A beautiful fall day in Pennsylvania

Riley and I are in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving and the funeral of my grandma (my dad's mom). More to that story, which I'll get into later, but for now, here is a quick little fix for you (I know it's been a super-long time since I've blogged, and I promise to be better once we get back home on Wednesday, and I promise to return a few important phone calls I've received over the last week... thank you for those thoughtful messages). Yesterday, we went for a big walk in the yard and around the lake with Grammy and Gramps. It was so beautiful outside, and we had a load of fun!



Here is her first experience with those same ducks, if you're interested.

And some photos of the day:

Halloween adventures, part 2

I think Riley really enjoyed Halloween, in general. She loved the costumes, and even left the hats on. She laughed hysterically at all the other babies, and even tried to maul some of them. And nothing phased her. She was afraid of nothing. I can't wait to do it again next year! But before that, let's see how excited she gets about the Thanksgiving turkey and SANTA CLAUS!!! Makes me feel like a kid all over again.

So, you already saw Riley as a chicken for the morning parade, and as a cat for storytime. Later in the afternoon, we all went to Judith's for a little pre-halloween spirit. Riley wore her costume of the year (and totally appropriate): a devil!




Amidst the mass chaos of loads of overheating babies in costumes, it was tons of fun...

Here is Ramona Bea as a bee. Her parents dressed up as beekeepers... wish I had a photo of that! It was an adorable idea.


Karishma and Meredyth were flowers:




Jasper was a penguin:



After the get-together, we went trick-or-treating on Belvedere Street in Cole Valley. We lost the rest of the gang, since it was so packed, but daddy met us there. Riley sure didn't need anyone else!




Belvedere St. is the best location in the city for kids on Halloween. It's a street that spans about 4 blocks, and it's closed off to traffic. Every house decorates to the hill, and a lot of them open their garage doors to make haunted houses. There were some interesting treats, like pencils and boxes of raisins. I like those ideas. I'm sure the kids don't.... Some houses have loud music playing, and one house even went all out to make a Happy Feet stage in their front windows. These penguins were actually tap dancing and singing, with microphones and speakers that projected the sounds onto the street. Unbelievable!



Here are some of the other decorations I loved.





Visit this page of my blog for a video of the pre-trick-or-treating party. (scroll down on the page)

And I guess that the boot Riley lost proves the success of the night. And now, we have enough lollipops to last her until next Halloween!

And then grammy had to go back to Pennsylvania. Never a happy moment. Here they are, at the front door, playing "hello, good-bye":



Here they are having the silliest bath EVER!!!! (scroll down on the page)

And here's Riley's reaction to hearing that grammy was going away:

Halloween adventures!

So, my mom was here for a wonderful visit over Halloween. Needless to say, Riley had 4 different costumes. One from somebody before she was born, one from grammy, and two from me and daddy. It was fine, though, since we had so many events to attend! Here she is as a kitty for storytime on Tuesday (and yes, she 'meow-ed' all day....):




Wednesday, on Halloween, we had loads of possible activities to attend. This city has a ton of cool stuff for wee ones, and I just love it! We opted to go to the parade in the Marina with Shannon and Oliver and Randi and Jasper.




We ran into some other chickens, and Riley thought it was the funniest thing ever.



Riley had her first lollipop. It was grape. And super-sticky. Of course, it was from grammy... I would never (hehe)!



We ran into Kathy and Anthony after lunch...



My gawd, what a crazy mess of babies! In costumes! It was so hysterical, my stories couldn't do it justice. But I'll try with photos and video (coming later). There were a couple of cute costumes of people we didn't know.

This was a poor, unknowing, little 5-month-old girl, who was dressed in a T-shirt that read "Pity the Fool", and she had about 5 pounds of gold around her neck. Who do you think she was dressed as???



This one was just too cute.



Then we went home for a nap before heading out to Judith and Finn's pre-trick-or-treating bash. Riley had enough. She passed out pretty hard....




I'm exhausted, so the rest of the halloween day must wait until tomorrow. Don't get mad at me, look forward to it (you know who you are)!!

WHAT'S NEW:
So, no video today, since I need to set up my new workstation. I've been ousted from the living room by Riley, since she's decided to COMPLETELY take over. The other day, I was making dinner, and she was watching one of her programs on TV in the living room. I peeked around the corner to check on her, and there she was, sitting, smiling, and waving at me, on the couch. Yup, she's a climber. Great. Standing on the coffee table, and grabbing our paintings above the couch. Time to rearrange. Again.

Not only that, but when my mom was here, I was making dinner, and mom was watching Riley. All of a sudden, I hear a shriek and see a running grammy. Yeah, so, Riley figured out how to use the doorknobs and open the door to the cellar. So we childproof-ed again this week. I can't even open these doorknobs!! Does it ever end?

Oh, and she's in attack mode again. This time, with dad. You should see his face. Looks like he's an ultimate fighter. Who lost. Guess I have to cut her nails again. I'll try to get a photo of him before the scabs fall off. No joke.

We had her 15 month checkup last week with Dr. Mimi Pepitone. All's great! Her head measures at the 95 percentile, weight at 50, and height at 75. Looks like she's tall and thin like her auntie Lindsay. Yay! Better than short and squat like me....