Bailey’s First YMCA Shirt

Filed Under Clothes, Me, Twenty Months | 4 Comments

If you know me, you know why this shirt was fun for me to receive from my friend Sarah. I couldn’t get Bailey to cooperate but this is her new “jammy shirt” for the spring/summer. I did put long pants on with it after these pictures were taken.

If you don’t know my life story, I worked at a YMCA camp for four summers. It was weird, because it was like a place completely separate from real life. We could do anything we wanted to do (oh and trust me, we did plenty of stupid things). It was the land of driving golf carts and 15 passenger vans instead of cars, of drinking at a country bar at age 17, of having flings with college guys from other countries… of sneaking out and hiding on porches, of creating an elite club based on a wooden spoon, of spending the day baking in the sun and never getting enough sleep. Meeting locals who paid for a paternity test to see whether their uncle was their sister’s daddy, etc (Seriously). Karaoke-ing to Madonna after doing too many shots of something called c*ck$ucking cowboy. (Don’t ask me what was in that shot but I promise it was good. I’ve never found another bartender who has heard of it, though). It was a place where I grew up, where I was my happiest (until becoming a mother), where I took chances and had adventures and made some of my best friends. The YMCA will always have a special place in my heart.

Playdate at Logan’s House

Filed Under Friends, Playdates, Twenty Months | 4 Comments

Last Wednesday we had a playdate with our momslikeme.com playgroup that my friend Amy set up. We went to a little boy named Logan’s house. We actually met Logan about a year ago at the nursing group we used to go to. This playdate was the first time I got to take my new camera somewhere. (Did I mention, Best Buy FINALLY let me choose a replacement camera last Saturday?) We had to add some money to what they gave us but I ended up getting a much nicer camera than our old one. I have been so excited about my camera.

Anyway- here are some pictures from that day. I realize I have been neglecting my blog but I’ve just been busy. I miss it though.

I love going to playdates at other peoples houses, because Bailey is always so excited about their toys!

I just love this picture of Bene and Logan

Emily and Ella (check out their blog, Ella is such a cutie and an amazing talker!)

I promise to sit down later and write a real post with an update on all of us. And a peek at my new coffee machine!

The best thing

Filed Under Firsts, Twenty Months | 10 Comments

Today Bailey came up to me and kissed me on the cheek. All on her own, without any prompting. It was the best thing that has happened to me in a long, long time.

20 Months

Filed Under Food, Talking, Twenty Months | 2 Comments

Bailey has been 20 months old for a while so I figure it’s high time for me to post about it. This month has been amazing, frustrating, exhausting, energizing, snotty, funny… I have run the whole gamut of emotions over the last few weeks. I can tell Bailey is getting closer to two. She has a mind of her own and an attitude, too. She can also be very sweet and loves to try to make us laugh. She makes funny faces and is talking like crazy.

She puts two or three words together now! Some of her latest phrases are “Where’s it?” “Where’s it baby?” (looking for her doll) “Open it,” “Need that,” and “Thank you, welcome” which she says after I hand her something. Here is a list of her current words:
Addie
All done
All gone
Amy
Avie
Baby
Backpack
Bad
Bag
Bailey
Balloon
Bang
Bar
Barn
Barney
Bear
Beautiful
Bebo (for belly button)
Bed
Bert
Bible
Big bird
Bird
Black
Blankie
Blue
Booger
Boogie
Book
Boots
Brown
Brush
Bunny
Button
Cake
Candle
Candy
Car
Cat
Chair
Cheerio
Cheese
Chickie
Christmas
Church
Color
Come on!
Cookie
Corn
Couch
Cow
Cream
Dada
Daddy
Dance
Dargan (Dungan)
Diaper
Ding
Doctor
Dog
Doggie
Door
Dora
Down
Drum
Duck
Eat
Eat it
Eight
Elephant
Ella
Elle
Elmo
Ernie
Exercise
Eye
Eyebrow
Face
Finger
Fish
Fishies
Flower
Foot
Fork
Fridge (feej)
Fries
Frog
Gabe
Geenay
Geoff
God
Good
Green
Grover
Guitar
Hair
Head
Horn
Horse
Hot
Hug
Ice cream
Jesus
Juice
Jump
Kangaroo
Kate
Kenzie
Kick
Kiss
Kitty cat
Knee
Koby
Light
Lion
Lollipop
Mail
Mama
Man
Meow
Milk
Mine
Mommy
Money
Monkey
Moo
More
Movie
Nana
Neck
Need that
Neigh
Night night
Nine
No
Nose
Office
Oh man
One
Papa
Paper
Party
Pat
Peacock
Peas
Pee
Pencil
People
Picture
Pig
Pillow
Pinky
Pizza
Please
Poop
Popock
Potty
Pretty
Purple
Push
Quack quack
Raisin
Reach
Red
Ring
Sandal
Santa claus
Scissors
Sconce
Scoop
Seven
Sheep
Shoe
Sing
Sit
Sleep
Slide
Snack
Snowman
Sock
Sorry
Spoon
Sssss (snake)
Sticker
Table
Teddy
Teeth
Telly
Ten
Tiny
Toe
Tree
Triangle
Truck
Tub
Tummy
Turkey
Turn
Tweet tweet
Two
Up
Video
Wake up
Walk
Want it
Water
Where’s it
Woof woof
Work
Yellow
Yes
Yogurt
Yuck
Zoe

I can tell we are getting closer to the “terrible twos” as we certainly have our rough days! Bailey likes to test her limits. Once she ends up in time out she is quick to say “Sowwy, mommy!” and try to get out of trouble. She is also sneaky. She tries to duck and sneak away if you are trying to catch her for a diaper change or bedtime. Speaking of which, she loves sleeping with lots of blankies now. I keep finding her with them over her head. I check on her right after she falls asleep and move all of her blankets away from her face. We are also working on learning more about the potty. Not much success, but we have some new books and she understands that she makes pee in her diaper, etc.

Favorite foods right now are shredded cheese, grapes, Gerber ravioli, crackers and milk. She also has discovered that she likes pizza and lollipops. She also likes raw carrots cut into thin strips but they make her gag sometimes. She refuses to even taste most things that she doesn’t recognize.

I guess that’s what is new with our Bug. I’m just glad I remembered to get this posted. Since she’s almost TWENTY-ONE MONTHS OLD. Wow.

Popcorn

Filed Under Into Everything, Twenty Months | 3 Comments

My kid, she’s funny now. She has a sense of humor and she is to the age where she is starting to say funny stuff. Like “come on, mommy” and describing everything she’s doing. Last night we were in the car. After turning out of our neighborhood we go down a big hill. She said, “Slide, weeeee!” I was like “Is the car going down a slide?” She said “Yeah, car slide! Weeee! Up slide” as we went back up another hill. It’s fun.

Last night I was eating a bowl of popcorn in my office. I finished most of it and then left the empty bowl (lazy slob) on the bathroom countertop in our hallway bathroom. Just now I was checking my email and I heard scratching noises. I though the bathroom was empty because the door was mostly open. The scratching persisted and I went in the bathroom. Crouched behind the door, in the dark, was Bailey. She was holding the popcorn bowl and looked up with me at huge eyes. She said, “Eat it” so quietly. I just about died laughing. Then I grabbed the bowl away from her and came in here to blog about it.

But really, can you be mad at this face? I mean for more than two minutes?

Cute little forced smile, she says “cheese” whenever she sees a camera.

TV Buddies

Filed Under Daddy, TV, Twenty Months | 2 Comments

These are from about two weeks ago when Bailey was sick. These two are such tv junkies, I swear either one will watch just about anything. We don’t need barcode scanners to check them and tell that they belong together. They are made for each other.

You can see the sad little tear running down her cheek, my poor sick little baby.

No dustbunnies

Filed Under Play, Twenty Months | 1 Comment

Just Bailey under her bed!

Forgive my lack of posting

Filed Under Holidays, Parties, Twenty Months | 3 Comments

I have been busy obsessing over sewing patterns online, and finding new recipes to try. I must be becoming a housewife. Yikes. On to the real world…

We partied like rockstars on new year’s eve. All the way until 9:00 pm. We went to a party at Mae’s house.

There was a little time to chat with friends, and we spent a lot of time chasing Bailey around and helping her remember how to share.

They had an early countdown for the kids. All Bailey has talked about since then is the “dance party” and “happy happy happy.” Check out the countdown madness:

After that, we had a cake for Mae’s daughter Boo’s fifth birthday. They had a cool candle from China on top, it opened up into a flower and played music. Apparently, it’s still playing the music in the dumpster behind Mae’s house…

2008 IN REVIEW

Filed Under Bailey's Birthday, Christmas, Cloth Diapering, Daddy, Disney Vacation, Eighteen Months, Eleven Months, Fifteen Months, Firsts, Fourteen Months, Hair, Halloween, Nineteen Months, Play, Professional Pictures, Seventeen Months, Sixteen Months, Ten Months, Thirteen Months, Twelve Months, Twenty Months | 4 Comments

We were so blessed with a wonderful year. No major catastrophes, no deaths in our families, a daughter who has stayed healthy (with the exception of a few colds) and continued to grow and learn and amaze us… Here are the highlights of our year.

January- please note her lack of hair, compared to now

February- and Bailey is walking!

March

April- happy first birthday, Bailey!

May

June

July

August

September- Jonathon and I went to Disney World

October

November

December

Happy New Year!

Christmas

Filed Under Christmas, Gifts, Twenty Months | 2 Comments

I should probably write a nice post about our Christmas and tell all the details so that I have them in my head for later. But at this point I’m not so concerned about it anymore. A few quick highlights-

-Bailey loved to pass out the packages to everyone, and watch them open. Much more than she liked opening her own gifts. She is so generous and did not have that “I want it all for me” kid mentality. She was content with one gift and was almost annoyed when I wanted her to open more.
-I tried to read the Christmas story to her from her Jesus Storybook Bible but she wanted nothing to do with it. I had all these visions of us having this family storytime… right….
-She does not like sleeves with elastic in the cuffs.
-She will eat any kind of cookie, sometimes ice cream, never cake. She will not eat watergate salad or ambrosia even if I tell her its ice cream.
-My grandma was coughing all day and finally went to the hospital on Friday to be diagnosed with pneumonia. I am glad she wasn’t contagious!
-Jonathon got me a GPS, my parents got me a tennis bracelet (white gold to replace the yellow gold one I have from college graduation), my grandparents got me a sewing machine.
-Jonathon forgot to buy anything for my stocking.

My Brother In Law

Filed Under In-Laws, Twenty Months | 1 Comment

He’s in town for only two days. So what are they doing? He’s napping on the couch and Jonathon is downstairs on his computer. Quality time, morons.

Wait, you really just wanted to see pictures of Bailey? Oh good. Well here are a few of her eating a chocolate cookie the other night. And the sugar high that followed.

Christmas Eve

Filed Under Christmas, Church, Twenty Months | 3 Comments

We are trying to make sure that Bailey knows why we celebrate Christmas- that it’s Jesus’ birthday- and not just a Santa Claus holiday. We also want to do all the fun Santa stuff, too. So we are kind of trying to find the happy medium in all of it.

Every year, we go to Christmas Eve service at church. This year, we went to the 5:00 service. I wanted Bailey to join us for part of the service. I brought crayons and puzzles and other quiet activities for her. She would have done really well if she could have seen her toys. However, they decided to have the whole service in the dark so there was no way for any of the kids to stay busy. There were a lot of antsy kids during the service. They offered nursery for kids under 3, so I took B to the nursery partway through but it was full and we couldn’t leave her. I was really frustrated, we probably would have just stayed home if I had known that she couldn’t go to childcare.

After church, we went over to my parents house. It was just the five of us. In the past, we used to open our stockings on Christmas Eve and then play games and eat lots of snacks. Obviously it’s not the same anymore, but it’s so much more fun with a little one around than with just a bunch of adults.

We decided to make a tradition of doing a birthday party for Jesus on Christmas Eve after church. Bailey got to open one gift (a coloring book) and when she is older we will probably play a game or something. Also the kids might get Christmas jammies! This year, we just did a cake. Note the Little People Jesus on top He had to take a break from sledding down the roof of the nativity in order to appear on the cake. (If you haven’t heard, Bailey thinks Jesus likes to sled and/or slide down the roof of the stable. She says “Wheee, swide!” and then when he lands on the floor, she says, “Cwash!”

Thanks for the new coloring book! It’s time to go to sleep so Santa can come bring more toys!

Santa Came Early (Dec 23rd)

Filed Under Christmas, Gifts, Toys, Twenty Months | 5 Comments

We decided that Santa was going to deliver one of the gifts early to our house. Bailey is one year old, she has no idea how many times Santa is supposed to come and let’s face it- she doesn’t remember from one day to the next whether he’s been here already or not. Since I needed to get a lot of baking and cleaning done, and I was excited for her to get her kitchen, we gave it to her the morning of the 23rd when she got up. She was SO excited.

It’s the Step 2 Lifestyle Partytime Kitchen. Try saying that five times fast. Originally, I was going to get her a much smaller kitchen. But we decided that it made more sense to get something she could use for a long time instead of having to replace it in a year or two. This one is a little too big for her now (she can’t really reach the microwave, etc) but there is plenty for her to do anyway. Also it’s big enough to have a friend play too. It’s so sturdy that I think it will hold up well, and it got good reviews. We got it on sale and it seemed like the best kitchen for the price.

Bailey’s favorite things to do with the kitchen are to cook her Little People and to cook an ice cream cone. We just got her a small set of food for it. She also likes to warm up her baby’s bottle- my mom showed her how to do that. The burners even light up and make different bubbling/sizzling noises depending on what pot you put on them. The microwave makes noise and you can press a popcorn button to hear popcorn popping.

No kitchen is complete without a phone! It has more realistic ringtones and stuff than some of her other play phones. She will only call Grammy (Geenay), Grampa (Popock) or Santa Claus (Kee Claush). Her conversations usually go, “Hallo. Hi. Good. Toys. Bye!” She also paces while she talks- it’s funny the stuff you learn about yourself from watching your kids!

She also loves to explore all the cabinets and drawers and stuff. There are little slots for the plates inside the top cabinets. I tried to show her how to put the silverware in the drawer but she thinks it is for “binks” (a.k.a. her binkies, which she would NEVER use as a baby but is now obsessed with playing with them).

Thank you, Santa Claus!

Christmas Tree Shirt Painting

Filed Under Christmas, Crafts, Twenty Months | 6 Comments

The other day, my friend Casey invited us over to make Christmas shirts with her and her daughter, Addison. We had been talking about how we didn’t get the girls Christmas shirts this year, just dresses. So she had this cute craft idea and we decided to try it out.

Bailey loved painting. I thought that she would flip about having paint on her hands but she didn’t seem to mind. We have been working on doing more sensory stuff, so hopefully it’s been helping. She also loved these little puffy ball things and kept wanting to hold them all. She would take one and rub it on paper and tell me she was painting. So I’m not really sure that she grasped the definition of “paint.”

Yes, she has eyeshadow on in this picture. You might have to click on it to see it bigger in order to actually SEE the eyeshadow and paint. She kept bugging me about mind so I told her to close her eyes and she let me put it on. She also likes to wear powder and lip gloss. Kids these days Anyway i thought this picture was funny because you can see the eyeshadow and also the paint she got all over her face. We also learned from this experience- if you are doing an art project with one and a half year olds, and it has the potential to be messy, it’s better to let them do it one at a time so you have another adult for backup help. Otherwise you are both messy and have a kid covered in paint, and no spare hands.

Here is the finished shirt. It turned out cute but I wish it didn’t have the random smears of paint on it. That’s what you get when your kid makes it themselves, though. But I have always told myself I am not going to be one of those moms who does their kid’s art project FOR them. I know you know the kind I mean. You go to a class and the mom is all “No honey, let mommy color it for you.” Who cares, it’s their art, not yours. And I guess everyone will be quite aware of that on Christmas day this year when she wears her shirt!

This last one is from after we got home that day. Bailey likes to put stuff in this little Christmas tin. She is also starting to get really excited about Santa. She tries to say Santa Claus but it comes out “Kee Claush.” If you ask her what Santa brings, she says “Toys!” and if you ask her what else, she says “Shishens.” She is getting a play kitchen for Christmas so we keep telling her maybe Santa will bring a kitchen.