Hi There! Riley's taking a nap so I thought I would sneak in some info! We have been having beautiful weather here the last few days. It started over the weekend and I was very glad to see it for my trip to Red Mountain Open Space. Just a little background info for you guys, its about 15,000 acres and connects with two other open spaces (owned by the City of Fort Collins and the City of Cheyenne), making it a huge tract of protected land. Most of the property is rolling hills and hogbacks, but there are some really beautiful canyons and ridges. And because of the elevation changes the views are breathtaking!! You can see forever!! I uploaded the pictures to a Kodak Gallery, so if you haven't already seen them - take a look! The property will have 9 miles of trails to start, and they have numerous other trails in the plans if there are enough people visiting it to make them worth while. However, most of the property will never be open to the public (for various reasons - lack of intrest, resource protection, future sale to conservation buyer, etc). I was lucky because these closed areas were what I got to see on Saturday!! (that's the perks of knowing the rangers!!) So enjoy the pics, and hopefully I can add to them if I get to work there next year!!

This week Riley and I have spent quite a bit of time at the playground, it was near 80 degrees yesterday!! Today we made a fort in the living room, and he had a blast!! He spent nearly an hour crawling and walking in and out of it! I love how entertaining new things are!! Here's some pictures of his adventure!!

He is growing so quickly!! He now understands most everything we say, however, still refuses for the most part to talk. Don't get me wrong - He can babble like the best of them (especially when reading himself a story!) but doesn't want to repeat anything we try to get him to say. Most of the time he just whines to get what he wants, a bad habit we are trying to break! He consistantly says Da-Da, and even Daddy, but Kitty is the most common word out of his mouth. He still meows sometimes, and barks at dogs but sometimes he will say doggie. Other occasional words include cookie, cracker, ma-ma, and "hey-o" (when he's talking on his phone! so cute!!) He's a good boy for the most part (we have definately entered into toddlerhood and tantrums!!), but he can be a sweetheart when he wants to! He's very affectionate and loves giving Mommy and Daddy kisses, especially at night time and bye-byes. Also he loves helping Mommy with thing around the house, folding laundry, doing dishes, and feeding the doggies - which can be more of a curse than a blessing sometimes!! (Picture recently folded laundry in a heap on the floor, and dirty forks missing from the dishwasher container!!) As most mothers, I try to keep it positive and let him play with the basket, or close the dishwasher when we are done!! He really keeps us on our toes!!

I believe we have entered into the "playing pretend" phase. He loves to "eat imaginary food" out of empty bowls, and feed it to us!! He likes talking on the phone, reading to himself - it's so cute to be scared because there's no noise coming from upstairs, but when you go to check on him he's sitting in the rocking chair with a book, upsidedown, babbling!! He still loves playing peek-a-boo, and his trucks and cars. Now he varooms around the coffee table like an Indy car driver!! He also pretends with the vaccum cleaner or whatever the tool of the moment is!! He pulls on the toilet paper roll and "blows his nose" in it, and uses napkins to "clean up the mess" - even when there's no mess!! We are really looking forward to Christmas and the Holidays with him this year! Thanksgiving will be quiet again this year, but we plan on cutting our own tree again this year and so many other traditions we are excited to share with him!! Actually I'm just itching to get the decorations up!! (it a nice destraction from schoolwork)

I'm in the home stretch of school, just a paper and a test this week, then nothing until the week of Finals (One huge project/presentation, one more paper and one Final Exam!!) Almost there!! Cam is suppose to be planning the party, so we'll see how that turns out!! ;) I'll just be happy to be done!! And have family visit!! I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe Holiday Season!! because I'm sure you'll hear from Riley the most til Christmas!!