A HUGE milestone today.....

Our little love is on the go!! She crawled today, forward, for the first time! After her bath in grammy's big tub, she decided she wanted to get the flowers on the wallpaper, and by George, she did it! Here's proof:



Before all that excitement, she and grammy and I spent the afternoon at the mall. First thing we had to do was visit the Easter Bunny and ride the train. I'll tell ya, she loved the Easter Bunny almost as much as she loves Mr. B and Max!








Then grammy got me a couple of new outfits, as a belated-exchanged-Christmas present. Yay! Thanks, mom and dad! I actually didn't freak out that I had to go shopping (you know, I hate shopping), and Riley thoroughly enjoyed herself, as always.

Russell is off to Toronto tomorrow, and we'll be driving there on Sunday for Passover dinner on Monday. We really miss him, and can't wait to get hugs from dad!! And, it will be so nice to get both families together again. I can't wait to have some yummy gefilte fish (not kidding, I love the stuff)! And, I can't wait to see how the babies interact now that they're more mobile and aware.... here they are last time they met:





Nitey-nite!

A played-out girl. For real.

Mom and I went to see the high school musical, and dad and Kathy baby-sat. Riley would not go to bed, and this is how I found her when I got home at 11pm:



Apparently, Riley positioned that teddy bear under head by herself, while she was sleeping. Twice. She didn't like the first position, so she shifted it to somewhere more comfy. What a smart gal. This was earlier today, in that houla-coupe I mentioned yesterday.



Here's a movie of yet another animal that Riley loves... Max the cat. I can't say the same for Max, but at least we all had a laugh!



Today was a big day, and I'm really tired, so here are some photos of our visiting adventures.






That is all I have energy for. More tomorrow!

Having fun in Derry!

Easter is coming, so Grammy gets to deck out the baby.




Oh, and by the way, that little contraption she is sitting in is from MY childhood. It's a houla-coupe, which daddy scrubbed and retouched for the use of the little Bella. The houla-coupe has since been discontinued because too many babies were falling down the (un-childproofed) stairs. Dumb-asses.

Well, Riley and I arrived without a hitch. It was a long day of travel, but she was a little champ! We bought all kinds of toys for her, to help keep her busy, and didn't even need them. She amused herself with the other people on the flight.

Grammy/Gramps were so happy to see her, and we're having a wonderful visit, so far. I'm comfortable relinquishing a lot of my motherly duties to my mother, since she doesn't get to spend much time with the Bella. I gave Riley a big bath tonite, and Grammy will do it tomorrow! That will be fun. Here we are in the big tub:



The weather has been beautiful so far, so Riley got to spend some time in the yard. I only took this picture, of the dirty feet afterwards. Hopefully we'll get in the grass again for some better photo opps.



I have some more really fun footage coming later this week. Stay tuned....

Last day with dad for a week!

Well, I'm busy prepping to leave for 2 weeks. It's not easy to get everything ready for yourself and an infant, and make it all fit into one suitcase! Whew... what a job. But we're super-psyched to see Grammy-Gramps this week, then Grandma and Duke next week! Not to mention the cousins and the rest of the families...

Here is a little movie to tie you over until I have time to blog again, hopefully just in a couple of days. I'm actually bringing all my gear.



OK, gotta go put together my 38 carry-ons.

Catching up...

Sorry I haven't been 100% on the blog for the last few days... it's been busy! Riley and I are traveling to the east coast Monday morning, so we're getting ready for that on top of everything else.



So, Thursday afternoon, we had a playdate with Chelsea and Ava. The weather was beautiful, so we decided to meet at Baker Beach instead of Ida and Chelsea's house.



It ended up being slightly chilly because of a breeze, and poor little Ava was unhappy because she was starting to get a fever, as Valerie found out when they got home. Ava, hope you're feeling better, sweetie! But overall, it was a jolly good time! Check it out:



Packing up was a bit of a fiasco, since we had to put babies somewhere while we folded up our blankets... here's what I came up with, although Riley didn't care much for it:



Today, we went to Ikea to get a new bookcase. The books in the living room have been overflowing for quite a while, and now we can give Riley the bottom shelves for her toys! She'll be mobile soon.

That little mermaid...

Here she is, in her swim class. Russell took the day off today, so he got to come along and do some serious documentation. Thanks, dad! Awesome job.... This is a long one (almost 5 minutes), so watch as much as you'd like.



That's all I can say today... it's after midnight, and I've been editing videos all night! More tomorrow, I promise!



PS - Check out some more recent footage of Riley swimming, during the week of her first birthday!

I love my chiropractor.

Just had to say that. Barbara is the best. Whatever she did to my back today was the best thing EVER!!! Thanks, Babshands! : ) Riley loves her, too. Here's Riley while I had my adjustment:



And here she is right after my adjustment, at lunch:



So today, I started her on 3 solid meals. She likes eating socially with Russell and me, so I figured, let's do it more often! I'll just have to pump a little more often... no prob!

OK, here's a better shot of her looking at me from her car seat. I promise, I only took these photos at red lights.




Riley and I went for a huge walk in the park today. It was so beautiful. In the park, we stopped at the Boat Playground, and rode the swing. We've never done that before, and I've never seen Riley so mellow and comfy. She layed back on me and just looked up at the sky and the trees. I thought she would fall asleep. Afterwards, we walked back home along the beach. She loved looking at the waves. I told her that's what she hears from her bedroom at night.



OH! Today, she wore one of the outfits I made her, for the first time! It finally (almost) fits. How cute is she in this?!





I was looking through some old photos, and found this. Wow. Can you believe this????



OK, off to spend some quality time with the father of my child. Good night.

She found me!

We went swimming today, to make up the class we missed when she was sick. It was a huge class, and a lot of fun with soooo many kids. We usually have about 6 or 8 in the class, and today's class had, oh I'd say, close to 25! Some older kids, too, up to about 3 years old.

This is Riley in the car on the way home from swimming. Her new thing is to turn all the way around in her car seat to look at me while I'm driving. So funny... we play peek-a-boo when I stop the car. This photo was taken with my camera phone, from the driver's seat looking back into the car seat. Nutty gal.



I made a big seafood gumbo that we'll eat tomorrow.

Russell is at Quiz Nite at Martin Mack's. That's Marcus in the middle, Russell's partner-in-crime. These boys are good. They win a lot of free beer...

We got our new table for the living room, and Riley loves to stand against it. She slipped and hit her chin into it already, and had no reaction. It's that padded. Perfect investment for a little gal.

Riley's 'new' tub has a hole in it. So in the middle of her bath tonite, it was mostly deflated and the water was running out of it. Hope they'll replace it, she loves that tub! Silly.....

Sorry not more exciting, that's all I have for today.

Making progress

Today, Riley was really on a roll (seriously, no pun intended...) with her development!

She was walking while holding my fingers. She would start by holding tight, then looser, then actually letting go completely, and testing her balance, and grab on tight again with a little gasp when she started to fall over. She is so excited to be on her own, I can't believe it.

She also taught herself this: She's leaning against a piece of furniture, holding a toy. She drops the toy, and leans over to look at it. She holds on tight with one hand, bends her knees, and reaches down and picks up the toy. Now, I helped her by holding her butt, but she figured out how to get the toy all by herself. Wow!



I've been helping her to crawl forward. I'd say it takes her about 5 minutes to get from one end of the living room to the other, backwards! She's really a mover.

On a different note, here are some of her swimming friends.

This is Liam:


This is Juliette:







This is Franny:



So, after Riley goes to bed, she's still waking up occasionally, crying really hard. When I go in, she's usually on her hands an knees, rocking back and forth. My new philosophy: it's because she's thinking about practicing her walking and standing and all that. And her muscles are probably sore from actually doing all that hard work during the day.

Here's a fun movie for you to enjoy. She likes to talk a lot... this is what she does in restaurants, too... getting a little sketchy to take her out, what do you think?



Who knows... I'm just super-impressed with her progress. She's becoming such a sweet little girl. Guess I have to go wake her for hugs now.... : )

The little surfer girl...

...is back in the water, after her cold! And going underwater like a true champ:



Obviously, I finally got our photos from the underwater camera developed. Some of these photos are of Riley with her teacher. The quality's not too great, but you get the picture:



Here she is in her crib, killing time, when daddy is home. Find the baby!



So, today was nice. Russell made a KILLER breakfast, with a "kitchen-sink" egg scramble with leftovers, and bagels and coffee. Riley ate with us, but she had apples, bananas, and oatmeal. She didn't go to bed last nite until 10pm, and woke up at 9am. But tonite, she was so tired from playing hard, she was sound asleep by 7:45. Back on schedule? Let's hope so!

Oh, and here are some more pictures of her latest accomplishment. Look ma, no hands!!






Then we went to Rebecca's for Shiatsu massages. She's studying Shiatsu in school, and needs people to practice on. If you're interested, let me know. She takes a small donation, and it's worth it! I feel like a new woman.

Yesterday, Riley and I went to Costco for our monthly stock-up. Here she is after we finished our shopping, and after she tried to eat the mushrooms:



That's about it for today!