8 Months Old

Wow it has been FOREVER since I have written it seems like. I have tons of updates on Riley and believe it or not I have a couple of projects to post as well. But first lets update you on Riley, because she is the cutest baby in the world!!!

Riley is officially 8 months old now and I feel like I am going to miss telling you about something because it has been almost a month since I have told any stories not to mention she is changing every day lately.

- About a week ago we started the crying it out method of going to sleep...I'm not a bad mom but it was taking anyone who wanted to put her to sleep at least an hour to do so and that was a crying, wiggling baby. It was so hard. So Pat and I decided to try this and see how it worked, I am upset that we waiting this long to do it because it is working WONDERFULLY!!! The first night she cried for 45 minutes, Patrick and I sat there upset and then finally broke out the wine so that we could get through it without going in and trying to snuggle her. After the wine was gone she finally fell asleep and we lived too! Needless to say she slept all night which I basically thought was just because of the crying. However the next night she only cried 15 minutes, we didn't need wine and she slept all night again! The next night she cried 8 minutes and ever since she has only cried 1 or 2 minutes a night. It is wonderful, she gets better sleep, she sleeps all night and we aren't so frustrated with her or each other trying to get her to sleep every night.

- Riley got a rash a couple of weeks ago. It was bad. It started out right on the edge of her diaper which I noticed when she went to bed. When she woke up in the middle of the night it was covering her body. She didn't seem to be too bothered by it but of course it worried me because it was all over her face and I wanted to make sure that she was having an allergic reaction. Turns out it was an allergic reaction and the only thing we can think is it was some sort of food allergy. So we gave her some Benadryl and took her off food for 3 days and it cleared up. So now we have to be especially careful of what we feed her. I don't know it did happen the day after I stopped breast feeding so maybe it was lack of my immunity that caused it but nonetheless we are being very careful now.

- A couple of nights ago I came home from work and she was eating with daddy in the rocking chair but she heard me so she sat straight up and reached her arms out to me with the biggest smile in the world. It warmed my heart so much. I ended up feeding her and she fell asleep in my arms, just so content.

- 2 days ago she learned how to wave. Patrick put her in bed with me and said "Bye girls" and she waved to him, without any prompting. It was adorable and now that is the new thing she has been doing, she thinks it is so funny.

- Riley has been doing this adorable thing where she comes up to me when I am sitting in front of the mirror doing my makeup and she pulls herself up and rests her head on my shoulder and watches me put on makeup. Of course she wants her own makeup so I pretend put some blush on her and she just giggles. I just love that she is a girlie girl and that is starting to become very snuggly!

- She has discovered how to climb into things. Usually it is her carseat but she just discovered her swing. She proceeded to crawl into the swing, stand up and try to rock back in forth. She thought this was hillarious, I thought it was dangerous so the swing got lifted so that she can't crawl into it by herself now. She does love to sit in the swing and try to swing it herself now though.











- We had our first play date at the park a couple of weeks ago with McKenna, Lucas, Q and Ashton. Riley did really well, it was perfect weather and it was fun to catch up with my friends, if feels like I never get to see them anymore. The babies are growing up so fast it is sad, soon they will all be running around together and hopefully they will be friends!

Patrick's best friend Jeff came for a visit from Brazil which was very fun and very short lived. He brought his wonderful girlfriend Juliana. The are such a cute couple and we were able to have a short visit with them at our house where they got to meet Riley for the first time. We also got to go to Public Houe 124 and eat with them and catch up one night. We totally wouldn't mind traveling to Brazil to visit unfortanately I don't see that happening anytime too soon but we will keep dreaming.

We went out with the Underhill's last weekend on their boat. It was a wonderful and beautiful day and so much fun. Their family is so fun to hang out with because everyone is relaxed and just trying to have fun. Riley got to stay with Nana the whole day! Patrick and I both got to surf for the first time and caught on pretty quick, it was fun. Patrick tubed and wakeboarded for the first time and did so well, he got up on the first time! Unfortnuately we both got super sun burnt but it was worth it, we would go out anytime!

Helping daddy with the broken vacumme

Baby Leg Warmers

 Isn't she the cutest baby you have ever seen, or I am just a little biased because she is my wonderful baby! I made these leg warmers for my cousins baby Callie on her one year birthday, that is why these leg warmers are a little big on Riley, she is only 2 months old in these pictures! Despite them being rather large on her she loved being the model and is ready for some of her own.

These leg warmers are great for when baby's start rolling around and crawling, especially if you have carpets so that they don't get rug burn on their little knees. My daughter is now trying to crawl so I am just about to make some more of these cute leg warmers and since a lot of her clothes are cute little dresses they work really well for our cooler walks and it makes it really easy to change her diaper! So here is a short and easy tutorial of how I made them with my inspiration coming from Our Little Beehive.

What to Buy:

1 pair of women's socks

Matching thread

14" total of elastic, for the bottom of the leg warmers, I used 1/2" wide and make sure that it is fairly flexible to work with rather than stiff.

Step 1: Cut your elastic into 7" strips and sew together with a 1/4"-1/2" overlap so you are left with two elastic circles. Throughout this project use a zig zag stitch so that it can stretch. Depending on how big you need the leg openings, if they are a chunk a munk you may want to make them slightly bigger.

Step 2: Cut your socks as shown in the picture.

Step 3: Fold your cuff inside out and place the elastic over the top and then fold over to make a cuff.

Step 4: Place the cuff over the bottom of the leg warmer so that you see 3 raw edges that you need to sew. Sew around the edge. I choose not to pin because it is hard to sew this to begin with that I usually end up poking myself. Just make sure if you do it this way that you make sure you have all three layers under your stitch when you sew.

Step 5: You are done. Just smooth it out. I made 3 of these during Riley's nap today which was only about 30 minutes so these are very easy to make!

This is Riley today wearing her leggings. Although the color white matches almost anything I do have one warning, they will get extremely dirty, especially with all the dog hair that she happened to pick up so a darker color may last longer!

4th of July Weekend

Happy 4th of July Weekend everyone. Our little family didn't do a lot to celebrate because we had to work but I did get a nice surprise visit from my family at work. Patrick and Riley also went out to Grandpa Mike's house to visit also. Then the 3 of us went to Nana and Papa's house and BBQ'd and they watched her for a couple of hours while we went to Rocky and Ryan's land to watch fireworks. This was kind of amazing because they have a view of the entire valley so we got to see all of the fireworks and the moon came up over the mountains and it was so pretty. Unfortunately we didn't take the camera out to get any pictures of the view but I'm sure we will be there again soon!

4th of July with Aunt Ashley

So we had a great weekend. Riley hit a couple more milestones this week. For the first time we walked in to get her from sleeping and she was standing up in her crib...guess it was about time to lower the mattress anyhow. She is also cutting her second bottom tooth so she is a bit more cranky than normal but hopefully we will get over that soon. And we decided this weekend to paint her toenails, actually mama decided to do it while she was asleep!

Just got her toenails painted, ignore the evil look on her face!

Riley also got to go swimming for the first time yesterday. We went to Mia and Cooper's house and Hadley was there too and she did wonderfully. She loved it, she went straight into splashing which I'm not so sure Hadley was all that thrilled about and she was in the pool for the better part of an hour. She also went down the little slide, so officially we are going to buy her a little kiddie pool today so that she can have her own!