Nathaniel Alan has arrived!

I'm happy to announce that Nathaniel Alan was born Wednesday 10/1 at 3:10pm at Liberty Hospital. He weighed 8 lbs 14 oz and was 21 inches long. Both Ann and baby are doing well, and they are looking forward to heading home Friday or Saturday.

See photos of Nathaniel's first 24 hours:

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Watch a video of Nathaniel's first bath in the hospital nursery:


-Scott

Baby showered at Hallmark

Not to be outdone by the gang at AIPC, Scott's colleagues at Hallmark threw a shower for Baby Heider Friday 9/5. Thanks to Cherri and Jackie for organizing the event. Thanks also to Cherri for dragging her husband along to Babies"R"Us to shop for the 8 heavy, bulky, and expensive items made possible by the dozens of contributors to the "group gift fund". And, special thanks to Jackie for the beautiful hand-crocheted afghan... see Scott wearing it in the slideshow below. Finally, thanks to everyone who showed up to wish Ann and Baby Heider well. Scott will be writing thank-you notes for quite some time to come!

-Scott

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Baby showered at AIPC

There was a lunchtime shower for Baby Heider today at AIPC in Excelsior Springs. Although Dad is not a shower fan, he attended anyway, if for no other reason than to haul the baby booty home. And what a haul it was! Ann's colleagues were very generous, providing items from our Babies"R"Us registry such as a car seat, stroller frame, lamp, and bathtub. The most creative gift was a set of onesies hand-painted by the Gray family... Now the baby can poop in both company's "uniforms"!

-Scott

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White Sox in KC 8/3

My pal Steve came to town for a visit this weekend, and he was entertained by watching the Royals pound the White Sox (both literally and figuratively) Saturday and Sunday afternoons. For White Sox fans like myself, the only entertaining aspect of the weekend was seeing Ken Griffey Jr. in a Sox uniform. Here are a few photos taken at Sunday's game.

-Scott

Symphony in the Flint Hills

Brian K. called me Thursday evening inviting us to the 3rd annual Symphony in the Flint Hills concert Saturday June 14th near Council Grove, KS. Unfortunately, Brian only had 3 tickets, but 4 of us wanted to attend. So, Friday morning I called the concert organizers and successfully procured a last minute ticket... This was surprisingly easy, considering that the concert had sold out (5,000 tickets) within 4 hours on the day that tickets went on sale months earlier.

Saturday at noon, Brian, Eric, Ann, and I loaded up the Camry with chairs, cooler, and picnic basket and made the 2-hour drive from Liberty to Council Grove. We resurrected a BA (Before Ann) vacation tradition by stopping at Dairy Queen in Council Grove for Blizzards, and then we proceeded to the concert site 2 miles south of town. As soon as we pulled off the highway, I regretted bringing the Camry, because it was not designed with driving across the prairie in mind. The Camry protested mightily with many underbody scraping sounds, but we managed to park it on the prairie with no apparent damage.

To reach the concert site, we had to hike across a mile of prairie hauling 4 chairs, a picnic basket, a stuffed cooler, and a 25+ week old fetus. Ann was a trouper, hauling both the fetus and the picnic basket!

Both the location and the concert were amazing, punctuated by a wagon train and a cattle drive. The concert ended as the sun was setting around 8:55 PM. By the time that the crowd cleared out, we arrived back in Liberty around 12:30 AM.

For a photo slideshow of the day, click below.

-Scott