Catching Up

I'm a little behind with all of the holiday happenings so I won't have my Christmas pics and videos up for a few days more. Here are some pictures from the past week. In the first picture Riley is hanging out with some of her early presents. Elmo has been her buddy since she got him and the little laptop is perfect since she is always trying to get on mine or Tim's. The other pics are from our shopping trip with Grammy and Paw Paw. We were killing a few minutes waiting and Riley was pretending to drive the car. She is so good about wearing hats. This outfit was a yard sale find from this spring. The matching jeans, jacket and hat were too cute!

Going to see Santa

I took Riley to one of Tim's co-workers parent's house to see Santa last weekend. She looked cute, wore her hat the whole time, loved the decorations, ate the cookies but would have absolutely nothing to do with the big fat man! She wouldn't even look at him. So we have no great pictures with Santa but lots of cute post Santa visit pictures.

November Pictures

A friend of ours took some pictures for us in November to use for our Christmas cards. Here are a few of the pics. They turned out great. She did a wonderful job and could probably do this professionally. I'll save our favorites until after the cards go out. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise!

Thanksgiving Family Fun

We had an excellent time at my aunt's house for Thanksgiving get together. We have a lot of little ones and that always makes it fun. I got some good pics of some of the cousins. That second picture must have been for funny faces! Riley loved Aunt B's pig collection. She has several decorative swine about the house and Riley played with most of them. I have to thank mom for the last pic. She got them singing the "ABC" song to keep them all looking the same direction!

Riley at the Playground

Mom and I took Riley up to the playground at Enfield grade school this past weekend to play. She really enjoyed the slide and I think she went down it a thousand times. We tried the merry-go-round but it wasn't quite the hit the slide was.

Riley & Rosie

Riley had a front row seat in the combine with Daddy. Her little lawn chair was a perfect fit in the cab. Who needs expensive buddy seats?? Apparently they had a fine time singing, counting and doing their ABC's. Riley's horse Rosie is pictured below. She is almost 2 1/2 and likes to eat corn from your hand. We visit her on the golf cart. She has stayed quite fat and sassy so far this fall. In the video, Riley is supposed to be putting away the sodas. She does this almost every time I come home from the grocery. But this time she got distracted by an old phone she found in the cabinet. I don't think she realized some phones have cords! She likes to imitate her dad by pacing around the house and "talking" on the phone. Sometimes she even gives hand gestures and laughs at the jokes she is telling. What a nut!

New Videos

Here are some new videos of Riley. She has started some new things I haven't been able to get on video yet. She is counting. Usually only 1, 2, 3 but sometimes she will fill in missing numbers as we count to 10. She really likes six and eight. She loves to play pretend always saying "sit" and patting to one of her chairs at the table in her room. She washes her hands and puts things in her pretent microwave and pushes the buttons. She has also developed a "No" routine where she responds to things like, "do you want to take a bath?" or "are you ready to get your pj's on?". She says it so convincingly that you almost believe she is right. She likes to drive the golf cart and recently rode in the combine with Tim.

Daddy's Girl

This is a new favorite pic of mine. Riley and Daddy are looking at tractor's in the Fastline magazine. She loves to look through the Fastline and we have been working on identifying the different colors of the tractors and distinguishing a tractor from a combine. Two very important things if you are going to be a farm girl!

Halloween

We took Riley trick or treating again this year. She was a Bee! She did pretty good and we didn't have any melt downs during the trip. David was a good sport as usual and dressed the part of the Honey Pot. Too much candy was had by all and it was a fun time.

Ghostly Girl

Not sure what happened in these pictures. I was trying to get some pics of Riley this morning before her Pajama Party at daycare for Halloween. My whitebalance must have been crazy or something on my camera because all of the pics had this ghostly hue. OOOOO!

More Fall Festival pictures

Here are some more pics from Sunday. Mom and Riley watching kids play. You can see the smoke from the tobacco barns in the background. Riley had a small pumpkin that was her favorite. The boy in the picture had just had his face painted by Amber who is extremely talented. You'll note in the picture his eyes are actually closed. She painted eyes on his eyelids. Too weird. And the cool balloon hat was a work of Tane Alexander who lives up the road. She does some incredible balloon sculptures and hats you wouldn't believe.

Fall Festival

Our church had their annual fall festival at the farm yesterday. It was a beautiful day and I think everyone had a lot of fun. Riley enjoy playing with Jamie and with some of the kids games. Grammie did most of the babysitting for the day. Pa Pa took care of the clay pigeon shooting but found time to play some with Riley too. We had a good crowd and great food. Definitely a good day!

Cousins Crusin'

All of the family gathered last Sunday to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa Storey's 70th wedding anniversary. It was a great service with many sharing their stories and memories. Afterwards we went to my aunt's house for a wonderful lunch. The kids really enjoyed playing. The younger ones dug in the corn for goodies, played in the bubbles, rode in the Escallade and played in the play house. The older kids made their way through the woods on the golf carts and played pinball. Joseph took Riley for a good ride around the yard. She really enjoyed it. Then she decided she would "drive" and AnnaMaria got in to ride with her. I'm not sure AnnaMaria realized that Riley can't really drive. She pushes on the gas but basically does not steer. Luckily no one was hurt!