Don't blink or you just might miss something!

While we were pregnant and soon after Camdyn's birth we were always being told that time would fly by and that kids just grow up so fast. It's not that we never believed it, but it is really hard to understand something until you see it first hand. I think that all those things people told us about time was an understatement. The past 4-5 weeks so far have felt like 2-3 days. So much has happened with Camdyn in such a short time. She is really growing up so fast and it does feel like if we blink we may just miss something!

Camdyn is now a fan and a pretty good pro at rolling over- front to back and back to front! This of course had made things quite interesting when trying to change her diaper and change her. She has to have constant monitoring as if she can find room to turn, she will.

I think we may have mentioned in our post after her 4 month check up that we were allowed to start her on solids. She is LOVING it! She is getting rice/oatmeal for breakfast, fruit for lunch and then veggies for dinner. Any feedings in between are still with milk. She is such a good eater and a little piggy- can't imagine where she gets her love for food :-) The problem now is that we can't feed her quite enough or fast enough. She is very close to changing to level 2 food, and that should help her out some. We are also starting to make her some of her food, hopefully that goes well :)

Another great change is that Camdyn is now 100% in her crib with no swaddle or anything. We put her down and she pretty much falls asleep. She was starting to wake up about once a night when we first tried and *knock on wood* the last 4 nights she has been sleeping 9+ hours.

The newest change with Camdyn is she is starting to sit up by herself. She hasn't quite mastered it yet but is very close. She can sit up alone now but has to be careful because she still kind of leans. She will be there soon....along with crawling! I told you, lots has been happening!! She can turn her body around on the floor and even go backwards but is still trying to get forward. I wouldn't be surprised if we have video of these events soon :)

Well that is the hustle and bustle of the Rivera household right now. We hope that everyone is doing well!

Love always,
Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

Say Cheese!

So I still find myself in the process of trying to finish updating the blog. I think the real last thing left to do is change the background style, though to what I am really not sure yet. Hopefully, I can get that taken care of soon. It looks like the You Tube feature on the side is kind of working. To the best of my knowledge, it puts the last 4 videos on there for you, however, we have a new one that for some reason isn't showing up there yet. I will have to remember to try and look into that too. In the meantime I will post the new video in this blog.



We had a coupon for some pictures at JC Penney's so we went ahead and took Camdyn in today to get some new ones. Was kind of due since our last real ones were back when she was 2 weeks old there. So yeah she has changed a bit. She did great today though and her pictures look great!! There is a way you can share the album with others so they can of course purchase copies if they want. It unfortunately won't let me post a link but rather I have to email out from the site, so if anybody really wants to see them just let us know and we can forward them on. Hopefully once we pick up our order we can try and get some to share on here. I would love to be able to take them myself and am really trying. My goal is to try and learn my camera so that by the time she is 1 I can attempt to do her pictures myself. Fingers crossed. I really love using my camera and enjoy taking pictures (yes I know 99.9% of them are of her- but seriously she is a pretty great subject :) ). So we will see.

Everything else here is pretty much the same. Not much new to report. Work is keeping Ben busier than I think either of us could have ever imagined. But we are doing what we need to and making the best of it. It could very well lead to some excellent things for Ben as he really has a promising career.

Well I think that is it for us for tonight.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the people and families in Japan. We hope this finds each of you well.

Till next time!

Love always,
Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

Camdyn's 4 Month Check Up

Camdyn had her 4 month wellness appointment with the pediatrician this morning. She had a great appointment. She is now weighing 14 lbs 7 oz (75%), head is at 42 cm (75%) and is 25.5 inches (95%) long. So she is still holding a strong height. Her weight % went down a bit but she is moving around a lot more but there is no concern, her numbers align all where they should be. The doctor was very happy with all of her growth marks and her development/milestones.

With the exam he also took a look at her mouth to see her gums and if there are any developments with potential teeth coming in. It appears as though one of her bottom teeth is starting to slowly make its way up. He doesn't think that it will be through in a couple days or anything but there is definitely something starting to come up.

Additionally, he feels we are at a good point to start trying to add some cereal to her diet to try and slowly introduce her to solids. He outlined a plan with gradual additions to it. We will go at her pace. The plan is to start the cereal this weekend and listen to her for guidance. If she doesn't seem ready then we are to wait several more days and then try again. She will let us know when she is ready if she isn't now.

The last part of the appointment was the ever so dreaded shots/vaccines. I must admit, Camdyn did an amazing job this round. She had a liquid vaccine which she took well again and then was near perfect for her first shot. It wasn't until the 2nd and last shot, where she started to cry and be unhappy. They say that that shot has a sting to it so it definitely makes sense. However, she didn't cry too badly and I nursed her and she was back to normal in no time.

So now we go back for our next appointment at the end of April for her 6 month wellness check up. Another great appointment. Our little girl is turning into a very tall yet quite healthy one!

I have also included some of Camdyn's 4 month pictures that we took of her on the 22nd.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Love always,
Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

You Tube Videos

As you may have noticed on the side of our blog, we have an area with our You Tube videos of Camdyn. the only problem is that I haven't quite figured out how to show more than just the four that are showing up there. We have about 7 videos out there. So until I can get the toolbar figured out, if you are interested your best bet is probably going to be just checking You Tube. You should be able to do a search and find all of our videos. The name is Benrielle (makes us feel like a famous couple- ok not really but we needed a name). You can also go on and subscribe to our channel and I THINK it will update you if we post (Amanda, do you know if does that since you are our 1 subscriber :)). We will also try and update on here every so often when we have new ones on.

I will put our newest one on here. It was pretty funny to film. Camdyn has been having a lot to say lately and yesterday after dinner she just kept talking and talking and talking so we tried to get some filmed. She is a little funny with the camera though as she seems to freeze as soon as we start to film her but it looks like we caught a little bit of her chatting. I am working from home today and she has been talking to me most of the morning as well. It is so great to hear her do that.

I am hoping to try and get her outside for the shuttle launch today. It will be her first one and sadly she won't have as many as I grew up with, so gotta have her see as many as she can. Hopefully I can get some pictures as well.

Well we will have more updates tomorrow sometime. Camdyn goes in for her 4 month appointment (and shots :( ).

Enjoy the video! Have a great day!!

Love always,
Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

Camdyn's Play Date with Nolan

Yesterday, Camdyn had her first play date with Nolan, the son of our friends Ian and Alix. Nolan just turned 7 months but I think that they had enough in common to hang out with each other :) Ian, Alix, and Nolan are from Jacksonville so we met them about half way for lunch in Port Orange. We had a great time visiting with the Rairdens and it seemed as though the kids did too. Here are a couple pictures of the two young ones hanging out.

Last week and weekend, Camdyn also got to meet Uncle/Aunt Morey and Uncle/Aunt Doudt. Camdyn went to dinner with Uncle/Aunt Morey and Ben, as I stayed at home feeling rather sick. They had a great time. Then Uncle/Aunt Doudt came in on a Friday and spent the weekend with us. She tried to help Uncle Anthony with his insane burrito at Da Kines, but it was pretty big, almost the size of her :-) Then we spent the day at the Space Center. I will have to add some pictures from each visit soon on here. Please bare with me as I just figured out how to put slideshows up instead of the individual pictures. I think this new format will work quite nicely for everyone :)

Under Construction

After having the same blog format and layout for almost two years now, I think it is time to start to update it a bit.  There have been some things we have been wanting to do to it but have put it to the side.  So as you may have already started to see, we have started to make improvements and will continue to do so.  Please make note of the You Tube video section that we have put to the right side of the page.  This should allow you to have easier access to find the videos that we post.  We hope you all enjoy the changes and updating that we do.

We also have some more updating to do and hope to have a new entry or two to the blog soon!

Love always,

Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

Time passed again, but we are trying :)

Some day we will get better at updating the blog like it used to be, I promise...just not sure when that day is going to be :) We Riveras like to keep ourselves quite busy it would seem.

Ben continues to be slammed at work. It is really crazy, but we take it to be a great thing for job security. He is actually on his way back from a week long trip to PA for work. Talk about cold! He is doing a really great job though and while the hours have been "hard" at times, he has done an amazing job and we are very proud of him.

I officially went back to work on January 5th. Hard to believe it has already been a month back at the office. When I went to work for two days in December I had a meeting about a job opportunity for me when I returned. Ben and I spoke about it and decided it was an amazing opportunity so I took it. It is a 6 month assignment at our Corporate office in Melbourne. It will be in a group under one of the VPs and will be such a learning experience. My first week was today and so far it has been an adventure. One of the great things is that it is an expansion of some of the work I was doing. It is a much welcomed change, while very nerve wrecking and slightly scary. I am looking forward to what it will do for me. My first trip for the new job will be in about a week up to Rochester. The only bad thing about it is going to be leaving Camdyn for that long. Work is the longest I have ever been away from her, but I know that Ben will take great care of her while I am gone :) In my other work news, I finally finished taking the exams for my professional certification and passed! I am now just working getting in all of my paperwork for it. It feels so good to finally have that behind us.

Camdyn is doing well! She is getting bigger and bigger every day. She is just so adorable and is doing a lot of smiling and laughing now. She is also starting to grab her toys and objects for play...her new favorite thing to play with is her feet. She loves to bend and grab them whether she is in her Bumbo chair or you are changing her diaper...she can even bring them up to her mouth! She goes back to the Pediatrician at the end of the month for her 4 month shots. We are very anxious to see how much she weighs and how tall she is. We continue to find ourselves in clothing issues because of her size. Her length is still fitting 6 month pants but some of them become too big in the waist for her but 3 months are usually too short and pushing tightness :)

Oh I almost forgot! We started a You Tube account so we can post videos of Camdyn for viewing. I think you can look up our name and find our videos: Benrielle and I know you can subscribe to it as well. However, I will post the links as well for the two we have up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRRwDGnxyf8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoKulGu53EE

We are working on trying to take some more and will add them as soon as we have them so keep checking there as well :)

Next week we get to visit with some friends visiting. We have Matt and Tricia coming in from Texas on Wednesday for the night and then on Friday, Sara and Anthony will be flying in from Chicago! We are looking forward to seeing everyone and we know Camdyn is especially excited to meet them :)

We hope that this finds everyone well. Definitely will have an update after the 4 month appointment but will try and do another post sooner.

Love always,

Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn