a long weekend, giving thanks and the 'tea dance'

dylan celebrated his first thanksgiving this long, long weekend. we are grateful for:

grateful for a good game of frisbee with the dogs on thanksgiving day in palos verdes...
grateful for aunties (vivian) who perform the 'tea dance' in broad daylight on sunset in front of casbah cafe in silver lake...
lovely friends...
face-shaped cookies! dylan attended his first birthday party to wish baby margot a happy one year! happy birthday to the super-cute margot of lilmargot. a good time was had by all at the party, where dylan got to get drunk on his first box of grape juice. hick* burp*

autumn leaves

everyone here at dylanreilly's web site has been quiet--the unseasonably terrible, acrid, ashen weather has left us a bit phlegm-y, weezy and teary. dylan is also nursing a bit of a rough cold, so we've been doing things like getting bundled up and going to the playground early in the a.m., going to the indoors mall down the street. the problem is the ash still falling from the weekend's fires, landing softly like snowdrift. ash is everywhere--on the car, on the patio, on ourselves, and seeps in through the windows as well. a bit of rain would do us some good right about now! until then, we are left with ourselves, as we explore...the falling leaves, a lonely branch here and there, a glint of light hitting a foil wrapper on the ground, this is all very new, this is all we know, this is what we see and taste and feel. off to explore, in every nook and cranny, under each rock, stone, blade of grass, acorn, stem, petal. what is there? what does this feel like?

happy autumn!

congrats prez obama!

pics from election day, last week, at the polls.

dylan is suffering from post-election withdrawal, and is now considering becoming a political pundit. he also would like to think that his vote pushed the obama/biden ticket to victory. all he can say is, 'phew'! and for the first time ever, he's finally proud of his country. he's also happy that he will be growing up under the amber glow of current good times, and to be a baby in the midst of obama-mania. long live intellectual rule! long live ideas, ideals, morals, freedom! long live the u.s.a.!

in the meantime, dylan is catching up with the obamas as they transition to the white house on their new site: change.gov, the official transition website.

first halloween!

we neither had the inclination nor energy to get a proper costume for dylan's first halloween, so we had to make do with what we had:

okay, so mom ties on a japanese kimono found at little tokyo and a headband around his head, and he becomes:

SAMURAI SUSHI CHEF!

i know, this is playing to all sorts of stereotypes. it was the only thing we could come up with at a minute's notice. we then took dylan trick or treating to some neighbors' houses.

here's our neighbor jason, who bravely goes under dylan's 'knife.' jason made the mistake of asking 'trick or treat' and this is what he got. dylan's a little tough guy.

dylan walks (and does chores)

to contribute to household chores, dylan has taken to light tasks, seen here sweeping. it helps that the boy has been walking since taking his first steps at 8 months, 3 weeks of age! today, dylan is 10 months old and has been walking for well over a month. this video, taken two weeks ago, shows that dylan has absolutely no fashion sense (note one orange sock on left foot). deniro the cat makes a quick cameo too.