Cuteness Ten

LSU Rocks the Crib and alternate option from 13-month photo shoot:

 

Bedtime routine with Daddy, bath and book:

 

Penguin PJs, bringing me his shoe and a new place to play:

 

Loves going to the grocery with Mama, especially when we see his friend Zendelle, who works there!

  

On second thought, I want the chair on the left:

 

Christmas PJs, stare-down with Nopsi, and playing at Mama’s feet:

  

Quality time with Mama:

Brushing teeth with Daddy:

 

Santa penguin shirt and saying “open” (door) and “wreath”:

Geaux Saints!!!

 

Other shots from 16-month photo shoot:

 

And, of course, my sweet sleepy boy:

   

Happy {almost} New Year everyone! May your 2012 be even better than your 2011. :)

Sixteen Months

I had originally planned to scale back my “birthday” posts on Riley-bean, doing one every three months or so instead of every month. I quickly realized, however, that wouldn’t be possible. This kid just does so much and says so much that I have no choice but to keep up with him. So here we go!

Riley is officially sixteen months old today. He weighs approximately 27lbs and stands 32 inches tall. He’s still in a size 4 diaper (5 for overnights), and he wears anything from a 12-18 month to a 2T in clothes.

Here’s what I want to remember about this past month:

• He has tried a lot of new foods: salmon, cornbread, coconut, popcorn, caramel, walnuts, crackers, lettuce, roast beef, lobster, rabbit, flounder, swordfish, ginger, crabmeat, and peanut butter. His daddy also taught him how to “cheers” with his sippy cup, which is so cute.
• He is also saying tons of new words: again, bowl, empty (and knows when something is), cheese, grape, blueberry, snake, baby, airplane, brush, star, bite, kale, moon, towel, pillow, penguin, tree, sticky, edamame (“mami”), ham, hair dryer, boulder, hello, cereal, Cheerio, noodle, hanger, alrighty. He talks a LOT.
• And a few new phrases: “sssss” for snake, “choo-choo” for train, “baa” for sheep, “ah-ah” for monkey, “I’ll do it,” “Doh!” (and also hits his head with his hand when he says this…Uncle Jeff taught him), “cray-cray” for crazy (QP taught him this and he says it all the time).
• He also says many names: Daddy, Mama, Nopsi, Na-no (Nola), Grandma, Uncle Jeff, QP, Elmo, Jembo.
• He very much understands the concept of on/off and open/close. He says open all the time. He also started to say “no-no” when he doesn’t want to do something. Super.
• He is very busy, all the time. He doesn’t stay in one place for very long, always on the move, constantly doing something. Unfortunately, this also means he is not a big snuggler. I miss those days! He also doesn’t easily and willingly give as many kisses these days, so I take them as often as I can get them.
• He is starting to trip and fall a lot more, which probably has something to do with his speed. He’s pretty fast on those feet of his.
• He loves to turn the speakerphone on and off, as well as play with the answering machine. And lots of times when the phone rings, he’ll say “hello!”
• He loves throwing his sippy cups and some of his food onto the floor, although we’re trying to teach him that’s not nice.
• He is loving moving things from one place to another and dumping things out (corks, foam blocks, etc.), but he’s not so into picking things up just yet.
• I’m starting to teach him colors, although he says everything is green.
• He is learning where his cheeks, chin, elbows, and knees are.
• He’s been a little more whiny and moody lately, which I hope is because of teething and not a personality switch. One of his first bottom molars came in this month, so that brings his tooth total to 8 (that I can see to count).

Sixteen months old!

Notable Christmas Gifts

After everything was said and done, I would have to say that we all got some pretty great gifts this year. Many of them were centered around family jokes, including a few given by different people with the same theme. It was kind of like that year when Kenny and I both surprised each other with trips to New York, only on a much smaller scale. (Yes, we really did do that, and yes, we really did take both trips, albeit a few months apart.)

We apparently are all budding t-shirt designers because there were a lot of custom-made shirts exchanged. I created one for Uncle Jeff with a favorite saying of his on it, and Riley also gave one to Nopsi and one to Nola.

 

And I am sorry to say that there were two, TWO, shirts created for yours truly, one by my brother and another one by my father. Neither knew the other was doing the same thing, so I am quite the lucky girl to have two unfortunate reminders of something that happened on our Sonoma trip back in July. I simply mistook some cattle for horses and now I’ll never live it down.

What can I say? We had been drinking wine all day long and I got a little confused. Such is life sometimes.

There were also a couple of bacon-themed gifts exchanged between me and QP, because we both love this video. And QP and Erin both reminded each other of a small little incident that happened on Thanksgiving night with custom created “green apple” gifts.

I’m telling ya, if you say something in front of any other member of this family, be prepared to have it haunt you for the rest of your days.

Then there was a special gift from my brother to me. As if his horsey t-shirt wasn’t enough, he commissioned UJ to paint a gigantic “Noel” on canvas for me. I was surprised with it as I came back downstairs at one point, so I must admit he got me good. But he still hasn’t topped my “Noel” delivery on my way down the aisle at his wedding, so I guess our good-natured battle continues.

 

But perhaps the most fun gifts of the day were from my dad to Kenny and my brother: remote control helicopters. Oh, and Nopsi got himself one, too. He couldn’t let the two young guys have all the fun!

The weather on Sunday wasn’t the greatest for flying, but you better believe Kenny and Jeff ventured out anyway to take their copters for a test spin.

However, they moved their flight paths inside when the wind blew one of the choppers into a tree. Luckily, there were no casualties.

Riley was absolutely fixated on the helicopters, especially once the guys started flying them around inside. He was so intently focused that I probably could have waved a handful of sticks in front of his face and he wouldn’t have blinked.

 

These were just a few of the memorable gifts given and received this year; there were certainly other wonderful ones. I definitely think we outdid ourselves, though, and we’ll have quite a challenge topping the creativity next year.

However, if anyone can do it, this family can!