Riley's Birthday! / Aunt Lizard comes to town

Riley's new year started off with a "messy" party for cousin Levi's second birthday! Although she wasn't quite into the messy activities, she did enjoy hanging with a bunch of her favorites, and chowing down on the Sloppy Joe sliders, pb&j pizza, and other party food. The following week she went with Mom and Dad to the car show in Virginia Beach, and while there met up with Nene and Papa and had dinner with them afterwards too! To Dad's disgust, she enthusiastically chowed down on a pickle Nene had given her. :) She has also been practicing her walking, and all of a sudden started wanting to do it all the time!

These couple weeks have led up to a huge event: Aunt Lizard moving to town to live with Riles for a while! The day before Riley's birthday she arrived, and Riles was very happy to be reunited with her awesome aunt. The next day was Riley's big day as she turned one whole year old! After spending the morning with her friends at daycare, she came home for a nap. Later on, the fun began as she met Dad at the YMCA pool for some swimming and splashing time. Afterwards, Aunt Gigi came over to give Riley her birthday gift, and they all had some yummy Chipotle for dinner (Riley's favorite - she eats the whole kids meal consisting of a quesadilla, beans and rice!). She LOVED her new chair from Gigi, and kept climbing up onto it and then back down. Then she got a special surprise when she got to Skype with her Nana in NY. Nana watched as Riles (sitting in her new chair of course!) opened Nana's gifts and played with all the paper. She also impressed with some of her dancing skills.

 

 

 

Unfortunately for Riley (and her parents!), it became apparent on the night of her birthday that she wasn't feeling too well. She had a pretty high fever and a really rough night of sleep, waking often and crying a lot as she couldn't seem to get comfortable. The next day Mom stayed home from work to take care of her, and they tried to wait it out to see if the fever would go away. But Riles seemed to be getting worse, and didn't want to eat or drink much, so the day after that they headed to the doctor. She was diagnosed with Hand Foot & Mouth disease, a (contagious) virus that causes fever, loss of appetite and a rash breaking out all over the body. It also causes sores in the mouth which contributed to her wanting to eat but not being able to because it hurt so much. Mom & Dad made a last minute decision to postpone her birthday party that was scheduled for that Saturday. We hope that in 2 weeks she'll actually be able to enjoy her birthday party much more than she would have this week!

That Saturday she had actually improved quite a bit and with a dose of Motrin for the pain was able to eat normally again, and take some good naps. After she went to bed, Mom & Dad decided to sneak out for a date night, and Liz stayed home and took care of the sick girl when she woke up a couple times needing some comfort. Today she has been doing very well again, so we think she's on the mend. Aunt Michelle stopped by with her birthday gift and once again she thoroughly enjoyed pulling apart the tissue paper to see what was inside. She also gave Michelle some snuggles while she was here! She then joined Mom, Dad, Joey & Leah for some brunch before returning home for a much needed nap.