G U Y S !  

Guess who JUST turned 1?!  I mean, I can hardly believe it myself!  As hard as I tried to keep her my tiny baby forever (I mean how much coffee and junk food to you need to feed a baby to keep her small?  TOTALLY KIDDING, OF COURSE!!!), she just keeps growing and growing!  Sheesh!  The weird thing is she doesn't seem to change physically at all!  I mean, sure she gets taller but her face looks the same as it did when she was six months old!  And man, oh, man do I love that face!

So a little bit about her birth story.

• I worked up until past my due date because I like to make sure I have off as long as possible for maternity leave with my babies. I actually almost picked up a shift on a day that I later had a false labor pains!

• I had two due dates because she was measuring over a week ahead of schedule. When I went into early/false labor between the due dates and wound up at Labor and Delivery, Jon and I were given the opportunity of picking a due date to try inducing because of the issue of transportation since Jon would have the car for driving to work. We planned on a day when he could be off for the day and we were basically given the choice of either March 14 (Pi day) or March 17th (St. Patrick's Day). So since one of my least favorite holidays is St. Patrick's day (blame on working in the restaurant business and dealing with the over drinkers for a zillion years) and we're both über nerds so it was really a no brainer!

• It was weirdly liberating to have a day planned to go in to labor! I woke up, had a slice of toast for breakfast, and you know what I did? I made something! Yep! I couldn't find my snugglie thing... you know, the little pocket blanket with the flaps that velcro, so I decided to make one, last minute. I got to put on makeup, Jon got to pick out the lucky birth T-shirt (we vividly revel in the previous ones! There was Black Butler for Azriella and a purple one with Snoopy in green shades), the Goonies, and we got to get all ready to go!

• We tried a whole bunch of things to naturally induce labor that didn't work for h o u r s in the hospital room. Eventually I succumbed to getting medically induced and jeez did it work! The meds didn't get there soon enough! I hardly wanted to interrupt the conversation to tell them to start the epidural because things were getting excruciating.

• When she was born, she looked just like a little panda because of the shape of her eyes and her chubby cheeks so that's how she adapted the nickname "Panda Pi" since Pi day and all.

• This was the quickest I've ever been sent home back with baby from the hospital. Not even 24 hours later we were home with our new little bundle of awesomeness!

• Akira was also the only labor I've had with no complications and she was my biggest at 8lbs at birth!

• Sidenote: while I knew I wanted my first girl to be named Azriella, it took a reeeeallly long time for Jon and I to decide on a name for Sephira. Akira? Yeah that took all of maybe 30 to agree on!

• Akira has been from day one has been an excellent sleeper. She never woke in the night from her first night; I always had to set an alarm to wake her to feed her! She's like a professional baby, hardly ever cries when going down for naps and she even once fell asleep on my chest as I was wearing her whilst I was in the middle of bowling!

• She is definitely the easiest baby I've ever had and she never ceases to amaze me with how much my heart can be filled up by just having her in my life.

A little about her outfit:

 Since I don't believe in putting babies in dresses till they can sufficiently stand and walk on their own because A.) I don't think you can ever get the full effect of the outfit unless someone holds them up and B.) because it's really really difficult for crawlers to do their thing if a dress keeps getting stuck under their knees.  So, I went with a fashion forward, Korean kids fashion inspired outfit that would be super comfy, easy to slip on and off, would be great as separates, and that could be used for most occasions.

• hood pattern: free pdf from A Lemon Squeezy Home (I honetly have used this pattern no less than 6 times! Love it!)

• sleeveless raglan: heavily altered Sweet Bonnie PDF by Shwin + Shwin

• lil sweatpants with cuffs: self-drafted

• fabrics used are faux suede in black and faux suede in white to give the appearance of a little lux without being uncomfortable. Hood lining is black with white polka dots cotton.

AND A MOST HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY MOST PRECIOUS AKIRA!  

many many smooches, hugs and stitches,

kat