ABC's and 123's

Riley has really, really been into counting and saying the alphabet lately. She can count confidently up to 10 and sort of up to 13. She can also say all of the alphabet as long as she is reading each letter (it can get a little spotty when she tries to say them without seeing them).

Riley was given a Dora Alphabet Adventures book (thanks Stephanie and Daisy) that has been pretty instrumental in her mastering the ABC's. The book has a magnetic writing board attached to it (as you can see in the pictures). We started writing a letter of the alphabet on the board and she would repeat the letter and then point to it in a book. She quickly went to barely knowing the alphabet to being able to identify each letter.

She notices numbers and letters everywhere now. In parking lots she stops and reads license plates, at stores she reads price tags and signs... it may slow us down a little, but it sure is fun to see her absorbing all this information around her. It sure has made me aware that letters and numbers are EVERYWHERE.

Otherwise, things around here haven't been that eventful. We've been enjoying the fall weather, getting outside as much as possible, and celebrating Halloween.

Helping us pick up leaves.

Letters to read! If only solicitors could read them too!

Here we are playing around with some self portraits before she decides she's had enough.


One day I suggested we take a family photo for a Christmas card, but it didn't exactly work out as I hoped. The day was gloomy and we were a little unorganized and lazy. Then, by the time we finally got around to it, Riley had crazy hair and wanted to do anything, but sit still for a photo. The only way we were sort of able to accomplish a picture was to read a book together. I'm still not sure if I will use it for our Christmas card, but at least I have a picture of the three of us together.

This year we decided not to get an official costume for Riley. We thought she might not tolerate wearing one so we went out and got a kid's outfit that could pass for a costume. Basically it was a long shirt with a tutu skirt on it. There... she's a ballerina. She actually got to wear it three times as she celebrated at daycare on Thursday...

Before we headed off to daycare trying out her dancing moves.

Then on Saturday there was a local Pumpkin Festival at an outdoor mall. Grandma Suzie accompanied us to the fun event.

They had music (we saw The Bazillions), games, pumpkins, and treats. She was most fascinated with the balloons and the very steep slide in the Creative Kidstuff store.

On Halloween we dressed her up again and took her to a handful of houses in the neighborhood. She didn't really know what was going on, but did a good job of picking out a piece of candy, and saying 'thank you' and 'bye' at each house. I'm not a fan of Halloween, but now I can't want for next year when she starts to 'get' it more.

Her daytime Halloween outfit

Ballerina time

Then we came home and handed out candy. We let Riley experience a few kids who came to the door before we took her up to bed which was fun to see. Luckily, the repeated door ringing did not seem to impact our light sleeper. Overall, a successful Halloween.