Giraffe

Halloween is way more fun when you have a baby to dress up.  Thanks to http://sweetkiwicrochet.com/ for making the awesome hat, and my mom for buying it.  I put spots on Riley's shirt.  I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Palmyra, New York

On Friday we went to Palmyra, New York.  The drive was so pretty.  Every twenty minutes I would tell Andrew how pretty I thought it was.  He studied a lot of the time when I drove.  The drive was five hours both ways but it didn't seem that long.  Riley was great in the car, as usual.

We went to the Sacred Grove, Smith Family Farm, and Hill Cumorah.  I always feel so popular when we go to church history sites.  When we were in Kirkland we had a tour with the dad of someone who graduated high school with Andrew.  In Palmyra there was a senior missionary who had all sorts of good things to say about my parents.  The world is small in the church.

The Sacred Grove was so pretty and there was a special spirit there. We spent about three hours in Palmyra and then drove the five hours back home.  

Traffic Court

I feel like it would be pretty intimidating to be at court against an entire Commonwealth, but Andrew was up for the challenge.

Last Wednesday Andrew went to traffic court to fight our ticket we got a few weeks ago.  It was not what he was expecting.  He and everyone else fighting tickets that day went into a court room like you see on TV and a judge sat in front of them all.  People were called up one by one, by the severity of their crime and pled their case to the judge.  Andrew had to wait for over an hour (while I was driving around trying not to get another parking ticket).

He pled his case and was declared not guilty and was free from the $96 dollar ticket.  YAY!  Someone ahead of him had a similar situation.  He brought pictures and his receipt from the impound lot and was refunded the money.  Maybe if we would have been a little more prepared we could have gotten some money back, but that's okay with me.  I'm happy to not have to pay the ticket!

Pirates Game

Last night we went to a Pirates baseball game against the Atlanta Braves. We had a good time. Riley was really good, but he decided it was time to go during the 7th inning stretch.  

Walking across the bridge

Andrew let me keep the computer today.  Thus the three new blogs.

Pittsburgh Zoo

On Saturday we went to the zoo.  Riley was kind of interested in the animals, but I think most of them were too far away and blended in with the grass for Riley to see them.

He did like the flamingos though.  They were loud, close, moving around, and bright pink.  There isn't a lot of pink at our house so I think it's a novelty to him.  He sometimes steals pink things from little girls.

Andrew shared some of his sandwich with Riley.

He liked the bubbles in the aquarium. 

Alligator

Petting a goat

Riley fell asleep as we were leaving the zoo.  

9 months

Riley is nine months old (and two weeks).  He's 21 pounds and 29 inches long.  He crawls about half the time and walks the other half.  Sometimes it still surprises me when he comes walking into a room.

He can say "mama" and "dada" and he knows who is who.  The other day Andrew was watching Riley while I was having a shower and Riley started banging on the door screaming "mamamamama".  He did it basically the whole time I was in there.  Andrew said it was an experiment.  I'm not exactly sure what the experiment was, but I'm pretty sure Riley knows who I am and where to find me.

Sometimes Riley plays with flour when I am making dinner.  It keeps him entertained for quite a while.

 

At the park

Riley really likes sliding

Andrew shortened the handle on the swiffer and it's Riley's new favorite way to help around the house.

Reading an animal book