She's Here!

Megan wakes me up around 3AM telling me she's been having regular contractions for a couple of hours now.  Remember, this is about 2 weeks before her due date (9/16).  We lay in bed until around 5AM using her iPhone app to record the frequency and duration of the contractions.  Finally, after much debating, we decide it's time to go to the hospital.  I give my mom an early wakeup call to come over so that Stella can sleep and then go back to their house.  After mom got to our house around 5:30AM, we went to the hospital where we played the "admitted or go home" game.  I managed to capture Megan's enthusiasm for this quite well (picture on the right).  We were there for at least 2 hours until they decided that we would be admitted and we were going to have this baby!

Megan was given an epidural (one of her first requests), but there was a complication with the execution of said epidural.  The anesthesiologist made a mistake where too much spinal fluid would be slowly leaking out and would almost definitely cause her to have a spinal headache.  While most people see the anesthesiologist once or twice, she became our best friend checking in very regularly to see if there is any way she could make Megan more comfortable.  They gave her additional drugs to combat the headache and suggested to lay as flat as possible.  Sure enough, within a few hours, Megan started to have neck and headache pain (which we go on for about another day).

Besides the spinal headache snag, everything else went pretty smooth and we were blessed with Charlotte Jane (Charley)'s entrance into the world at 5:28PM.  She weighed 8lbs 10oz and was 20.5" long.

Later that evening, my parents brought Stella up to the hospital and she got to finally meet her little sister (something we were all really excited about).

She was so proud and happy!  I meant to take more video, but I did manage to capture when they first saw each other and Stella proclaimed her as "my baby":

Big Bass

Stella and I go fishing at our local neighborhood pond about once a week.  We usually get some bites but lately they haven't been turning into a catch.  However, today, Stella's first ever fish was a monster bass! I had to reel it in, but she hooked it!

I explained to her that the fish was a large mouth bass.  So, when we came home, she proudly explained to her mom that the fish she caught "had a big mouth"!

I Never!

So, Stella's new thing when she disapproves of something is to say "Never!" or "I Never!".  We don't know where she picked this up, but it's definitely a regular part of her vocabulary now.  If you don't believe me, check out the video:

Big Top Stella

Today, Stella and I went to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Presents Super Circus Heroes.  It was a good show and the elephants were Stella and I's favorite.  Another highlight was a little dog that rode on top of a bigger dog that was riding on top of a horse!

Of course, as I learned at the recent baseball game we went to, Stella had to get her popcorn fix (this is the first of two tubs we shared):

First Glimpse of Little Sister

We decided it would be cool to take Stella out of school early, so that she could check out her little sister during the sonogram we had scheduled today.  It's hard to describe her reaction, but it really warmed our hearts.  She was so excited, proud, and amazed by the live sonogram of her baby sister!

Stella's feedback from the video was that the baby was wearing glasses and had teeth!  We got a big kick out of this.  Here's a profile pic from this sonogram session where you can kind of tell where she was getting this impression from due to the hollowed out looking eyes and would kind of looks like teeth in the jaw area:

Also, as Megan suspected, the sonographer said that she could see hair (which she indicated is rare to be able to tell in a sonogram):

Whatever She's Got

David Nail's Whatever She's Got came on the jukebox today at Timbuktu and we were treated to the following:

First BBall Game

Tonight, I took Stella and Braedon to their first Wichita Wingnuts baseball game (it was technically my first too since the Wichita Wranglers no longer exist).  It was a nice evening and the Wingnuts won.  I was surprised by how much Braedon already knew the rules to baseball (which he later explained to me was due to the baseball game on the Wii).

I think the highlight of the event for Stella and Braedon was the popcorn.  They put away one large tub each!

Metal Drum Solo

While at Doo-Dah Diner today, Stella showed us that she's added air drums to her increasingly vast music repertoire:

Pizza and Tunes

One of our new favorite places to eat at is Picasso's (they have really good pizza and sandwiches).  Today, Stella entertained us with a combo dance pizza eating session while we were there:

If you watch closely enough, you'll see the lady to her left trying not to laugh while Stella stares at her and groves!

River Run and Festival

Now that we live in Wichita, I thought that we could make the River Run a yearly tradition.  So, this year I signed us up for the family 2 mile run so that Stella could participate.  Well, it ended up being me carrying her for 2 miles, but it's a start!

Later that evening, a band that Megan and I really liked and grew up with from way back in high school, OPHIL, was playing as part of the River Festival (the larger festival of which the River Run is just a part of).  It was really cool to see them after so many years and watch our daughter jam out to them too!

Yoga Master

I jokingly asked Stella to show me her yoga moves. To my surprise, she busted out some downward dog and planks! Guess she's learning a lot at school!

Feeling the Music

This girl loves the music!

Frozen Fanatic

Stella is a huge fan of Disney's new Oscar winning Frozen movie.  Here she is jumping, clapping, and spinning to the Let it Go scene that she's already seen about a thousand times:

Fun fact: my cousin Scott Peters worked on this film as a character technical director.

Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeg

I asked Stella what sound a pig makes and was delighted with her hilarious response:

So funny; I never get sick of watching it!

Pirates and Princesses

It's no secret that Stella enjoys all things Disney, so we couldn't pass up the Disney Junior Live On Tour! Pirate & Princess Adventure show that came to Wichita.  Originally, all three of us were going to go, but Megan was suffering from severe morning sickness due to our recent findings that we were expecting again.

Stella watches a little bit of Jake and the Never Land Pirates, but she was most excited about the "Princess" component of the show: Sofia the First.  She loves prancing around the house in her Sofia dress.  Doc McStuffins is her favorite Disney character and even though she wasn't part of the main show, she showed up for some quick pre-show entertainment so Stella really enjoyed that.

Mommmmmmmmmmmy, Daaaaaaaaaaad, Babieeee

We are so blessed to have a gifted singer serenade us during our family dinners!

Her table manners at the end where she throws the bowl down leaves some room for improvement though.

A Doc Christmas

Christmas morning, Santa had a Doc McStuffins house setup for Stella to enjoy when she got up.  It's a lengthy 10 minute video, but the very beginning captures when she first sees the house.  I love her reaction!

Her present opening skills have drastically improved this year.

Christmas Card 2013

For this year's Christmas card, we decided we wanted to capture our family in our new home and in our new city (well, new city given that we haven't lived here full time for 10+ years).  So, mom came over with her trusty DSLR and we ended up with the following in front of our fireplace upstairs:

And we just so happened to snap a good picture of Stella in front of the fireplace downstairs with the stockings for the back of our card:

Checkin' Up

Stella dressed up as Doc McStuffins today for school for Halloween.  Here she is afterwards making sure that both Ember and I have stellar tickers:

Pumpkins

Shortly after Stella was born, I carved a star pumpkin in her honor (I carved another star the following year too).  This year, Megan carved a Doc McStuffins face, Stella "poked" Minnie Mouse arms, legs, and head into a mini pumpkin, and I carved the Super Man logo (aka Super Stella).  Here she is super pumped on the outcomes: