Annnnd 8 Months Later

Here we are! It's been a roller coaster year. Amazing & terrifyingly wonderful.

Riley is well she's just Riley. Filled with laughter and wonder that only a two year old can really have. She talks from the minute she rolls out of bed until long after what should be her bedtime. Not a day goes by that I don't laugh at something she says or does. Her favorite thing to do right now is play doctor. She makes us lay down on the couch while she gives us check ups. Naturally Doc McStuffins is her favorite show. She loves being in water & I'm thrilled our new house has a pool. I cannot wait for move in day so that we can use it every day. We are thrilled that Riley is fully potty trained. We took diapers away (except for nap & bed) July 7th, a few days before her 27mo birthday. She took to it right away. We had a couple accidents the first week but none since. It can be a bit stressful when out and about for the day. Like when we are in Home Goods & she dramatically grabs her undies & screams, "Riley PEEEEE!!! RUN!". I frantically grabbed the travel seat & made a mad dash to the restroom only to have her say, "potty pretty all done" with no pee. Rinse repeat 3 freaking times. What is really awesome is that she did it every 5 minutes so the same shoppers saw the shenanigans over and over. I got a couple sympathetic glances but for the most part people found the child hilarious, which didn't help because laugher just fuels her. The twos have not treated us too bad. Bedtime is a battle. Tonight we are working on 90 minutes and she is still not staying in bed. The last time it was this bad was when she was teething, which I guess it could be. Or it could just be her playing us as only she can. She figured out how to open her bedroom door which has only made the process even longer. We've tried cry it out but with a mobile kid who can open doors & scale any gate it doesn't make a difference. We've tried just letting her go & hoping she ends up asleep somewhere in the room. Again not really effective for this kid as she eventually gets bored with the room & comes to find us. The best is when she picks up the video monitor & asks if we can see her, "you see Riley?". Yeah kid we do. Go to sleep. Or better yet when she doesn't want us to see her & she says, "all done bye bye" then promptly unplugs the monitor. Hopefully the move to the new house will be a sort of reset on the bedtime routine.

Nora is 8 months today. I can't even stand her perfection. She is the happiest most content baby ever. I have no idea the last time she cried. Seriously. The kid smiles & jabbers at everything. She got her first two little teeth about a month ago. She started sitting on her own around 5months & now can roll around & sit up from laying down. On that note she can just about pull up to her feet too. She gets to her knees but getting those feet under her hasn't quite worked out yet. It will soon enough she sure tries enough. She's like 5 minutes away from full on crawling but much like Riley did she gets around in other ways so she doesn't feel too much pressure to actually crawl. She says mama & dada. She also growls. Legit "grrrrrrr" all deep & ominous. I'll never forget when she first started doing it around 5-6mo she grabbed Rileys cheeks & growled in her face. Riley looked horrified & yelled, "Nors no eat Riley". That's not a typo. Everyone calls her Nors. I think it's my fault, well my phones. I got a new phone and cannot for the life of me type on it (actually the main reason this blog hasn't been updated). The "a" is right next to the "s" and I screw it up every single time I type her name. Its ridiculous. We started her on food about a week before her 6mo birthday & she's already done with purees. She's just not interested in being spoon fed. At first I was a bit nervous because she is just so young but she has done really well. She has eaten pretty much everything. Tonight she had pork chop, asparagus, roasted wax beans & corn on the cob. I think she ate more than her sister. We have had to find a balance with her bottles though because she's not as interested. We are figuring it out though. Little lady has some attitude. If she doesn't like something you know it. She will swat at your hands and growl. My favorite is when she's not interested in her bottle she will grab it from your hands & throw it off the couch. Then she looks at me like, "what".

For us as a family things have never been better or busier. On mothers day we put in an offer on a house, which was accepted. On June 1st we listed our current house & on June 2nd we accepted an offer. We settled on the new house on June 28th & our current house will be August 9. Paul has been at the new house for the last 3 weeks ripping stuff out, hanging drywall, painting, repairing, fixing, wiring, you name it he's been doing it. It's been nothing short of overwhelming. It's an amazing upgrade and opportunity for our family. We are ridiculously excited to move in & get settled. So that's where we are & what we've been up to. I've missed blogging & now that things are sort of kind of settling down I'm hoping to keep up with it. I'm a bit sad that I didn't when Nora was teeny tiny. Really though with a toddler waking at dawn and an infant that wasn't sleeping through the night, sleep while they slept was better than blog while they slept. We don't need to mention that Nora has actually been sleeping through the night since the end of February.