HAPPY EASTER!!!

Happy Easter!!!

We started the day off with a great church service at Calvary Bible Church. Since we're still new to the area we're still "church shopping" and this was our second week going to Calvary. We enjoyed the service a lot and we actually put Riley in the nursery...for the first time ever!! I can't believe it has taken us 18 months to put her in the nursery. Last week we kept her with us (in the balcony) and just decided that if we wanted to get anything out of the service we just had to buckle down and do it! We checked on her a couple of times and she did great. She cried for a few minutes after she figured out we had snuck out. Then we came back to get her, right then she realized we had been gone and balled when she saw us...then she cried, probably even harder, when she had to leave the nursery's baby doll behind...thank goodness for sippys!


After church we came home for a few minutes and then drove to my Aunt Janet's house in Allegan to see all of my mom's side of the family. It had been since Thanksgiving (I think) since I had seen any of them, so it was nice to get up there for a while. We ate a huge lunch as always and then had an "Easter egg hunt"...since there was snow on the ground and it was about 25 degrees out we did it in the house. Riley had a ton of fun running around with Jori and Lily, picking up candy and putting it in her bag. I didn't think she'd be interested but when she saw everyone else running around she couldn't help but be apart of it. She was so much fun!!! It's great that she can be apart of activities now; Ty loves what he calls "getting his dad on" and taking lots of video and pictures of her having such a great time.


We came home after a couple of hours and even managed to keep Riley away from the candy. It's all for us...that's the great thing about her age, she has no idea we stole all of her candy :)!

Daddy and his look-alike, Ri, checking out all the goodies in her Easter basket!!

Thanks Grandma!

Riley searching for the Easter eggs and candy to put in her bag!

(Why will she NEVER keep her shoes on???)

Distributing the candy, evenly, to all the kids. Riley got lots of good candy!

Riley and mommy after "the hunt"...

Playing with the toy tractor at Aunt Janet's! (Notice the recurring theme in all the pictures?--NO SHOES)

EASTER EGGS!!

This weekend was a fun one...Riley got to color Easter eggs for the first time. I hard boiled a few eggs and Ty blew out the rest, so they would be hollow. Then we began. It was so fun to watch her little eyes light up every dunk into the colored water. She seemed so amazed that the eggs went from white to blue or yellow or green in an instant. We also figured out (too late) to not let her carry the eggs around by herself because she definitely smashed one in her hands. All she could say was "Uh Oh". I must say it was really cute.

Even though we had a blast, she made a mess!!! It was definitely a good thing we put lots of newspaper down and got her naked, down to her diaper. It was straight to the bathtub when she was finished--she kept wanting to touch things and I was so paranoid she'd get coloring on everything she touched. Although daddy scrubbed and scrubbed, the bath didn't help much because today (two days later) her hands are still a BRIGHT pink.

So we figured that maybe she was a little young to color and decorate Easter eggs, but it was completely worth it. It is so much fun experiencing these little things with Riley. Her personality and curiosity shines when she discovers something new. If only we, as adults, could appreciate the little things in life like a child does.

Ty emptying the eggs into the sink.

Ty and Riley were drawing on the eggs with the "magic crayon"...

Riley concentrating on her egg...

She is just too darn cute!!

Mom, why are my hands pink??

??? Guesses, Anyone ???

Before Riley was born, Ty and I decided to guess on her "statistics" and see who guesses would be more accurate for fun (I, of course, won :))! So, we decided to do the same with this baby too. So here is the criteria we based our guesses on:

The baby's weight, length, date and time he'll be born on! So does anyone care to put in their two cents?? (Oh and for those who don't know, I'm due May 6th)

Here are our guesses:

Ty thinks he'll be born on April 30th, 2008 at 4:30 pm and weigh 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long.
I think he'll be born on May 1st, 2008 at 4:38 am and weigh 8 lbs. 5 oz. and 21 inches long.

What's in a Name??

I was reading a fellow blogger's blog this afternoon and she was writing about how she picked out her quads'. names and I thought it would be a great idea to blog about how and why we chose Riley Belle.

First, as I've said before we had such a hard time picking out Riley's name that she wasn't named until she was almost 2 days old. The nurses at the hospital said we had to fill out her birth certificate so we knew it was crunch time. We had a few names chosen, but nothing really definite. Her name was narrowed down between Harley, Belle, Addison or Riley. Ty wanted to name her Belle, but I didn't like it as a first name and I wanted to name her Addison which Ty didn't like. So we went with Riley instead and used Belle for her middle name. We also liked the meaning of those together. Riley means brave and Belle means beautiful. So that's how we got her name...not the most exciting story and she wasn't named after anyone, but we're happy with our decision. Although when we named her we thought that it was a pretty uncommon name--well, once we named her that we heard about everyone's daughter, sister, cousin, or friend named Riley :).

Now if only we could come up with a name for the newbie...don't forget we're definitely up for more suggestions :)!! We've got a few names we like but that's about it!

PIGTAILS!!! (Finally...)

Riley FINALLY has enough hair to get her FIRST pigtails. Okay, well maybe she doesn't have quite enough hair , but close enough. I've been waiting for what seems like forever for her to get enough hair for me to play with. They are so cute on her; although, to me, it makes her look like a little girl rather than my little angel baby!! She's so proud of her new do:

Riley sippin' on her sippy that daddy just bought for her (you can't tell in the picture but they are Superman sippy's and she loves them!!)

Pigtails and brushing her teeth (Grandad would be so proud)!!

PS. Keep scrolling...I finally had time to post so I posted a few...

Ultrasound and Dr. appointment

This past Wednesday (03.05.08) we had another ultrasound in order to determine if it would necessary that I would have to have a C-section. In a previous ultrasound done at 19 weeks the sonographer determined that I had partial placenta previa. This is where the placenta is partially covering the cervix and if it didn't move by the time I went into labor it could cause serious issues and I would have to have a C-section. Anyways we had really been praying that it would move!! So during the ultrasound it was one of the first things the sonographer looked for and sure enough it had moved...THANK GOODNESS. I was really relieved! So we're good to go now...

The sonographer then looked and the baby and fluids and everything according to him looks great. We had a 2D ultrasound first and then a 3D one. According to the ultrasound I'm pretty much right on track with my due date (I'm 31 weeks right now) and it also measured the baby to be about 4 lbs. 2 oz. The sonographer said that's a little above average for 32 weeks...go figure. He'll probably be a decent size if he stays cooking until 40-ish weeks.

After the ultrasound we met the new doctor, Dr. Winter. He seemed like a very nice guy and very knowledgable, but he's no Dr. Pastoriza :)! I'm thankful though that he seemed very caring and I'm sure that he'll be great too!

(The pictures are a lot better quality in original form, but I had to take a picture of a picture with our camera since we don't have a scanner.)

Our little chubby-cheeked baby! (Ultrasound in 3D color)

Similiar picture in black and white! I think this little guy is going to look like Ty too!!

Just when you thought...

...I couldn't get any bigger!! I'm posting my new belly pictures and man, even I couldn't believe how huge my belly is. Is it really possible for this little guy (or my belly) to get any bigger?? Here I am at 32 weeks (almost):

It's also getting pretty bad when I've still got 8 weeks left and already growing out of my maternity clothes, which is starting to happen. Just in the belly though...thankfully. I don't feel like the rest of my body has ballooned yet...we'll see. Isn't it amazing how God designed our bodies to stretch and change in order to "house" a little baby?! It never ceases to amaze me...

I'm feeling well but tired and my feet are starting to hurt more and more. It's getting much more difficult to get out and about with Riley (without Ty) so thankfully we've found crafts and fun things to do on the days when I'm too tired to go anywhere. The baby is kicking like crazy (well more like pushing and rolling) still all day and all night. Most mornings I will roll next to Ty in bed and let the little one kick him and wake him up. I mean if he's keeping me up, Ty should have to be up too, right??? I don't think Ty agrees though :). But he does love feeling the baby move. I know that after I had Riley that was what we missed the most, so we try to take advantage of it now because soon it will be over!