Pre­ston is already 4 months old! He now weighs 16 pounds and is 26 inches long. These past cou­ple of months have gone by so fast and our lit­tle baby boy is grow­ing so fast. Alot has hap­pened in the past cou­ple of months. Pre­ston had his first visit from his Aunt Niki while Brian was out of town for work. I was still on mater­nity leave so the three of us enjoyed lots of shop­ping and some great lunches. The next week or two after my sis­ter came to visit we had some really great weather. We went on lots of walks and Pre­ston got to go on the swings in the park by us for the first time. One of the nice week­ends we had some vis­i­tors. Matt, Melissa and their lit­tle girl Paige came to visit and meet Pre­ston. We had great weather so we went to the Lin­coln Park Zoo. Preston’s first visit to the zoo and he missed it all because he slept the whole time. After the zoo we had some lunch in the park. Such a beau­ti­ful day. 

At the end of April, my mom came to visit and help us get ready for my return back to work. I started back to work on March 27^th and Pre­ston started in day­care. He was three months when he started. It was so hard to leave him and I admit I called and checked on him many times those first few days but we both sur­vived our first week. He is doing great in day­care now and loves see­ing all of his friends every­day. I do enjoy being back at work but I def­i­nitely can­not wait for five o’clock to roll around every­day. He is the joy in our life and every­thing is so much bet­ter when we get to pick him up and see his smil­ing face!

Dur­ing April there were many firsts. Pre­ston had his first cold which not only left him tired and cranky but us as well. He couldn’t sleep through the night like he had been for the last month and he was so stuffed up. Unfor­tu­nately, I had to stay home with him for two days. Then the fol­low­ing day we took our first road trip with him and headed to Cleve­land to see my fam­ily. Pre­ston got to meet his three cousins for the first time. Kenny, Tyler and Brady loved him and wanted to hold him over and over. Brian and I then headed to Vir­ginia Beach and left Pre­ston and Lucy with Gag and Papa. Our first time away from him! We went to Vir­ginia Beach for one of my best friends wed­ding. It was a small inti­mate wed­ding on the beach. It was so nice to see every­one and so nice to sleep in for a cou­ple of days!. We had a great time and we couldn’t be hap­pier for Danielle and Louie! Con­grat­u­la­tions! We then went back to Cleve­land to pick up Pre­ston and Lucy and they both had a great time vis­it­ing with fam­ily. While in Cleve­land we got to spend some time with my other friend, Jess and her lil girl Cristina. Cristina is 7 months old and such a cutie.

The last week of April he started talk­ing a lot more and tells us many sto­ries. He espe­cially likes to tell us sto­ries while we are chang­ing him into his new out­fit for the day!

A few of the lil things that we love about Pre­ston at this age are his lil sneezes, big smiles, and when he rubs his eyes when he is tired. He couldn’t be any cuter. We love him so much!

Preston’s sec­ond month came and went so quickly. At around 6 weeks he learned how to give us a big smile and boy is it cute! Pre­ston has also started look­ing for his thumb. He has found it a few times but he still loves his binkie. He also got another visit from his grand­par­ents. My par­ents came to visit. It was Papa’s first visit with Pre­ston. They spent some time together watch­ing the Notre Dame bas­ket­ball game. Pre­ston even had his own ND out­fit that Papa got him. Pre­ston finally started to enjoy his baths. We even got a few cute pic­tures. He also had his 2 month check up and is 13 inches long and 12 pounds 12 ounces! Such a big boy already!

Preston’s first month was filled with pic­tures and vis­its from grand­par­ents. At ten days old he had his first photo shoot and he was super cute! We hired TK pho­tog­ra­phy and he did a very good job with Pre­ston. The pic­tures turned out great! For the first cou­ple weeks my mom stayed and helped us get sit­u­ated and into a rou­tine. It was a great help and let us get a lit­tle more sleep. At the end of the month Brian’s par­ents came to visit Pre­ston got the first time. There was lots of cud­dling with grand­par­ents that week­end! By the end of the month Pre­ston had already grown so much. He is grow­ing so quickly into our lil boy!

On Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 3, 2012 we wel­comed to the world our son, Pre­ston Jack Drum.

It started around mid­night when Jaclyn’s water broke. After a quick trip down Lake Shore Drive we arrived at Pren­tice Women’s Hos­pi­tal and began to wait. At around 8:30 a.m. they had Jaclyn start push­ing and at 11:18 a.m. Pre­ston was deliv­ered. He weighed 8 lb 11 oz and was 20″ long.

Shortly after birth Preston’s oxy­gen sat­u­ra­tion level dipped briefly, so as a pre­cau­tion they moved him to the NICU for obser­va­tion. Thank­fully it was an iso­lated inci­dent and over the next few days he aced all the tests for O₂, blood cul­tures and hear­ing. It ended up being a bless­ing because we got to spend lots of time with Pre­ston and his won­der­ful nurses get­ting super­vised prac­tice feed­ing and burp­ing him, chang­ing his dia­per, and the rest.

On Thurs­day Jaclyn was dis­charged and the next morn­ing Pre­ston was released as well. We brought him home and intro­duced him to a curi­ous but slightly con­fused Lucy. She has sniffed him all over and got­ten in a few licks, and seems fine with him join­ing the fam­ily. Pre­ston is eat­ing like a champ, sleep­ing pretty well, and keep­ing us busy with dia­per changes.

It was a great first week and we are thrilled to have our happy, healthy baby boy finally here!

In Octo­ber we took mater­nity pho­tos. I was at 30 weeks. Here are some of our favorites! Soon after we moved into a larger condo to accom­mo­date our lil guy bet­ter! Who knew a tiny baby needed so much stuff?

Yes­ter­day we had our 20 week doc­tor appoint­ment /​ultra­sound and we found out we are hav­ing a lit­tle boy! All looked good and he is tucked in a ball in my right pelvis. He seems to like it there as he wouldn’t stretch out and made it dif­fi­cult to do the ultra­sound. We almost didn’t find out if it was a boy or girl but he finally stretched out for a few min­utes and then quickly went back to his orig­i­nal posi­tion. We are very excited to meet our lit­tle boy!

We went to Cleve­land this Fourth of July week­end to visit with some fam­ily and friends. While there we got to meet my par­ents’ new dog, Peter Pan. He is a res­cue and is such a sweet dog. Lucy, Bailee and Peter played all week­end and wore each other out. We also got to visit with Danielle, Jess and Lou. Jess is also expect­ing so we got to com­pare our baby bumps. We came back on Sun­day so we had Mon­day to enjoy before return­ing to work on Tues­day. We hope every­one enjoyed their Fourth of July!

After the Run for the Zoo 10k, Jaclyn and Lucy and I spent some time walk­ing around Lin­coln Park and check­ing out the new Nature Board­walk. This is the same area where we took some engage­ment pho­tos. After that day they shut down the boat rentals and started revert­ing the pond to a more nat­ural state with water plants and flow­ers, and added the board­walk along the west side.

We are hav­ing a baby! Our lit­tle bun­dle of joy is due at the end of Decem­ber. We are very excited for the new addi­tion to our fam­ily. Here is a pic­ture of the last ultra­sound at 12 weeks.

Last week­end we planted our flower boxes on a very hot Sun­day. It’s been really hot here but they are really set­tling in now. We also planted a straw­berry planter and already got two deli­cious straw­ber­ries from it.