Taking a Walk with Little Miss Riding Hood

We’re entered the rainy season here in Northern California. After months of no rain, the cool foggy mornings have transformed into all-day affairs with bursts of occasional rain showers. The brown grass of summer has been replaced with a green carpet across the hills and our garden is thriving. (Yes, as an East Coast transplant, I find this lush green in November thing SO weird.)

Today we woke up to cold and wet day, so we bundled up and headed out for a walk.

A perfect start to the morning.





However, unlike the last two days of full-on gloom, today was a more typical California Fall day:

Right now it’s so sunny and bright outside that the foliage looks dark in comparison! (I am sitting here squinting at the computer, as light streams in through the window.)

Of course, it arrived just in time for nap time, so Miss Leyba hasn’t seen it yet. (Sorry, love!)

Welcome to Wine Country. We love it here.

* Organic polar fleece by Kee-Ka (bought it on sale for 50% off over a year ago — score!).

* Also, I’ve been tweaking the format of this blog. If you haven’t done so already, please hit refresh!

East Coast Trip Photos

Last month we headed East for some family time and cousin Rachel’s wedding. We took several hundred photos during the two weeks we were in New Jersey, here are some of our favorites. (And, yes, Miss Leyba was the flower girl and, no, she didn’t walk down the aisle (tiny melt down at the last minute). But she was the only person at the wedding to dance for FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT at the reception! Aside from cousin Rachel, Miss Leyba was the belle of the ball!)




























Happy Halloween


As there were so many interesting things to see from Daddy’s shoulders on this All Hallows Eve, our ballerina had absolutely no interest in saying cheese for the camera. (In fact, every photo I took tonight was either with her looking the other direction away from me or completely blurry cause she was on the move, investigating everything.)

Yum, chocolate! We purposely bought her good chocolate from Whole Foods in order to avoid all the crappy ingredients in regular candy and, amazingly, it worked! She was entirely indifferent to the candy that she collected. The chocolate we bought her, however, was quite delicious. As you can clearly tell.

Clearly this pumpkin is for storing rocks. She collected them from several driveways. And then proceeded to dump them out.

All in all, Miss Leyba decided that trick or treating was nice and all, but giving out candy to the kids was way more fun! (Miss Leyba loves to help and share — both essential ingredients to handing out candy, evidently.) We had a blast.

It’s almost Halloween…

You’re going to have to wait to see our ballerina in her costume, but here is a preview:

I made this NO-SEW tutu for Miss Leyba while she was in the midst of a play dough marathon (she discovered that when you mix pink and blue play dough you get purple — MAGIC!).

The tutu took less than an hour and was so easy. (YouTube instructions here!) I think I may make her one more in another color for the dress-up box.

David and I were treated to a fantastically creative dance recital last night and let me tell you that you are in for a treat. I’ll post more soon!