which is supposed to fuse completely together by the time a baby is 18 months old) and it hadn't even started to close yet. The Dr. was concerned that there might be some internal swelling, which isn't allowing her skull to close, and might be pressing on a nerve that causes Riley to always lose her balance (she does have really horrible balance). She recommended us to a Neurologist, which we're still waiting to hear from- and she will need an MRI and an ultrasound of her head to make sure everything's okay. :(

Other than that, everything is perfect. She has more and more personality every day, she is now in her "giggly" stage. Everything you do or say makes her giggle. She makes herself giggle. I just hear her sitting in the corner of the room playing with her toys on her own, giggling to herself. So cute. She gives me kisses all the time now and it's the sweetest feeling in the world!

Here are some pics over the past few months:

Little Ms. Cindy Lou-Who

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

This is what happens when you have spaghetti for dinner.

Getting Closer...

Riley is officially 11 months old! T- minus 31 days until the big "1". I look back at the posts from 3 or 4 months old when I wrote, "man time flies" and LAUGH because here I am at almost 1 full year later. Insane! So the only real updates I have on Riley is I finally got her hair in a ponytail! Yay! Haha. She has 4 teeth now, we're working on our 5th..she's working on walking, mostly she's just standing, and talking a whole bunch now. She can say "mama" and "dadda" and tell me "mu-ma" when she's hungry. She understands a lot of things we say to her now, like "go get your (toy)" and things like that. Or even when she's fussy, (this is horrible) but we'll point out her binky to her and tell her to go get it.. she'll look around for it for a second and crawls over to it and sticks it in her mouth. Her new favorite past time is scooting around on her little car that her Auntie Traci and Uncle Troy bought her for Christmas, and having Mommy chase her around making sure she's not getting into everything she's not supposed to. When I look at her and say, "Noooo" she freezes and looks back at me, gives me a huge smile and waits for me to turn around to do it again. Such a smart kid. She's mainly on table food now, she pretty much eats whatever we're eating for breakfast lunch and dinner, and is still getting her formula for the next month. Mommy's upgrading her carseat to a "big girl" carseat this month since she's finally reached the weight restrictions for it, and she LOVES being in the car! I'm sure she's tired of seeing everything pass by her backwards. She's developing her little sassy personality more and more each day! I love this little girl!

She got caught hanging out on the couch with some cereal and the TV remote.. hmm starting a little too early?

Buddies!

Loves her car.

See all my new teeth?

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas with family this year. It's funny how true it is when your parents tell you just how much Christmas changes for you when you have children.. it's so true. Everything is about them, trying to do anything and everything you can to put a smile on their face, and it's so priceless! I can't wait until Riley gets a little older and understands the "Santa" concept.. I'm ready for it! Riley did better than I expected opening her gifts.. it must be her love for paper.. lol. She really seemed to enjoy herself, all in all it was a great first Christmas! She did tell me a few weeks ago that all she wanted for Christmas was her two front teeth.. and she got em'! (well, actually.. she got her entire top row of teeth at once, about 6 or 7 of them)

We let Riley open some of her gifts from her cousins on Christmas Eve when Jayden came over to visit and then on Christmas we visited family at Auntie Lynnie's house as usual and had some amazing German food and some good company.

Her Cousin Jacob. Best Friends Forever

How cute is he? I love this little boy!

Nathan, Riley and Jacob

She loves these boys

I think he was trying to give her a kiss.. =)

Finally! Some teeth!

Countdown To Our First Christmas

We got our first Christmas tree last week! (I know, pretty early but I was in such a hurry to get everything in the house set up for Riley's first Christmas!) Jeremy and I took Riley to an actual tree farm, where you could cut down your own tree and they had little rides and things like that for older kids to enjoy. We opted to buy a tree we didn't have to cut down, but still had just as much fun :) It was freezing cold that day so we had to make it a short experience, but nonetheless a memorable one :)

We came home and decorated it nice and pretty, and had a little practice photoshoot. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the settings on my camera were way off, and the lighting sucked so most of the pictures didn't even come out. Oh well, hopefully we can get some good ones before the tree dies! Lol.

"Yup, this is definitely the one Mom. This is mine. I found it, and it shall be mine."

TA-DA!!

Catching Up

Okay, okay.. so it's been FOREVER since I've blogged.. literally. We've been super busy with everything that has been going on recently and with the holidays around so on and so forth blah blah I haven't had time to go through pictures, edit, post, etc. Actually, believe it or not I really haven't even had time to snap many pics. Crazy, huh? Well, basic updates are:
* we're still not crawling. (hoping that she's just one of those babies who decided to skip it)
* we haven't cut our first tooth yet, though we are very very close
* our first word was "dadda" and she babbles on and on now.. I'm pretty sure I got a quick "mama" out of her today.. we're working on it...
* she is finally standing while holding onto the couch (well, more like leaning over onto it mostly)
* we recently said bye bye to the bottle and she's only using sippy cups now for everything
* her hair is finally long enough for a ponytail! (I'll have to snap a pic later)
* New stats at her 9 month wellness checkup- 18 lbs 5 oz, 28.5 inches and her head as usual is way big lol.

Here's just a few pics of the recent months. She's getting so big! (I guess I did it kind of backwards, the older pics are at the bottom)

My little Snow White for Halloween (these were phone pics so they're pretty blurry)

Our second costume option :)