Hollyhand House

Monday, May 7, 2012

Anna Riley

I haven't updated on Anna Riley lately and she is now 27 months (Riley says to stop saying months after 2...so 2 years and 3 months! :) She has really turned into quite the character the past couple of months. She keeps us laughing. I feel like she is really growing into a little girl!  Here are a few things about Anna Riley right now:

-She has learned how to make "silly faces" and so she makes them all. the. time!  I posted quite a few because they seriously crack me up.

-She loves to try to make Ava Kate laugh. She will say "Hey A. Kate!" over and over again and make her silly faces. And if she hears her crying, she goes to see about her.  She is a great Big Sister...most of the time!

I love listening to her talk to Ava Kate.  The other day the storms really scared Anna Riley and she thought it was the garbage truck and I explained it was thunder and so she was sitting by Ava Kate saying "That not garbage truck, that thunder... ok A.Kate"  

-She LOVES school!  She gets so excited when I tell her it is a school day!  She usually says "WOOHOO" or Yay! I go to school today!" :)  She is going to really miss it this summer but in the fall she will move up to 3 mornings a week.

-She is talking non stop now.  I understand most of it but that is just because I hear it all day!  Here are some of her favorite phrases right now:
-"You stay right there, I be right back"
-"Watch this, Mommy!"
-"Shhh, Be quiet!  (she has the whole finger on the lip down pat so I am guessing this came from school)  We have had to really talk to her about how she can't tell us to be quiet though.
-"No, No I do it" (the infamous toddler phrase!)
-"Come here Mommy, lay down! (This one you would just have to hear because it is so funny the way she says it.  She wants me to come lay on her like I am the baby and then she will just keep saying "come here, come here) and then she pats me on the back!  It cracks us up!
-"Hello in there" 
- She has started telling us she loves us (but still just on rare occasions) but she does say it sometimes.

-She has always loved her baby dolls but she really loves playing with them right now.  She is really getting into pretend play.  She usually sleeps with one or two of them and I can hear her in there talking to them and telling them to go nite nite!

-Speaking of pretend play, she is also mimicking a lot of what we do with her or Ava Kate.  I notice her rocking babies, feeding her babies in the high chair and the other day she pulled out a kitchen chair and put Elmo in it and said "TIME OUT, Elmo!"  and just kept telling him over and over he was in Time out!

-Speaking of time out!  Anna Riley's behavior has gotten somewhat better.  She still gets very frustrated if we don't understand what she is talking about.  She is also very impatient so that often leads to melt downs.  You can tell when she is tired, because like most kids, she starts having more meltdowns.  But she is getting a lot better at listening and obeying! 

-She is turning into such a girly girl.  I was this way when I was little so it doesn't surprise me that she is too. 
-While waiting to get our hair cut the other day, she noticed this sweet ladies shoes that had a big rhinestone on it and looked at her and said "hey, cute shoes!"

-She LOVES her hairbows!  The bigger the better!! True southern girl!  She wants to sleep in them but I try to get her not to because she will wake up in the middle of the night crying because she can't find her hairbow!! I am not kidding you!  I know it is my fault...I have put them on her since birth and I love that she loves them, but I have told her it is ok to not have them in sometimes!! 

-She likes for us to chase her and lay in the floor and tickle her and blow on her belly.
She will say " Tick me, Mommy"  "Blow my Belly!"

-She also doesn't like to get dirty. Well, I say this but if she is striped down to her diaper and she is dirty, she is ok with that. But if she has on shoes and dirt gets in there, she doesn't like that or if she spills water or anything on her clothes. 

-She loves to ride anything that will take her somewhere...golfcarts, 4 wheelers and horses are currently her favorites. 

-She is a great traveler.  She loves being on the go and really does great while traveling on our trips for the most part.  She begs to go sit in the car and watch tv in her carseat while we are at home!

-She still loves going to the doctor!  We had to go today actually, and she said "she listen to my heart, Mommy?"  She loves the stethoscope and playing doctor.  We always get compliments at the doctors office about how good she is but it is because she thinks it is playtime!  She loves it! 

-We did have to get a urine sample today to check for a UTI and she was such a big girl!  They had to put a bag on her to collect the urine since had a wet diaper, we didn't think she would be able to go on the potty.  So, I was telling her I was proud of her for being good and being still since the appointment took a long time and she didn't feel well and she said " yeah, im a good girl, Mommy!  High Five!  (turns out we had a little fever virus and no uti)

She wanted a pictures of her CP doll! :)

-She is learning so much everyday...she is a little sponge right now!
She knows most all of her colors (execpt orange and the stinker still wont say it!), She can count to 10 (most of the time), she knows several of her shapes, she can recognize a few of the letters (A, of course is her favorite).
-She loves to sing.  It is so funny to hear her try to sing songs since she still doesn't get all the words exactly right.  In a way, I am going to be a little sad when she can sing them the right way! :)
Look how tall she is getting!

-She is at a stage right now where she is scared of everything.  She really gets this from me because I can remember when I was little and even when I wasn't so little, being so scared or worrying about certain things.  I really hate she is like this too.  Right now, she is really scared of thunderstorms, any loud noises really unless you have explained to her what is about to happen and bugs (which can be anything that even resembles a bug).  And often, she has been scared of the shadows in her room.

-She is scared to go in our guest bathroom now also because she accidently turned on the vent fan and the loud noise scared her so she will not set foot in that bathroom now!
 
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Thursday, May 3, 2012

New Baby Sunday



Last Sunday was "New Baby Sunday" at Church where they recognize all the babies that were born that year.  Well, for some reason they didn't have it last year and they only do it during the 11 am service so we had a church FULL of babies.   We have a reception during the Sunday School hour and then we all go to the front for a little introduction during church and we were running out of room!  That is a wonderful thing though!  It was exciting because Duncan and Ava Kate were both up there together. 
  

They took our family picture and I was so happy that BOTH kids were looking...no smiles but hey, I'm ok with a blank stare as long as we aren't crying! haha We have had 3 decent family pictures in the last 2 months!  That is a huge improvement! 

We usually go to Mr. Doug's on Sunday nights, but we decided to eat lunch since we were getting out of church at lunch time.  (We all normally go to the early service)
Duncan and Ava Kate...The two "new babies"

Someone at church ask if they were twins when we
walked in together
All dressed in blue
Ava Kate taking care of Duncan! :)
I just love this picture
I love how AR is trying to put on Duncan's socks.
I don't think anyone was ready for this picture but it's
too cute!
Just a little better...Dunan and Pop Pop are making the
same face! :)
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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Weekend in Fairhope

We left for Fairhope on Thursday morning.  The ride down was not that great for AK.  She does not like to sleep in her carseat so thank goodness for my big SUV because I had to climb back there several times and ended up sitting in the floor between the captain chairs for a little while.  We are going to switch her to the big carseat this week and just keep it rear facing to see if it helps before we travel again!  Anna Riley was wonderful on the way down...she is pretty used to traveling now and the 4 hours doesn't seem to bother her most of the time! 
Once we got there though, we had such a wonderful time!  This trip was really a great trip. The weather was great, Anna Riley was really great all weekend, and it was just nice to have family time!  Mr. Doug and two relatives of Riley's from Seattle were there and they stayed with us Thursday and Friday night. Anna Riley really took to Annette and she loved spending the extra time with PopPop! The weather was perfect on Thursday and Friday and we really enjoyed lots of outside time.  Anna Riley was SO excited to catch crabs in the crab trap with PopPop when she got down there.  She talked about it Wednesday night and woke up talking about it first thing Thursday morning!  It was supposed to rain and storm all day Saturday but it held off until bed time so we had lots of fun playing outside again.  We walked with the girls to a breakfast place right by the house and the came back and just played outside all day. 
Getting the crab trap ready with Pop Pop

 
 
 
 
Douglas, Annette, Me, AR and Riley
 
 
Checking the crab trap
Laying out...She wanted PopPops shirt so she
could go nite nite!
 
 
 
 
 
Pure Joy!
 
 
 
 
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Monday, April 16, 2012

Trip to the Zoo!

We decided to take the girls to the Birmingham Zoo on Saturday rather than the ADay game festivities.  It was a great day to be outside and really to be at the zoo because it was not crowded at all.  I will have to say, I was a little disappointed though.  Most of the animals were asleep so we didn't really get to see many animals in action and some of the animals we didn't see period.  I think Birmingham has really did a lot with the zoo since I have been there on a field trips but I really still love the Montgomery Zoo better. But it just isn't practical to take my little kids there right now.  I just like that when you look out at the African animals, it truly looks like an African safari. And you can just see the animals better it seems. 

The monkeys and gorillas are my favorite and the gorilla was asleep in his little cave so we didn't get to see him really at all but we did see some of the little monkeys.  Anna Riley loved the giraffes.  We could see them really well!  The male lion was asleep the whole time but she did see a few of the female lions from a distance.  We got to see one of the elephants up close because the zoo keepers were talking about him and we caught the tale end of it so we got to see him.  We didn't even see the tiger in the cage at all and the rhino was asleep and we never saw the hippo.  She did  do a camel ride with her Daddy and seemed to like it a lot! She also loved the flamingos! Haha! Maybe we will have better luck with the animals at our next visit to the zoo.  


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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