Meet the Kids Who Inspired WhatsInMyBelly.com
It was back in 2010 when my wife and I first learned we would become parents. After a few days the shock started to wear off a bit (and by “a bit” I mean hardly at all.. I’m still recovering today). I enjoy making games out of everything and trying to find unique ways to get all my family and friends involved. So, naturally, I started looking for a baby pool website. Being a web designer by trade, I was completely unimpressed with the baby pool websites I found out there. To read the full details on how this website got started, check out the About Us page. I’ll skip a lot of those details, because this post is all about the two little ones who started it all – or should I say – inspired it all.
My son Kyler is 2 1/2 now. He’s the one who caused the initial spark of panic inspiration.
Kyler shortly after he was born in April 2010
Me holding Kyler the day he was born. I probably should have gotten a haircut knowing that a baby was due soon.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get the full website online back then, in fact, I didn’t even get started, so we didn’t get to use this site when he was born. Instead, I created and ran a baby pool with good ol’ pen and paper and posted the details on our family website: The Porters Online. Yeah, it was hard life back in the day. We had to run baby pools by hand. (I wish I had this baby pool template back then.)
So, I’ll skip forward to today. Kyler is now a handfull and without the hours of help from Daniel, this site would still not exist.
Kyler Porter Running (photo by Jessica Oriole Salay of Oriole Photography)
Me and family before Baby #2 arrived (photo by Jessica Oriole Salay of Oriole Photography)
Today, Kyler is really keeping us on our toes.
Kyler on his four-wheeler. Yes, his sun glasses are upside down. That's how he rolls.
An introduction of Kyler wouldn't be complete without this photo of him learning to cheer for the Washington Redskins.
So, that’s my oldest, and the original inspiration behind this website. But, like I said, the website didn’t get off the ground until just this year. Early in 2012, my wife, Ashley, surprised me again with the announcement that we would become a family of four. We had talked quite a bit about how many kids we wanted and came to the conclusion that if #2 was a girl, that would be it for us. With that thought in mind, I decided that I would do whatever had to be done to get the baby pool website off the ground. With a lot of hard work, and quite a few late nights (bonus: training for the newborn soon to come), Daniel, Dan and I got the website launched by March (the first version, at least). That gave me plenty of time to use it before my daughter, Ella, was born in September.
So here she is, Ms. Ella Porter: (Born one month ago today. Happy 1 month, Ella!)
Ella the day she was born
Ella and my beautiful wife, Ashley
Ella Sleeping
Ella posing in her sleep the day she was born. Future model?
Ella Sleeping in the Pack-and-Play
Ella Sleeping.
So I just noticed that all but one of these photos is of her sleeping. I swear she isn’t sleeping 24/7. I guess when she’s awake we’re a little too busy to grab the camera? (Note to self: get more photos of Ella with her eyes open.)
Well there they are. The 2 kids who got the ball rolling on this baby pool website. And I guess we’ll be adding child #3 to the list soon… NO, not mine! WhatsInMyBelly.com, co-founder, Daniel Reibsamen and his wife Emily are expecting their first child in early December. If you’re reading this before the pool closes, go ahead and make a prediction. He seems to think he can beat Ella’s pool of 56 guesses. With 2 months to go and only down by 6 guesses, I highly expect their pool will becoming the biggest yet. It won’t be long before we’ll introduce you to the third inspiration for WhatsInMyBelly.com. Congratulations Daniel and Emily!
Tags: behind the scenes, history, how it started, kyler porter, whatsinmybelly.com