Sweetest Smile

So Brooks actually started smiling (not gas:) at about 3 weeks, but it took til about 5 weeks to get him to smile more consistently! And of course, he started doing that the day AFTER his "newborn" pics were taken! Here are a few of the precious faces he makes every day - he's so cute, even if I do say so myself!

Just for My Memory's Sake!

Livi spent her 1st night in her big girl bed on Saturday, May 2nd :) When she woke up, she was 18 months old AND she was surprisingly still in the bed! I could not believe she didn't get out to play! She always amazes me!

Brooks enjoyed his 1st Sunday at Northside Baptist on May 3rd :) He was such a trooper and listened so well!

Welcome Brooks!

We are so proud to announce the birth of our 2nd child, Brooks Matthew Warren! He was born April 14, 2009 at 5:07 pm weighing 7 lbs 7 oz and measuring 20 1/4 inches. The following story will attempt to describe the events of that day and our joy in knowing God's arms were wrapped around us through it all! :)

I started having contractions around 10 pm on Monday night. I went to sleep, hoping to "sleep it off" (haha) since I only had to wait til Thursday for Brooks' induction. I just knew this little peanut would wait it out and let me have my planned out delivery with my own doctor and medication this time!...or so I thought :)

The contractions grew throughout the night, though they were erratic and I was in denial that they could be the real thing. Matt was so sweet and stayed home with me the next morning to help me get Livi ready for her 1st day at Mom's Morning Out. We dropped her off together - at this time I could not even pick her up I was in so much pain!

I convinced Matt to go on to work as my mom was driving from Atlanta and would be here around 10 am. She arrived on time and we went to run a few errands (again, haha). After some gentle nudging on her part and the advice of some friends, I called my doctor, who told me to come to his office. Sure enough, I was in active labor! I called Matt and he met me and mom at the hospital! To add to my stress level, Livi was still at her 1st day of Mom's Morning Out and I wasn't even going to get to picke her up - and neither was anyone in my family!

MUCH to my surprise, I had a temp of 102 when I got to the hospital! I was so scared when they told me that Brooks' heart rate was in the low 200's. (It had always been in the 150's) We decided to monitor the heart rate and temp as I waited on an epidural (I WAS GETTING AN EPIDURAL THIS TIME IF I HAD TO INJECT IT MYSELF!) :) We had to wait about 3 hours for the epidural since the doctors were debating whether or not it was safe to give one to someone with this high of a temp. FINALLY, I got the epidural and started enjoying myself. I had a few frozen Popsicles...and then Dr. Reynolds came in for another visit. This time he did not look as jovial. He was really worried about my temp since it was still going up and Brooks' heart rate as it was staying so high. He told Matt and I that he had only seen this 1 other time in his entire career, about 15 years ago, and that they had allowed the mom to wait it out and delivery naturally as she wished. He wouldn't go much further, but he said they had a very sick baby. He was leaning towards a c-section. I could have burst into tears right away. I had never even considered having a c-section! It was not even a thought in the back of my mind! After praying about it and considering the options, Matt and I agreed with Dr. Reynolds. I was immediately prepped and wheeled into the OR. 15 minutes later Brooks was here! Perfectly healthy! Sweet cries! Looked JUST LIKE Livi :) Amazing - Thank you Lord!

Dr. Reynolds at first apologized for having possibly done an unnecessary c-section, but mentioned that he had done a few cultures to see where the infection had been in my body (as clearly there had been one somewhere for my temp to be so high!) He said he would let me know once he found out. Having heard that, at first I was a little sad that we may have done this for no reason. Oh, Holly of little faith!!!! I was wheeled into recovery where my temp immediately broke and Matt brought me the good news that Brooks' heart rate was perfectly fine, back down to the 150's :)

After a successful nursing session with my lil' champ, Dr. Reynolds came to visit. He said that he had received a positive Group B Strep culture from my placenta (sorry if that word makes you squeamish! I'm with you!) He said my situation was a mirror image of the other event that took place 15 years ago and admitted that in that instance, the baby died. I was overwhelmed with God's provision - He allowed me to have this man as my doctor, someone whom I had never even seen or heard of, yet he had the previous experience that may have very well saved Brooks' life. My own doctor may have been slower to push for the c-section, allowing the infection to reach Brooks during labor/delivery.

While all of this was going on, my other little Sweet Pea was in the good hands of friends, and I cannot thank them enough!!!! Jennifer E for picking up Livi from Mom's Morning Out, and for feeding her, bathing her, keeping her amused by letting her play with her own 2 sweet girls, etc etc etc! And Laura P for bringing her to me that night so I could get some hugs and kisses and so she could meet her little brother! These 2 girls are amazingly selfless - the calm I felt knowing Livi was with them enabled me to deal with things at the hospital! :)

Matt and I have been so blessed, shown so much grace. The Lord has shown us His hand of guidance and provision more in the past few months than in our 2 lives combined! Now more than ever, we feel His presence in our lives and we are truly grateful! It makes us long to be better parents, spouses, witnesses for Him! From all of this, all I can plead is that you walk with Him daily and allow Him to guide your steps! He will never lead you astray!

Burnin' Down the House/Quick Update

Haha - kidding - we didn't burn anything down! BUT we did burn up the past few nights! Something is sersiously wrong with our heating/AC system, as the repair guy has now been here for almost 2 hours and still there is no relief. You know there is something wrong when you turn the thermostat to 68 degrees and it slowly rises to 86 degrees. Could it be that the thermostat is suffering from dyslexia?!
Livi has been sick the past few days. She's such a trooper, enduring 2 oral meds and a 3 times/day breathing treatment. It's touch and go with the breathing treatments, sometimes she'll sit still like a champ and other times she'll thrash around like a lil' baby shark :) Either way, she's me hero for even trying to deal with this thing!
I went for my 37 week appointment today and was happy to hear that I'm making some progress! In fact, my doc thinks the day we've chosen to possibly induce (4/16) may be pretty close to the time Brooks would come naturally anyways! We'll see :)

1st Night in the New House!

Today was something else! You know when you think back and you're like, "Did today really start off in that way? SO MUCH has happened since then!!" :) Today was one of those days. We started off in the cottage, cleaning and finishing up with the packing. I gave Livi her last bath in that little 'ol tub :) We met Matt's dad at the new house to help him bring in my old furniture, aka Livi's new "big girl" furniture! Matt then went to meet the boys at the storage facility while Livi and I ran to Lowe's. Then it was back home for Livi's 1st nap in her new room...apparently she was as excited as I was because she slept for about 10 minutes...plus we kept having visitors at our door, so there was way too much going on and she didn't want to miss a thing! Once everything was moved in we grabbed some dinner and made sure everyone's cars/trucks/U-Hauls made it back to the right place...put Livi to bed (which went MUCH better than her nap since she was about as lively as a wet mop by 7pm)...assembled and re-assembled some furniture...brought in more boxes from the garage...ETC ETC ETC. I'm beat, though apparently Brooks has just found his 2nd wind - G'night!!!! :)

Every Woman's Marriage (my new Bible study)

So I just started a new Bible study w/some friends on Thursday mornings. I was ready for some "girl time" to chat, catch up, and maybe learn a few things about marriage. I knew Livi would love having some play time w/the other kiddos in the nursery at church, so it was a win-win situation! Then, Week 1 hit...

Not only is this Bible study going to be convicting, it may be downright scary to examine the innermost reasons why marriage can be so challengin sometimes, especially since the focus of this study isn't reforming Matt, it's reforming ME! The nerve! (sense the sarcasm)

So in light of the devastating blow I took in Week 1, I'm going to take a minute to journal what I've learned so far...
-I have to be happy w/myself before I can be truly happy in my marriage (Please don't get me wrong, Matt and I are extremely happy and secure in our marriage. But every marriage can use a little fine-tuning!)
-Matt was not meant to be my white knight in shining armor (I know, gasp, right?!) He cannot save me from all of my insecurities! (but he is still kinda my knight in shining armor:)
-Men need to feel like heroes to their wives. (AKA-I was taking dinner to a friend who had recently had a baby and I needed a serving dish that Matt had taken to the high school a week ago. Knowing I had to have it in order to transport the meal to my friend, Matt somehow came home during the day to deliver the dish! I don't know how he did it, but he did! I didn't make a big enough deal about his efforts - I need to remedy that!)
-Showing some grace to your hubby can make all the difference! When he has to stay at work late unexpectedly, don't assume it's b/c he's putting work ahead of you! He wants to be home more than he wants to be at work! Believe that!
-Make your home/your attitude something your hubby wants to come home to! I wonder sometimes when Matt and I talk at lunch and I'm stressed or just crabby if he ever thinks, "Well, tonight should be a blast!"

Little things make all the difference and this week I've decided to take charge w/ some of those little things. I'll let you know how it goes :)

When God Opens a Door...Walk Through!

So Matt and I have been praying A LOT about this whole house thing. For a while, nothing seemed to be working out and we wondered if selling our house and moving to the cottage was a huge mistake! God seemed to be closing every door!

1st the lot we bought to build on was horrible once it was leveled and prepped. The builder let us out of that contract and allowed us to pick another lot in the brand new phase of the neighborhood! Sounds good, right?! Well, the new lots were more expen$ive, the backyard still would have had a slope to it, AND they would not even start building til June - aka: a finish date of November or so. We weren't thrilled with this idea, but we knew we wanted this house and we wanted to be in this neighborhood, so reluctantly we agreed. The contract was supposed to be faxed to Matt last Monday. By Wednesday, he still had not received a fax OR a phone call from the on-site realtor we'd been working with, which was odd b/c he's been amazing with keeping us informed. Matt called him and he said their computers were down and he couldn't get a proper contract printed, but he would send one as soon as he could.

In the meantime, I had a few rough days at the cottage, feeling claustrophobic and wondering how on earth we were going to manage once Brooks got here. I started to wonder if we needed to give up on the neighborhood (and forget getting back our earnest money) and look elsewhere, was that where God was leading us? Was that why nothing was working out? I started looking up new houses online and found one in the same neighborhood in which we were building! I sent the listing (along with a few others in other neighborhoods) to Matt. We went to see this new house and found many things about it we liked. BUT there were things about it we didn't like. The best part was that we could move in by the beginning/middle of April! The idea alone was worth a 2nd look so we went back with our realtor and she helped to point out some +/- aspects. We were almost ready to make an offer when we decided to go see it 1 more time with the on-site realtor who knew the house best.

While we were walking through, I jokingly mentioned another house in the neighborhood that was for sale. (I say jokingly b/c it was WAY out of our price range) He said that it was an amazing house and had been finished for about 3 weeks. He felt pretty sure that if we made a reasonable offer, he could work it out for us since we were willing to close before the end of March, which is the end of their quarter! We went and saw/fell in love with the house! It was amazing! It had everything we wanted and more! We tried not to get our hopes up, but we prayed about it and made an offer! Much to our surprise, they accepted! We signed a contract the next day, got the financing in order, and now we're just waiting to do an inspection and the final walk-through with the on-site realtor and contractor next week!

We truly feel the Lord's hand has been in all of this. The progression of open and closed doors is amazing. Every door we opened, the Lord shut - until this last house! All the doors flew wide open and even more have done so since we signed. The lesson in all of this is, when God opens a door, walk through! It may not pan out, but it may lead to another door that will! :) Be persistent in prayer and walk with confidence knowing that God will see you through, He will not give you more than you can handle, and He wants what's best for you!

First Days in the Cottage

So believe it or not, we did finally move! While the selling of our house has left a bad taste in our mouths, we are so grateful to have had our house sell in 2 months and to be living in a cute cottage on family land until our home is finished being built! While Matt and I were both a little nervous about how the new surroundings would effect Livi, she's been such a trooper! Not only that, we actually think this place is magical! Matt and I both are so stress-free and able to enjoy the little things like never before! We've spent more time on the floor playing with Livi and out on the farm enjoying nature than we have doing anything else! We've put the computer away (except for my blog and e-mail...and Facebook) and our once "couldn't live without" TV shows are an afterthought (mainly b/c we're too impatient to sit through commercials now that we've been spoiled by DVR, which we lack out here!)

I've spent more time reading than I have in years, especially my Bible. It's like we've been given a new set of eyes to look through, and a chance to mellow before Brooks arrives in 11 weeks! What a gift from God! The gift of time! It sounds so simple, yet we so often take it for granted in the craziness we create in our lives.

Enough ranting...just wanted to document this feeling of serenity (mainly to refelct on once our house is further along and needs more attention/visits to the site and our lil' man gets here and I'm running 90 mph to keep up with it all!)

Last Night at 240 Autumnview

SO tonight is our last night in our sweet little house. If you've been in it, you're probably wondering why I would ever be sad to leave it! Here are a few of the reasons...

*It was our 1st house*We found out we were expecting both times in this house*We spent our last afternoon with Papa in this house*Livi's 1st birthday parties were here*While eating dinner one night at our kitchen table Matt decided to go back to grad school and we spent MANY hours studying together for his classes in this house*We were here when Matt received the call about his "big promotion" to high school administration*Livi had her 1st bite of food, 1st crawl, 1st steps, 1st tooth, etc in this house*Here we've grown together spiritually and in every other way*We brought Livi home to this house*We've memorized every sq. foot of wall, ceiling, and floor while painting and laying down hardwoods*We've cooked thousands of meals together*We love our neighbors (especially the little old lady we used to think was mean...turns out she just thought I drove too fast in the neighborhood! :) She LOVES Livi)*

The list could probably go on and on. We've made so many memories in this house. We've truly been blessed. And while I know the Lord won't forget who we are when we're living somewhere else, it just seems to me that we've enjoyed some of life's greatest highlights while under this roof!

I'm going to finish packing and go out to dinner with Matt and Livi (since I packed all the cookware!)

Christmas 2008

Livi was so excited about Christmas this year! She loved opening all of the presents - wrapped or bagged, it didn't matter to her :) It was hilarious to watch! Matt and I made sure we took extra time with her over the break, seeing as it's our last without her lil' bro! We had such a blast and hated to see it end!!!!

Livi loves her spaghetti!

Opening gifts at the Warren's :)

Christmas in Ashburn :)

Are all of these for me?!?!

Livi's 1st trip to Charleston! She had a blast chasing the birds on the pier and walking through the Market :)