Riley update

We are all doing pretty good.  Riley is starting to sleep more at night and when he does wake up he usually falls back asleep fast after he eats.  I feel like he is getting really big, he outgrew all his newborn clothes about a week ago, we were squeezing him into them probably longer than we should have.  

Two weeks ago at his one month appointment he weighed 10 pounds 8 ounces. He was also 22 inches long, which is the size he was when he was born (but I'm pretty sure there was some measuring error when he was born, or maybe his stretched out head added some length) I'm sure he's bigger now, at least my arm gets tired when I carry him around in his car seat.  

He's losing his hair, it makes me kind of sad

The last few days Riley hasn't wanted to sleep very much in the day. Just a few half hour to 45 minute naps then he is wide awake.  That means I don't get much done around the house, but I don't care that much right now.  He's getting more fun to play with and is starting to smile.

I am liking being a stay at home mom,  it's way better than a stay at home pregnant lady.

An Andrew photo -- modeling with a calculator

Riley likes listening to our voices, so reading is something he seems to like pretty good.  I've been reading him Chronicles of Narnia while he falls asleep.  Riley liked reading with Andrew too, and I thought it was pretty cute.

Family Picture

Look a color coordinated family picture.  Too bad not everyone likes being photographed

Niagara Falls

Last week we decided to go on a little trip.  I think Andrew was getting a little tired of being around the house.  We decided to go to Niagara Falls.  The hotels were really cheap, because believe it or not, not a lot of people want to go to Canada in January.  Weird huh?

We left Wednesday afternoon and drove about four hours.  We got to the border and they kind of asked a lot of questions, like why we lived in Pittsburgh but our car had Utah license plates and what Andrew was doing in Chile.  But they did let us across, we needed our passports and Riley's birth certificate though.  Luckily if we are traveling by land or sea we don't need to get Riley a passport until he is 16.

We checked in to our hotel and ate dinner, then we bundled ourselves up and went to look at the falls.

They light them up in the winter at night.

It was cold, but not as cold as you would think, until we got to where there was mist.  I got a brain freeze from the outside--trust me it's not fun.

Riley didn't sleep too good at the hotel, but we all survived.

In the morning we went back to the Falls and took some daytime pictures.

We had a fun time.  It was nice to be able to do something fun together before Andrew started school.

Also here is Riley, don't worry he's not in Niagara Falls, he's in the bath at home.  But good news he doesn't hate baths anymore.

Christmas

Quite a few times in December Andrew asked me if it felt like Christmas.  It could have been that there was no snow, or that we didn't go to a single Christmas party, maybe it was because I refused to listen to lame songs like "Last Christmas" (which is hardly a Christmas song at all), possibly because we did almost all of our shopping online, or maybe because we were so focused on the baby coming, but this year didn't feel like any other Christmas to me.

We spent Christmas just the three of us.  It was really calm and quiet.  We went to church before we opened any of our presents.  We were tired from the lack of sleep the night before.  We opened our presents and Riley stayed awake for all of it without crying.  He just sat in his bouncer chair from Grandma and Grandpa Hatch.  The rest of the day we played games, napped, and talked to our families.  The calmness of it all was great, I loved it.  I was more able to focus on the true meaning of Christmas and family.

Watching us open presents

Quilt

Before Riley was born people would ask me what I did all day by myself.  I read, watched tv, cooked, and a spent a significant amount of time making this quilt for my sister for Christmas.  Looking back I probably should have picked something easier, but I really liked how it turned out.

Also I made up the pattern.  I saw a picture of a quilt like it, stole some of Andrew's engineering paper, used some of my math skills and made up the pattern.  

Riley's Big Yawn :)

Here is a movie of our baby