2 month Appoinment (a little late)

Happy New Year! We hope that you had a great Holiday and a wonderful New Year. Hard to believe that we are now in January once again.

We just got back into town on Friday from a trip up to NC (Waynesville) to visit Ben's grandmother, aunt, and cousin. We had a great time and enjoyed seeing everyone. We made it up there right during that great snow storm and barely made it up the driveway at Ben's grandmother's house. The ice was bad that we had to leave one car at the bottom of the driveway till it cleared up some. There was easily a foot of snow on the ground, it was beautiful all while being quite cold and reminded me why we live in Florida. This was Camdyn's first long distance car trip and she did amazingly well. She was almost too perfect in the drive up and back. It was also (obviously) her first time seeing snow :)

Upon our return from our trip we had Camdyn's 2 month appointment with her pediatrician yesterday. It is a little past her 2 month point but with the Holidays and then our trip we had to schedule the appointment a little later. She is a growing girl! Camdyn is now weighing in at 12 lbs 4 oz and is 24.5 inches long! Our doctor is very happy with her progress and says she is doing really well and looking very healthy. The bad part about the visit was that it was her first round of shots. Poor thing!! I guess people don't lie when they say it is hard to watch. She definitely didn't like them but at least didn't have any super bad reactions. The worse we had was that she was pretty much fussy all day long. She slept great last night though and woke up her happy normal self and has had a really good day today. So our next appointment is for her 4 month check up and that is scheduled for the end of February, which she will have more shots :(

So we are now starting to get back into a normal routine. Ben went back to work after the Holidays today and is super busy. He has been slammed for some time now and it doesn't look like it is going to be slowing down anytime soon. I am going back to work officially tomorrow. We did a trial run a couple weeks ago where I went back for two days but this will be the full deal. It shouldn't be too bad but I know I will miss seeing her all day everyday.

So things are going really well. We couldn't be any happier. We hope that the Holidays were good to you all and we will talk to you soon.

Love always,

Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

PS We will post some more pictures soon too!

Camdyn's Baptism

This past weekend was Camdyn's Baptism. It was a beautiful ceremony surrounded by many family members and friends. We thank everyone who made it to the celebration (including Gabrielle's aunt from Portland and cousin from Seattle). Camdyn was the only girl in a group of 5 babies getting baptized at our church. She looked beautiful if we may say so ourselves. We have included some pictures from the ceremony.

We have been getting ready for the Holidays. The tree is up and we have started to put some of the presents for Camdyn under the tree. We are also starting to get things in order for our trip up to North Carolina. Hopefully the weather warms up a bit there for us...it has been quite cold in Florida lately and I can only imagine how it will be up there.

Ben gave me my Christmas present early- a wonder Digital SLR camera and I have been in full swing taking pictures of Miss Camdyn. She has been a great model for me! I have also included some pictures that I have recently taken of her. Hope you all enjoy them!

We hope that this finds you well. Stay warm and Happy Holidays if we don't talk soon.

Love always,

Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

One Month Check Up

So hard to believe that Camdyn is already 1 month old! She is really growing up so fast already. Today we went to her 1 month pediatrician appointment and she did amazing. The Dr said she is thriving. She has gained over a pound since her last visit and now is weighing 9 lbs 8 oz, putting her in the 75th percentile for weight. He was very pleased with this gain (again) and it looks like she is doing really well with breastmilk and feedings. She has also grown in her body length now measuring at 23 inches (2 more since birth). Her height is in the 94th percentile. We didn't get the measurement on her head but he said she is in the 50th percentile for that. So he was really pleased and we are directed to continue as we have. Her next appointment is for her 2 month check up and she will get her first round of shots. Due to the holidays and our trip up to NC we scheduled that appointment for January 3rd.

We can't even begin to say how much of a blessing she has been to us. And to boot what an incredibly good baby she has been. We have had several nights of 7 straight hours of sleep and last night she slept a nice solid 8 hours herself straight! Now mind you there have been some nights where we have had 4-5, but we know that is still pretty good and usually try not to complain much about sleep to others :)

She is changing so much already. She has just started to smile at us and is doing an incredible job at lifting her head and even keeping it up for a good time. We could go on and on about her, as we are truly just absolutely in love with her! We find that we pinch ourselves a lot.

Well its hard to believe that Thanksgiving and the Christmas Holiday are right around the corner. We are going to be hosting Thanksgiving again this year and it is looking like there will be about 10-12 people. Camdyn will have a lot of people excited to spend more time with her. We have her baptism also coming up on December 12. We are looking forward to that for her and with some of the family that will be in town during that weekend, we know Camdyn will have a lot of attention and extra love. Then on December 26th we are planning on heading out to a trip to NC to visit Ben's Grandmother and also visit with Aunt Susan. This will be Camdyn's first real road trip so it should be an interesting event. We are giving ourselves two days each way to travel. We think she will have a great time though! So there is definitely a busy several weeks approaching in the Rivera home.

So that is the jist of what has been going on here with us. We hope that everyone has a wonderful Holiday. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!! We will definitely work on trying to update more, we know we have been slacking a bit with that, but as we continue to get into more of a routine that will get better. Enjoy the pictures we posted above, they aren't this week current but we will work on getting more uploaded soon.

Much love to you all.

Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

Camdyn's Savings Account

SmartyPig Widget: "Help Camdyn get a jump on saving for college and beyond"

A very cool online savings website called "Smarty Pig," allows friends and family to contribute to Camdyn's savings account electronically. You don't need any special log-in, etc. Just click the link, find the button that says "Contribute," then fill out the form.

This link will also be permanently available on the front page of our blog directly under our picture on the right hand side. Look for "Click here to contribute to Camdyn's savings account!"

Love,

Camdyn

Happy Halloween!!

Today is Camdyn's first Halloween, however, she won't exactly be doing too much as you can see from the picture. We were hoping to go sit outside and pass out candy this evening but it looks like she had some other plans. No sooner did we get her dressed that she decided she was hungry, which then lead her to pass out. So we moved her to her swing and that is where she has been very comfortably since. So this is just one of the pictures that we were able to steal from her before she passed out even more in the swing. So far it has actually been a little slow this evening with the kids. Last year we had over 125 trick-or-treaters come by and so far we are looking at only maybe a dozen so far. We could be left with a LOT of candy left over...oops! I am sure it will be eaten some way or the other :)

Ben is taking off one more week of work. It has definitely been great having the three of us around this past week and we are looking forward to another week. It is really going to be weird when we each go back. Gabrielle should be off till about the 2nd week of January. Hopefully it doesn't go by too fast!

Tomorrow we are going to attempt our family pictures. Not too sure how it is going to go, but with our schedules free we figured why not give it a try. Hopefully we will have some good pictures to post on here not too long from now. We will let you know how it goes.

So far things are going really well and the three of us seem to be adjusting fairly well. Sleep hasn't been too bad, she actually gives us a decent amount so we can't complain too much there. Our biggest problem, which if that is all we have we feel very very lucky, is that sometimes she can take a while to get to sleep at night. She is a hungry little monster which can lead to a fun pattern for a bit of eating, pooping, etc. We are working through it though.

Well we hope this finds you all well. Will hopefully have more to report on Tuesday after our next pediatrician appointment. Hope you all have a wonderful and safe Halloween!

Love always,

Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

Grabbed a bit of time.

It isn't that we haven't wanted to update things on here, it has just been a matter of time as most of you know. While we have been pretty fortunate in getting some time, when we do get it we usually are resting and not in the mood to do very much. So bare with us as we get used to things and we will work on trying to update this with pictures etc. Most pictures have been updated on Facebook since it is really quick and easy, but we promise to work on it.

In looking at the other posts, it looks like we never shared Camdyn's birth information with you all. She was born on October 22, 2010 at 7:06 PM. She weighed 8 lbs 1.5 oz and was 21 inches long. It was a fairly long labor with severe contractions that started at 4:00 AM. We went to the hospital close to 9:00 AM and were admitted around 10:00 AM. The epidural came around 11 and we were having pretty good progression. At 1 PM Gabrielle's water broke on its own and things really got moving. Around 5:00 PM Gabrielle's body was ready to go and by 5:30 she started pushing. It turns out that Camdyn was not positioned facing the right way which made her labor a little harder as they had to try and get Camdyn to turn on her own. However, through that, at 7:06 PM our precious angel was born! It was by far the greatest moment we have ever experienced before. One that we will definitely never forget. We just love her so much!

So we have now been home since late Sunday afternoon. We have adjusted pretty well. The first couple nights were a little rough but things have definitely calmed down. Camdyn sleeps pretty well and has definitely become a little hunger monster. The dogs have been great with her. We call Rory, Nurse Rory, as she pretty much never leaves Camdyn's side and is always looking out for her. Rigby, while slightly curious is for the most part indifferent about it all.

Yesterday we took Camdyn to her first pediatrician appointment. She did really well with her first outing and report. Her weight loss is in the normal range and everything else was looking very good. We take her back for her next appointment next Tuesday and we are hoping to see her with a little weight gain.

Today we went on a couple errands to pick up some things that we needed and Camdyn did such a great job! She was an angel and got a little bit of fresh air :)

So that is what has been going on here in a nutshell (well sort of). Here are some more pictures that we have taken since she has been home. We will work on posting more as we can as well.

Again, we thank you all for your love and support, it truly means a lot to the three of us.

Talk again soon.

Love always,

Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

Introducing Camdyn Elyse

Sorry for the delay in getting some pictures up and out here but as
you can imagine things have been pretty nonstop since we were admitted
to the hospital on Friday.

Camdyn is doing great! She is bringing us both so much joy we can
barely contain ourselves. We are hoping to be sent home later today
and once things are settled down again we will reupdate and add more
pictures from our camera.

Thank you all for the love and warm wishes. We love you all!!

Love always,
Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn