Randomness in Picture Form

Filed Under Avon, Church, Clothes, Gifts, Grandparents, Random, Toys, Two Years Old | 1 Comment

This was the first warmer-weather outfit I put on Bailey this spring. I can tell the difference in her looks even from just a few weeks ago when this was taken!

Bailey got some cool new stuff for her birthday. One of her favorite gifts was the monkey play-dough set from her friend Mackenzie. She got a little obsessed so we (I) made a rule that she only got to do play-dough with Daddy!

Speaking of her friend Mackenzie- here they are at church. They see each other every week in the hallway outside the nursery and get so excited! They were rolling around on the floor and laughing.

Then I decided I should try to get a picture of her with Grampa, but she wasn’t really into it.

And at home watching Barney after church, wearing her sunglasses, OF COURSE. Because she likes to wear them ALL THE TIME.

This is a Dora nightgown that Grammy gave Bailey for her birthday (or Easter, maybe). She loves to wear it around the house but she WILL NOT sleep in it. She thinks it’s a dress and I haven’t been able to convince her otherwise. But it works well for a comfy play-around-the-house outfit.

I don’t remember if I posted this one before but she was putting puzzle pieces all over Jonathon. He let her do it for a long time… that man has much more patience than I do! It was pretty cute though.

And just one last one of her playing… if you look on the table you can see some Weebles stuff. I found it at a yard sale in our neighborhood and she was with me at the time. She thought it was Little People and started yelling “Peeeeepole!” One of the best $3 purchases I have made lately- she can interchange a lot of it (size-wise) with Little People and she just adores any type of little guys/cars/houses/animals like that right now. This set came with a house, swing, about five guys including Santa and a snowman, a motorcycle, and a car. Hours of fun.

As for me- I am winning a new prize for my Avon recruiting. We are getting two new gold iPod mp3 players in a few weeks! Jonathon was SO excited about this. I will have to figure out how to use it now…

Wordless Wednesday- Rock Star in Mommy’s Glasses

Filed Under Two Years Old, Wordless Wednesday | 5 Comments

Thursday at the Zoo

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We went to the zoo again last Thursday. It started out cooler and cloudy so I had Bailey in jeans and a jacket… by lunchtime we had to borrow a pair of shorts from her friend Kaylee! Just a few pictures to share. Bailey kept trying to climb into Addison’s stroller so I told Addison to just sit on her. They thought it was great.

There is a reason

Filed Under Are you kidding me?, Into Everything, Two Years Old | 3 Comments

This is why Bailey can’t use markers without being stripped down to a diaper AND having close supervision. Her body automatically turns into a drawing surface.

Birthday Outfit

Filed Under Clothes, Gifts | 4 Comments

Check out Bailey’s cute birthday girl shirt! It was a gift from her friend Ella. She wore it to church on Sunday and then wanted to put this party hat on when we got home afterward. And the great thing is, the shirt is a size 3 so I am hoping we can wear it again next year! (Thank you, Emily and Ella!)

Birthday Party at Gymboree

Filed Under Birthdays, Friends, Parties, This Rocks, Two Years Old | 3 Comments

I am so, so glad that we decided to do Bailey’s party at Gymboree Play and Music. First of all I just can’t say enough about how well run the party was. Our party leader/teacher kept all the kids busy and happy. There were 13 toddler/two year olds and a four year old. There was not a single tantrum, meltdown, injury, fit, nothing. Every time they got restless she moved on to another activity. Everything was totally age appropriate. It was perfect for Bailey because of her energy level. She was able to run and jump and scream most of the time and just be herself.

We had an hour in the play room. They started with 20 mins of free play then the teacher did a song or march or activity about every three or four minutes and the kids either ran around or participated if they wanted to. Then the last ten minutes in the play room were bubbles and parachute. They all marched and followed the teacher into the party room for cake. None of them cried because she made it so fun to leave the play area! The party room was set up with a parachute on the floor like a picnic blanket, and there were party hats and juice boxes arranged in a circle.

Gymboree provided everything except the cake and pizza! They only had a half hour in the party room. I could have paid extra for more time but I chose not to. I’m glad I didn’t because by the time they finished eating cake they didn’t want to sit still and be contained any more. Then some of the antsier kids went out to the lobby to play with toys and ride on the rocking horses. Bailey even got a birthday t-shirt! The really cool thing was that the day of the party, all I had to do was pick up the cake and make sure her dress was ironed!

We are so thankful that Bailey’s friends (and my friends too) were able to come celebrate with us. Thank you to everyone for helping to make it a wonderful day for her!

Bailey’s Actual Birthday-day

Filed Under Birthdays, Daddy, Shopping, Two Years Old | 1 Comment

On Bailey’s second birthday, she decided to test my limits and show me what two year olds could act like! We had a crazy day at some points. We went to visit daddy at work for lunch, so she dressed up.

Say cheese!

Here she is at work with daddy. We were hard pressed to get this shot. She spent most of lunch laying on the floor under her chair, and trying to run like a wild woman through the cafeteria. It might be a while before we visit again…

After we left his work, we went to one of her favorite places… the post office! She was so sad when we left the post office. (We go there a lot to ship eBay and Avon and B/S/T stuff). So I decided to cheer her (and me!) up with a trip to Target. She loves their popcorn. She kept telling me “No no Mommy! Beelay’s turn!” when I tried to take a bite.

Bailey took a good nap that day. Daddy went and got pizza for dinner, and we gave Bailey a new Little People set. It’s a Fun Sounds Train and she loves it! There is a whole track with a station and lots of other things to play with. We had a fun and relaxing evening. I think she enjoyed her birthday.

Happy Second Birthday, Little Muffin

Filed Under Birthdays, Two Years Old | 4 Comments

My dearest sweetie Bailey,

Somewhere along the way during your second year, I got out of the habit of writing you monthly letters. Not because I don’t have anything to day… but we are just so busy living life and having fun at this point. And you don’t make it very easy to sit at the computer for more than a few minutes at a time. Definitely not long enough to compose a thoughtful post. Today you climbed on my lap at the computer to steal some of my Whoppers from Easter. You are nosey and you always can find everything I try to hide!

You are such a wonderful little girl. I truly enjoy every day with you. Yes, we have our moments where we “fight” and you test my patience. You always want to see just how far you can push, where the limits are. You are brave and bold and full of curiosity and life. You are talkative and you try to be funny and you like to march and dance and play with your foam letters in the bathtub and sing silly songs in the car. You now sing “Old Donald had farm… eieio… Farm had duck, eieio…” and so on. You can say your ABC’s now and sing the song too. Just today you sang “A B C D E F G Aisheye jaykay ellmo-pee… kwarstee you vee duhyou six yyyy zeee!” You also can climb up to reach your videos (“vee-oh’s”) on the shelf, and you get on the bathroom countertop to get your toothbrush. It drives me nuts.

You sleep in a big girl bed now. You like to tell me that you’re a “bigger girl.” Trust me sweetie, I know. I can’t believe how grown up you are sometimes. Even before you turned two, I stopped thinking of you as a baby or a one-year-old. That just didn’t seem to encompass everything you were capable of. You know all your colors (including white!) and you are starting to want to learn letters. You love Sesame Street and your Elmocize exercise video. You had an Elmo birthday cake at your family party and thought it was pretty cool. I spent a long time making that because I couldn’t wait to surprise you and see the joy on your face. You call Nutri-Grain bars Big Bird Bars (slurred into one word, “Beebarn”) and Pediasure nutrition bars are Cookie Monster Bars. We also call baby food fruit Kangaroo Food. Anything to get you to eat! Your favorites continue to be yogurt, pureed fruit, chicken nuggets, and cheese. You hate bread… still… Oh and you just started thinking it’s fun to carry a purse, so I have been collecting purses to match your outfits!

Daddy and I love to spend time with you. You make us laugh so hard. We get a kick out of trying to translate when you run a bunch of words together into one big sentence. You regularly say “Kiss you ME!” when you want a kiss. That’s my favorite. You have also started using “I” such as “I drop it.” Your new phrase is “I block” if you are holding a block, or “I cookie” if you want a cookie. You’ll figure it out soon enough. I am not in a hurry for you to lose your cute toddler language.

I feel like I understand your feelings and you words better than anyone else. I “get” you. And you are becoming very in tune with the emotions of people around you. If I am sad you come kiss my face. You love to hug your friends and family. You make me so happy. Being your mom is the best thing I have ever experienced. You are my beautiful sweetheart, my love, my angel, my muffie muff… I am so thankful for these two years I have had with you. I will do anything I can to make you the happiest little girl in the world. (Yes, we still have rules sweetie, but look at the big picture!) I love you.

Mommy xoxo

Last Day as a One Year Old

Filed Under Twenty-three Months | 2 Comments

Yes, I am a cheesy, sappy mom sometimes. Yesterday was Bailey’s last full day being a one year old. Here she is before her class.

Bailey’s Family Party, Part 1

Filed Under Bailey's Birthday, Cooking/Baking, Food, Twenty-three Months, Two Years Old | 6 Comments

Bailey has been soooo excited for her party. She has been saying, “Beelay’s happy birthday! Can-do’s! (Candles) Cake! Eat it! All friends! Ah cream! Elmo!” and singing Happy Birthday for days now. So when she got up from her nap yesterday and we told her it was time to get ready for her party… well she was pretty thrilled.

I tried to get a picture of her in her cupcake shirt before the party. We are saving her party dress for her “friend party” on Saturday. Once again she wasn’t cooperating the best because we were at Grammy’s house.

Guess why I didn’t want to bake an Easter cake- I made an Elmo cake for Bailey! It’s not perfect but I think it turned out fairly well!

The cake wasn’t hard to make… just time consuming. I enjoy doing crafty stuff so it was fun for me. It would have been more fun if MIL hadn’t been leaning over my shoulder. Jonathon finally told her to go away and give me some space. After I gave him The Look. You know, the “Get your mother away from me right now” look.

Anyway back to the party. Bailey LOVED her cake. She does not really like cake in general (in fact she informed me before seeing the cake that she was ONLY going to eat ice cream). Here she was waiting for someone to start serving her food! This look cracks me up. And yes, she is topless under that bib. We stripped her down to a diaper for her cake and ice cream. There is an entire bottle of red food coloring in that icing! My right hand is still a little stained, in fact.

But when she saw the cake…. she couldn’t help but put her fingers in Elmo’s mouth, nose, eyes etc and taste all the different colors of icing. She loved it and we just let her do it since it was her own cake. I mean, it was just family…

This is what her plate looked like after mixing the cake and ice cream together and squishing them. Yum.

And now I am tired of blogging. Three posts in one day, that’s like a record for me lately. I will finish with the family party pictures later or tomorrow.

Easter 2009

Filed Under Holidays, Twenty-three Months | 1 Comment

We got up and went to Easter service at church. Then everyone came back to our house for the Easter Egg Hunt (where Bailey was the only hunter). It was basically a bunch of adults sitting around watching her. It made me think of two years ago when I was still pregnant on Easter and wanted to meet Bailey so badly. I can’t imagine NOT having her now.

Jonathon’s parents were in town, and my grandparents and my parents came over as well. We had ham, deviled eggs, stuffed celery, potato salad, and beans. Then for dessert I bought an apple pie and ice cream. No time for baking but you will see why in my next post.

Here are a few pictures of Bailey opening her basket. She didn’t pose for any pictures- we couldn’t get her to settle down and do “nice” Easter pictures because of the chaos.

She was so excited about the egg hunt. We used real eggs which maybe I shouldn’t have. It was fine, but she wasn’t exactly gentle. We heard lots of eggs cracking as she threw more into her basket. At least it was funny.

Mom, Dad and me

Happy Easter to everyone!

Bailey’s Big Girl Bed

Filed Under Milestones, Sleep, Twenty-three Months | 1 Comment

Oh I did not think I would be saying this any time soon. Bailey climbed out of her bed. I know, she’s almost two… but she used to LOVE her crib and never tried to get out. My girl is growing up! On Friday 4/10 at naptime she climbed out of her crib. She said, “Beelay fall. Crying.” Once Jonathon put her back in she was fine and slept there but then got out at the end of nap and knocked on her door to be let out.

Well, Friday night she wanted NOTHING to do with her crib and kept getting out so I had Jonathon take it apart. Thinking she would just sleep on the mattress on the floor. Then she cried and asked him to fix her crib, and completely freaked out over it. So he put the crib back together and took the front off so that it was like a toddler bed. After crying for a few minutes she went to sleep on her rug. Then Saturday at nap same thing, and I moved her onto the mattress on her floor. Saturday night same thing. Sunday she slept on the wooden part of the crib, the flat board the mattress rests on. Sunday night she willingly slept on the mattress. Monday nap she slept SITTING UP next to her crib with her head resting on the wooden part, for over an hour!

On Monday night we brought the toddler Dora bed home from my parents house to use. She got in it willingly and I sat next to her until she was pretty drowsy. I think she was just unsure about it and wanted some comfort with me there. Then today at nap she asked me to rock her and fell right asleep so I put her down. She is really doing pretty well in her bed so I think it’s just a matter of her getting used to falling asleep in it on a regular basis now.

Her crib is packed up in the storage room One more step toward being a big girl.

One Week From Today

Filed Under Birthdays, Professional Pictures, This Rocks, Twenty-three Months | 9 Comments

My beautiful BABY will be two. But instead of dwelling on the fact that she is growing up entirely too fast, let’s just look at some amazingly gorgeous pictures. We had these done today.

(And no, I did not know the flowers would be those colors. No, I did not see the background in advance. No, I did not turn her bracelet so that you could read her name in the pictures.)

Harper’s Island

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Did anyone else watch the Harper’s Island premiere tonight? If not, I recommend it. I think I am going to like this show. Enough lovey-drama-whodidit stuff to keep it interesting. Jonathon is not so into it. He asked why it’s on at night if it’s a soap opera. Oh please, you’re so manly. But don’t you know that he sat right there with me and watched it.

Two people died tonight. The deaths were really sudden and random. And you have absolutely no idea who did it. I was hoping for that, because I hate reading a mystery when you know who the killer is all along but the characters are too stupid to figure it out. That annoys me. So I hope it stays suspenseful, even if it makes it kind of out of the blue at parts. Anyway I will watch again next week and see what I think.

Sweet Tart Problem

Filed Under Food | 4 Comments

My favorite Easter candy is those Sweet Tart Chicks, Ducks, and Bunnies. They are really hard to find, at least around here. They haven’t been at any of the grocery stores or at T@rget. So today when I was at W@lgreens I looked and lo and behold, there they were. And of course on sale 2/$5 so I HAD to get two packs.

I just want to make sure that everyone is aware of a problem with this candy. If you eat approximately half a bag in less than 8 hours, you will get sores in your mouth from the sourness. Your tongue will also get a little shrivelly and weird. That is probably a sign to stop.