New skills

Riley is changing so quick lately and he has all these new skills.

He recently learned about jumping in his jumper.  And he loves it (despite the look on his face in the pictures).  He jumps at least an hour and a half a day, but usually more.

Sometimes he even naps in his jumper, but not very often.

 He is also great at sitting.  Today he went to Elder's Quorum with Andrew and sat in his own choir chair almost the whole meeting.  He can sit by himself pretty good as well,  he's up to about five minutes.

Rolling has been harder for him, but he's slowly getting it.  As of today he's rolled from his back to front twice and front to back once.  But that's all.  He can get to his side easily, in fact that's how he likes to sleep.  For the moment he seems to like being immobile, and I'm okay with it.

He helps with the laundry.

He can even stand, kind of.  He's leaning against me.

Riley is so fun right now.  He's big, just over 19 pounds and a little over 5 months old.   

Eclipse

We were in one of the best places in the world to see the eclipse last night.  We were late at getting something to look at the eclipse with and were afraid we would miss it.  Most of the hardware stores were selling eclipse glasses, or welder's goggles, but they were long gone by the time we decided to pick them up.  There were multiple big events around Albuquerque where people gathered to see the eclipse.  One was giving away free glasses so we decided to go to it.  There were out by the time we got there.  We decided to hang around anyway.  We met some nice Steeler's fans who shared their eclipse glasses with us.  It was really amazing and fun to be with so many excited people. 

  

The eclipse through the glasses

Riley's first eclipse! 

Ring of Fire

Food for Riley

At the end of March Riley started getting extra hungry, especially in the afternoon.  Some days he would need to eat every hour.  That was getting kind of annoying,  I tried to drink more water so I could have more milk for him but he would still be very hungry.  I started giving him a few small bottles of formula in the afternoon and evening and that solved the problem.  Riley is a good sport about being nursed and bottle fed.  A lot of times I know people are judged by using formula full time or just as a supplement, but I am so grateful that formula is an option.  

When I took him to the doctor for his four month appointment the doctor said it would be a good idea if I started giving him rice cereal, since he was always so hungry.  Some days he is super excited to eat, others not so much.  But it's funny for me.  He often takes the spoon from me and tries to feed himself.  It's messier, but funnier.

Pittsburgh to Albuquerque #1

Since Carnegie Mellon doesn't have summer classes we needed to move to Albuquerque so Andrew could work.  We left on Thursday, our car looked like this:

Does it remind you a little of this?

The non-aerodynamicness of our box on top reduced our mileage by 8 miles per gallon, oh well.

The first day we drove 7.5 hours to Bloomington, Indiana.  We stayed at Lisa and Cameron's house (thanks again for having us!). Riley got to meet his cousin.

The next day we drove to Nauvoo, Illinois, and stopped at Carthage Jail on the way.  

We to Nauvoo in time to watch a play by the senior missionaries, but about five minutes in Riley realized it wasn't for him and we left.  We walked around old  Nauvoo and down by the Mississippi River, which was much more impressive this time.  Apparently it is wider in Nauvoo than St. Louis.  Then we walked around the temple. 

The next day we went to a few places, like the printing shop and the brickyard.  They were interesting and it was a nice time to be there because there weren't a lot of people and the weather was great.  We didn't stay too long because we still had a ways to go.  For one of our breaks we stopped in Liberty, Missouri and saw the Liberty Jail.  It was fun to see a lot of the church history sites.

We spent that night in Wichita, Kansas.  Andrew said that one of his favorite parts of the whole trip was driving across Kansas that day.  It really was beautiful and the roads were pretty empty of drivers, sadly we took no pictures.

The next morning was Sunday.  We drove from Wichita to Albuquerque, 10.5 hours.  It was our longest day and also the ugliest day.  We listened to more than half of conference.  Since it was Sunday we couldn't check into our apartments so we stayed in another hotel and moved in the next morning.

Riley did so good on our trip.  Of the 30 hours, he slept at least 20 of them and only cried about 3.  I was surprised how well he did.  But now he puts up a fight when we try to get him in his car seat.  He must think we are going on another long drive.  We are happy to be here, but I'm not going to lie, I really miss Pittsburgh, but I think I can grow to love Albuquerque as much as Pittsburgh.  After all, it will be our home in December

This is everything that was in our car plus Andrew and me.