We drove to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with the Johnsons. Papa G, Daddy, Parker, Otis, and I all piled in and drove down on Wednesday afternoon. Parker napped for part of the drive and otherwise did great.
Parker had so much fun playing with her cousin Clare, as evident in these videos:
Catie is crawling all over the place now, I got a little video of her too
Some pictures of the girls together
Here are some photos from Thanksgiving dinner. It was a gorgeous day and the food was delish!! Not to mention the wonderful company we were in...
Cate's Baptism was the next day, followed by dinner at St. Claire Country Club:
Parker is learning more and more every day and one very obvious area of learning is her sign language. She has been doing the sign for more for months, but her teachers taught their class to do more please. In the last couple weeks, Parker has started doing more please when she wants more of anything, not just in food situations. This video is a prime example. It also shows the adorable version of please she has adopted. Please is supposed to be a circular rub on the chest, Parker does a full body rub.
Her new favorite sign is milk. Parker also does food/eat, all done, and ball.
We got a kid carrier/backpack for Parker's birthday and have used it a couple times since then. Here is a picture from our first hiking adventure.
We went to Mendon Ponds Park. This is a favorite because it is so large, has wonderful trails, and is only 15 minutes from home. Here is a map of the park. Parker loved being in the backpack. Our second hike was this past weekend and she was lulled into a stupor by the gentle walking motion...we thought she had fallen alseep but she was just super relaxed.
We also had fun in some leaves a few weeks ago. Here is a video and some photos:
Funny story about the leaves...we were out on the corner, Greg was raking while I was taking pictures of Parker. We had recently had some work done on our chimney and the guy swung by to pick up his payment. He told us he thought I was taking pictures of Greg raking because he hadn't noticed Parker on the ground when he drove by.
Aunt Gennie got Parker a singing birthday card. While I always thought they were mildly entertaining, I never considered the entertainment factor for a 1 year-old. Parker walked around the house opening & closing this card for weeks!
One of Parker's new skills has been "roaring" like a lion. She was doing it all time a couple weeks ago, whenever she would see a lion or you would ask her "What does a lion say?" So we had the brilliant idea to have her dress up as a lion for Halloween! But alas, in the tradition of children and their ever-changing habits, Parker decided last week to completely cease the roaring. She still made a pretty cute lion though:
We left candy on the porch and walked around neighborhood with Parker and Otis for a while last night. Turns out we have a pretty fun neighborhood for Halloween! Lots of people put out extra decorations for the trick or treating and the sidewalks were full of kids and their parents. Parker was happy just walking in the leaves with the little bit of candy banging away in her pumpkin bucket.
