For the last few weeks, my daughter Riley has been all about playing "This Little Piggy Went to Market" with her toes.  Since she was having us pay all of this extra attention to her little piggies, I thought that she'd really enjoy having me paint her toenails as well.

Now, she's only 17 months old, so I didn't want to use just any nail polish.  It had to dry really fast (because you know toddlers can't stay still for very long) and I wanted it to be non-toxic, just in case she decided to put those little painted piggies in her mouth!  Fortunately, there is such a product out there and its name is Piggy Paint.

But wait, there`s more! »

Here's a FUNNY picture I took of Riley, right before we were about to head out and explore our neighborhood. She had on her shades, her pink shorts, shirt and shoes (actually done by accident) and even her pink harness/backpack. She had a ball that day! She is such an independent child and loves being able to explore and discover EVERYTHING! She constantly stops and picks up every leaf, rock, flower, etc. At one point during our walk, she even started dancing, clapping her hands and singing! She is a constant reminder of the joy and wonderment that kids find in everything and sadly, how we lose that fascination as we become adults. Riley is such a breath of fresh air and she serves as an inspiration to me to try and instill that sense of wonder into my everyday life again.

Being a first time mother is a pretty exciting thing!  I never really know what to expect next and most of the time I feel like I'm on the most exciting ride of my life!  Watching my daughter change and grow literally before my eyes is so very cool!  For instance, in the last few weeks, her vocabulary is booming!

Almost every day now, Riley has a brand new word that she can say.  I had no idea how fast their vocabulary grows!  Also, it is so eerie how she knows exactly what we're saying and what we're talking about, even though she can't speak back.

In this post, I wanted to show a very quick video of Riley saying the two new words that she learned IN ONE DAY!  These words happen to be "Whee!" and "Phone".  You might be wondering why whee?  It's actually pretty funny...she has a pop-up book from Todd's World that has a picture of a girl named Sophie in it.  Apparently, Sophie likes to fly and in the pop-up book, you can pull up on her and she will "fly" through the air.

Riley and I were reading this book and as I made Sophie fly, I said "Whee!"  That was all it took!  Riley has been saying whee ever since!  Take a look and feel free to share any of your toddler's developing speech moments here!