New trick

okay, so i have no idea how to put the pictures in the order that i want them :( but, you are all smart people (smarter than me, obviously), so i bet you can figure it out

anyway, here is bailey's newest trick! she likes to pull her paci out of her mouth, look at it and then return it to her mouth! she's usually about 75% successful with an occasional cheek or nose jamming. at least she hasn't tried to put it in her eye by mistake. mommy and daddy continue to be extremely proud of our wonderful little girl!!!

Hugs and kisses

Cereal success!

i was so proud of my baby girl last night!! she did such a good job eating her rice cereal! it was her fourth real meal and guess what, she started opening her mouth for the spoon!!!!! okay, for those of you who haven't entered the realm of parenthood quite yet, this may seem like a simple task, not a big accomplishment at all. that's probably what i would have thought just a few months ago. ooohhhhh, but i beg to differ!! i was witnessing her learning!!!! this was the main thing i loved about teaching and it is so so so much more fun to be a part of every little baby step bailey makes. i seriously almost teared up, i was so proud!! i mean, she was anticipating the spoon entering her mouth and started opening her mouth for me after just a few bites. incredible!!!! i think it was much more of a joyful experience for me since billy had missed out on the two previous feedings. i was trying to put a spoon full of rice cereal into a closed mouth, which is a lot harder than it sounds. hardly any of the cereal made it to it's desired destination on the first try and there was rice cereal everywhere......ALL over her face, the table, her bumbo, me and of course, the bib. i still found traces of it on her face in the morning and she had had a bath and everything. and, she is actually starting to enjoy the whole eating experience!!!!! what a difference a few nights can make!!! oh, and thanks to the daddy for the cute pictures :)

Woo-hoo, sleep!!!

guess what, bailey slept so long last night!!!! woo-hoo, sleep!! although there was still a bit of going up and down the stairs for me (just checking to make sure she #1 didn't have her head in the corner of the crib, she's been moving around a lot lately and/or #2 she wasn't crying because she couldn't breath well due to a stuffy nose. ) she slept a total of almost 12 hours!!! now, if only i can sleep for almost 12 uniterupted hours..... hey, i'll even take just half of that!!

B-O-B......bob

when bailey was born, one of the first things my ob said was "yep, it's a bob (aka big ole' baby)." we came to the conclusion that, since bailey was girl and all, she must be a bob-ette. well, we discovered at bailey's 4 month check-up that she still is, in fact, a bob-ette. but, she has dropped from the 90th percentile to the 80th, weighing in at 14 lbs 15 oz and is 25 1/4 inches long. what a big girl!!!!! and what a big day this big girl had. not only did she get 4 shots in her chubby little thighs (daddy was there to support and distract bailey while mommy just tried not to cry herself, as usual), but she also ate some rice cereal for the first time. i envisioned her loving and cherishing this moment, but as you can see from the pictures, she wasn't impressed. i also thought that the rice cereal would be more like the consistency of cream of wheat and was disappointed to find out it was just thicker-than-normal milk.... barely thicker. which was really hard to feed to her with a spoon. she was so confused and mad and hungry. but, after she finished off the cereal-milk plus some extra milk, she was an extremely happy,smiley baby and we all enjoyed a fun afternoon! we'll try again tomorrow night when she isn't starving and wait for that miracle sleep we've been hearing all about. and by the way, she totally has her daddy's eyebrows and facial expressions!

Big girl fun!

bailey got this awesome baby einstein exersaucer from my friends shannon, joni and denese. since she's been interested in standing lately, we broke it out and put it together (thanks mom)! although she's still a bit too short (we put a pillow underneth so her feet could touch something), bailey has fun looking at all of the toys attached to this cool thing. it's our newest method of entertainment and allows mommy to do fun things like eat and clean the house!

Magical mobile

bailey slept much better last night, yea!!!!!! we all feel better around here, especially since it's almost the weekend.

after hearing some of my friends rave about their tiny love symphony in motion mobiles, i decided to get bailey one yesterday. her daddy put it together last night during bath and n-a-k-e-d time (i'm typing it that way so it hopefully won't show up in any kind of search for that word) and she LOVES IT!!!! it fascinated her and she smiled, talked and stared at it. way too cute!!! i'm embarrassed to admit that i actually almost bought this mobile earlier for bailey, but decided against it since it didn't totally match her room. what a girly girl i was being. it is very high-tech with a remote control, 3 different classical music geniuses to choose from and a ton of baby developmental research to back it up. she was already starting to predict the movements of the beads and animals on the mobile. amazing! what a proud mommy i am! i totally wish i had bought this for her earlier, but better late than never. just look how happy she is!!! i can hardly ever catch her cute smile on film.

grumpy girls

we're all tired and grumpy around here this morning. nobody has been sleeping that great due to bailey's continued congestion :( i feel so sorry for her and wish there was more i could do to help her feel better. she absolutely hates to get her nose sucked out and just screams SO loud and squirms around, making the process all the more exhausting and terrible. i get to do all of this to the soothing sounds of boss smacking and licking his paws. he's doing it all the time now and it's driving me crazy!! sorry about the negative vibe of this entry, but like i said before, we're grumpy and tired. here are a few pictures of the expression i've seen on bailey's little face all morning.

Baby photo shoot

okay, so i've been telling myself not to get too carried away with this blogging thing. but it's just so much fun to me!!! i thought i could go a day without an update, but apparently, i couldn't resist. here are some pics from today's baby photo shoot. chrys was nice enough to invite us over and take some really cute pictures of all of our babies. she took almost 375 pictures, but here are a few to enjoy!!!

Good-bye grandma :(

we just dropped my mom off at the airport. she came for her monthly visit to see bailey, billy, boss and me. it is always a blessing to have her here, but especially this weekend since bailey was sick and we had all sort of fun and exciting car problems. billy and i even got to go out on a real date thanks to her expert baileysitting skills! we saw the chronicles of narnia which was awesome!!!! it was very symbolic of christ!!! we would highly recommend it. we also got to go out and eat some delicious mexican food and i enjoyed my first real margarita in a year. all in all, we were gone for about five hours, which i believe is the longest i have ever left my baby girl!

last night, we also discovered how much bailey enjoys wearing just her birthday suit. i have never seen her kick around so much, it was hilarious!! these are some of the pictures from her newest favorite activity.

Free dog

okay, so billy and i got very little sleep last night. mainly due to the fact that sweet little bailey couldn't sleep with her completely stuffed up nose :( so sad. but, the icing on last night's cake was our dear dog boss, who is about to get given away. when i stumbled out of bed at 3:15 for my shift of bailey night duty, i accidentally left the door to our bedroom open a small crack. boss, the super jealous big brother who we kindly let sleep in our room, came upstairs to join me while i fed bailey. i apparently wasn't giving him all the attention he deserves so he left the room and started cruising the house. since he's been up to no good lately, after i finally thought bailey was asleep, i started calling for him. i could barely see him in the dark from the upstairs balcony. as i was calling for him, i noticed that he was suspiciously standing still in our dining room. i was actually, in fact, witnessing him PEEING ON MY BOOTS! what a little @#$%^!!! i ran down there and he ran up the back stairs. when he came back down he tried to act all happy, like he didn't even do anything. to say the least, he got severely spanked, put in the backyard and spent the rest of the night in his crate. after cleaning dog pee off the carpet and my lovely boots, i got the pleasure of walking around the house looking for more pee spots while poor billy had to try to put bailey back to sleep, since all the commotion woke her up. anyone want a free dog? the picture is of boss and his girlfriend/neighbor. they both are in the same boat. so, make that two free dogs. oh, and that's bailey in her bumbo at christmas! grandpa did an awesome job of picking that one out :)

Mmmmmm.....fingers

bailey has always loved her passy, but now she has discovered the wonder of her own fingers. amazing. she even tries to shove her entire fist into her mouth :) we're in such trouble if she ever discovers her thumb.

on a completely different note, guess who didn't sleep very well last night :( the entire family because our sweet baby girl is STILL congested. it apparently just got worse and we had to use the dreaded blue bulb nose suctioner thing a lot. so not fun!!! i think i'm about to have to use it AGAIN :(

Big brother blues

for those of you who have never met him, boss is our almost 2 year old maltese. and as far as malteses go, just consider him the shaq of his breed (he's 12 lbs., but a maltese is supposed to be 4-6 lbs.) by the way, the first picture is my favorite picture of boss as a puppy. before bailey was born, he was the main attraction around here and got tons of attention. september 23, 2005 was a very sad day for boss. since then, he has been second fiddle for sure, which he doesn't like (in his defense, who would). anyway, he has caused us great pain by marking his territory all over the house (at very inopportune times, of course) and has spent more time in his "room" (aka, the laundry room), his crate and the backyard than he would wish to. he even peed on my diaper bag once, leaving a beautiful bright yellow stain on our cream carpet. we seriously debated whether or not he needed a new home after that one. so sad :( anyways, last night after i came home from seeing the geisha movie with some friends (yes, i actually left the house without bailey), i went upstairs to put bailey in her sleep sack. boss, not wanting to miss out on anything, followed. as i'm carefully trying to zip her into the sleep sack in the dark, i felt boss licking my feet. then, i felt something a little wetter than dog kisses on my left foot and, as i shifted positions, i stepped in a puddle of something. just about that time, boss slunk away from me and sat in the corner of the room. as i tried to wipe my foot off on my pants, i realized the bottom part of my pants were wet too. i thought, oh my gosh, boss just peed on me!! he is in such trouble!! after whisper-yelling for billy's help, turning on the light and waking up my sleeping beauty, we found out it was simply what i would call dog spit-up. it wasn't too gross (my definition of gross has changed since becoming a mom), just mainly the water he drank too fast because his bowl was empty for who knows how long. poor little boss. it must be hard being a big brother.

Pretty in pink

on our way to a wedding shower in little rock

bailey and daddy the day we left the hospital


check out that neck control at just 2 weeks old!!




when i first found out i was having a girl, i was so excited. however, i was determined not to go overboard with all of the pink. i was adamant about not having a ton of pink things. i encouraged my friends to find cute outfits that weren't pink, which was challenging. and now that she's here, guess what i do. i dress her in head to toe pink whenever i can :) it's just such a good color on my beautiful baby and it helps people to easily identify her as a girl. it totally doesn't bother me if, at first glance, someone mistakes her for a boy (probably due to her thin hair, which continues to grow and change color). but, it apparently embarrasses people a lot, so i just try to cut down on the confusion and possibility of uncomfortable moments. so, enjoy some cute pink pictures from the past:)

Santa baby

okay, this is my third posting, so i'm still learning :) and since this wasn't around for all of the cute christmas pictures, here you go. my mom took these pictures and they are so good!!
she almost looks like a different baby in all four pictures, but she's adorable in them all!!

Bailey's favorite new toy

bailey got this cool spider as a christmas gift from charlie's mother. she absolutely loves it!!! and her cute little frog outfit was given to her for christmas by her grandma!!

Sweet Sleeper

here are the pictures of our sweet baby girl sleeping in her very own room!!! she slept through the night last night for the first time! but i didn't dare take any pictures then, these were taken during a nap. woo-hoo!