Scott Paul Riddles

He's here!  It seemed as if he'd never come, but that was probably only because our first two boys came early.  In fact, Scott came right on time, the morning of his due date, August 12th! 

After several false alarms over the past few weeks, Courtney again started having regular contractions about 10 minutes apart Saturday night, the 11th.  Unlike the prior false alarms, though, these contractions were more painful, even though they didn't seem to be getting any closer together through the night.  By Sunday morning, we were pretty sure this was "it," and the contractions started coming closer together.  We left for the hospital around 9:30am or so, and by 10:10 we were out of triage, with Courtney at a 6.  A short time later - at 11:26am - we welcomed Scott into the world!  The labor at the hospital didn't go exactly as planned, though, as a series of nurses spent almost the entire time trying to get an IV going.  They even called in the anesthesiology folks, and after 9 sticks, and only two minutes before Courtney started pushing, they got the IV in.  All through this time, Courtney had to sit as they tried to get the IV in, which she wasn't too thrilled about, but in the end, it all worked out and we got a beautiful, healthy baby boy!

Scott was 8 lbs. 7 oz. and 21-1/4 in. long.  We came home from the hospital on Tuesday and have been doing great .  We've been fortunate to have the help of my parents, then Courtney's parents and two of our nieces, and now my sister.  We're probably in for a reality check once all the help leaves - we will be outnumbered after all - but for now, all is well!

A Milestone and a Birthday

First, the milestone.  As of yesterday, Courtney has now gotten further in this pregnancy than she ever did with Luke or Leo.  She's 39 weeks today, and she had only gone 37w2d with Luke and 38w6d with Leo.  At this rate we may even make it to the due date!  All has gone well with this pregnancy so far, and we're excited to welcome boy #3 into the family.

Speaking of Courtney, I'll also use this post to catch up on a few pictures from her birthday.  I gave the boys the opportunity to pick out presents for her without any input from me.  I also did that back in 2011, which resulted in Courtney getting a rubber chicken dog toy for her birthday.  This year, they did quite a bit better.  Leo picked out her toothpaste brand of choice (don't know if he actually remembered what toothpaste we use or if it was a coincidence), and Luke got her a can of soup that he knew she liked.  Luke also wanted to get her a pair of pants, but since Courtney was pregnant then, I told him to take her to Motherhood Maternity sometime and let her pick something out. 

Luke's 4th Birthday

Luke turned 4 1/2 this week, so what better time to give a photo recap of his fourth birthday!  Luke thoroughly enjoyed his birthday, which included a party with friends and a family party.  He also went to IHOP for our traditional 'birthday breakfast with Daddy.' 

Duke & Birthday: A Good Combo

This week's updating effort brings us to my birthday... so we're at least into 2012!  One of the highlights was that I got to go down to Durham to see a Duke game, after which I continued the gradual indoctrination of our children as Duke basketball fans. 

Stay tuned for a photo recap of Luke's 4th birthday (sure, that was also way back in January, but we're getting there!)

Christmas 2011

What?  Haven't you heard the phrase, "Christmas in July" before? 

In this effort to catch up on over 6 months of inactivity on the blog, instead of trying to remember and recap stories from that long ago, I'll just let the pictures to the talking.  Without further ado, here is a recap of last Christmas told through pictures:

A New Beginning

The Riddles Family blog has come back to life!  I see our last post talked about Halloween 2011.  I suppose one or two things have happened since then.  About a month ago, my sister posted the following on my Facebook wall:

"I still check your family blog every day by the way... *cough cough* :)"

Now that's dedication... especially since it's been almost 7 months since I've posted anything here.  It was also a call to repentance!  I told her that once we got into our new house, I would start back up so that we'd be in the swing of things on here by the time the baby came.

So I just snuck in probably the two biggest pieces of news in our family since the last blog post.  Most who are reading this probably already know through various other channels, but we're expecting our third child - another boy! - in August.  The due date is August 12th to be precise, but as we found with our first two (Luke was almost 4 weeks early and Leo was 8 days early), the due date hasn't meant much. 

The second thing is that we just bought a house!  We moved in last weekend and just love it.  I pulled the picture above from one of the random real estate websites. 

So anyway, I'll now work to get this blog up to speed over the next few Sundays.  Stay tuned! 

Halloween 2011

Figured I should get this one in before Christmas...

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be home for Halloween this year as I was in Florida for work.  Courtney took the boys to Pennsylvania so that they could go trick-or-treating with some of their cousins.  Luke decided he wanted to be a frog, and Leo took on the Batman costume that Luke used a couple years ago.  They had a great time!