Look Who's 7 months old

Riley turned 7 months old this Saturday. After 2 weeks of gloomy weather, it was a beautiful sunny day in the high 70s, so we decided to spend the day at the Arboretum. Here are some pictures of our day there. Notice how Riley's clothes slowly came off as the day wore on. The last two pictures of Riley's new love - the Lactaid box! Riley loves to pick up and drop daddy's box of Lactaid.

Here is the link to the pictures........

How Time Flies

I meant to update the blog right after the new year but as you can tell that just didn't happen. The last month and a half has been filled with a lot of fun times and changes. Here are some of the highlights....

• We had a great holiday dinner with the Steins. We haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Who knew Surprise, Arizona could be so funny.


• We spent a great week up North for the holidays. We managed to have time to go to Santa Rosa to visit Ben's mom, Stockton to see Dre, Suzy, and Zen, see all of my family on Christmas, visit with Leah, Dan, Gabe, Michelle, Jethro, Joyce, and Whit (we missed seeing the Tuan family during this get together). Riley got beyond spoiled for his first Christmas. Here is a link to some of the pictures we took during that week.


• We had a relaxing New Years. We went to hotpot and then came home and watched the countdown. Amazingly we made it to midnight this year without falling asleep.


• The New Year brought a big change.....my maternity leave was officially over. I couldn't believe that 6 months had come and gone that fast. I started back to work on the 2nd and we have been adjusting since. Since we felt Riley was still a little too young for daycare (not to mention the fact that we hadn't found a daycare we liked) we were lucky that my sister and mom were available to watch Riley for us when I had to go back to work. Cindy came for the first 2 weeks of January and watched "chubs" which is her new nickname for him and my mom has been here since. I've switched my work schedule around and now try to get into work by 6 am so that I can leave by 3:30 or 4:00. As many of you know, I am definately not a morning person and I was so used to getting at least 8 hours of sleep. This new adjustment has been really tough getting used to but getting home early to play with Riley is worth it.


• Riley went to his 6 month check up in mid January and he weighed in at 13 1/2 pounds and 24 inches. He's getting really close to reaching the height/weight curve for his actual age.


• Riley is finally done with his apnea monitor!!! We did one final pneumogram......which was awful by the way.....and he passed with flying colors so we are finally done with that awful machine. Yeah, no more false alarms constantly going off in the middle of the night.


• We've had a setback with getting Riley to sleep through the night in his own bed. A few nights before Riley was taken off his apnea machine the thing went crazy so we weren't able to use it. Since we couldn't use the monitor and I needed a way to be able to check up on him constantly through the night we put him in bed with us. However, getting him back to sleeping on his own through the night in his own crib has not been going so well. We're hoping that he'll get back to his normal sleeping habits soon!


• Riley has started eating solid foods. We started off with some rice cereal and for the first two days he was definately not happy. However, once he got the hang of mushing it around in his mouth and swallowing it he started eating like a champ. He's had rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and bananas so far. We're on to green beans next week!!


• We went to our first kids' birthday party with Riley at Chuck E. Cheese. My co-worker's daughter, Katie, was turning two and we wanted to be there to celebrate. Ben and I have not been to a Chuck E. Cheese in a long long time and it has definately changed from the one we both remember in Stockton. The placed was so packed. It was a lot smaller than what we remembered and there were no more Chuck E Cheese and Friends on the main stage........just one giant Chuck E. Cheese and a whole bunch of tv screens. We had a great time though and Riley got to meet Chuck E. Cheese!!


• We went to Riley's first neonatal followup clinic appointment and he weighed in at 14 lbs 2 ounces. He gained over 1/2 pound in less than 3 weeks. Even though we know he is doing great it was nice to get confirmation that he is exactly where he should be developmentally.

Here are some more pictures from the past couple of months.........

My Boys.......

Brownie Extravaganza

It's that time of year again.......yup, it was time for some holiday baking. Every year I do a big baking day and make goodies for Ben and I to take to all the people we work with. To give you some perspective last year I ended up making over 1000 cookies. I knew there was no way I could take care of Riley and still be able to make that many cookies so I went with something a little less labor intensive and made brownies this year. I ended up making 9 different kinds of brownies and ended up with 288 large brownies.

I made: Peanut Butter Hazelnut Brownies, Choco-Marshmallow Bars, Peppermint Bark Brownies, S'mores Bars, Peanut Butter Fudge Brownies, Fudge Brownies, Fudge Brownies with Walnuts, Cream Cheese Brownies, and Black and White Brownies

The baking part ended up being the easy part of the whole process. For the past couple of years I have always had my sister Cindy around to help me during the packaging portion of the process. Not this year!! Since I was wrapping each brownie individually and labeling them and then packaging them it was quite a process.....I was my own little sweat shop! I had a blast though and can't wait until next year to come up with something new!!

Here are some pictures of what I ended up with:

Last Year's Cookie Extravaganza!

The 9 different kinds of brownies

Each of the brwonies individually wrapped and labeled

The finished products......the front and back of the bags!!

The label on the bag

Where Does the Time Go

So sorry about not keeping up with the blog. I warned all of you that I'm not great about this!! Here's a little photo montage of what we have been up to since Thanksgiving.......

Quentin and DiDi were out from Arizona for a visit the weekend after Thanksgiving. We had a little seafood cookout at the house and hung out. It seems like it has been forever since we last saw them so it was a nice chance to catch up. We'll be going to Las Vegas in March for their wedding!!

King of the Bathtub!! We had to do a little strategic cropping to make this PG13!

I always like to go and get a Christmas tree as soon as Thanksgiving is done with. However, the past couple of years has taught me that trying to find a "nice" tree in LA that early is next to impossible since it is never cold here and the stores don't want to have all their trees die so they put out trees later. So, we waited until the first weekend of December to go on our hunt. Like my mom and sisters I want the "perfect" tree....the right size, the right height, the right bushiness, the right shape, etc., etc. This usually means that Ben is opening and shaking out multiple trees...however this year, much to the shock of Ben, we opened up only one tree and it was perfect!! The tree is up, the house decorated, and the presents wrapped......we're ready for Christmas!!

Ben went on his first job interview this past week to Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Riley missed his papa and wanted to send him a good luck picture telling him how much he loved him!! Riley would make an adorable cowboy if we ended up in Texas.

I love to bake but it's been awhile since I've been able to do much since the pregnancy (who wants to bake when it's 90 degrees outside and you're pregnant!) and Riley's birth. Caroline's birthday was a great reason to pull out the cake pans again and do some baking! Ben was gone at his interview at the time and Riley decided that he had to be held so making the chocolate swirls for the border with Riley in one arm was a new experience!! However the cake - a chocolate cake filled with strawberries and bananas and a cream cheese cream and ganache filling - turned out great! Happy Birthday Caroline!!

A Day of Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We have a lot to be thankful for this year - our family and friends, our health, and most of all...Riley!! Even though we would have liked to be with our family this year we hate traveling during Thanksgiving because of all of the traffic so we stayed in Alhambra once again. Riley decided to start off Thanksgiving with a treat for mom and dad by sleeping eight hours last night. We had a nice relaxing morning with a pancake breakfast and then the cooking began. Jon came over to join us for dinner and to celebrate Thanksgiving. We decided to forgo the turkey this year and try something else....on the menu for today was: horseradish and salt crusted prime rib, mashed potatoes, green beans, cornbread stuffing, brioche bread, and of course, dessert - cherry cream pie. Everything came out great, the boys demolished the prime rib, and then relaxed in front of the tv to watch Ben's trip to Africa movie.

Ben and Riley on Thanksgiving morning and Riley getting some tummy time!

The prime rib before going into the oven.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Ben and Jon enjoying their meals.

Riley in the sweater my grandmother made for him.

A Walk For Hope

Today was the 11th annual City of Hope Walk for Hope to raise money for breast cancer. The walk was originally scheduled for October 28th but because of the fires and the poor air quality it was rescheduled to today. Even with the rescheduling there was still a great turnout. I can still remember talking to a friend about the trouble we were having with the miscarriages during the walk last year....it's amazing what a difference a year makes! So, we strapped Riley into his Baby Bjorn and off we went..........

The beginning of the walk......

Sylvia, Riley, and I before the walk began........

Riley was quite the trooper and even threw in a couple of smiles for us....

Tuckered out after the walk..........