Riley's first Christmas (and Aebleskive)

When Riley gets excited he lets out these excited, long, "ooOOOOOoooo". It was pretty cute listening to him open his presents.

Riley had his first aebleskive. He liked it. We tried to feed him something else after, but he wouldn't have it.

Family, I put Nutella in the aebleskiver today. Boom, you're welcome. I still like apples better, but Gretchen liked the chocolate.

Riley Overload

We're pretty much obsessed with taking videos and pictures of EVERYTHING Riley does.  Sometimes when we go back and watch videos we take we ask ourselves "why did we take this" and then we remember, he was starting to babble, or wave his arms, or hold onto his rattle for the first time. Which ISN'T so amazing now since he's crawling, pulling himself up and learning some sign language...

Anyway-this video is Riley mimicking Elden, or at least trying to. I thought it was pretty cute!

At the beginning of October, Riley and I flew to Colorado. It was nice to be back home! While we were there Mary & Stephanie had their babies (on the same day, in the same hospital). So it was nice to be there to see them, and see Lindy (Caroline's little girl) who was born the end of September.

 Riley & Grandad

 Riley & Granny

 Riley  & Great-Uncle Tom

 Riley & Cousin Carson Stettler

While I was home, I went and got Riley's pictures taken. He only lasted about 15 minutes, but we got some cute ones! 

While I was shopping one day with Mary & Penny, I found this hat the Children's Place for like $3. I thought it was too cute! I wish i could have captured the look on Riley's face when i put it on him for the first time. He thought it was great.  AFTER that, he would rip it off his head. :(

Riley has also learned how to give the most slobbery kisses. Sometimes, he'll even suck on your cheek or nose, or put your entire nose in his mouth. He thinks it's great, we think it's gross.. Sometimes he insists it's on the lips and other times, he doesn't care as long as it's your face.  He's a very affectionate child!

Thanksgiving in Bavaria

For Thanksgiving this year, we went down to Garmish with some friends from the ward. It was great! We stayed at Edelweiss Resort. It was right at the base of the mountains, which were covered in snow, but was absolutely beautiful. If it hadn't been so cold, we probably would have taken more pictures... We're thinking about making it a Thanksgiving tradition while we're here in Germany, so maybe next year it won't be as cold. I doubt it though :)

We mostly stayed around town, but on Saturday we went and saw Hohenschwangau & Newschwanstein Castles which were awesome! Riley is pretty much the best traveler ever! He LOVES being outside and on the go, so he hardly complained at all! We're pretty lucky! 

Brussels Belgium

You can't go to Belgium without having waffles or chocolate...and maybe some french fries! A few days before Dan & Stacia took off for Russia, we drove up to Brussels, which is only a couple hours away, with the intention of doing some sightseeing and a little shopping.  We ended up eating the entire trip, and only went "sightseeing" if it was on the way to another place to eat, or the car. (Don't worry! I'm pretty sure we've all started a diet after the visit. Well...after all the chocolate we bought was gone.)

Our first stop was a Godiva store where we sampled some chocolate and purchased some truffles.

Next we walked to Dandoy for our waffles. We didn't think to take a picture of them until after everyone was through with theirs, and I only had 2 bites left of mine. They were delicious!  My waffle was the one covered in chocolate :)

 Then we headed to the Grand Place-which is a big market square surrounded by old beautiful buildings. All built in a different time period and very different from each other.

After Grand Place we walked to see the Royal Palace, we stopped for some french fries (covered in the european version of mayo, and ketchup) and then headed back to the car. 

On our way home we took a little detour to go to Jacques Chocolate Museum, but we made it there a little too late and it was closed.  What WASN'T closed however was the chocolate store! They had the normal chocolates that they made and sold everywhere, but also had the defective stuff that tasted perfectly wonderful, but that was broken or didn't look quite right.  We picked up a couple 2lb bags of chocolate for 3euro each (which is equivilent to around $4.06). I'm glad it's an hour and a half away! Otherwise I might be tempted to go back often!

Anyone tempted to come see us yet? :)

Paris

You can't see everything in Paris.  Not in 2 days.  I don't even think in 2 weeks.  It was a lot of work.  I am glad we saw the Eiffel Tower at night.  It was stunning.  It was late, though, and Riley was tired, so we didn't go up the tower.  Just sat under it for a while.

The Louvre was next.  Beautiful.  Gretchen and I were sometimes more amazed at the architecture than the art.  We were always saying, "Look at these beautiful floors!"  We are ruined for life, I know.  Some of the most beautiful parts were the courtyards, which you couldn't get to.  I think we spent about 4 hours there, and we didn't even set foot in 1 of the 3 legs in the museum.  We made sure to see the important stuff.

Notre Dame was cool.  Gretchen thought that it was a little underwhelming.  I think it was hyped up in her mind a little.  I liked it better than her.  The stained glass on the inside was enchanting.  We have heard it is beautiful at night.

Chateau Versailles was amazing.  We were there for 4 hours and only saw the main chambers.  We were so tired that we didn't even go to the gardens.  It was my favorite and I am excited to go back to see more.

All in all it was a great trip.  It was our first big trip with Riley and was a lot of work.  I think now that we have done it the next one will be easier.  We are grateful to Dan and Stacia for being our Guinea pigs.  They were great company and a lot of fun to travel with.

Cute boy!

I was transferring pictures from our memory card onto the computer so we can have plenty of room to take pictures while we're in Paris tomorrow. I couldn't resist sharing :)

 He REALLY wanted the nutter butter package. Every time there's one around he fights as hard as he can to get it.  (since I can't eat chocolate while nursing, I have substituted it with peanut butter-and nutter butters are my treat! so....there are nutter butter wrappers lying around occassionally)

 My handsome boys

By the way...

I don't think i ever posted about us moving to Germany...
Last November (the Saturday after Thanksgiving to be exact) Elden and I were in our basement just hanging out and talking. Elden was at his computer checking his email and said to me "So you want to move to Germany next year?" I thought he was joking at first, but he wasn't.  Only after a year at being stationed at Schriever we got new orders.

We moved to Germany 2 1/2 months after Riley was born.  It's taken some adjusting, but it's definitely a neat experience to be here!  I'm not going to lie...I miss living in the states! It's a whole different lifestyle over here!

I miss seeing words on a sign or something and actually knowing what they mean. I miss being able to talk to people without having to ask them first "Sprechen Sie Englisch?". Also-I miss driving on wide roads, and roads that don't make me car sick when I'm not driving. Groceries are expensive (and i'm not working full time anymore). Mostly though, I miss my family! Before we left, Caroline & Jordon moved back, Elden's sister Julia and her family moved to Monument, and right after we left Mary & Corban moved back. I try not to think about it because it makes me sad since I don't know if we'll get stationed there again.

Don't get me wrong-I enjoy some things about Germany as well.  Like, I haven't had a cell phone since June and don't really want one! We live in this quiet little village (except when there is an all night festival down the street with live music playing until 6am.).
The Autobahn! I LOVE being able to drive as fast as I want (until there's road construction and have to slow WAYYYY down). There are only a few stop signs, most of them are yield signs. We live 15 minutes from base instead of an hour, which means we can go have lunch with Elden as much as we want. The German's I've met so far have been so very sweet! I was getting my car serviced last week and the guy that was helping me thought Riley was just the cutest, he kept coming over and talking and playing with him while we waited and before we left he gave Riley a stuffed Volvo polar bear (didn't know Volvo had a mascot??).
I enjoy that stores are closed on Sunday. Sunday is still a sacred day here. You're not allowed to do yard work, wash your car, or basically do anything noisy that might disrupt anyone else. The food so far has been good (especially the ice cream!!!!) And of course, we get to travel.

Dan & Stacia are coming tomorrow on their way to Russia for Dan's study abroad semester, and we're going to see Paris, Brussels Belgium, Luxembourg City, and then some other places close by. (of course, they're all pretty close by-Paris is the farthest away which is only about 4 hours!) We're pretty excited to finally start traveling. We've not really done much since we've just been trying to get the house put together, and because we have 4 years to see everything we want to see.

IKEA

In Germany, Ikea is still a big blue and yellow building.  That is where we went this weekend.

Riley, Little Buddy, or Dude

Finding his feet

A profile for Mom

Trier

Burg Eltz

Riley this week

Here is some of the super cute boy.

 

 

Riley Elden

Riley was born a month early, on March 1 at 3:59 pm 6lbs 5oz and 19.9" long. (I was admitted to the hospital on February 25th because my blood pressure was too high-the adventure being induced is a long one which i don't think i remember well enough to explain. It was horrible...and we'll leave it at that!) Labor was not terrible (after the epidural of course), I believe they said I was only in active labor for 4 hours, I slept through the last few hours of it, woke up said to the nurse "I feel a lot of pressure" she checked and said "you're 10cm and I can feel his head. Let me go let the Dr. know we're going to start pushing and I'll be right back." She came back we pushed a few times and she said "ok! I can see his head, don't push, I have to go get everyone in here!"  So a few pushes later, here he was!  For being a month early-there wasn't anything wrong! They took him to the nursery that night just to make sure, but the next morning, he was able to come be in the room with us.  Because I had preeclampsia, and because they induced me, I was hooked up to 5 different IV's. One was magnesium, which I had to be on 24 hours after giving birth to make sure I didn't have seizures (due to the preeclampsia).  That one was the worst by far! I felt horrible and totally out of it!!  Because of all the fluids I was having pumped into me I was totally swollen.  It took a good week for the swelling in my feet and legs to go down. I couldn't even hardly put on a pair of socks and had to wear slippers when we went to his first few dr appointments!

 First Family Picture (Proof of all the fluids they were pumping into me! I'm totally puffy!)

He was jaundiced, so he had to have photo therapy  That was really hard to have to leave him in that bed and not be able to pick him up much other than to feed.  He cried pretty much the entire time he was in it, and Elden or I had to stand above the bed and keep his arms down so he'd stay covered up and somewhat calm. :(  They even made us stay an extra day so he could have more time with the photo therapy.

We're home and doing well now.  He doesn't like to be put down very much.  He typically only sleeps out of my arms at night, when he's laying in bed next to me...and most nights he sleeps 3 hours at a time, but the last few he's woken up every hour or so. He's growing like crazy, but he's still skinny enough for the newborn stuff, but too long for it.  And unfortunately they don't make any slim/tall baby clothes! 

My sister Penny and 3 of her kids came down for their spring break to meet Riley.  Penny took some pictures of Riley-and I love them!!!

He's just the cutest! :)