It's the Day Before Christmas...

 It's Christmas Eve and Ms. Riley can be found frantically unwrapping presents. Unphased by the names written on the presents, she tore into any package with her greedy paws. We put up with her uncontrolled mayhem for a little while before putting her down for a nap. She napped for almost 4 hours!

Meanwhile little Ali spent her second Christmas enjoying a good book and the attention of her grandpa. She will do almost anything to get attention from her grandpa when he's around. She preferred to watch us open her gifts, rather then tear into them directly. Maybe by her third Christmas she will finally want to do the opening herself!

Photo Circus

 How on earth did we expect to get a quick photo for my parents' Christmas card?! Take a last-minute, evening photo session and add three tired girls, all of whom are wearing fancy silk dresses. Mayhem ensued!

And, I didn't even include any of the photos where Riley is sucking her thumb (who knows why she did that) or where all three girls are screaming and crying. I have a lot of those photos too.

Ri shows me a "touchdown"

Here's the final Christmas Card photo

Peek a Boo

Some unexpected mischief from our little Ali. She's not walking yet but she had no trouble scaling the whole flight of stairs at her grandparents' house!

Early Christmas Cheer

Riley meets Goofy and is pretty thrilled, not as shy as I thought she'd be!

Ali is so happy about meeting the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland

Riley fell in love with all the Halloween lights in our neighborhood this year and even snuck out of the house once to see "more lights". So when I saw a billboard showing a photo of Disneyland all lit up for Christmas.....I completely fell for the advertising.

So we celebrate my birthday (and Riley's a little early) by spending long and fun days doing everything at the park, that was allowed with Riley's diminutive height.

The Castle lit up for Christmas

The Santa parade thrills this onlooker

Riley LOVES the Small World lights

Winter Fun (in the Sun)

It's hard to believe it's already December, and even more difficult to believe its almost winter, because we're spending the afternoon at the beach and there's not a cloud in the sky and it's nearly 70 degrees.

Riley loves collecting odd rocks and seaweed pieces and putting them in her overalls. I just hope today's forecast calls for a high chance of nap because this girl is exhausting.

This is not the face of reason

So here are a few of the latest Riley-isms.

Unfortunately "shut up" has become a thing. We're not happy about that one. One the flip side we also get "peease!" and "thank you". I'm so excited about that!

After our thanksgiving meal, Riley and Ali were playing music on my parents' grand piano, Riley was trying to physically dissuade Ali from touching the keys (and messing up Ri's music masterpiece) and Ri really wanted to play music and have the baby provide the entertainment, so while playing the piano she tells baby "dance BABY! Dance!". Expecting baby to oblige and dance like a well-trained monkey. It was really sweet to see them both dancing a bit and clunking away on the piano together.

Tonight ri was asking me to draw "nine" on her drawing pad. She would hand me a blue crayon and ask for a "blue nine" and point (again directing me on what to do). Then she told me that my nine was a "baby nine" because it was small and asked that I draw a "dad nine". Many, many nines later I suggest that SHE draw a nine. She made a few attempts and was obviously irritated by how they were turning out and she stopped before she came close to finishing the shape. She also liked a well-shaded drawing of a spoon I drew with crayons and leaned into the paper and made slurping sounds to pretend that she was drinking from the spoon. So silly!

Lastly, we often ask Riley to pick up her books or toys or cars. We often have a fun activity planned for post-clean-up work. Unfortunately she suddenly went from the helpful and perfectionist picker upper and is now a bit lazy. She replies with an exuberant decree saying "no, it's YOUR turn! " then she will up the ante and start to count "1....2....mom, your turn", as if she is planning to put on of us on a time out.


Here's are some theist pics. Ri is wearing a dress that I wore when I was her age and was thrilled to ride another carousel!

Giving Thanks and Other Mischeif

Riley helps trim and sort the green beans

We spent a good amount of time relaxing on Thanksgiving day this year. We had good food at my parents' house and amazing desserts.The kids enjoyed playing with their cousin for most of the day. Everyone had a day that was worthy of giving thanks, I even let Matt watch football and nap for a good part of the afternoon.

Grandma instructs Riley on the food prep, what a helper!

Ali Loves to play doggie

The "twins" play so sweetly together

Bugging the Whole Neighborhood

We left a lit jack-o-lantern and a bowl of candy and took off in search of new and different candy.

Our bugs visited all the decorated houses within our 2-mile loop and they: nabbed 2 bags of total-sweet-junk, met two baby girls with matching bug costumes, and got scared by one "scary frankenstein" man.

I asked Ri if she wanted to say "trick or treat" and she said "NO, I want cahnnn-deeeee!". A week later and we are still chanting the candy mantra!

Alison's Adventure in One-derland

The kids had a great time and so did we. We couldn't have asked for better weather, though 79 was a little warm for hot tea, it wasn't too hot for champagne!

I'm thrilled that so many friends and family spent the day with us and made such great memories. I'm also thrilled that my brother-in-law took these amazing photos so Ali can re-live her first-big-day many years from now.

Two parts punchy, one part balloon bouquet

What do you get when you mix my favorite toddlers (little bffs) and a big balloon bouquet, after a long day and party?! Well, you get total mayhem and an adorable photo-op.



I just adore these two!