2 months old

It seems impossible that Austin has already been with us for two months. He has clearly been focusing on growing; he now is 24.75" long and weighs 13 lb 14 oz, which are both above 90th percentile. We were fortunate enough to spend the summer home as a family of four, and we spent most of our time making sure to get out of the house to let Gabe play. Austin was kind enough to be completely laid back and indulge us with our random outings.

Some other highlights are captured in the photos below.

Gabe and Austin in their guitar shirts. Gabe is into matching clothes with his bro.

Thoughtful...

Cousins, including 3 new boy cousins who are less than 6 months old!

Video update

Austin the chatterbox from Team Friedman on Vimeo.

Austin and Kermit from Team Friedman on Vimeo.

Gabe writing

While we weren't watching, Gabe apparently taught himself to write. Occasionally he'll ask to draw on our whiteboard. Usually he just scribbles. This time, however, he announced that he was going to write "mommy", and he proceeded to produce this:

He repeated the performance several times for the cameras. Here is a video of the process. 

gabe writing from Team Friedman on Vimeo.

Austin: month 1

I cannot believe that my baby boy is already 6 weeks old! The first month of Austin's life absolutely flew by. Grandma and Grandpa were here to help for the first two weeks, and Bubbie and Papa were here after they left. Thanks to all of our parents, we failed to starve for the first few weeks, and Gabe was constantly entertained :) We were able to just relax and introduce our son to all of our family members. We also enjoyed visits from Adam & Shanice and a surprise visit from Rick.

After the first three weeks, we were on our own. Luckily, we are both home for the summer, so we spent our days entertaining Gabe (parks, story times, bike rides, shopping, etc.) and relaxing with Austin. In the short time that remained, Mike took 3 summer school classes for his Masters program, and we've mostly managed to keep up with the cooking and cleaning.

Some highlights from month one: two birthday parties (Jaxon's first and Mia's third), gaming with Team B, and visits from friends. We also celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary by taking the boys to the airport park, airport, Old Mc Donald's (Gabe's name for his favorite restaurant), and Rita's.

I've included a selection of photos from the first month. The full albums are online here and here (you'll have to log in with google plus and be friends with Mike to view them, though).

Family kiss after Austin's first sponge bath

Relaxing in the blanket that Susie made

Stretching out

Gabe and Austin with Grandma and Grandpa

Hoosier love

Austin Noah Friedman

We've been so busy enjoying life as a family of four that I forgot to post about Austin's birth! We welcomed baby Austin on Wednesday 20 June 2012 at 9:07am. He clocked in at 8 lb 10 oz and 21.25" long.

Austin Noah Friedman, minutes after birth

Austin is apparently going to be our rebellious child. We had a C-section scheduled and ready to go on June 25, but at 38.5 weeks, Austin decided not to wait any longer. I ended up laboring for about 9 hours before he was born - we knew they would do the surgery as soon as we arrived at the hospital, but my parents hadn't arrived yet (they drove all day Wednesday), and we knew that taking Gabe to Team B at 3am would be disruptive to everyone. I toughed it out until 6am and then it was go time. As soon as we got to the hospital (around 7:30), everyone assembled as quickly as possible (apparently Wed morning is busy - all of the docs had to be pulled out of meetings!). Once we got to the OR, things went quickly, and before I knew it, we were in recovery bonding with Austin. After we got settled into our room, Sara brought Gabe up to visit, and he got to be the first one to hold Austin.

Brothers!

The rest of our stay was kind of a blur - my parents arrived that evening and came to visit twice - once en route from Indy, and again once they had picked up Gabe. Gabe was very good and handled the change quite well (in addition to being a big brother, this was his first night away from Mommy!) - he, Grandma, and Grandpa visited twice on Thursday, and when they came to visit Friday morning, they brought us back home with them. Apparently an evening full of births (16+ at UNC on Thursday night!) does wonders for your ability to be discharged after 48 hours :) Austin is an awesome baby - he looks so much like Gabe did at that age, and he's just as easy (if not easier!) - he eats and sleeps well, rarely cries, and is very happy. We definitely won the baby lottery!


I'll post more stories of our first month home and a bunch of photos soon.

Gabe reading

Gabe really enjoys to read, and he has many books (or portions thereof) memorized; however, we were very surprised to discover that he knows all of the words to "Berenstain Bears: New Baby". It's not a short book! Here is a video of him "reading" it to us.

Gabriel 3.0!

Our baby boy celebrated his third birthday on Sunday. I'm still in disbelief. We had a great day celebrating, which wrapped up a special pre-birthday week (including two trips for sorbet at ice cream stores). After learning our lesson last year (G begged for his cake all day long), Gabe and I baked cupcakes and ate them for breakfast. We also opened presents in the morning so that he could get some good play time in. He managed to spend some time with everything - a bike, a robot puzzle, finger paints, and a swingset (thanks everyone!!).

32 weeks

I've been horrible at blogging anything about this pregnancy. I will blame it on first- and second-trimester sickness and the craziness that is being pregnant, working full-time, parenting a toddler, and trying (failing) to sell a house. The third trimester has been relatively kind to me. However, this kid is a kicker! It's nice to know that he is ok, but I wish he would take a break occasionally and let me rest!

Last weekend we took Gabe to a sibling maternity tour at UNC so he could see where we would be staying when his brother is born. He got to dress up like a doctor and take care of a baby doll, which he then carried throughout the tour. The highlight? Elevators!

I am wrapping up my semesters teaching at UNC and Peace and transitioning into full-time editing until the fall semester. Mike is gearing up his students for AP tests; their school doesn't end until mid-June. In other news, we got antsy and pulled our house off the market. We decided that it was more important to start settling in somewhere, even if it was in a small space. We are almost finished - we moved Gabe's room (the boys will share one), threw out a bunch of stuff, and are working on making a hybrid play/guest room.

Recap: Fall 2011 in photos

I finally got around to downloading photos from the camera (and deleting all of the photos of the floor that Gabe took), so now I get to give you a quick recap of highlights from Oct-Dec. You can find the whole album on Google+.

October 2011:

Bubbie and Papa came to visit. One of the highlights of their trip included taking Gabe to a corn maze. He was more interested in the hay ride than the maze; we did that twice :)

Auntie Erica visited for a long weekend. She and Gabe built a LOT of Lego towers, and she got to celebrate Halloween with us at Team B. 

Mike got the sewing machine out of storage and made some awesome Harry Potter robes for Halloween. He was adult Harry, and Gabe was Harry's son James. I was going to be adult Ginny, but Halloween beat us to the punch. Maybe next year!

November 2011:

We spent Thanksgiving in Myrtle Beach, SC visiting Uncle Jason, Aunt Jennifer, Cousin Alaina, and Auntie Chanda. Bubbie and Papa also drove up from Dallas. We had a great time eating (of course), playing outside, celebrating my birthday, and going to the bounce house.

December 2011:

Auntie Meg came to visit from Norway (actually on her way back to Norway from Antarctica), and we had a great time hanging out. She also introduced Gabe to the joys of advent calendars!

We're having another baby boy!

Gabe would say "I told you so"; he's been telling people "I have a baby brother in mommy's belly." Today we had our big anatomy scan ultrasound and officially found out that we're having another boy. Now we have to come up with a name :) That's proving to be more difficult this time around!

Everything at the ultrasound checked out wonderfully. It turns out that baby boy 2 also got Gabe's stubborn streak; it took a solid 20 minutes to get the the right view of his head so that the sonographer could finish her measurements. He just wasn't interested in moving out of his cozy spot.

Twenty weeks down and twenty more to go!