Three, oh, It's the Magic Number

So says a Blind Melon School House Rock song, and in our case, it works! Brad and I were very excited to welcome Cassady Lee Wilson into our family on April 1, 2009! Yep, we have a little April fools boy, and the joke was on us, as he decided to make his appearance three weeks early! We are absolutely thrilled to have the little guy here, and are enjoying every minute (even the sleep deprived ones) with him. Cassady was born at 1:57 pm, weighing 5 lbs 14 oz and 18 in long. The labor and delivery progressed very quickly and without incident, so we were grateful for that. Here are a few early shots of Cassady in the hospital.

Ready to go!

Love those chubby cheeks!

Because the labor went so fast, only my parents Glen & Margaret were able to make it to the hospital in time for Cassady's birth. Here he is meeting his grandparents for the first time.

My sister Kerri and Brad's parents Sonny and Marie all got to the hospital shortly after Cassady was born and were able to spend time with him before he had to go to the nursery for the first time. Kerri, send me photos of you and Cass, I don't have any!


Here's the outfit we picked out for his hospital picture. It pretty much fell off him since he's so small. Also, Cassady is not a fan of hats.


We got to take Cassady home on April 3, but he had a touch of jaundice and dehydration, so we had to take him back in a day later to spend some time under the photo light machine.

Catching some rays

Ahhh yes, the milk coma

All has been going great with Cassady since his brief return to the hospital. A few more photos from his first few weeks here at the house.

Male bonding

A thumb sucking champ

Just a'swingin

And baby makes three!

Many more photos and updates on Cassady to follow shortly I'm sure!

Forcast says showers

I'm a big fan of the phrase "Better late than never," and never was there a better example of this than my just now getting around to posting about the baby showers that family and friends were wonderful enough to host for Brad and I and our new little family addition.

First was the Paris shower, hosted by our dear friend Tami Willoughby. Tami is dating Brad's cousin Carlo, and we've loved her from the moment we met her! The shower was on February 28 (yikes, see what I mean about better late than never) in the multipurpose area of the church that Sonny & Marie attend.

A shot of me and Tami. This was early on as I lost my clothes pin within about 2 minutes of walking in.

This was us trying to draw a picture of the baby in his crib on top of our head.
Mine looked like a cross between a cat and an alien.

The beautiful cake that Tami made herself! I found out she used to work summers as a Baskin Robbins cake decorator back in high school. She's got serious skills!

We got tons of cute stuff for the little guy!

Miss Anna Banana won the "Don't say 'baby' or I'll take your clothes pin" game hands down!

Overall it was a wonderful afternoon in Paris with family and friends. Mom even made the trip west with me, and it was a great time.

Second on the shower list was a March 14th soiree in my hometown of Smithville that was hosted by my sister Kerri, Aunt Sha, and cousins Jennifer, Amanda and Lori. Most of us have moved away from Smithville, so Mom was nice enough to offer her house as the location for this shower. Most of the attendees were from our church family in Smithville and aunts and cousins on my mother's side.

The hostesses with the mostesses!
From L to R, Amanda, Aunt Sha, Kerri, Abby, Avery, me, mom, Lori, Lily Kate and Jennifer

Kerri, mom and me. Poor mom, she found out the next day she had strep throat! You'd never know by looking at this pic how bad she felt; what a trooper!

Aunts and cousins from my mom's side:
Aunt Jo Ann, Tiffany (who had a baby in Dec, not that you can tell!!), Kerri, me, Aunt Benita and Martha Ann

Super cute diaper bag!

The last of the showers was here in Knoxville on March 21, and was hosted by friends and hostesses extraordinaire Jen, Carrie, Shon and Kat. As always, these gals went out of their way to make the day a special one, and I loved that my mom and sister finally got to meet all these great Knoxville gals that they hear me talk about all the time!

Mom's always know how to work those tricky corsage pins!

College friends Faith and Courtney, with daughter Sophie, made the trip in from out of town

Carrie created these little masterpieces. They tasted as good as they looked!

Such pretty smiles from the Knoxville crew!
Shon, Carrie and Megan in front, Lila, Jen, me and Beth in the back

Yes, Jen made this adorable diaper cake.
I'm keeping it fully assembled in case of a diaper emergency!

Mom, me and Kerri. We didn't plan the green!

Sophie eyes Lotti Sue's toy collection.
Why is it that everyone else's toys are always so much cooler than your own?

More to come later on all this baby stuff and the great blog catch up!

Brad's Birthday Weekend

Whew, we've been so busy with blog-worthy activities that I haven't been able to keep up with them all! So hopefully today is the day to catch up on lots of news and photos from the past month.

Brad turned 33 on February 16, and it was quite the celebratory occasion! The weekend was extra special because for Christmas we'd given his parents tickets to the UT men's basketball game against Vanderbilt for the same weekend. We had a great time with Sonny and Marie in town, and UT won the game handily!

A view of the court from our nosebleed seats.

Neither Brad or Marie like heights, and though they were a
little nervous to be so high up, they did great in those seats!

Sonny taking in the action.

Here's Brad opening all his loot. He made quite the haul!

And yes, I did get him a Little Green carpet stain remover. When did birthdays go from being fun to practical?! At any rate, with new carpet downstairs, 3 pets and a little one on the way, I figured it would get a lot of use!

Here's a quick pic of me before we headed out to the game. I was 31 weeks along at this point, and still packing on the pounds. The little guy is doing great, and growing and moving all the time!

Cupcake-apalooza!

So my friends Carrie and Jen got this great cupcake decorating book over the holidays and decided that we gals should treat ourselves to a fun afternoon of catching up while simultaneously frosting, piping, icing and decorating cupcakes. Carrie supplied the location and the cupcakes (chocolate banana cupcakes...where have you been all my life?!), and the rest of us brought over decorating accessories. I'm not usually the crafty sort, but this was FUN, not to mention tasty!

We started off with the sunflowers, because they seemed fairly straight forward and simple.

Kat and Carrie making beautiful blooms.

Me and Kat show off the final product.

Next we moved on to the owls. I think these little guys were my favorite! But maybe that's just because I loved the chocolate frosting!

Such wise looking eats!

Up next were the insects. These were much more difficult, as they involved piping melted chocolate onto a bug pattern and letting it dry. Jen had quite the steady hands, so she took the cake (so to speak!) on making these guys.


Lastly we tackled the butterflies. These involved piping melted chocolate as well, but one step farther, we had to fill in the wing span with the pink icing. Kat was an art major, and she rocked on making these little guys!


All in all, it was a fun afternoon with lots of finger-licking, cupcakery goodness! Everyone brought a container and got to take home 10 or so of the cupcakes to enjoy at their leisure. I think mine only lasted a few days!

The Jasper Update

So as many of you know, our good friends Katherine & P.J. had their first baby on December 21, an adorable little guy they've named Jasper Joseph. Jasper clocked in at 9 lbs even and 21 inches long, with blue eyes and blond hair. We are so excited for them, and honestly, it's been great to have a good friend go through pregnancy, labor and delivery so closely before I will, as they have been a great source of information. We visited them a while ago, and I'm just now getting around to sharing the pictures.

Nom Nom Nom

And baby makes three!

As for my pregnancy, all is going well! I hit 26 weeks today, and have an appointment next week for my glucose testing. After that, we'll start seeing the doc every two weeks as opposed to once a month. Time is really starting to fly by! I've attached the most recent pic that we have of me, from four or five days ago. I swear, I think the little guy has grown more since then!


That's it for now, as I've got to head out for my pregnancy massage. Brad decided I needed a treat, isn't he the best?!

Christmas 2008

Well, about two weeks after the fact, I'm finally getting around to posting some of our Christmas photos. Brad and I had a great time celebrating Christmas with our families! We spent two nights in Smithville with my folks (the Nichols) and then drove on to Paris, where we spent the next three nights with Brad's family. Lots of extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were in on the action, so it really made for a great holiday!

The festivities kicked off with the big Nichols family get together on the 23rd. This group started out being my dad, his parents, grandmother, sister and her three children. Over the years, we've expanded quite a bit, to where now I think there are a total of 23 of us, seven of which are age eight and under (and 5 that are 2 and under!). So needless to say, it is quite the circus!

Kerri with Abby and Avery

Ben tries out his new safety goggles that came with the tool set!

John Pierce and Jackson loved tearing into those new toys!

Jake can charm the cheerios out of anyone!

Lilly Kate isn't worried about keeping up with the older kids!
Daddy Glen and LaMurle browse through the 2009 family calendar.

Abby and Avery treated us all to a runway fashion show!

After the full family get together, we also did a small present exchange and stocking stuffers with mom, dad, Kerri and Adam. Mom's so thoughtful, she even had a stocking for the baby this year! Baby Wilson really racked up this Christmas, and we are so thankful for all the gifts people gave him.

Santa was good to the Nichols this year!

Here are some random gift-opening shots of mom, dad, Kerri, Adam and Brad. We had such a great time with everyone!

Moving along to the Paris portion of the holidays, we were lucky enough to spend time with Brad's paternal grandmother, aunts and their families, in addition to getting to see Brad's brother and sister and their kids too!

Aunt Beverly, Momommie, Sonny and Uncle Tony

Anna, me, Tammy and Carlo

Aunt Cathy and Aunt B

Brad's parents, Sonny and Marie

Sonny with his 3 children, Brad, Lisa and David

The grand kids, Megan, Chandler (front) and Tyler, Brandon and Zack (back)

Us and baby, at 23 weeks

All in all, it was a wonderful holiday and we had a great time with the family! After being gone for 6 days, it was also good to get home to see Woody and the cats!