Life With Riley

Okay, bad mom for not posting before now but I swear I couldn’t log in and well, that’s all fixed now.

I bet you’d like an update on the kiddo, eh?

Riley is still growing like a weed!  She is 43″ tall as best we can tell and considers herself a “Big Kid”.  She has been going on and on about going to Big Kid School (kindergarten) until last week.  She’s finally made the connection that when she goes to BKS, she’ll miss her friends from daycare.  There’s a chance one of the girls in her class may go to the same elementary, but odds are she’ll not know any of the kids in kindergarten.  Once we know where she’s going to go to school (private, charter, magnet, community, SO MANY CHOICES) I think I may look into something to attend over the summer to get to know some of the kids to ease the transition a lot.

She continues to do well at school (daycare) and loves to learn.  She’s already complaining about homework but I can’t blame her there.  She’s 4. She has better things to do.

Riley has a long list of favorites at this time- she still loves the Princesses and anything to do with horses (My Little Pony included), but has also started getting into superheroes such as WonderWoman, Superman, Batman, etc.  Santa brought her the Wonder Woman series (Lynda Carter) for Christmas and she loves watching them.

Another development that I’m thankful for is that she is very excited about going to the movies!  Finally I have an excuse to go again.  She loves seeing them on the big screen but like taking the mouse to the movies, you have to get her some popcorn.  The girl can eat her weight in popcorn in less time than it takes to get through the previews it seems!  I’m looking forward to more kids movies in 2011 and when she’s big enough to take to more ah sophisticated films like Harry Potter and Transformers!

Wait, did I just refer to the Transformers franchise as sophisticated?  Scratch that bit, okay?  It is good eye candy and I loved the Transformers growing up!

Today is a home day and Riley is decked out in her Snow White costume and checking her look at her Rapunzel vanity.  Mark picked us up some Krispy Kreme doughnuts for breakfast and we saw some snow for a minute.  All in all, a great weekend ahead of us!

We hope that everyone had a peaceful and relaxing Christmas and hope that the New Year brings good things.  We have some pictures and video from Riley’s first NC Christmas to share soon.  Here’s to more frequent content and updates in 2011!

It’s another new year and time for another shot at being more regular posting updates, pictures and news about Riley and the excitement that is her life.  I’m hoping that moving to a new blog platform will offer satisfactory motivation to get back on the more frequent posting train.  That’s all for now, hopefully there’s more to share soon!

A new day, or rather night, has come to our household. Riley is sleeping in a big girl bed for the first time in her life. Today I took her convertible crib and transitioned it to a youth bed (toddler bed). She was so excited when she saw it! She kept bouncing on it and just seemed tickled at the transformation. We also finally put down some Disney Princess mats that we picked up for her ages ago.
Tonight when it was time for bed, she skipped back to her room, jumped up on the bed and was ready to go to sleep. No hugs no kisses no night night, just ready to go to sleeps like a big girl.
I love being her mom and watching her grow. I love playing with her and reading with her. While she is only 2 years and 3 months old, she’s growing up entirely too fast. I’m proud of my big little girl!

And Riley is dressing up as her favorite princess of all – Belle!!!
We tried on our costume tonight and there are a few pictures on the Flickr link to the right for you to check out. She was so happy and tickled to look like her favorite princess. “I’m dancing!” she exclaimed earlier!

I’ll try and get a scan in after she’s down – or ask Mark to later—
But you tell me what her teacher was going on about in her art from this morning.
They wrote her name in the top corner (it’s a big sheet) and this is what she did at the bottom.
Now, I’m biased, but her teacher saved it for me and all the other teachers were excited too. Plus they were going on about how she knows so many letters and they even scrambled them and she would still know which one was which.
I think we’re in for it… what do you think?

**if you’re scratching your head, if you look at the scribbles, the kid WROTE HER NAME. No, seriously, she did! Not _perfectly_ but hey she’s still getting the idea of which end of the crayon to write with easier!
Seventeen months and 2 weeks old.
Update – 1/25/08 – Dad tried to give the ‘signature’ a scan, here’s the best result that he could come up with:

Riley has had her first Thanksgiving that she actually participated in! Uncle Tim, Aunt Trina, with cousins Meghan and Madison came to NC to eat and have fun! Riley loves her cousins and uncle and aunt, I don’t think she had a minute where someone wasn’t playing with her. I almost fear for her teachers tomorrow, but time has shown she’s done a great job readjusting to daycare after holidays, so hopefully that will continue.
If you check out the flickr link, you’ll see a picture of Riley with Uncle Tim– yes, she went down a big inflatable slide with Uncle Tim and Meghan multiple times! She LOVED it! And I have ammo for the day she ever tries to call me over protective…
In other Riley non-holiday news, we discovered that she actually knows a couple of signs that we can’t figure out where she got them from. I know they use Thank You at school, but turns out she also knows “more”, “please”, and “book”. Yeah, the last one is not a shocker as the kid LOVES to read and loves books! When she starts making the same movements, we can google it and get a translation typically. “More” helps, but hard to figure out what “more” of she’s looking for!
She keeps growing in leaps and bounds– she’s still on the small side technically though, in the 25% for weight/height, but usually pretty healthy. She still has some issues with her ears and tends to get every cold and sniffle that comes within a mile of her, but she rarely lets it slow her down. She loves to play- with her little people, blocks, her piano, her stuffed animals– you can even tell her what to go find– she will find it and bring it to you!
Riles and Daddy have also been talking alot about how to spell Riley– she has a mug that has her name on it and Daddy has gone over it many many times with her. Now, if she’s paying attention to you and you ask her to point out a letter in her name- she usually gets it right! I think we might be in trouble…
Along with finding the letters in her name, she’s also good at finding people in pictures. She loves Seseme Street characters- Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster especially. We were at dinner the other night and they had a “find hidden pictures” on the menu– would you believe Riley at 15 months was able to FIND things in that picture? Look out Where’s Waldo!!!
There’s probably more, I’m just too tired to think right now. Mom and Dad have been under the weather for a while themselves. We’re keeping stock in DayQuil and taking care of each other best we can. This weekend with family was fun and we can’t wait to see everyone again soon in December!!!!!