Getting ready for the holidays

So it has been a while since our last posting. Caleb will be 8 weeks this Friday. Where has all of the time gone? In between changing diapers and nursing every 1 1/2 to 2 hours, there are days when a shower seems like a luxury. We are actually sleeping rather well most nights. This means usually a stretch of 5-6 hours. If he eats at 11pm then this makes for a great night. If he last eats at 9 or 9:30 then we could have several wakings every 2 hours before we see the sun. The days go pretty smoothly but without much productivity at times!

The pictures up top are of the boys at one month. Everyone keeps saying how much alike they look. Now that Caleb has filled out in the face some they are even more alike. The one on the left is Austin and the one on the right is Caleb. We did not put up Caleb's first picture from the hospital. Here is a link to the web nursery but you cannot add coments or anything from this part of the site. http://www.our365.com/NewbornPortraits/BabyDetail.aspx?birthid=d962a6b5-baab-4d66-93c3-3e76a08389ef

Austin continues to do well. He has become more concerned with feeding the baby and has made several attempts while our backs are turned (shirt up and all!). He can't wait for there to be more bottles so he can have a turn. His excitement over Christmas is building. If he sticks to his word, we are supposed to be able to have a picture with Santa this year. Of course, he has made sure Caleb will be there too! We had some "big boy time" on Sunday and went to ride the train with some of our friends. He had a great time riding and seeing Santa and Frosty. At the end, he admitted that he was ready to come home and see the baby. He has enjoyed ECU Football again this year. He has also gone to a UNC Football and basketball game already.

Caleb is becoming his own little person. He has started smiling and "laughing." He weighed 9 pounds 8 ounces at his last check up but that was about 3 weeks ago. He will go back next week and will probably come away with some shots. I would not be surprised if he was 11 or 11 1/2 pounds by now. He is becoming heavy. He definitely loves his big brother. Sometimes just having Austin beside him calms him right down.

Thanksgiving was very low key. We visited both of our families and went to the ECU game. Christmas will be much of the same. Until next time, we wish everyone a Merry Christmas and safe travels.

Settling In

We are a week and a half into our new adventure. Things are actually going really well. Caleb is sleeping well. Last night we slept for about 4 hours at a stretch. He is an eating, peeing and pooping machine. We are keeping the diaper company in business right now! Everyday he is a little more alert and is staying awake for longer periods of time. Every now and then you will catch a smile (which I am sure is just a little gas!) but it makes it all worth while. Last week we went for a test on his kidneys and everything has checked out fine.

Austin is taking things very well. He is very proud of his new brother and will show him off to anyone. We went to his Halloween festival at school on Friday night and he had just as much fun showing the baby to everyone as he did playing the games. He enjoys holding him and talking to him. He was very proud to help with his first bath. He is also very fast to find out who or what is making the baby sad when he cries.

We will try to keep things up to date as much as possible. Some things just tend to go on the back burner when there is another mouth to feed and poopy diapers to be changed. Until next time...

Introducing...

Meet the newest member of our family: Caleb Landon Renn! He was born at 10:30am this morning, weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and measured 21 inches long. Everyone is doing fine. We arrived at the hospital at 6am but the process did not really start until about 7:30am. Everything went so fast that there was almost no epidural! They had told us he should be here by lunch but even the doctor thought things went really fast. He has ten fingers and ten toes and is eating like a champ. We are hoping to sleep at least a little tonight!

Big brother Austin was absolutely fascinated when he saw his brother for the first time. Dad picked him up from school and the entire class was excited to hear the baby was here. For about the first hour, he just wanted to hold the baby. He would hand him off and try to go for a walk but never made it very far because he needed to check on the baby. He did not want to go home tonight due to not wanting to leaving mommy and baby at the hospital.

Right now we hope to be going home on Sunday unless we hear otherwise. Sitting in one room is neither one of our favorite pasttimes. We will keep you up to date on the happenings. Time for a nap!

The Plans Are in Place

It is official. We will go to the hospital Friday at 6AM for induction. I have been placed on "bed rest" due to blood pressure issues. It had been creeping up for a while but on Friday I felt like something just was not right and my blood pressure turned out to be pretty high. I was put on bed rest for the weekend and did some more tests yesterday. Everything is still semi-normal but according to the doctor I am sitting on the fence post for pre-eclampsia. We will buy a few more days by just staying on bed rest. I go back on Thursday just for a blood pressure check but Friday is definitely the day.

Over the past few weeks, we have definitely slowed down a bit due to my ever expanding figure and increased shortness of breath when moving around. Austin had his birthday party. It turned out not as elaborate as we had hoped but a fun time for all. After having a hissy and not wanting anyone to sing Happy Birthday, he had a great time passing out cake to his friends and opening presents. They had pumpkin decorating at school today and he had a great time making a huge mess. He started by painting his Duke Blue but then realized what he was doing and the end product definitely has more of a Carolina coloring. He was very adamant that it was for his dad! We think that he is starting to understand that the baby is coming soon. Last night we put up the Pack N Play in our bedroom and I think he got a little upset when he realized that the baby would be staying in our room. We went on Sunday and had his 4 year old pictures taken as well as a few others. They are below. Just what we needed, proof of the major expansion my body has undertaken.

Well, I cannot guarantee that we will get a post up right away from the hospital but we will let everyone know just as soon as our new little one arrives! Have a great week!

Coming Down the Home Stretch!

Over the past several months, we have been very busy as you can imagine. The pregnancy seems to be moving along smoothly at this point. We finished all of our ultrasounds for the Fifth Disease and that all came out fine. Through all of those pictures though they found out that this boy has big kidneys just like Austin did and after another ultrasound 2 weeks ago, they decided he will have to see the pediatric urologist. We are very relieved as things could have been a lot worse. They also discovered that he has the potential to be a big one. He weighed in at 5 pounds 10 ounces at 33 weeks. The doctor continues to believe that he should just fall right out like Austin did. I am not so sure about that at this point!

Austin found out that he was getting a little brother about 2-3 months ago. At first he just wanted to take the baby out but now is better about being gentle. He is very excited when talking about everything he will be able to do to help. We have not settled on a name just yet but he has come up with some interesting choices.

We went for "vacation" in August and it is in quotes because it was mom's education trip for work at Myrtle Beach. Having the seminars broadcast into the hotel room made things very convenient! Austin and dad went to the water park at the resort or went out for a while letting mom "watch" a seminar or two every day. Austin had a blast at the water park going down the slides and just playing around. There was a lot of wind so we did not spend much time on the beach. He also played his first 9 holes of par 3 golf with Dad one morning. Evidently he is pretty darn good. We just have to work on the putting. To end the week, we headed back to Raleigh for the Wiggles concert on Friday night. Yes, that's right! The Wiggles! He had a great time dancing, singing and actually getting to shake hands with a couple of the guys. It was more entertaining than Elmo!

At school, Austin has moved up to a Pre-K class even though he will not be old enough for kindergarten next year. His teacher is pretty hard core but he seems to be responding well. He is getting better at writing his letters and wants to cut up everything. He also is getting better at picking up on other kid's bad habits.

Today is Austin's 4th Birthday. It is funny how it seems he just yesterday started to talk. (Now at times we wish we could shut him up!) We went to Chuck E Cheese's for dinner and let him play some games. He got a new scooter and a PeeDee the pirate picture for his room. We will be having his birthday party in another week due to the football game this weekend. (By the way, he loves ECU football and will sit and watch an entire game!) He is very excited to have his friends over. It will be a sports theme and Dad has plans of painting the yard for lots of games. We will get pictures next time!

If everything goes as planned, we may get induced at 38 weeks so our next post may include the big revealing of the newest Renn family member. We will definitely let you know when anything interesting happens!

Never A Dull Moment

Since we first announced the pregnancy, there has been some minor drama. Sickness continued on a daily basis with some days being better than others. The fatigue has been extreme and to the point that if there is no afternoon nap, things are much slower than normal. At 16 weeks we went for a regular check-up and took the information provided by Austin's daycare earlier that week about a child having Fifth Disease. After talking to the doctor, he decided it would be best to check that and several other things just to be sure that the sickness was only from the pregnancy. After waiting 4 days, the call came at 9:15 one night from the doctor. There was good and bad news. The good news was that they now understood what was causing the extreme fatigue and sickness. The bad news was that it was definitely the Parvovirus or Fifth Disease. After freaking out completely, we have educated ourselves and are thankful it occurred at this point in the pregnancy. The only complication of this disease is that if the baby contracts the illness there is a 6-10% chance of it developing anemia and not making it to delivery. Due to this, we went to have a Level 2 Ultrasound back on May 28th. Things looked good then. We now have been doing weekly ultrasounds and will have to continue for a total of 10 weeks. Today, we had our 6th in the series and went back to the specialist. So far, so good. They told us somewhere along the way that by 24 weeks we should be out of the woods. Only 2 weeks left.

Through all of these trips, we have gotten quite a picture album on the little munchkin. We found out that it is indeed another boy and it has been confirmed on several occasions. We both were very happy with the news, especially since we already have most everything we need! By the way, we still have not told Austin and are waiting a few more weeks. He has not even asked why mommy is getting so fat yet! The sickness slowed down by about 20 weeks and now the nausea is only there in the morning for the most part.

Austin has had several new adventures over the past several months. He is very excited about his new swingset. It was a neighborhood project just to get the thing together. He went to his first Durham Bulls baseball game of the season. He now understands and will actually watch the game. He also went to the driving range for the first time. He did very well hitting the ball but does not understand why you have to come home. He will be moving up to the 4 year old class at school next week and we are fully prepared for several weeks of horrible behavior since he deals with change so well.

We will keep you up to date but are hoping everything is downhill from here!!

Here We Go Again!

We should probably begin by apologizing to all of those people we have either lied to or just ignored over the past several months. Yes, as all of the dreams and "feelings" have revealed, we are going to have another baby! The official due date is November 1st, however the mother in this situation is hoping to cut a deal for the little joker to arrive around October 20th. Austin does not know of the situation yet and we have chosen not to tell him until we know if it will be a boy or girl. There has been "all day sickness" just as before but it may actually be worse this time around. Austin continues to remind me through his tears that "Only babies and Oscar the cat get sick like that." Whenever we ask him if he would like a brother or sister, he always opts for a sister but continues to insist her name would be Andrew! We will have just a few things to sort out later!

Austin continues to grow every day. We still can't believe some of the things they are learning at 3 1/2. We probably couldn't write our names until we were in school. His favorite sport is golf but baseball is climbing the list fast. Shane is coaching an 11-12 year old Little League team and Austin likes to pretend he is playing "baseball with the kids." I don't know if he will ever weigh over 36 pounds if he does not learn to sit still for more than 30 seconds.

Otherwise, our life continues without much excitement! I think we have enough to keep us entertained for quite a while.

A New Year

Once again, a new year has come upon us. There is a lot that has gone on since our last posting. Thanksgiving was very relaxing for us. We spent the day at home and ate with some neighbors making the holiday very low key and nice. Christmas was a little more hectic but fun just the same. This was the first year we stayed home and the first year Austin really "got" it. We left food for the reindeer and cookies for Santa. The anticipation was exciting but nothing compares to seeing his face on Christmas morning when he finally realized that he really got the train he asked for. We of course spent time with family as we always do. This was the first Christmas without my Grandmother and that was a little tough at times. Just like always, Austin can pull you through anything! Now we just have too many toys at our house. We also spent New Year's at home with neighbors. A bowling tournament on the Wii was the big highlight. Probably only because I won! Imagine that, Shane was not at his best I guess!

Austin is getting so big. He has grown so much in just the past couple of months that his shirts are getting too short. He is becoming the real nerd at school. They are doing name recognition and he can recognize all of the names of the kids in his class. We just discovered tonight that he can spell some of the shorter names. He knows his letters and is learning what letter starts some words. His favorite toys right now are his laptop, letter writer, and many puzzles. He also loves a shaving kit that he got for Christmas. Sports are still everything. His golf game is progressing I guess you could say. The club makes contact with the ball more often than it once did. I am sure it has something to do with the new Nike hat though. This makes him just that much more like Dad. He went to his first Hockey game of the season and had a great time yelling along with everyone else. He is becoming very creative. In one of the pictures below, there are a ton of little Dixie cups all over the floor. When I asked what he was doing, he informed me that the cups were having a party and that I should just leave them alone. Where do they get this stuff?

Our first snow was 2 weekends ago. We were very excited of course! For those of you up north I realize 1-2 inches is really nothing! Austin thought it was great and had to wear his boots out just to play a little while. Until next time, hope you are all having a wonderful New Year!