November is the forgotten month in my opinion.  Things are dead (turkeys included!) things are cold but not yet pleasantly covered with fresh layers of snow.  I can even remember not saying November when reciting the months of the year in Kindergarten and being reminded by the teacher not to forget November.

The primary association with November is Thanksgiving, I suppose if I hunted or fished I might also mention those activities.  This year we decided to celebrate family and friends in Riverside, PA with Rayleigh’s Mimi and Pop Pop.  I negotiated a deal a few months ago where in the royal we (Kevin and I) would cook Thanksgiving Dinner and they would babysit.  We love to cook and they love to coo at the babe so the arrangement worked out well.

Our mostly farmer’s market and/or organic meal turned out great.  We purchased the 19 lb fresh turkey from a local farm which we picked up on our way to Pennsylvania. Additionally, we had corn we’d frozen over the summer.  Miss Rayleigh celebrated her first Thanksgiving with a turkey on her butt.

On another note, some of you have asked where our dear daughter’s first name came from.  I’m happy to share but we have to back up a bit and I’ll start off with a little story about Kevin and I. Every once in awhile we would get asked if we had wanted children, I would always respond I think we were on our second date when I asked Kevin what his car seat preferences were. While this is a bit of an exaggeration, the sentiment holds true- we have always wanted to have a family.  I can even tell you where we were when we first had the car seat conversation (Rt. 11 driving past the big Bloomsburg Fair sign), why he didn’t go running for the hills or at least a girl who had graduated high school at that point I’ll never know.  But we stayed together, visiting each other at college, where we watched too many episodes of One Piece to count.  Jump ahead a few years, Kevin and I are on one of many roadtrips to Ohiopyle, PA for a weekend of river running and we are discussing baby names- it may be important to note that we were not yet married.  Kevin says he doesn’t have any strong feelings for a boy name but really likes the name Rayleigh for a girl.  I not realizing how strong these feelings were and still assuming I had some say in this unborn child’s name ask where he had heard it, as I never had.  He tells me he read it somewhere and I am satisfied (glad it is not an ex-girlfriend’s name).  Fast forward-we are happily married with a house and are expecting a baby, we’ve had many baby name discussions over the years- almost all around baby boy names or appropriate middle names for a baby girl (I quickly realized years earlier Rayleigh was going to be our daughter’s first name- it was pretty and unique and he loved it so we were set there.  Nine or so months later I give birth to our daughter, Rayleigh Ann Elizabeth Forrester.  Kevin did a blog post in August Two Big K’s, One Little R that explained a little about her names (middle and last) but left out any explanation about her first.  It is appropriate that I write this blog since what I am about to tell you is newly revealed information.  Rayleigh is a character from One Piece (see I told you we had to back up the story).   The character is actually Silvers Rayleigh, a male character, but that Kevin got it from Anime is really the important part.  In his “confession” to me he said well there is also a Lord Rayleigh.  I, desperate for another explanation for our daughter’s name quickly wikipedia’d Lord Rayleigh.  This- like all good internet searches quickly lead me down the rabbit hole.  Lord Rayleigh is the person who predicted the existence of Rayleigh Waves and discovered the Rayleigh Scattering phenomenon.  The Rayleigh Scattering phenomenon is what explains why the sky is  blue and why we see the sun as yellow.  That seems like the perfect explanation for the story behind our daughter’s name.

So, the answer to “Where did you come up with her name?”, depends on which parent you ask.  There you have it.

Little Miss Rayleigh turned 3 months old in New Hampshire on Thursday. We all went to Manchester for a conference I had on Friday. We had dinner at a fantastic restaurant I fell in love with in April called XO on Elm.  We had a wonderful family dinner.  On Friday Kevin and Rayleigh hung out a coffee shop and visited me (and the rest of the office) at lunch time.  She was a big hit and loved all the attention.

We have spent that past few weeks preparing for a long cold winter.  Kevin has disassembled the garden and composted all the flower parts and leaves in the yard.  We purchased an electric mower the end of the summer, which has been great for mulching yard waste. We’ve gotten a lot of questions about why we built a composter that was so large. The answer is that we compost everything! This is how full the composter was after all of the garden waste and fall leaves were added. Bear in mind that this side of the composter was completely empty as of September 1st!

Back track to Halloween

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. I can remember dreaming up costume ideas in April and June and August.  I never liked chocolate, but loved the anticipation and creativity of unique and fun costumes.  I’m certain there is a whole zoo of costumes in my mom’s attic from all the animals I wanted to dress up as over the years.  I was lucky enough to have a mother who was willing to indulge my desire for great costumes, regardless of the occasion- school plays, parties, car shows were all fair game.  Although I don’t remember playing dress up as a child, I have fond memories of all the costumes I wore over the years.  I was lucky enough to learn how to sew and the importance of owning a good hot glue gun!  This was a long way of getting to this year’s Halloween costumes.  We decided not to go trick or treating this year, but did dress up to hand out candy (full size candy bars for the kiddies and hot mulled cider for the adults). Rayleigh wore a lobster costume I made while Kevin carried her in a pot as Chef, and I was the matire’d.

Making Friends

Our friends Jim & Natasha, who live in Saratoga (about 30 minutes south), have a six month old daughter named Rory. Rayleigh is now old enough to start playing with Rory when they get together, so we went to Davidson Brothers in Glens Falls a few weeks ago to have some adult conversation and let the girls play.

We’ve also joined a Meetup /playgroup called Kids Incorporated, located in Glens Falls. Kevin and Rayleigh went to their first event a few weeks ago, which was a walk around a pond in town. The group will give us a chance to meet other parents in the area, and will give Rayleigh a chance to socialize with kids near her own age.

Fall Visit

Kevin’s brother Karl and his girlfriend Arielle came to visit last weekend. We all went for a walk using our new stroller and took a photo along the way. It was a great visit, and we’re looking forward to spending some more time with them in Pennsylvania over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Photo Shoot

We did a photo shoot yesterday in our living room, which was a huge success. Here are some of the best photos.

We are in a TV ad for our congressman, Scott Murphy, who is running for re-election for his congressional seat! We had to take a picture of ourselves holding a sign that’s part of the message of the ad, then upload it to MoveOn’s website, and then they included it in the ad.

Here’s the ad that is on the air:

Here’s the photo that we uploaded:

Tonight, we went to the debate between our current Congressman, Scott Murphy (D-NY-20) and his Republican challenger, Chris Gibson, at the Queensbury High School right up the road. Rayleigh was great – she didn’t cry or fuss during the debate at all, and got lots of complements from attendees (many of whom had worried looks when we walked in with a baby). Many people told us that they were glad that we were taking her out to these kinds of things, since it’s an experience that most kids don’t get. One man even pointed at her and said that she was going to be President one day! We can only hope. After the event, we got a picture with Rep. Murphy, which I thought I’d share: