BABY UPDATE

Well I got my wish and came home from the hospital Thursday afternoon. It was a bit overwhelming though as I am on "bed rest" which I really don't see as possible but I am trying. The bleeding has stopped and now we are just waiting to see how things go. I had a Doctor's appointment today and we discussed our options. The Doctor's recommendation initially was for me to stay in the hospital so they can ensure that I don't have any more bleeding. But after some convincing from me the doctor did agree to let me stay at home on bed rest. She is recommending to do the C-Section next Friday the 7th. We are pushing a bit for the 11th so that the baby will be at 38 weeks. I guess it will still be a bit of a surprise depending on how things go. I will see the doctor again on Tuesday and know more then. Now I just have to sit at home and let our wonderful families help us until the baby is ready. We are so lucky to have so many people who offer to help and someday we will have to repay them. I am sure I will be keeping everyone posted (there is not much else I can do).

HOSPITAL VISIT

The week started out calm and great. Monday I had a Doctor's appointment and everything was going good. Tuesday I took the kids to the park and had another wonderful day. All the kids did great and Cameron was super helpful. Today was when the craziness began. I woke up this morning and had my bleeding issues again. I called the doctor like usual. They wanted me to come down to St. Joe's to have a level 2 ultrasound to see how the baby was doing and check things out. This means I had to have mom and dad come and watch the kids and drag Ben out of work because I did not want to go by myself. We got to St. Joe's a little after 11 and everything with the baby looked great. My placenta continues to be low laying and this is causing the bleeding. The perinatologist recommended an amniocentesis and I was very nervous about this and really wanted to just go home and give the baby some more time. The amnio was recommended to determine how developed the babies lungs are in order to see if the baby would be safe to be delivered at this time. After some convincing from the doctor we did agree to the amnio. We had to wait at St. Joe's for the results and we did not get those until almost 3:00. The amnio indicated that the baby's lungs are not developed enough yet. Due to the fact that I was still have some bleeding the Doctor admitted me to the Antepartum unit here at St. Joe's for 24 hour monitoring. If the bleeding gets better I am very hopeful that I will get to go home tomorrow. Then I am sure I will have to take it pretty easy until the baby is ready. I guess I should not have kept saying I was not ready because it is not up to me as I learned today. This little baby is the one in control from now on. I will keep everyone posted on our progress.

Fair Pictures

Well another exciting week has flown by. We are now 23 days from baby and getting closer to being ready. I have been feeling good and have a Doctor's appointment tomorrow. Over the weekend we moved Cameron's bed and stuff down into his new room and tonight is his first night sleeping down there so we will see how that goes. I still have a lot to do to get ready but I am sure it will all fall into place. It always does.

I am posting a couple of pictures of our fun fair night. I took all three of the boys to the fair with a friend of mine and her 16 month old daughter. We had a lot of fun but I was beat by the time we got home.

As for a potty training update we are still taking things pretty slow around here. Calvin continues to seem interested in going poop on the potty and he has told us a couple times and then actually went. Clayton does not seem interested at all and refuses to sit on the potty but hopefully this will change soon. Enjoy the pictures.

Our three boys (Clay, Cam, Cal)!

Clay, Cam, Cal at the fair!

Mom, Cam, Cal & Clay with Sausages at the Fair!


Cam checking out the horses.


Cal & Clay at the fair.

Potty training time?

Pretty calm around here since my last post. Cameron got his stitches out yesterday and it went very well. He is such a little man now. We are now at the 35 week mark and in 4 very short weeks we will be welcoming our newest little Rettler. I do not feel ready at all but if the weather warms up I may change my tune quickly. Ben and I did finish painting Cameron's new room this weekend and I am thrilled to begin moving stuff into that room so that we can move the twins and then get all the baby stuff out again. Just so much to do and so little time left. As for the title of this post, I had decided to wait on potty training the twins until a little later because I just did not think they were ready yet then last Thursday Cal says he has to poop and we go in the bathroom on the little potty and he sure does it!!!! How exciting! He told me again on Sunday that he had to go and went on the potty again. Last night he told Ben but it was a little too late already by the time he got on the potty he was done. I am thrilled but a little nervous to try to take this on right now. I guess we will see where they lead us. Clayton does not really like to sit on the potty right now so it may be a little while still. It sure would be nice to get them out of diapers before we have another one to change. Wish us luck and I am sure I will keep everyone posted.

Lots of action

This update is a bit later then I wanted it to be but I thought I better update before to much more happens. I was looking back and realized that a million things have happened since my last post. I will try to be brief but for those of you who know me that is almost impossible.

Going backwards from my last post Ben and the boys had a wonderful time up north without mom again and then the craziness began. We had Clayton & Calvin's 2nd birthday party on Wednesday July 1st. It is hard for us to believe they are already 2.

Clayton and cool new shades and hat!

Calvin's new shads and hat - giving his "buddy" a hug!

Clayton enjoys his cake!

Calvin making his silly face!

After the birthday festivities we finished packing and at 4 a.m. on Friday July 3rd we headed for the cabin up north for a few days with the Rettler clan. It was a blast. We got to celebrate the twins birthday some more, enjoy some fireworks, the lake, a little boating and fishing, and Cameron got to ski again. Overall it was fun and relaxing at the same time. We also enjoyed the new look of the cabin and all the new sleeping and bar space that the addition provides (for pictures of this see the Avenue website).

Cameron riding his bike into the lake as the twins watch.

Clayton enjoys his watermelon!

Calvin enjoying his watermelon too.

The famly boat ride!!!!




On Monday we left the cabin and headed straight to the Dells to spend the week with my family, including my brother who was home from Germany. This was a great getaway. We all had a wonderful time and did not want vacation to end. We got to spend some much needed time together with all three of the boys relaxing, swimming, and just having fun. We spent most of the time pool hopping at the two resorts and also found time to do a Theme park day (go-karts and waterpark) day and the Deer farm. Both very cool. All three of the boys did great and it was so fun just to sit back and watch them. Sadly vacations do have to end so on Sunday we headed back home. These are just a few of many pics to come from vacation.

Cameron, Clavin, Clayton at the deer farm.

The boys are ready to hit the town!

Cameron and Ben on the water slides!


Cameron looking cool!

Cameron and Uncle Troy

This week has sped by already and I neglected to get my pictures and post on here right away as I attempted to get back on track with 10 days worth of wash. With all good intentions I thought I would get on here last night and do my updates but as the picture I am posting will show we ended up being quite busy last night.

Cameron was playing by his friend after dinner and accidentally got hit in the head with a metal bat. Of course being pregnant I tend to over react to things and was a little freaked out. Head wounds do bleed a lot and I had never really seen anything like this. Thank goodness for good neighbors who remain calm and kept Cameron calm too. They are also a little more experienced then I so they informed me that Cameron would need some stitches so I took him over to St. Joe's and he got 6 stitches. He was such a trooper and did great. It was also much better that by then I realized this will not be my last trip to the ER for stitches with the other two little boys being as rough as they are. Cameron was so wonderful and did great. This morning explained to me that he should still go to summer school today so that he can let his friends know what happened to him. It was so funny. He is very proud of how tough he was while getting the stitches. What a trooper.



So that has been our very busy last couple weeks - oh I forgot to throw in that we are on a 5 week count down to new baby. I had a Doc appointment on Monday and all is going well. So now we are on crunch time to get the rooms done and get ourselves ready. I will try to keep my posts up to date and will try to add more vacation pics soon..

ON MY OWN AGAIN?

Well here I am blogging again about yet another weekend of freedom. Everyone is going to think I am spoiled. Well I am. Ben took the boys up north again. They left at 4 this morning and they will be back tomorrow evening. He wants to help work on getting the addition done up there and I want to get things ready here so we had to compromise again. I remembered shoes this time so everything is going smoothly thus far.

As for our week since my last post we have been busy again. Last friday we went swimming by GG & Papa's and then when we got home we got a call from Ben's brother Andy and our newest neice Elsa is here. She was born Friday evening and all was well. Saturday we ran around shopping with all the boys in the morning. We then stopped at the hospital to meet Elsa and Andy and Sue asked me to be her Godmother. I of course said yes and am thrilled to have another Goddaughter. She is adorable and it makes me even more excited to meet our new little one. After all of this we dropped Cam off for a Birthday Party and then when we picked him up we had a 10 year anniversary party for some friends and it was at a park in West Bend. The party was a big hit for all of us. As you can see from the pictures we all had a blast.

Cam's BIG Catch at the party at the park!
He really wanted to keep this!

Clayton hanging out at the park party (w/uncle Wes)!

Calvin's "funny face"!

The following day was Father's day and we planned to host this small gathering for both of our families at our house. Ben made beer can Chicken and it turned out GREAT. The weather was super and somehow we pulled this off too. It looked to us like everyone enjoyed themselves and all the little kids got along without to many fights, which is not easy when you consider there is a 7 year old, 4 year old, 2 - 2 year olds, 2 almost 2 year olds, and a one year old (Sue and Elsa were still in the hospital and did not make it).

Ben celebrating Father's Day by cooking up some Chicken's!!

The remainder of the week was pretty calm in comparison to the weekend. We spent most of our time trying to stay cool. The kids love to be outside and seem uneffected by the extremely warm weather. They did enjoy their little pool and we made it over to my parents big pool a couple of times too.

Now we are on the next adventure. This week!

The boys enjoying their little backyard pool.

Calvin & Clayton taking a dip!

Too cute not to post - They worked up an appetite in the pool.

Cal on the left & Clay on the right -- cooking in their outside kitchen.

Gross motor issues again

Today was a crazy day but it was really fun. I did not have Kaylee today so out of fear that I would be bored I set up to watch my friends three kids for a couple hours this morning. Her and her husband are in Hawaii and the kids are staying with her parents who live very close to us. I offered to take the kids from 10 till 1:30 and it went GREAT. Honestly! She has a 8 year old girl and 2 boys that are 6 and 2. I do watch the 2 year old about once a week so the twins already know him but having the two older ones was a blast. They were so good and really helpful with the three little ones. Cameron also really enjoyed having some playmates too. I hope it works out that we can do that again.

After everyone cleared out and the twins went down for a nap I made a million phone calls. We have been discussing some concerns with Cal's walking and tripping along with his somewhat awkward gait for quite some time and at our last doctor's appointment discussion was had on weather or not there is a discrepancy in the length of his legs. After much thought I have decided that I want to find out more about what is going on with his and so I made a bunch of calls to Birth to Three and to the Doctor's office trying to find out how to proceed. Finally today we got it figured out and we have an appointment scheduled for July 30th with Dr. Tassone (this was his old Scoliosis doctor). Funny how things come full circle. Now that the appointment is made I already feel better that I am being more pro-active and doing something about these little concern that have been bugging me. With some luck we will get some answers on the 30th, now I just have to have wait for 5 weeks.

Other then that we are trucking along. Busy weekend. Happy Father's day to all.