Daphne Kathleen Wilson

She is here! Our new niece and god-daughter, Daphne Kathleen! Katie called at 4:30 am to tell me it was go time. Well my alarm typically goes off at 5:00 on Monday's because I work out, but I was too excited to sleep and my workout buddy cancelled so I laid there until my alarm went off at 5:30. I did my normal routine and after I dropped Nora off at school I headed to the hospital. I was very excited because I was not only there as her sister, but photographer as well!! So when I got there she was dialated at a 1. Her water broke at 2:10 and at 7:30 she was still at a 1. Poor thing was dealing well with the contractions and then she felt like she wanted to start cursing, and she was still a 1.5 and so the dr. recommended to get her epidural. Katie was upset about it and i totally understand why. We are a lot alike and you have such conflicting emotions and you want to try to go longer, but it really hurts and when there is meds to make it better than you take it. So she had the epidural and that is when she really started to progress! She then got to a 4 fairly quickly after that and she progressed super fast from 4-9, with in like an hour!!! It was great and then we were ready and the doctor was called! Dr. Collins is our OB/GYN, but Dr. Campbell was the one that delivered and she delivered Stella 10 months earlier. She is a great Dr! Katie did so great! Daphne came out all bright eyed and alert, weighing a whopping 5 lbs. 9 oz and was 19" long!!! She is just a petite little thing. She is so precious and her face is just perfect. I am so excited that my sister is a mom and we can share all kinds of mom things now! I love it! I didn't really cry yesterday, but have been getting teary thinking about it all today. Welcome sweet baby girl! You have a lot of people ready to love and spoil you!

Grandmas love at first sight!

Doesn't she look great for just having a baby!

Mom and Dad are instantly in love with their new baby girl!

Big cousin Nora-who by the way was very upset that Daphne wasn't name 2 Nora's after her!!!

The Color Run

On Saturday I participated in The Color Run. It was held in downtown St. Louis and it was sold out. I think I heard 15,000 people participated in the run!! I ran with 3 of my Bayless friends, Tiffany, Kelly and Stephanie. This was the first 5k that I have participated in since I was pregnant with Stella (May 2011)! That has been a long time. I have been training with Karin and we are following a couch to 5K program. It is definitely hard to get back into running when you haven't done it in so long. We have come a long way since the start of the program, but haven't completed in yet. So, my 5k came a little bit early and I was running with Stephanie and Tiffany who are training for a 1/2 marathon. So needless to say I had to pick up my pace and they did slow down a bit, but it was still really hard for me. I had a blast though. So back to the color run........it benefits Autism. Everyone wore white shirts and at every kilometer there was a stretch where they threw powder paint at you. And each kilometer was a different color. It was so cool and fun! Here are some pics from the race!

After the race...our backsides were pretty colorful!

Post race picture! Looking good and colorful!

Pre-race photo! Look how clean we are!

going through the orange color! Tiffany got a great shot of them getting me. This was at 4k.

So close to the finish!

Nora's 1st Day

Nora started her second year of pre-school today. She is now going to Affton's Early Childhood Center for all day, all week. The building is brand new and pretty cool! Our great friend, Karin, is the director and Nora's teacher went to CMSU at the same time I did! We actually know a few of the same people. I did not cry today, which was a surprise. I did cry a few weeks ago when I got the welcome packet in the mail because we had to buy her a big girl back pack and school supplies this year. I feel like this is what I should be feeling in Kindergarten, but since she is going everyday, all day next year will be a breeze. We met her teacher last week and Nora loved her and did not want to leave the classroom. She was very excited this morning and kept asking me if it was time to leave. Of course I made her take pictures and she was not excited about it, but she did it. I also made her take one outside of her classroom and she did. As soon as we walked in the door she was like see ya later mom. The secretary took her to the kitchen where the other morning care kiddos were eating breakfast. I have to drop her off earlier than school starts so I can get to work on time. She sat right down and was a happy little girl. She gave me a big hug and kiss and Karin could tell I was not wanting to leave so she shooshed me out of the door! I hope she is doing okay! I have been thinking about her all day long. Here are some pics...

Pinterest inspired 1st day of school picture

Outside of her classroom. She was so excited there were animals on the walls! She wanted to stand right under the lion.

9 months

Stella is 9 months old and a growing girl. Peter took her to the doctor today because I had to be at school for a mentoring meeting. It is kind of nice not to take her and let Peter be the one that is there while they do the shots. I just hate that part. Stella is still getting 4 bottles a day-Morning, lunch, afternoon and before bed. She is eating baby food in the morning and at night. I am kind of going by what we did with Nora. The doctor said we can start giving her table foods as long as we make sure it is small enough for her. I am kind of excited about that. She is moving EVERYWHERE! She crawls like no other and is into everything. She is pulling up on everything as well. Her favorite is to pull up on the TV and bang on it. We tell her no and and she looks smiles and then does it again, like ha take that. She is starting to stand too! I really think that she could be walking by the end of this month and that scares me! She is just soooooo happy and makes a monster face that I have yet to capture with my camera. I am hoping I get it soon because I want to bring it to work so when I am having a not great day I can look at it and smile. As hard as it is being a mom sometimes they sure do make it worth it in those moments. Sometimes it takes my breathe away with how much I love those two girls. It amazes me everyday at how big our hearts can be.

Oh and here are her stats.....

6 months
17 lbs 2 oz  and 26.5"

9 months
19 lbs 15 oz and 28.5"

Here are some pics from the 9 month shoot I did with her!

So Big!

This is her getting ready to get into something face

Our happy little girl!

Katie's Friend Shower

Katie's friend Laura and I hosted her friend shower at my house this morning. The plan was to have it outside on the patio and of course in the middle of a drought, when you think it would be okay to schedule something outside, it rains! The shower was at 10:30 am and at 3:00 this morning I heard thunder and panicked. All that was going through my mind was CRAP! where and I going to put 18 people! So we transformed our basement into a lovely party area. I wasn't sure if we could pull it off, but we did. Thank goodness no one went into the guest room downstairs because that is where I shoved everything ;)  We moved the couch and chair and set up a square folding table and a long white table and had cute centerpieces and it turned out great.

 We did a shabby chic theme and stuck with purple and pink. So we had purple and pink table cloths, I reused the diaper bassinets from the last shower and ditched the orange. The centerpieces were friend inspired and I cannot remember who told me the idea, but we used baby food jars and got colored daisies and stuck them in there. Laura added her touch with some ribbon.

This was the diaper cake from the last shower as well that I had used and I added some head bands to it for the new baby girl!

These favors were pinterest inspired! Can you believe it, me on pinterest! I wouldn't have been able to make them look that cute. I see the ideas, but Laura executed it. I think they turned out great! And I was happy that one of my stamps finally got used again!!!

We played two games. The first where you had to guess how round Katie's belly was. Most people guessed pretty big, but we were very close with the winners!!! The second game was Name that baby tune and every song title had the word baby in it. You received a point for getting the title and another point for getting the artist. It was a lot of fun!

Isn't that the cutest diaper cake you have ever seen! Katie's friend Michelle made it and it had bib's, outfits and towels in it too!

For food we had again, another pinterest inspired, fruit salad, donut holes (from the best donut place ever!), muffins and egg casseroles. Thank goodness that I had my cousin Allison around yesterday to help me. She made the casseroles and helped make the fruit salad. I just thought it turned out so cute.

She received a lot of great gifts and lots of clothes. Nessie is going to be a stylish little girl!!!

Experiment

So we ordered steaks from Omaha and they were delivered last week. They come packed in dry ice so Peter decided to show Jalen and Nora how cool it is when it is melted. We started in the kitchen and then headed outside into Stella's baby pool. They thought it was so neat!