Richard & Michelle: September 2015

September has come and gone. We enjoyed relaxing inside when the days were hot and playing outside when it was in the 70s or so. Riley got her first bike. It's Barbie and it has training wheels. She's not too excited about it but it was $10 or something so why not? We saw Grandma and Grandpa Kearns when they came out to see Jason run at BYU so we got to play with them again. We found a cool little lake in Ogden that we let Riley throw rocks into. We also brought her fishing pole to practice with but I'm pretty sure Richard was the only one to actually use it. We got a swing for baby Peyton. Riley had a blast putting it together with Richard. I laid on the couch like I was dying. It was super hot inside that day. We even got to visit the dinosaur park again one Saturday. I found a huge, yucky, yellow spider. It was seriously ginormous. It could have probably eaten some small children if it wanted too. We went to pick Richard up from work one day so Riley got to enjoy playing at his work. They have a water machine with those cone cups. I showed her how it worked and handed her some water and she looked at it and asked "It's like an ice cream cone?" Why yes. It is. She loved that and used about 10 cups and spilled a full one all over their chairs. I'm pretty sure we're never invited back.

Some fun stuff about Riley this month:

She found all her tutus. She likes to wear all three together even though one was made to fit her when she was about 9 months old. I'm still not sure how she's fitting herself into that one. But she likes to stack them.

I may cry if I have to play with Little People ever again.

She loves going to the doctor with me. They have a new play area that is super cool. We always show up like 40 minutes early so she can get lots of play time in.

She's super excited about Halloween. If you ask what she wants to be she has several answers. The most common are: Sully (from Monster's inc.), Ballerina, Rapunzel, Elsa, and a witch. We're encouraging the ballerina. Seems to be my cheapest option.

She knows the map of the US better than high schoolers. My parents got her a puzzle and it's the states. She needed help all of about 2 times before she could do it herself. She's also good at recognizing the state and telling me who lives there. Although the state of South Dakota has a picture of Mount Rushmore. Riley was digging through states asking where Jesus was. I was super confused. Then she found South Dakota and was like "Here he is!" So, I guess Jesus is part of Mount Rushmore. You need to look closer.

She's super excited for baby Peyton. She talks about her a lot and seems to understand she's a human even though she's in my body.

During conference she heard someone say Richard G Scott. She turned to Richard and whispered "Richard! That's you!" She was so excited that they were talking about daddy.

She still loves nursery. We had the primary program a couple weeks ago and she would stand up when the kids stood to sing and sing along when she knew the song. She also did a sweet little booty dance entertaining the old people behind us. Or they judged us. I'm okay with either.

There was a special musical number one week. Two ladies were singing at the pulpit and Riley had stood up on the bench to see them better. After a minute or so of watching them and listening, she points to them and says " I don't like her".

She points with her middle finger all the time. We correct her but it's still super funny to see her yell "that's my teacher!" while then flipping her teacher off.

We've been struggling to get Riley to eat pretty much anything other than applesauce and fruit snacks. Even stuff I know she likes, she won't touch. So I told her that beans make her poop. All the sudden she ate all her beans. I was kinda surprised. Then I had an apple once and she wanted some, but she always spits out the skin. So before I gave it to her I told her that the red part makes her poop. She ate the apple, skin and all. I have found the key to healthy eating. I'm not sure why pooping motivates her to eat so much, but it works.

We count to three when she's doing something she shouldn't and she won't listen. She's picked up on this and when we don't do what she wants she'll start counting to three and then put us in time out. I'm super sad when I have to go in timeout and be all by myself...

She remembers everything. I think I may have mentioned before that she had a Minnie Mouse balloon that blew away out the window in the car. This was in June or something. She still talks about it. It's getting ridiculous. You can't do anything without her reminding you of how you messed it up before.

During the Sunday morning session of conference she was demanding Skittles for breakfast. I let Richard handle it because it was more fun to watch than participate. He told her she couldn't have skittles until she ate her waffle. She threw a tantrum for about an hour. About 45 minutes in he gave in and put some skittles on her plate with her waffle. I told him he shouldn't negotiate with terrorists. It didn't really matter. She still kept yelling.