Baby's First Christmas

This year was our turn to be in Colorado for Christmas. We went up to Estes Park on Saturday, Dec. 22 for a little pre-Chirstmas relaxation. Nate got to open one of this presents early, the Wii, which kept everyone entertained for the next couple days with bowling and golf. Christmas Day was our typical commute to see all the family. We started in Estes Park, drove to our house to drop off the dogs and then headed to Nate's grandparents house in Lakewood for Christmas lunch with the Bustamante side of the family. Then we headed up to Berthoud via our house for Christmas dinner with the Vielehr side of the family. It's always a long day but it's great to see the entire family. It was great to have a white Christmas and luckily it didn't affect our travels too much. We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.

7th Annual Girl's Gift Exchange

This weekend was our 7th Annual Girl's Gift Exchange. It was the biggest group yet, 16. We had it at Betsy's parents house since ours numbers exceeded the capacity of Betsy and Lee's living room. There was lots of good food, great gifts, lots of stealing and great company. We were also joined by Koben, Riley and Chester. View more photos here.

2 Months Old and 12 lbs. 2 oz.

We had Riley's 2 month doctor's visit on Friday. Riley was 12 pounds, 2 ounces and almost 23 " long. He also received his first round of shots. They gave him 3 shots in his thighs. He screamed, as you would imagine, but he quickly quited down once they were done. I can't believe how fast he is growing. He has almost grown out of a few of his outfits. He is smiling a ton and "talking" lots too. He has discovered his reflection in the mirror of the swing and enjoys smiling at himself. We are looking forward to all his changes to come.

Tree Hunting

Saturday was the Vielehr family annual Xmas tree hunt, Chris and I met my family and other friends at our property West of Boulder. There were about 20 people with us and we ended up cutting about 10-12 trees total. It might sound like a lot of trees to cut, but on the 10 acre parcel there are a lot of trees growing into each other, so our cutting actually helps some of the other trees grow as well as with fire mitigation. Chris ended up getting a tree about 8-9 feet tall, mine was closer to 12-14 feet. We got them loaded on the Land Cruiser and headed home. My tree was so heavy that Chris had to help me carry it in to the house, luckily it fit. Next is the hard part, decorating it.

Thanksgiving in Reno

We embarked on another adventure... flying with an infant. Riley was such a trooper. We checked the car seat and I carried him in the front carrier. He started to fuss a little on the shuttle and we couldn't get to the pacifier so I gave him my thumb to suck on. Because he was in the carrier, his face was against my chest so getting my thumb in his mouth required some odd positioning of my arm. Riley sucked on my thumb from the shuttle, through security and all the way until we got to our gate. He fell asleep shortly after take off and slept the entire flight.

It was so wonderful to introduce Riley to my family and friends. We are very lucky to now have four generations on both Nate and my sides of the family. My uncle Ron and his partner Dan came up from LA and we had 11 people at the table for Thanksgiving. Like most, we spent a lot of time eating and relaxing over the weekend.

Riley turns 1 month old

I can't believe that Riley has been a part of our life for a month now. What an amazing blessing he is. He is such a great baby and I'm loving being a mom. We (well Nate) introduced a bottle to Riley a couple days ago and he took it without hesitation. Now that Nate and others are able to feed him, I better start pumping more so we have a surplus.
I've gotten use to my new sleeping schedule and I'm starting to get the hang of outings with the Baby. I went to the grocery store yesterday for the first time. Luckily I only had a short list because Riley started crying half way through my shopping. I ended up getting everything I needed and made it out of the store with only a few concerned looks from other shoppers.

Babies, Babies everywhere...

It has been the year of the baby and it's bleeding into 2008. This past weekend we had two baby showers to attend. Our friends Rick and Allena and Jon and Cassie are both due in January. Allena's shower was the first get together since Riley arrived, completing the 2007 babies. We had to take a picture.

More adventures for Riley!

Leanne's parents left on Tuesday the 30th, it was sad to see them go, but we also knew it was time for us to establish our new routine with just the three of us. I decided to take Monday and Tuesday off to spend some more time with Leanne's family, but Wednesday it was finally time to go back to work for real, no more time off to hang out with the kid. Leanne was a rockstar spending her first day alone with the baby without any help. It was a little tough to go from having three helpers to none, but she handled it like a pro. On Friday, November 2nd, we had another doctors appointment to recheck Riley's weight. This time he weighed 7 lbs 14.5 oz, a 9.5 oz gain in 7 days!! Everything was now on track in regards to his feeding. We can expect for him to gain about 1 oz per day for a while. He has to start packing on the baby fat!

Friday night we had our first big group dinner since having Riley, it was a lot of fun to be social with all of our friends again. There were 8 of us, well 10 including the little ones. Chris, Tara & Koben, Betsy & Lee, Ari & Jared, and Leanne, Riley and me. We better take advantage of being social while Riley still sleeps all the time, as we have seen with many of our friends, the social time seems to dwindle as the kid gets older and more active.

Saturday it was time for Riley's biggest adventure yet, we got in the car and drove up to Estes Park to visit my Mom and Stepdad. Riley handled the hour long car ride great, he didn't even seem to be bothered by the elevation changes. My Grandparents came up as well. It was really neat to have 4 generations all in one room. We went and had a quick lunch before heading back down the mountain. All in all a good trip.

More Photos

World Series 2007

With Leanne's good computer luck we kept 3 tickets to Game 4 of the World Series so that I could take my Grandparents. They are both big baseball fans and have never been to a game of this magnitude. It took a lot of planning to get there early for special parking and time to get to our seats. It was a great game even though the Rockies got swept, it was fun to see the Champions celebrating on the field. The whole evening went really smooth other than briefly losing my Grandparents as we were heading back to the car, luckily they knew where they were going and we caught up to them quickly. More photos here.

Halloween Party

Our friend Laney had a "Texas Bling" Halloween Party on Saturday the 27th, so we thought this would be a good first adventure for Riley's first real outing (other than the doctor). We dressed Riley up as a burrito wrapped in foil, and put on the closest things we could for western wear. Laney had her Wii set up so we got some good video game time in as well. We had a good time and Riley cooperated nicely. I even won the "Git-R-Done" prize which included a bottle of bourbon with two glasses and a flask.

Check out the photos here.

Blog Slackers!

So I realize that we have been slacking on updating the blog the last few weeks, but that is the beauty of the internet, in a few minutes I can bring everyone up to date. On Sunday, October 21st, I took my Stepdad, Dave, to the Broncos-Steelers game. He is a HUGE Steelers fan and we both just hoped it would be a good game, it turned out to be a great game with Elam saving the day again for the Denver Donkeys. I made sure to rub it in a little even though Denver wasn't really having a good season.

Riley celebrated is 1st week of life by doing the same old thing, eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping. We also got to enjoy another week with Leanne's Mom in town. With the extra help still around I decided I should go back to work for a few days, so I went in on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I have to admit I didn't get a whole lot accomplished on Tuesday since World Series tickets were going on sale. Everyone in my office was trying to get in to buy tickets without any success so I called Leanne at home to see if she could try as well. It turns out we had some amazing luck getting in to the screwed up online system. Leanne was able to get in to the system 8 separate times and successfully purchased 18 tickets including 8 tickets to one game which theoretically wasn't possible. We kept a few tickets for ourselves and sold the rest to various friends that wanted to go.

On Friday the 26th we had another pediatrician appointment to check Riley's weight. He weighed in at a whopping 7 pounds 5 ounces, that was a 7 oz gain from our discharge weight! Straight from the pediatrician we went to the airport to pick up Leanne's dad, Tim, who was flying in for a long weekend.

As usual check out more photos here

Getting Settled at Home

Well, we have finally gotten settled enough at home for another update. We had many visitors at the hospital, including many of our close friends, my mom, step-dad, dad and grandparents. Leanne's mom, Kathy, flew into town Monday afternoon and came straight to the hospital to see her new grandson. There is a really nice photo of the two new Grandmothers at the link below.
We got to come home Tuesday morning from the hospital. No issues getting packed up, but Riley didn't really like his car seat at first. Once we got in the car and started driving he settled right down. The only thing we were at all worried about was introducing the two dogs to the new family addition. For all of you that don't know our dogs, calling them high energy would be an understatement. I came home for a visit the night before so that Bella and Gunner could see me briefly and so I could let them smell a blanket with Riley's scent. We let Leanne come in first without the baby so the dogs could get out some of their excitement in seeing her after a few days. After they settled a little bit I came in with Riley. They were very curious at first, then seemed to lose interest until Riley started making some noise and crying. They immediately seemed to show some sense of concern for the crying baby. We have some great photos of Gunner getting up close and personal.
Leanne's milk came in early Wednesday morning and since then Riley has been feeding great. We have been getting a good routine down with me on diaper duty, and of course Leanne on feeding duty. We are still trying to figure out how to maximize our sleeping, which of course will be a long process. Kathy has been a great help around the house, so we don't have to worry about things like dishes, etc.
On Thursday we made our first outing to take Riley to his first Pediatrician's appointment. They said everything was great and he has gained 2 ounces after being born. He should continue to gain an ounce a day.
It has been a strange and exciting adjustment but we are getting used to being parents. Keep checking back for more updates, and check out some more photos here and here.

Announcing William Riley Vielehr (aka Riley)

So it turns out that our doctors had our due date as October 14th, not the 12th. We were misinformed. At Leanne's appointment on Friday (the 12th) we found out we were already 3-4cm dilated and 75% effaced. We were excited, this meant Leanne's body had been doing some good work preparing for labor. Knowing our due date was two whole days a way, we thought we should drive to Conifer to hang out with Betsy and Lee. We had a wonderful dinner of Green Curry (spicy food helps promote labor after all). Saturday we slept in until 9am thinking this could be the last opportunity for a while, did some last minute errands, then spent the evening with Chris & Tara watching the Buffs lose to Kansas State, oh well. We ended up making it to bed around 11pm thinking we could squeeze in one more day of sleeping in, but Riley wouldn't have it that way. Leanne was woken up to contractions around 4am. We monitored the length and separation hoping to hit the magic 5-1-1 rule. At about 6am we spoke with our Doula and Doctor and decided it was time to head in to the hospital. We arrived at about 6:45am and after getting situated the nurse did an exam on Leanne and we were at 7 cm!!! After about 4 hours of "transition labor" we moved to the pushing phase....and Leanne's water broke. After about 45-60 minutes of actual pushing Riley was born at 11:26 am, 7 lbs 6 oz, and 21" long. Leanne was a ROCKSTAR and had natural birth and didn't use any pain medication. We are extremely excited, and everyone is in good health. Keep checking here as we will be adding pictures and updates as our new adventure begins.
More photos here

When's That Baby Due?

So today is October 11th and the due date for the birth of our first child is tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!
It is a little surreal still, how do you anticipate the addition of a new life to your daily responsibilities? Anyway, Leanne is still doing well, she is getting a little uncomfortable. Check back here for baby news.

Nate

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