Basketball Dreamin'

So anyone that knows me knows how much I love basketball....so imagine how adorable I thought it was this week when Riley wanted to sleep with his basketball! :) He's had to sleep with it a few nights this week! I can't imagine it's very comfortable, but whatever floats his boat!

Star of the Week!

At Sloan each child gets to be the "Star of the Week" during the school year, and it just so happens Riley is "Star of the Week" this week. That means we (as in I until I called for backup!) get to do a star to represent all Riley's favorite things that will hang in his classroom all week, and I can take a special snack for his class one day! When he's older we'll do it together, and he'll be able to speak to each of them. But since he's so young, I wanted to mainly do pictures of the things he likes that he can point out and say by himself.

Of course, they give me the Star on Thursday before we're supposed to have it done by Monday! Ugh! Hello! I'm a much bigger planner than that! Needless to say, I felt behind the ball before I even got started! Even so, it turned out great and it captures all of Riley's Current Favorite things!!

Many thanks to Talana for coming over to help me do the star at the last possible moment on Saturday. I spent Friday evening shopping for scrapbooking stickers, then Saturday morning uploading pictures from all our cameras and going through them to pick out ones to be printed at Walgreens. I'm ashamed to even admit that our nice Nikon camera had not been uploaded from since JANUARY! Hello Misty! Not good! I told Talana my suggestion for the school was going to be to NOT have a Star of the Week during December! OMG! We already have enough to do!! The good news is that as I was going through all our pictures for this, I already came up with some themes for pages in his memory book I make for family each year.

Anyway, I had a very loose vision, bought a bunch of stickers and went through and printed out pictures of his current favorite things, but Talana totally executed on the vision! She's a Master Certified Scrapbooker (if there were such a thing)! :) Once again - she comes through for us like family! She's babysat for us only 2nd to GiGi and is always there to lend a hand and help us out with any crazy thing we may have going on! That's true friendship! Love you Talana Banana!!

Of course, we had to make the background "flagish" considering they are one of his top 3 favorite things! :) I intended to have more basketball on the star too so as to represent the order of his favorite things, but that just didn't work once we started lying things out.

Anyway - here's the Star! The top leg is Zoo - with pictures of Riley and a gorilla and me and Riley in front of eledents (elephants - his #3 favorite thing). The left leg is swimming with Daddy in a pool and lake, splashing Mommy with water while we were in Cozumel, and a picture of the ocean from our room in Cozumel. The middle picture is obviously a family pic from our Christmas card last year because I realized I don't have any other family pics! ugh! The bottom left leg includes from bottom to top, bicycle, basketball or "shoot it" as Riley says, pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse from Cozumel - cake cakes as he calls them, and an airplane up in the sky! The bottom right leg includes from bottom to top - Riley as Buzz Year going down a slide, Buzz Year!, another basketball, Lightening McQueen from Cars and of course BARNEY!! The picture in the middle of the bottom legs is 5 flags hanging on our hotel in Cozumel that Riley wanted to "Reach it" every time we walked by them! Then the right leg is Mommy, Daddy, B - his bear he sleeps with and his teacher Dina who he regularly calls me! :) But I'm not jealous because I want him to love his teacher that much!

Anyway - you can't see the details in these pictures, but you get the idea!

Now I just gotta figure out that special snack.....I'm thinking animal crackers or something "Toy Story" to go with his favorite things! I guess I have til Friday, so plenty of time! ha!

Speaking of - his favorites we'd would rank them in the following order:
#1 - BASKETBALL~ I was thinking the other day - there has not been ONE day go by that Riley has not dunked on that basketball goal since he got it for Christmas last year! Seriously! Not one day! And he still gets just as excited EVERY single day! There's a lot more commentary now though like ew, almost Mommy, missed it, made it, yea, shoot it, pass it, dunk it, etc. And if anyone is playing at the park, they always crack up that he says ew or awe when they miss it too.
#2 - Barney ~ He will grab the remotes and ask for Barney by name, and that's the ONLY 30 minutes of the day that he sits still! What more can you say?! Santa *may* bring Riley tickets to Barney Live in his stocking, so I can only imagine how exciting that outing will be!! Especially for Mom and Dad too! :)
#3 - Gotta be FWAGS! MOMMY! FWAGS! WOW! ~ Which is what I hear almost EVERY morning and afternoon the the way to and from school.

#4 - Eledents (followed by a trumpet eledent sound now)  ~ Elephants- LOVES them!
#5 - Monkeys ~ They are quickly moving in on the eledents!

It's all the little things!

Once again I find myself playing catch up! August was the Month of Mommy! Yippee! I had 2 girls' trips! One with my best friend Courtney - it's been our tradition for years to not get each other birthday presents, but just to go on a quick weekend trip to celebrate both our birthdays. We hadn't done that in a couple of years since I had Riley, so we got our tradition going again this year! FUN! We drove to Austin for a quick one night stay at Barton Creek Spa and Resort. And I'm pretty sure my car barely had any oxygen left in it b/c we talked nonstop there and back! :)

Then I went on a weekend trip with 2 of my best friends from high school! Wow! The 3 of us had not all been together at the same time in 19 years!! Wow! I just aged myself!! But it's true! We had the most AMAZING trip! We'll never be able to have things go that well EVER again! Everything fell into place perfectly!! We went to Beaver Creek Colorado on what ended up being record heat days in Dallas, so it was even perfect timing for that too! We had a BLAST! Now we want to plan a trip with all our families too!

It's funny b/c we all lost touch at different points in our lives, but the 3 of us have a 1, 2 and 3 year old boy now! How crazy is that?! All these years and our lives have run totally different paths, but they all end up almost the same! 

We have some upcoming trips too, so I will probably be playing catch up once again! Kelly and I are going to LA for the weekend with some friends from work, THEN......we're going to the Price Is Right on Monday, September 27th!! WooHoo! I grew up watching that show, so I'm so excited!!!

Then I have to go to the UK for a work trip to meet with IBM for 5 days, then a couple of weeks after that we're taking our first "Official" real family vacation to Cozumel, Mexico for 7 days!! We can't wait!! We got Riley's passport, so we are all set! GiGi is going with us for 3 days to help us out! We'll see how Mommy, Daddy & Riley do away from home for 7 days straight in the same hotel room! I'm sure that will command a least a few posts itself!!

Speaking of Riley's passport, we got that recently! Getting a perfect picture of a 2 year old is DIFFICULT! Kelly ended up taking it!! But it looks like a mug shot!! I took a picture of the picture with my phone, so I'll have to post that later!

Anyway - this post was supposed to be about the adorable things Riley does on a daily basis to keep us laughing! There is no greater joy than that a child and their innocence brings into your life! Especially when you get to experience the world through their eyes first hand...it's amazing!

• Mainly he's a jibber jabbering fool!!! If only we knew what he was saying b/c sometimes he's really telling us all about it! Especially every day when I pick him up from school, he jibber jabbers NONSTOP all the way home as if he's telling me every detail of his day! I keep forgetting to try to record it with my voice recorder on my phone! Will definitely want to look back at that one day! 
• And he's definitely in repeater mode! Anything you say can and will be repeated immediately! So watch your mouth Mommy and Daddy!
• Buzz Lightyear is Buzz Year! He loves Woody too! 
• OMG! And he can spot Elmo from a mile away! Sometimes I'm like I don't see Elmo, and sure enough there will be the smallest picture of Elmo on the back of a book or something! Never doubt his Elmo spotting ability!
• He still loves Barney! Much to my dismay! j/k! 
• It's so sweet when I drop him off and pick him up from school - all his friends say "Hi Riley" and Bye Riley and Riley's Mom when we walk in his room. And he says Hi and Bye too. It's like a sneak peak into the individual he is all day when he's away from us! 
• OMG! He says "Hi" to EVERY person and car we pass! It's funny to see how people are so cold and sad they don't even respond positively to a sweet little child saying "Hi" and waving. The checkout ladies at the grocery store LOVE him! And he works them over with his charm every week! Same for waiters when we go out! Everyone always talks about how social and happy he is to talk to everyone! 
• He LOVES to point out all the animals and make their sounds! 
• He still reads some words when you write them out for him, but we haven't been practicing that as much or watching his show every day. He watches 1 episode of Barney while we're cooking dinner a day now. 
• He is a BUSY little boy! Even his teacher comments on what a hard worker he is! And he does really get into it when he finally focuses on something! 
• He LOVES Popsicles!! And he can open the freezer and get one out now! So that's a daily conflict! But it's so cute b/c he'll run to the patio door because he knows we only eat those outside! 
• He LOVES his Strider Prebike GiGi got him for his birthday! He's getting faster and faster on it! I keep meaning to video him. He's gonna have to start wearing his helmet soon! And of course, he's like his Dad - he doesn't want to go straight on the ground - he wants to take the path least taken and go back and forth and up and down on and off the sidewalk!
• OMG! He LOVES his wagon we got him for his birthday too! EVERYDAY we have a meltdown when we pull in the garage and he sees it! WAGON! WAGON! The other day he worked 10  minutes trying to pull it up the step into the house! He was in a full sweat and everything! We've GOT to find somewhere else to keep that wagon! He used to have a fit every morning when we were leaving for school too, but that has subsided lately. 
•  In some ways it is so much easier b/c he can tell you he "pooped", wants "more milk", etc. But we definitely see the struggle for his independence becoming more and more prevalent! 
• He LOVES to read books! He'll bring you books back and forth from his bookshelf ALL DAY if you'll let him! And he has definite favorites that he'd love for you to read over and over again!
• He's also in the picky toddler eating phase. He'll gobble something up one day, then refuse to eat it the very next day! What can you do?! We just keep trying. 
• One thing he will eat EVERY TIME is "chips" and tortillas! OMG! The boy can put away some tortillas! Yesterday he ate 3 or 4 whole tortillas, then almost an entire kids' cheese enchilada, rice and beans meal! So when he's hungry - he EATS! When he's not, you never know what you're gonna get! 
• We can have pseudo conversations with him these days - every morning I ask him if he slept well, and he says "Chess" and shakes his head yes! And I ask if he likes school - "Chess". Did he have a good day at school "Chess". You definitely can't mention anything you are "about to do" b/c he knows what you mean when you say playground, splash park, play with Ethan, and he assumes it means RIGHT THAT SECOND!
• He STILL hates haircuts! OMG! But the child's hair is so thick - it would be child abuse NOT to get it cut! And I wonder when he'll grow out of the faux hawk...it's just so who he is now...he doesn't look like himself when his hair isn't fixed! 
• OMG!! And I'm sorry if I repeat myself...it's impossible to remember everything I've posted about sometimes! I walk around blogging in my head, but I can't remember which ones have actually made it to the blog! And if I took the time to go back and review - I'd NEVER get a chance to blog!
• He still LOVES basketball! He can even shoot like a REAL shot with perfect form and everything!! It's awesome! It's still not every time, but almost! He and Daddy shoot baskets pretty much every day, so he's a good rebounder too! And he always wants his Dad to shoot before he does. 
• He LOVES the Splash Park Darcy introduced us to! We've been there almost every weekend this summer! It's so much easier than the pool b/c he can run around and have fun without us being scared about him drowning! ha!
• Oh yeah - it's so cute! Every night after we've read his bedtime books, we sing some songs. So when I sing Twinkle Twinkle - he's like a little echo, and he always says the last word. It's like last in first out with him. So it's something like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - then Riley says STARRRRR! How Riley wonders what you are - then Riley says ARRREEE! So cute!
• He loves to watch videos of himself and others. He recognizes people in the videos - Jayden, GiGi, etc. 
• We watched the videos from his birthday party, and we was screaming and going crazy as if he were at his birthday party again!! 
• He LOVES PeekABoo and Wheels on the Bus games on my iPhone! 

Okay...that's all I can think of for now!! See...a lot to catch up on!! 

March Madness All Around!

Well for us March Madness means a few things - not just the college basketball tourney. The first madness, is that Kelly and I got 2 adult date nights in one week!! WooHoo! First, Emily kept Riley overnight at her house the Friday before last so Kelly and I could have a date night and celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. We had already planned to take half a day off work that Friday for a "day date" to see the Bodies Exhibit. So we just made an afternoon and evening out of it! So fun! Like old times dancing til 2am just the 2 of us! But we're a little out of practice! ha! The 2nd date night, my friend Terri watched Riley after work so Kelly and I could attend my friend Reza's son's wedding. It was a St. Patty's Day wedding and a lot of fun! But we had to go to work the next day, so that was a little rough! We are definitely out of practice with these late nights!

The 2nd part of March Madness for us is of course watching college hoops! One of my favorite times of the year! And now it's definitely one of Riley's too!! It is soooooo cute! He will get all excited watching a game on tv and stand in front of the tv with his own basketball and run all around and say "AWEEEE" if they miss a basket or "dunk" if they dunk it! And sometimes after they dunk it on tv, he'll run to his basketball hoop and dunk too! It's so cute cute cute!!

Now with the time change, we're able to go the playground pretty much every evening when it's nice outside. Riley still takes his ball and "shoots" at the hoops the entire time we are there! Now he likes to try to climb up the slide backwards too and go down by himself. He still doesn't know how to maneuver the turns so we have to support him.

OMG! We did make the mistake last weekend of taking him to the other playground to play without his BALL! OMG! Did we ever pay dearly!!! Someone had a soccer ball there, and once he laid eyes on it - it was OVER! Try to explain to a 19 month old that it's not their ball! We had a full fledged meltdown! I almost dropped him twice just trying to carry him to put him in the stroller, then he literally cried almost the entire way home! BIG ol' crocodile tears! And the walk home isn't short!! Wow! I'm not sure I'm ready for this crazy toddler time!! Kelly and I just looked at each other helplessly! What can you do?! There was NO consoling him about the ball! Lesson learned - do NOT go to the playground withOUT a ball! EVER!!!

His love for balls got him in trouble at my cousin Billy's house a couple of weeks ago too. We didn't realize Billy's big lab Tatum loved "basketball" too, so when Riley came running with the basketball - Tatum came running too and there was a collision! Tatum was just a little larger, so he took Riley out. Unfortunately, it was a perfect storm of Tatum knocking Riley right into a wood step and he hit his head hard! :( My poor baby! He had an instant bump on his head too, but he was fine! Before that accident though, Riley was dancing and showing off his moves in person! My Aunt Mary and her husband Bob said they thought the videos were funny, but seeing Riley's moves in person was even better than they imagined! I have to agree with them! :)

He is definitely Little Mr Helper! Emily said when it's time for lunch, he will do all the things to get ready for lunch - move the chairs to face each other, get his high chair seat out of the closet, put his place mat on the table...all that without her even asking him to or showing him how - he just did it! And he's for sure my little helper at home! In fact, I find myself having to do things SEVERAL times these days! I've literally been trying to throw away the same fabric softener bottle for 3 weeks! I put it in the trash, and every time I turn around some little helper has put it back in the pedestal drawer of the washing machine! Same thing with hangers, if I try to throw bent hangers away - he'll take them out of the trash and hand them to me and point to the laundry rod in the pantry! And you still have to watch him very closely at laundry time! Or else you end up with dirty socks in the dryer and clean clothes back in the washer! And when he puts things in the washer or dryer - Nolan Ryan doesn't have anything on him! He winds up and throws them so hard they bounce off the back wall! And he grunts each time too! So cute! Thank goodness for the grunt - it's sometimes my only indicator that he's just added something to one or the other!

He still loves to dance. You can just say dance and he'll flap his arm and up and down and move his shoulders back and forth.

He can point to almost all his body parts now - head, hair, nose, eyes, mouth, ears, belly button (although sometimes that's his chest), knees and toes/teez (although sometimes knees and toes are just patting on his thighs).

Oh yeah...and now he gives 'puppy' and 'bear' kisses all the time! Muwah! Muwah! And he'll just smile and talk to them. Wish I had the decoder ring for those conversations!

Oh yeah - the 3rd 'madness' - Riley's new obsession is the stairs! He LOVES to climb them! And that's one of the only times I realized he hears WAY more than he lets on. Like tonight, I said let's go upstairs and take a bath. He looked at me and said bathhhhh. Then took off running. At first, I didn't think anything of it, but when I turned around to see where he was going - it was straight to the stairs and he started climbing up. He'll do the same thing for let's go upstairs and change your diaper, do laundry, take a nap, etc. Like a flash, he's gone! And he'll totally do it even when I think he's not listening.

He definitely understands a lot more than he can say - if I say 'Mommy's Room', he goes to my room. 'Your room' - he goes to his room. Laundry room - down stairs he goes to the gate. Upstairs he starts climbing the stairs. And don't DARE say the word OUTSIDE unless you are ready to go RIGHT this second! He runs to the gate and get's REALLY upset if you aren't ready to go right then!! That's one of those lessons like taking the ball to the playground! You only have to experience it once, then you're a FAST learner!

I've got to get some video of him running after his basketball outside! It's hard to explain, but so cute how he swings his body and legs back and forth to run.

He's still your cheerleader for anything! Closing a door, putting something in the trash, and he'll pause what he's doing and clap for you.

Oh yeah, he totally knows "Poo" now - as in poo-poo! He actually walked up to me and said "Poo" "All Done" a couple of weeks ago! I almost died! He hasn't really done it again though. But if you are changing a "Poo" diaper, he'll say it. Then I guess I always say "Shoo Wee Stinky Poo", so he's starting saying "Shoo Wee" and crinkling his nose up then saying "Poo"! Funny!

Okay...I think that's it for now!! Never a dull moment in The Life of Riley!

Riley's 2 Ball Dunk!

I think I posted last week how Riley wants us to raise his basketball goal so it's harder, and that he's started being more creative with his dunks.

Kelly captured one on video - a 2 ball dunk - well sort of! But we'll count it!! Listen to how he "groans" after he makes it just like Kelly does! Cracks me UP!

I think I can fly!

Seriously, I know I always say "and it was the cutest thing", but they ARE!! Every last one of them!!

Riley did another one of his "cutest things" yesterday! It was a BEAUTIFUL day outside, so we went to the playground by our house. For whatever reason, I decided we'd take his big ball to play with, so we could chase it around the playground. When we got there a Dad and his 2 kids were shooting baskets, so it became a full time job trying to keep Riley from joining them! You know he's ALL about basketball these days with his favorite pastime of dunking!! So he'd keep running toward them saying "ball", and I'd keep catching him and trying to distract him with his own ball!

When they left, I just let Riley go onto the basketball court to see what he'd do! I almost FELL over laughing when I saw this next scene play out before my eyes. Riley took off running toward the basketball court with his big ball, and I swear to God - he ran all the way to the farthest basketball goal and threw his ball up like he was shooting a layup!! OMG! I had NO idea he'd have no concept of "height", so he literally "shot baskets" for another HOUR straight! And he was showing no signs of stopping anytime soon! In fact, before long every person at the playground was cheering him on and totally getting a chuckle out of watching him run and shoot at the basket over and over again! It never got old! Sometimes he would stand right under the basket and hold his head back and look straight through the basket and then grunt as he threw the ball up! I held him up a couple of times so he'd be closer and he let out the biggest squeals of delight! I think he could have done it ALL NIGHT!!! Finally I had to bring him home (kicking and screaming of course) for dinner!

Kelly and I took him back for some more action today. Plus, I think Kelly doubted me, so he had to see it for himself! It wasn't as nice out today, so you'll see his rosy red cheeks!! But that didn't deter him at all!

This 1st video is what Riley did right as we put him down. I wanted to capture that he's a man on a mission when there is a basketball goal around! I love the fact that he does his "victory dance" whether he makes it or not too! When Kelly picks him up so he can be higher - listen closely - and you'll hear him say "dunk".



This is Riley taking it COAST to COAST baby and shooting a layup! ;) This court is at an elementary school, so it's small and has 4 goals. You can tell



Riley taking a ride on Dad's Basketball Ride - when the video first starts - you can hear one of Riley's infamous "Daddy's" with total excitement! He may be a Mamma's boy, but he LOVES his Daddy!

Two New Words!

So this weekend Riley started saying car or really "cah" as Emily put it! And he also said "Kitty Kitty" at Emily's house because she has 2 cats.

He's had "ball" down for a while and with his new basketball goal - that one is only becoming more popular! And now Dad is teaching him to SCREAM when he dunks the ball! GREAT! And of course, he's getting that down pat!!

And anything is fair game for being "dunked"! Just a few of the items that I've seen "dunked" are shoes, Chicken Dance Elmo, football, tennis ball, basketball, car, book and sippy cup. Pretty much anything that happens to be in his hand or within arms reach when he decides "I haven't dunked in a while"!

I also think he gives kisses, but just not your conventional type of kisses!! LOL! I noticed a while back he would hold his mouth open and say "Ma" as he was touching his mouth to you. Then I noticed when I kiss him I saw "Muah" "Muah", so that's probably what he is doing! He won't do it on demand when you ask for a kiss, but he will do it when he wants to! I'll take kisses from him ANYTIME in ANYWAY!!