Riley's speech assessment

Riley's speech assessment was this morning. They tested several areas. Here were some of the feedback results (He is 25 months old):

social/emotional: 20 months developmentally (mainly b/c he scored low in the area of comforting another child/baby if they are crying. He mostly moves away or calls for me, but does not try to pat Isabelle or other friends when they are upset).

communication: 20 months (not saying 2 words together, only saying parts of words, not saying names).

physical: 21 months not coloring/drawing consistently with hand up or down with a crayon or pen. Switches thumb position from up to down while working.

He will be working on each of these areas in his speech therapy sessions twice a month, or every other week in most cases. At 6 mo. in to the program, we will review his goals and see what his progress is like. His first session will be Aug. 13th. He will get one the next week as well since she will be out of town the following week. Sessions will be 45 min. long. She will bring handouts w/ ideas activities etc. the first time. I will be home for the first session, but she said they will usually be in the morning so the rest of the year, probably it will be while my mom or Blair are home with him.

Isabelle's Room

We have been trying to find things to put on Isabelle's last 2 empty walls. Well, recently, she outgrew a onesie that my friend, Melissa Riggs made for her. It is really cute and has her name on it and is 0-3 month size. She's only 2 months old, but is already too chubby to squeeze the buttons together. So, I thought it would be cute to frame the onesie to remind us of how little she was and also a cute way to put her name on her wall. So, here are a few pics. of her room so far. I have decorations for the last wall, but need to wait until Blair sees them to decide if they will work or not. 1 wall down, 1 to go!

Cart Crazy

As we all know, grocery shopping has not been the easiest thing to do with these two munchkins. But, I'm happy to say that Costco does make it easier. With 2 kid seats in the front, I don't have to worry about things being half eaten by the time we get to check out. It was so much less stressful shopping there. Although they don't have all the regular stuff we usually get, it may be worth it to cut out the other grocery stores all together and we may just have to start having 4 lb. cartons of grapes for dinner...it would be worth it! LOL. Here is a pic. of Isabelle's first time at Costco. Riley is an old pro! He LOVES the free handouts! He's munching on a snack!




Here is the other option...Riley having access to everything in back (including the straps to Isabelle's carseat that he likes to pull until she screams! Really, it's great fun! Which one would you do?

2 months and 2 years!

Today Isabelle is 2 months old. She is getting so big and is holding her head up well and also pushing up on her arms. I took a picture of my little snuggle bug and her big brother. Today was his first time to hold her all by himself. He is also getting so big, already 2 years old. I can't believe 2 months have passed by. She makes us smile every day.

You got a problem, yo I'll solve it!

Riley has been into everything again this week. I poured him a small bowl of goldfish to keep in the kitchen, thinking this would be a better (meaning cleaner)alternative than putting them on the coffee table like he has preferred to do in the past. Well, it took about 2 seconds for him to dump the whole bowl all over the floor. His reward was getting to pick every one of them up (except for the few that never made it back to the table b/c he ate them instead)He decided it was faster than putting them on the table first! LOL.



Riley has also been quite the problem solver lately. He usually is patient when saying "mote" (remote) to get me to turn on his cartoons. But, if I am busy, we are eating a meal, or it is time to pick up toys, the answer is NO. So, he has decided to take things into his own hands. He has been finding toys in the living room that are big enough for him to stand on top of so he can try to reach the remote that is strtegically placed on top of the bar- the only place high enough that he can't reach. In the past week, he has stood on top of his drum, a basket, and his wagon trying to reach the remote. Sadly enough for him, none were quite tall enough. I almost died laughing yesterday when he said "mote", I said "No" then he went over and got his board book and tried to stand on it. I had to take a picture! This was one time that those problem solving skills didn't exactly rank at the top of the charts! LOL You can see that it is about 1/2 inch thick.

Riley & Kate plus 8

Poor Riley got the hair genes from both me and Blair. He has wavy, out of control hair and the longer it gets, the harder time we have trying to get it to look a little normal. We usually keep it cut super short. Blair has said many times that Riley's hair is his job and Isabelle's is mine. Thank goodness, she doesn't have any yet! LOL. Anyway, without a doubt, everytime we get close to hair cutting time, Riley sports his wild 'do and can't help but look like an exact replica of Kate Gosselin from John & Kate Plus 8. Blair is out of town for the next 2 weeks, so I may just have to take the plunge and take him in by myself to get it cut. It has already been 3 weeks since his last trim.

Faces

One of Riley's favorite shows is called Yo Gabba Gabba. It's is totally silly and overly animated, but he loves that they dance a lot, play music, and (his latest thing)they make funny faces. So, this past week, he has just learned how to make a "funny face". If I tell him to do it, this is what we get:


Speaking of faces, Isabelle is 8 weeks old now and has just started smiling. She is adorable when she smiles because she shows off her sweet dimple on her left cheek. She is such a happy girl (as long as she is fed!) Here are a few pics showing off her gums!


Here's one of both of my cutie pies laying on the floor for some tummy time!

Awesome Anniversary

Our 6 year anniversary is today. In thinking about how 6 years have already passed, I realized that we've already had so many experiences together. I'm not much of a "numbers" person, but when I thought of the past 6 years, 10 milestones came to mind that also give a glimps of our marriage in numbers:

10 weddings we attended in 2006 for friends and family.
9 job changes between the 2 of us.
8 friends and family members in our wedding party
7 countries we've visited together
6 years of working on our relationship together
5 vehicles to take care of (including the boats)
4 years since we bought our first home together
3 beautiful children (including Rudy, although his beauty is only on the inside. LOL)
2 times we've packed up all of our stuff and moved
1 promise we made to love each other unconditionally forever, no matter what.


We got to celebrate last night, thanks to my mom (Grandma Vicky) who came over to babysit for us. Blair took me to Texas de Brazil, a Brazillian steakhouse/meat buffet place with amazing food. We had a great night of getting to sit while we ate, not making any bottles during dinner, having a glass of wine, talking about the next place we'd like to travel to, and eating fabulous food that we didn't have to make. He topped the evening off with surprising me with a video camera I've been wanting for months. He got a new boat last week, so it seemed fair to me! It's so exciting that we have a v camera that works now (our other one was pretty useless) because he left today for 18 more days of training before he gets to come home. If the kids do something cute while he's gone, hopefully I can catch it on video for him. All in all, we had a very nice celebration of our marriage and we expect to have many more happy anniversaries!

Week of Firsts

We had a fun and exciting week. Monday we had our playdate. Tuesday my friend, Dawn came over to hang out as well as my friend, Lisa and her daughter Zoe, who I used to babysit when I was in college. (She is 11 now which I can't believe because she was about 9 months old the first time I watched her). It was their first time to see Isabelle, so it was exciting to show her off! Wednesday was my first chance to get some "me" time. As sad as it is, I had this time while going to the dr. all by myself while Grandma Vicky babysat. Can't complain though. I actually got to get in the car with no hassle, only undo 1 seatbelt when arriving and carry nothing but my purse. Happy times! It's funny how easy you forget things once were! Thursday we hung out at home. On Friday I got brave and decided to take both kids to the mall by MYSELF. I was looking for a swimsuit to fit Isabelle, so I thought we might have some luck there. We first went ot Firewheel and although we had been up for hours, it seems that normal people don't shop until around 10. So, we got there very early, saw that they didn't have a Gymboree store and headed over to Collin Creek Mall. I unloaded both kids into the baby limosine stroller and we were off. We went to the indoor playground and I let Riley run around then we had to leave so they could clean the area. So, since both kids were happy, I did a little power walking since none of the stores were opened yet. After a bit, we went up to the food court to get lunch at Sonic and Riley ate so well. He had over half of a regular sized hamburger and most of my fries. We found a swimsuit for Isabelle (3-6 mo. and it fits her big 7 week old body! LOL) that is so cute. We went back to the playground and I let Riley run around for another 1/2 hour before we left. Both kids fell asleep in the car on the way home. I would say we did pretty good for our first time at the mall. Here is a picture of the kids in the "limo" stroller at the mall.

We had to get a swimsuit because my sister, Misty was bringing her 2 kids over to go swimming later in the afternoon. So, Isabelle got to get in the pool for the first time at 7 weeks old. She loved it, especially when I let her float in my arms.






Best of all, Blair came home Friday night and we got to spend some time with him for the first time in 6 days. We were all excited about that, but especially me!

Playdate

Are the dishes done? Is the laundry finished? Did the floor get mopped? These are questions that may go through someone's mind before they have company over, or may keep them from having company over in the first place. Well, I made up my mind right after having Riley that I would make an effort to have playdate for him at least once a month no matter the answer to these questions. I realized that if I waited until every home project was copmpleted or every chore was done to perfection or until all of our old college furniture was replaced to have friends over, then he would be in college and we both would miss out terribly.

The truth is, a lot of people get hung up or worried about these things and it prevents great memories from being able to take place. Sure, there are usually 50 things I'd love to have done before a playdate or any company in general, but in reality, I know that I would most likely be the only one to notice if it got done or not. At the same time, I know my friends care about me enough not to have unrealistic expectations of what should be accomplished and understand completely about the burdens of trying to do it all. This has been a tough lesson for me to learn since having kids because I lean towards the OCD end of the spectrum anyway and like a tidy house, but I have slowly began to let go, (but not completely).

Having friends over reminds me of this though because I get the chance to listen to their stories about their stressful week or how it seemed like a holiday because they got to shave their legs (don't worry, I won't tell the others). I got advice today on a place to check out if Riley needs speech therapy. The alternative would be to not invite anyone over because those never ending milk spots on the couch won't go away or the floor hasn't been swept (or mopped) in 3 days and the dust in most places on my bookshelves rivals the width of a sandwich. I would have lost out on the chance to talk to normal (mostly LOL) adults and more importantly, Riley would not get the chance to interact with other children close to his age and have a blast while doing it. So, my point is that although we don't get invited over much and I would be the last person to pass judgement on a sink of dirty dishes or a pile of clothes on the floor dancing a conga line to the laundry room, we still get to enjoy the company of some really great people and have them in our home no matter the condition. Riley deserves that. To be honest with you, his 2 year old buddies didn't notice a bit if the floor was mopped, laundry done, hole in the wall fixed, or toilet scrubbed down. They were WAY too busy having FUN (and it never even crossed my mind while I watched him squeal with delight)!

Here are a few pictures of our playdate today, just 1 of over 20 we've had in the past 2 years. Sometimes 2 friends join us and sometimes there are 8-9, but evrytime we invite all our friends. We can't wait until the next one!


Blowing bubbles with the big boys!

Playing with the parachute

Getting a tan

Socializing in the sandbox

Meadows' Moms

Running through the water with his naked buddy, Addie

Our best friends, Tabitha & Avery

Sitting in time out for throwing Cheerios

Sweet Addie rocking Isabelle