Friday, October 19, 2012

Let's catch up

Since my last post was in January (oops!), here's a brief rundown of the highlights of our year so far.

February:  Kirk went to Mexico for a week to get things prepared for the summer missions trip there. He had a wonderful time. Riley and I did pretty well on our own and had help from family and friends who took care of us.  Most importantly that month, we celebrated Riley's 1st Birthday!  We had separate family parties and then had a party for our friends.  It was so fun to celebrate her first year and to look back on how much she'd grown and changed over the past 12 months. 




March: I turned 30 on March 1. Cabin fever from the winter hit and we tried go get outside as much as possible! Thankful spring arrived and we were able to let Riley burn off energy outside. I started doing a weekly playdate with 2 friends, which has been a huge blessing and Riley loves seeing her buddies each week. We had a great visit with my friend Mayme, who was in town to do some recruiting for YouthWorks.

 
 
 

April:  We celebrated Easter with my family.



 



May:  Kirk's parents came to visit.  We took them to all our favorite places, including multiple trips to Portillos.  We also went to an indoor water park in Lake Geneva.  Riley LOVED it. I think she went down the little water slide about 100 times.  She is fearless!




June: In June we celebrated Kirk's birthday.  Kirk was gone for about 12 days on a Missions Trip to Mexico.  It was a long time for him to be gone and Riley and I did great on our own for about the first 9 days, then it got a little rough after that!  :o) We were so glad to have him home!  At the end of the month we celebrated my friend Mandy's 30th birthday.  We spent a lot of time at the park, pool and zoo. 

 
 


July:  This summer was Hot. Unusually hot. Like too hot to go to the park hot. July was spent mainly in the pool.   Kirk was gone for another week on another missions trip (the joys of being married to a youth pastor).  At the end of the month, we took at 2 week trip to South Carolina.  We spent half that time at Hilton Head with Kirk's parents and the other half visiting his family.  We got to see Kirk's brother and sister in law.  Riley got to play with her cousins (which was awesome!) and we got to meet our new nephew Hudson.  Riley LOVED the beach.  She was fearless about being in the waves, loved running around and sitting in the beach chair waving at every single person that went by. 





August: After getting back from South Carolina, we enjoyed a relaxed August. We had lots of playdates and spent a lot of time at the zoo and pool. 




September: Kirk was busy with the start of a new ministry year.  I started working part time at Wheaton College.  It was a HUGE adjustment for me to go back to work instead of being with Riley all the time.  I only work 3 days a week for 5 hours at a time, but it was a big change to our schedule and routine. Riley handled the changes well, I had a much harder time.  It has worked out well though.We have been thankful for cooler weather too!




October:  October has been flying by!  We are taking advantage of the fall weather and taking trips to Cosley, the Zoo, parks, pumpkin patches and Cantigny. 

Riley:  Riley is almost 20 months old and is totally out of the baby stage and a full blown toddler.  She is very high energy!  She runs everywhere. She loves to spin,jump and climb and she is fearless!  Her current favorite thing is to climb on the furniture and then fall off (like you'd do a trust fall).  She thinks is great fun to watch us scamble to catch her. She is starting to talk a little bit more.  She is in the stage where she points to everything and wants to know what it's called.  She's also a little string bean still.  Since she doesn't like to sit still and eat, she hasn't gained much weight (she has gained 1 pound in the past year!) but keeps growing taller!  She still isn't a great sleeper or eater.  She does sit still long enough to cuddle or watch Curious George but most of the time she has us chasing after her. 


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Hello Again

Hi again!

I'm back!  I had started the blog when we were living in North Carolina, away from all our friends and family.  It was a great way to keep everyone updated.  Once we moved back to Illinois, I pretty much stopped. Partially because we were back near a lot of friends and family so it felt less important to update everyone. And partially, because Riley was 6 months old when we moved and started crawling at 6 months and I pretty much haven't sat down since. :o)

But, we are still far away from Kirk's family and my Minnesota family so I've realized that I should probably keep the updates coming. 

So start checking this again...

More to come...

Sunday, January 8, 2012

We're back!!!

Oh wow. It's been almost 5 months since I've updated this blog. Yikes. Since August 23 (my last post) SO much has happened.

1) We took a vacation to Hilton Head with Kirk's parents. Riley hated the ocean but loved the pool.

2) Kirk accepted the job as the Senior High Youth Director at Glen Ellyn Bible Church, so we packed up moved from North Carolina back to Chicagoland.

3) We moved into a townhouse in Wheaton (about 4 blocks away from my grandma!) and are still getting settled.

4) Riley started crawling at about 6 months old. She quickly became a speed demon! She was fast!

5) About 2 weeks after she started crawling, she pulled herself up to standing. That same week, she got her two bottom teeth.

6) Kirk's parents came to visit for Thanksgiving. Riley got spoiled - big time.

7) At 9 1/2 months old, Riley took her first steps. Within a few days, she was walking everywhere!

8) We celebrated Christmas with my family. Riley got spoiled - big time.


We are still working on getting settled in our new place, but are so thankful to be back in Chicago. It's so nice being near family and friends. Kirk loves his job at GEBC and has been really busy there. He has his winter retreat with the youth this upcoming weekend.

Riley and I are trying to keep busy and avoid the cabin fever that can set in during winter. Riley loves to sing, dance, blow kisses and pull all of our books and DVDs off the shelves. She is still working on eating solid foods...she gets about 10% of what we give her in her mouth, the rest is on the floor. She recently learned to blow kisses and gets on kicks where she'll go for several minutes doing nothing but blowing kisses. She also loves to sing. If you say "Riley. Sing!" she will (loudly) sing the one note she can hit. She also can't stop herself from dancing whenever she hears music. After just a few notes, she starts to shake her little butt. My favorite is when she'll do it while she's in my lap nursing!

I have been enjoying being near my good friends again (and closer to Minneapolis!) and am thankful to have my family near by. It's also so great to be back at GEBC (the church I grew up in) although it feels very "full circle" to be back there!

I'm getting back into a good routine so hopefully that will make me be better at updating this blog. And I'll start writing about things other than Riley...maybe. :o)


Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Sunday, July 31, 2011

5 Months!

Riley is now 5 months old! It's crazy how big she is getting and how quickly she is changing! She can now roll over back to front and front to back. She is SO close to crawling! She can rotate around in a circle when she's on her belly and then rolls to get to where she wants to go. We can't leave her alone for a second! She knows how to use her arms to crawl and what to do with her legs - she just can't seem to coordinate them at the same time. I am totally fine with that! Crawling is great and all - but once she can do that, I think my job becomes harder! :o)

Riley is such a wonderful and happy baby! She STILL hasn't taken a bottle and still is waking up about 3 times a night. Other than those two things - she is such an easy baby! I'm excited to be able to start her on solids next month!

I took Riley swimming for the first time and she LOVED it! She was so cute in her little swim suit and loved splashing in the water. She's ready for her trip to the beach at the end of August! She also still loves listening to her daddy play guitar. She loves her bouncing activity center. Her feet now reach the ground so she can bounce away on her own. She lasts for about a half hour in it until she wears herself out from bouncing so much! She also is very into watching our food. Anytime she can see what we are eating she is reaching for it and trying to get her hands on it. She especially wants to drink out of our cups. When we let her try it - she loves it but gets water everywhere!

We just got back from a long trip to Chicago. I'll post about that and put up some new pictures soon!

As a side note - I'm going to be an Aunt again! Rachael and Barry are expecting their third at the end of March. I'm SO excited for them! Congrats!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

4 Month Update

We went for Riley's 4 month doctors appointment yesterday. She is 4 months 9 days old, 15 pounds 2 ounces and 26 inches long. The doctor said she looks great! Riley now rolls over, grabs onto toys, can sorta laugh (still sounds kinda like a little grunt), squeals and yells, and is teething like crazy! She had discovered her toes and wants nothing more than to get them into her mouth! She also loves listening to her daddy play guitar.

We got the go-ahead to start her on rice cereal. She didn't really know what to think of it, but got quite a bit down! She was a MESS! She also gets to start having a little bit of water in a sippy cup. I'm hoping that she can figure out how to use a sippy cup since she still hasn't used a bottle! She was sleeping 6-8 hours a night, but for some reason has gone back to waking up about 2 times a night. We are trying to figure out how to get her back to that 6-8 hour a night because I am exhausted by the 2 night time feedings!

In 2 weeks, we head up to Chicago. Kirk's coming for just a few days and then coming back to take the junior highers on their mission trip to Chattanooga. I'll stay up in Chicago the week he is gone. We're excited to see friends and family and I'm thrilled not to have to be home alone with Riley for the week he's gone.

Here are a couple pictures from Riley's first rice cereal experience!


Pictures

Our friend Lisa Potter took some adorable pictures of Riley this past weekend. There are so many cute pictures! Here are some of our favorites!