IOU...

Well! Sorry for the lapse in posts! Busy Busy Mumma! IOU some good updates! However, today is Ryan's birthday, so I'm going to take him out to lunch and mini-golfing, so I will post more about our visit with Grammy & Granda Edwards and Kevin & Nancy McKenna another time... lots of great pictures from that visit! Including Riley's "1st 14er"!! Mt. Evans! So I will get on that post shortly... however, for now I have a couple of cutie flip-videos to share of Riley. (Also, from now on, I'm going to add flip videos to our Shutterfly site on a new tab called: "Riley Videos"... some will be duplicates of what's here, but I'll also post others.)

Here he is gnawing on Berkie's tail (one of his favorite activities, and oddly enough, Berkie just sits there purring... weirdo cat):


And here's another of Riley crawling around and tackling Berkie WWE-style (his other favorite activity... seriously, weird cat.):


Say some prayers for Ryan and the Williams' family (especially Grandma Ethel), as his Grandfather, Warren Sterling Williams passed away yesterday morning in his sleep. He was 89 years young and was in home hospice care as of last Thursday. All my love to my husband and his family as they remember a wonderful man's life.

Love to all,
Alli

As promised...

... more pictures!

Susannah sent us a CD with all the photos she snapped of Riley at 6 months, so I posted them on our Shutterfly site. Take a look!! Here is the album specifically: http://ryanandalli.shutterfly.com/1747

I also created a new tab on our Shutterfly page for Riley's Videos :) I'll try to keep that up to date with all his movin' and groovin'.

Tonight was a rough night... Day 1 of Sleep Training using "The Baby Sleep Solution" by Suzy Giordano. She has you use the limited crying method, where you put him to bed awake, and then leave him, if he cries, you return in 3-5 mins (I did 3 mins), soothe him until he calms a bit, then leave... wash, rinse, repeat... I did this for about an hour and then he finally fell asleep. It was traumatic for both of us, I think. He was SO upset!! There were boogars EVERYWHERE. :( But, that little boy has been SOOOO tired lately, his eyes looked like 2 piss-holes in the snow. :( No little one should look THAT tired. So he needed our help to learn how to self soothe and we had to show him some tough love to get him to sleep. Now it's anybody's guess how long he'll sleep and when I'll get to re-live that limited crying method tonight... I just keep telling myself it's for his health, and mine. :)

Wish us luck!

My parents and our dear family friends, Nancy & Kevin McKenna, are flying out tomorrow to visit for a week! They'll be staying at the condo and we have many fun activities planned :) Can't WAIT to see them all!!!!

Well, time to get some shut-eye while the little man is sleeping!
Dream Sweet...
~Alli

Crawling is Immanent...

Uh-oh... :)



This is one VERY effective inchworm!!!

Riley's 6 Month Stats!!!!

Wow! Can you believe it?! Riley is SIX MONTHS OLD?!?! Good grief, where did the time go?! I feel like I was still pregnant not that long ago, and yet, I now have a rolly-poley-tooth-baring-sitting-up-to-eat-solids-squealy-chuckling little 6 month old boy!?! Sheesh.

So yesterday was Riley's official half-birthday, and we had my old college and rugby friend Susannah come down from Longmont to take pictures of him for us... as soon as she posts them on a share site for us, I'll be sure to post that site here for ya'all to view :) We had a wonderful time with Susannah, and Riley was SUCH a ham for her, I cannot wait to see the pictures. Here is ONE that she posted to her blog this morning...



This morning Riley had his 6 month doctor appointment, which means yes, he had more vaccinations today, poor little fella... ouch! But he was SUCH a good boy, he cried when she stabbed him 3 times (wouldn't you?!), but then recovered very quickly and conked out. Here's to hoping his reaction to these vaccinations mimics those at 2 months as opposed to 4 months (he was just sleeping and a little fussy at 2 months, but was wicked fussy at 4 months, pobrecito). The good news is no more vaccinations (other than a flu shot in the fall) until his 1 year appointment! Woo hoo!

Now for his stats...
Height: 25.5 inches, 19th percentile
Weight: 16 pounds, 23rd percentile
Head Circ: 17 inches, 34th percentile

Hefty Hefty Hef-ty! heh heh heh... :)

And he scored very well on his development questionnaire, too! He's sitting up, rolling over, grabbing things with one hand and passing them to the other, putting everything he can get his little paws on into his mouth, having conversations with us, mimicking our sounds, and he's even starting to show signs of stranger-danger and separation anxiety... all right on track for his age! Such a good little man.

Happy Half-Birthday, Riley! We love you bunches!
Love,
Mummy & Daddy

Pictures to come when Susannah is done editing! Promise!
xo

Our First "Family Vacation"!!!

Whewf! We made it! To AND fro! The "fro" was the tough part because our little man is teething like crazy so he was in a LOT of pain Sunday and Monday, so Monday's travel-day was a toughie for the poor guy, but he did GREAT all the same :) He has recently gotten his 2 lower incisors... Granda is SO proud :) The pearly-whites aren't all the way in, but they've cut through the gums, so here he is brushing his teeth...


So anyways, back to VACATION!!!! We had a BLAST in Florida! It was SO nice to get away and spend some time as a family, bonding, just enjoying one another and some downtime without chores or day-to-day mumbo-jumbo. *Sigh*, I miss it already.

The first few days we were there we spent in St. Pete's Beach near Tampa where Ryan's mom's family lives, so Riley was able to meet his Great Grammy May, his Great Grandpa Bob, and his Great Uncle Ray, and to see his Great Aunt Peggy again :) It was wonderful for Grammy & Grandpa to meet their great grandson, Grammy just doted on him the whole time she was with him. She kept talking about how when Ryan was Riley's age (6 months or so), they took him back to Ireland to meet her family... ha!

Here's Riley meeting the Great Acker Grands...



And here he is with Great Aunt Peggy & Uncle Bud... (unfortunately I don't have any with Great Uncle Ray, perhaps Peg does?)


So after spending Tuesday through Thursday on St. Pete's Beach with the extended family, we packed up all our gear and headed south 2 1/2 hours to Sanibel Island. Wow, what a GORGEOUS little part of the world THAT is. Have you ever been there? If not, add it to your list. FABULOUS. Truly wonderful. Very quaint and relaxing, and just beautiful beaches. We cannot wait to go back! There were plenty of things we would like to do when Riley gets a little bigger (for example, they had first-come-first-serve bikes that you can take around the islands on their extensive bike-paths!). We stayed at the Sanibel Inn and had a wonderful view of the gulf through some palm trees (very tropical) from the screened-in patio in our room.


Riley did SO well all in all... he did a-ok on the planes, I mean, sure he had some fuss-time, but hello, he's a BABY... of course he did. A teething baby at that. HA! But really, he did well!! And then I think he actually slept BETTER in the hotel cribs than in his own... perhaps there's something to having him sleep in the same room as us? We may experiment with putting his pack-n-play in our bedroom and seeing how he sleeps. Maybe he likes hearing us breathe... hmm. :) Anyways, he's a champion. Such a good little fella.

And he seemed to like the beach and love the pools... he was very interested in the sand, didn't seem to mind it at all - except the time that he toppled over and ended up looking like a sugar donut (heh, turns out that fine sand sticks really well to Baby SPF 55... HAHAHA!)... and he LOVED floating around in his car raft from Peggy!

Here are a few snapshots from our trip, but if you want the whole shazam, then hit up our album on Shutterfly...

Riley kickin' it in the sand:

Digging moats with Daddy:

Cruising in the pool with Mommy:

Phew... vacationing is EXHAUSTING (sleeping in the rental carseat with my brand new blue giraffe):


So there you have it! Our first Family Vaction was wonderful... great family time and extended family time, along with Riley's first trip to the beach... SO fun! We can't wait for the next time.

Can you believe Riley will be 6 months old this Sunday? WOW!!!
More to come then!
Love,
The Willies

Chillin' on the Deck!

Hello there! Well, no real news fit to print, but thought I should post something before we head to Florida next week! I hope to have plenty of great pictures and stories to share when we get back on the 22nd. We fly next Tuesday, the 15th and will spend 2 nights on St. Pete's Beach at the Grand Plaza Beachfront Hotel where we'll get to spend some time with Ryan's extended family (Riley's Great-Grammy Acker, Great-Grandpa Acker, Great-Aunt Peggy, Great-Uncle Ray...). Then we'll drive 2 1/2 hours down the coast to Sanibel Island where we'll spend 5 nights at the Sanibel Inn just the 3 of us enjoying one another and some wonderful and long overdue down-time. :)

This past weekend we did some painting on the back deck (we had the deck professionally refinished but are painting the white railings/spindles ourselves) so while we were out back, we set Riley up out there with us and since it was so sunny I moved the patio table's umbrella over and hooked him up with some shade... heh. He was happy as can be... I was sweltering in the sun, but he was happy! ha!


The only other news is that I "hired" our caretaker, Mahin's pre-teen middle school daughter, Mona, to come over on Wednesdays when Mahin is unavailable to mind Riley, to serve as a mother's helper so I can get my 5-6 hours of work done... we start today, she'll be here from 11am till 3pm, 4 hours at $5/hour... not too shabby! We'll see how it goes. If I could get 6 hours in on Wednesdays then it would make my life a lot easier. :)

Here's a picture of Riley with Mona...


More when we get back from Sunny Florida!
Love,
The Willies

Grammy & Granda Visit!

Memorial Day weekend came and went like a whirlwind... we had a wonderful weekend with friends and family! We were thrilled to have Alli's parents (now known as Grammy & Granda) arrive on Saturday morning and stay through Wednesday morning, and also to have Ryan's "Cousin Susan" arrive for a long layover here on her way home to the Rochester area (NY) from an Alaskan adventure! She arrived Sunday night at around 9:45pm and went home the next morning at around 11:45am. Whewee!

So we'll start at the beginning! Grammy & Granda arrived at around 10:30am on Saturday and had their own errands to run while Alli was finishing up the mini red velvet cakes for our friend Alicia's birthday party that night, so we didn't rendezvous until lunchtime at Granda's favorite... Gunther Toody's (mmm, vanilla malts...)

Here are Alli's red velvet mini cakes (talk about labor intensive... oy!)


And here Riley is being spoiled by Grammy and is sitting on the table at Gunther Toody's!


After lunch at GT's, we went back to Grammy & Granda's condo to get Riley settled and comfortable, and then at 3:30pm Alli left without her little man and didn't see him again until mass at 11:15 the next morning!!! OMG! Riley's first OVERNIGHT!!! I was SO terrified/anxious... I was a wreck leading up to this adventure (did he have everything he needed? Did I forget anything? Will he cry the whole time? Will he be "good" for my parents?). However, once I left, I felt confident it'd go well, and I had a wonderful night, especially after hearing he was sleeping for them. :) Good boy, Riley! Here are some pictures my parents took while hanging with their FAVORITE grandson (heh heh)...

Here's Riley in his pack'n'play, getting the lay of the land...


Here he is playing games with Grammy...


Here's Riley telling stories while chewing on a toe in bed Sunday morning with Granda (I guess when he woke he was telling stories in his pack'n'play and so they brought him to bed to hear them better):


Then we met up at church and he was so good! We didn't do much on Sunday, just relaxed. Susan came and went Sunday to Monday, it was nice for her to get to meet Riley despite the super-quick visit :) And it sounded like she had an AMAZING trip to Alaska, I was jealous! It was a Smithsonian orchestrated Educational Trip to the southeast coast of Alaska on a National Geographic boat. Looked FAB.

Monday we went for a walk with Susan and then took her to the airport. Then we had some time to kill till our BBQ over at Red Stone Park with our softball/football friends... So Alli, Grammy & Granda headed over to Red Stone at 4:00 or so for a nice walk on the Highline Canal Trail, and then met up with the rest of everyone else (including Ryan) at the park for the BBQ at about 5:00. It was a nice time, lots of running around, good food, good peeps. Then we called it a day and headed home. A great weekend!

Here we are on our walk (love the views from the Highline Canal Trail, gorgeous):


And here we are toasting at the BBQ!


Tuesday I took some time off work to spend with the fam, we met with Ryan for lunch out at Roxborough, and bought my parents some new patio furniture for the condo, and then tried a new French cafe right here in Highlands Ranch for take-out for dinner and it was FAB. Definitely will do THAT again.

Wednesday morning my parents swung by on their way to the airport to say good-bye to all of us (yeah right, we all know they came to say bye to big man Riley :) tee hee)


Anyways, it was a fun-filled weekend that FLEW by way too quickly and we cannot wait to see Grammy & Granda again in August! Hooray!

Love to all,
The Willies