Sand???

like i said earlier, bailey didn't quite know what to think of the beautiful white sand. she was curious about it and liked touching it, but didn't really appreciate how it stuck to every square inch of her cute little body until i scrub scrub scrubbed it off in the pool (keep in mind this is the same child that screams whenever you touch anything on her face). we spent maybe only a whopping combined 30 minutes or so on the actual beach. and while there, bailey spent most of that time on the towel. but she did finally get brave enough to venture out onto the dreaded sand towards the end of the week (or maybe it was me who got brave enough to let her get all sandy and pissy). we're hoping these feelings of hatred towards sand will diminish by next year.

Good-bye

billy's grandmother passed away yesterday morning. she was a truly remarkable, loving, humble, selfless woman of god and i only wish i could have spent more time with her. we are confident that she is in a much better place, but those of us still here sure will miss her.
we love you grandma!

the fishin' magician

that's me!! the fishin' magician was my new name during our deep sea 10 hour fishing excursion. i caught so many fish i lost count and i was even brave enough to bait my mom's hook for her once and there was NO SOAP (sick) on the ship ( thank you, no thank you). i have never fished like that in my entire life!!!! one year i proudly caught exactly 0 fish. but not this year!!! seriously, once my line hit the bottom of the ocean, i had caught a fish. twice i didn't even have time to lock in my line before i had a bite! and, while i'm bragging, i'll go ahead and share that i caught not 1, not 2, but 3 fish at one time, i definitely caught the most fish and i caught the second biggest fish (i'm pretty sure about this one)!!! here i am with the 24 inch long grouper i caught (with minimal assistance from our mate dustin)!


and here is adam with his 23 inch long grouper!!! ahhhhh, it still feels so good to beat your younger brother, not only in the quanity of fish, but in the size of them as well :)

and the biggest fish award goes to charlie with this monster of a red snapper!!

all in all, we got to keep 61 of the fish that we caught. i think it was 56 or so pounds once they were all cut up and stuff. we caught grouper, a ton of red snapper, some delicious trigger fish, some white snapper and some other kind i forgot the name of. my super strong mommy arms sure did come in handy and i could tell a difference in my ability to fish this time around thanks to my guns. we were sweaty, sticky, stinky and hot, but we all had a great time. and our meal was awesome that night too!!

Family photos

bailey and daddy the whole family
bailey and mommy
daddy, bailey, mommy, grandpa charlie, grandma and uncle adam

first vacation--part one

bailey spent the first half of her very first vacation ever just like this. we met up with my mom and charlie, my brother adam, adam's girlfriend stacey and stacey's parents at this awesome house right on the beach in florida between destin and panama city. to make a long story short, we learned that there is really no such thing as a vacation with a baby.




bailey kind of hated the sand at first.
it was only after she saw 10 month old john (a friend we made during our short time on the beach) crawling all around in the sand did she decide that it was an okay thing to do. however, she did not discover this until about day 5 of our 6 day vacation.

all in all, it was a huge learning experience. yes, of course we had a great time with our family in this sweeeeeeeeeeet beachfront house and it was a joy to watch bailey experiencing new things, but it just wasn't the same type of lay around on the beach all day vacation we are used to. i guess i don't really know what i expected (or just didn't think about it realistically at all), but there was just a lot of work to still be done while on vacation. don't get me wrong, it was fun and i'm excited to go back again next year, but waking up twice a night for about an hour of inconsolable screaming isn't any more fun because you just so happen to be by the ocean.

more soon about all of the FUN we did have with the adorable miss bailey boo and family!!!

Baby love, my baby love!

bailey boo absolutely loves to feed herself these days!!! here she is enjoying a scrumptious dessert of cheerios (mmmmmm....just what you want for dessert too, right?!) at the arboretum. and i promise i'm not one of those parents who thinks a diaper is a very versatile, cute and appropriate ensemble, perfect for any outing. i'm just sick of carrot or green bean or sweet potato stains that magically appear all over her cute clothes after meals (which always happens when she is wearing her (well, okay, my) favorite outfits and we just so happen to be running late). so, we now strip bailey boo down for her meals :)

and you can see in the background that i'm not the only mommy who believes in the au-natural eating attire (grayson's mommy does it too......actually, all the cool moms are doing it).


notice my little monkey girl's foot holding onto her snack trap. another gift from her loving mother, multi-talented toes :)

and i'm very not creative right now. anybody got an suggestion for a cute title for this post?

The paci diet

bailey boo is feeling much better now that her new tooth has made it's debut (so am i). she was all smiles for granna and poppy this mother's day :) okay.....truth be told, she was mostly smiles for granna and poppy.

and, guess what else? bailey has been on a paci diet for a couple of weeks now and it's going just great!! basically, she only gets her beloved paci at night and during naps (also, in the car on long trips and if she's super fussy in the store while i'm trying on swimsuits, but those don't count, they are emergencies. and i don't try on swimsuits all the time here, people. i'm just going on a beach vacation here pretty soon and, ahem, like the rest of my clothes, nothing i currently own fits). hence, here for your viewing pleasure, pictures of her where you can see her actual mouth, double bonus points for the smile!


and look at that cute little tooth!!!! no, that's not the new one, it's still just barely visible.


another plus for the paci diet (and another reason why it was inflicted in the first place), bailey has been talking a lot more. she was actually babbling to herself and her pink bear this morning in her crib. i just love that little voice!!!!! so, all in all, the diet has been a complete success. bailey doesn't even realize her paci is missing until i give it back to her for sleeping purposes, so there's no big battle of will that includes me trying to pull it out of her clenched hand/mouth followed by her screaming protests. and, i mean, really, look at that cute face!!!!!! what's not to love!?

Whacha talkin' 'bout, Willis?!?

Oh my gosh, his name is Josh!!

my sweet, sweet friend courtney gave birth to her son exactly a week ago today!!! and y'all, he is just so adorable and looks so much like his daddy! all three are doing awesome (much better than i was doing at the one week mark) and billy and i are honored to be a part of their lives. josh, we can't wait to watch you grow and someday you will realize what truly amazing parents you have! probably when you are, oh, say about fifteen or so.....you'll also think they are really cool then too!!

Puffed gold

bailey is so into the whole finger foods thing. she absolutely loves these little fruit and veggie puffs by gerber!! even more than cheerios! ala daddy style (who am i kidding, this is mommy's style too), bailey prefers to pick up as many as she possibly can at once and jam them into her mouth. she won't put one in her mouth until she has at least one in each clinched fist. we have to pry a soggy, squishy puff out of each tightly closed hand after every meal. these usually buy me a little time, but now i have to watch and referee since i'm worried that she'll choke herself. and poor boss, she doesn't even drop any down to him anymore. i have no idea what food i can give her next. must make my weekly call to the doctor's office to ask my random, obviously new mom, stupid questions.

hey mommy, i want to hold THAT awesome shiny toy you are always shoving in my face!!

and what teething day post would be complete without a cry-face picture? billy and i think there may be 2 toofies making their way through, but she won't let us get a good look. definitely one on the left side of her first tooth and possibly one on the other side. what a week!!!! but, i'm so grateful to have her, screams and all!

So my child

again, apologies for the fuzziness of the picture. i really do need a new camera (hint hint)! anyway, it is obvious that bailey is my child because this is exactly how i like to sleep!!!!!! well, there's that and the fact that, oh, i don't know, she grew in my body for 9 months and made me HUGE. anyway, she used to like to sleep all curled up or with her little bum bum high up in the air, but now, she prefers to sprawl out and contort her body as much as possible. bailey also likes to fall asleep holding something, usually the squished up bumper pad (since her mommy is so mean and has nothing else in there for her to love). i just love this little girl more and more each day, especially when she reminds me of my favorite person in the world......me (just kidding, about the me part, not the love part). wanna know something else i love (but not nearly as much as i love love love my little angel girl and her daddy)? this awesome video monitor!!!!!!! it still remains my favorite baby item of all time!! i would let someone buy it for me again in a heartbeat!!

and some people out there might look at my previous post and think "what a mean person......to take a picture of a poor, beautiful little baby while she's crying instead of gently comforting her. what an insensitive, pathetic excuse for a mother. she cares more about blogging and capturing the moment than the wellbeing of her child. tisk, tisk." well, i have to let you know that the child cried all day. that's all day long. when she woke up, while she was "playing", when i picked her up, when i put her down, before each feeding, during each feeding, after each feeding, throughout the entire bathing process......you catch my drift. i couldn't do anything right. nothing i was doing or not doing seemed to help whatsoever. so, i documented the experience for your viewing pleasure.

also, i discovered the source of all of the unhappiness........a new tooth!!!

Welcome to my day

Dum dum da-dum

this weekend, we survived our first roundtrip airplane trip. we were such amateurs, but it was good since we really learned a lot. like, bailey's britax marathon carseat is ginormous and way too hard to travel with. but, more on the traveling in a minute, let's get to why we left home for the second weekend in a row in the first place. obviously, we went to a wedding (noooooo....really?). my friend since the good ole' high school cheerleading days, nikki, got married. it was outside at her parents house and everything was beautiful, especially the bride!! i didn't get many good pictures, so i'm counting on my friends to hook me up. anyway, it was a bit cold, but the rain held off, the food was awesome, the flowers were unique and gorgeous (i never remember wedding floral arrangements, but these were so cool), the band was fun and the cake was delicious (mmmmm......wedding cake, my favorite)! poor bailey boo missed out since she was, once again, sick. lovely congestion, lovely, lovely. so, i didn't get to show off my cutie and that made me sad. bailey is just such a major part of my life now and i feel like when people don't know her then they are missing out on a huge part of me. and everyone wants to know me, right?! anyway, i missed hanging out with her and seeing her smile, although i'm really glad that she stayed with my mom since she called it a night at 6:40, right in the middle of the ceremony, which means she would have been the cranky, crabby, snotty, cold little thing that screamed throughout the entire wedding bliss.


this is a picture of my 2 best high school friends, jenny and nikki (the bride). i was trying to capture jenny's handsome nurse hairdo that was growing a rat-tail. i did not partake in many of the adult beverages, therefore, i was not on the dance floor much. except when they played some jams and i was forced to do some smooth moves from back in the day down the middle of a girls only dancing tunnel thing. it wasn't pretty.


back to the traveling....bailey did just fine on the way there. it was her challenged mother that messed up. for example, i wanted to make sure to nurse bailey while we were ascending so her ears would pop and be okay. i was pretty nervous about this (don't worry, i had my hooter hider with me so nobody saw a thing) and was trying to get the timing all right. so, smart, prepared person as i am, as soon as the plane moved (aka, moved away from the tunnel, about 1 whole foot), i woke bailey up (breaking the #1 rule), put her under my hider and got her started. and then we, ummmm, sat there for a while. duh....we weren't even on the runway. we weren't even close. bailey finished up before we were to ready to officially depart. but when that plane moved, i just got all panicky that we were going to start flying and she wouldn't be ready and then she would cry because her ears were hurting and then she wouldn't latch on which would make her cry some more and arch her back and everyone would turn around and give me dirty looks and what if i got exposed and they saw and i was officially crowned "that mom." but, like i said, things were fine. her ears were okay and she wasn't fussy or anything......on the way there. on the way back.....different story. i won't go into the details, but she was the screaming baby on the plane and i was the stressed out mother worrying that everyone was secretly cursing me in their brains and wishing that i was a better mom who knew how to make her baby shut up already. but......we made it home safely and i guess that's all that counts. i'm going to have to learn how to chill out!!! oh, and my mom and charlie bough a carseat so we won't have to haul ours around with us evertime we go for a visit. AWESOME!

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

WOW!!!! SWEEEEEEEEET!! bailey boo is still asleep!!!!
last night was night #2 of not going upstairs to feed bailey at 4 a.m. because that has really been getting old! i would have done this sooner, but i was worried about feeling guilty for not feeding her just because it was 4 a.m., i was tired, it would take me forever to fall back asleep and it was really interfering with my sleeping schedule. basically, my motivation for dropping this glorious feeding was all me, me, me and i didn't want to do something that would be bad for her just because it would be good for me. so, what made me change my mind, you ask? well, i told my friends to tell me it was okay for me to do this, so, like the good friends they are, they did. i got their permission. so, if it was was a painfully awful experience, i would not have just myself to blame. as if i would actually be all "friends, why did you make me do that to my sweet daughter?!?! what bad advice givers you are. shame on you for tricking me into doing this mean mean thing to the one i love!", but there is some weird sense of complete failure you get as a mom when you alone make the wrong decision, even when it's a tiny decision that just makes her slightly uncomfortable for all of .2 seconds. i know, that seems a little strange, but it's true. and, i mean, come on, how many decisions do i get to make about my daughter alone each day? hundreds? thousands? i feel bad when i dress her in clothes that make her too cold or too hot, when i realize her diaper is so full it's squishy wet, when she screams as i leave her room for a nap, when she drops her paci on a disgusting public floor and i have no replacements with me, when her milk is too cold, when she cries and tries to follow me when i have the nerve to actually go to the bathroom, when she sits in her bed a screams although she is super tired and there isn't anything i can do for her anyway and the list just goes on and on. i know it's just part of being a mom to take responsibility for every single thing that happens in your babies life, but i had no idea what that felt like.
anyway, back to the exciting news!!! so, we put her down at 8 last night and she made a little noise at 4 a.m., but i just turned the monitor off (another thing i do that makes me feel like a bad parent). i turned it back on 15 minutes later and she was already asleep. i double checked on the video monitor (still my most favorite toy). then she slept until about 7:15, i fed her and she was ready to go back to sleep! can you believe that?! she is actually awake right now, but is crawling around her crib, talking/singing to herself and rubbing her eyes still a bit. so, i better go. i want to get up there before she starts crying! you know, the guilty feelings......blogging while i should be caring for the greatest gift god ever gave billy and i.

Bailey boo will make you JUMP JUMP!

these pictures were taken sometime last week while bailey was hanging out in her doorway jumper. like the total girly girl she already is, miss bailey prefers to twirl around in her jumper as opposed to actually jumping in it. yes, on occasion, there is some jumping that goes on here and there, but mainly, just the twirlin'. she used to not be too fond of this toy, but lately, she has started to have some real fun in there (although she still cries the high pitched, dramatic pre-cry while i'm putting her in it). and did you notice that her paci is on the floor and she isn't even throwing a fit!!!!! major points just scored for that!!



and i know that these pictures are all a bit fuzzy. i was using zoom since i was too lazy to move, oh, say, 2 whole feet closer. but you can still see the bubba gump lip action going on again.
well, she is awake from her nap now, is sitting up in her crib playing with her deflated bumper pad (due to some intense kicking sessions and a newfound curiosity about everything) and i can hear the rapid deep breathing she does before she is about to lose it.

After bath adventures

the after bath naked time is back again in full force! it's replaced the bath as our favorite nightime ritual. bailey just loves crawling all around her room investigating things such as boss, the door and last night, the tiny space between her crib and the bookcase where the clock is plugged in. she makes this little grunting sound when she's truckin' it to something she's excited about, like her mommy. it's all still really cute to us now, but i'm sure the crawling honeymoon will be over here pretty soon once she is literally into everything. yesterday, she got stuck (well, almost, mommy was right there watching to save the day) between the couches downstairs as she was going for yet another electric wire. some furniture has been rearranged and i'm sure we haven't seen the last of that either.



also, this is the face we've seen for almost two solid weeks now. bailey with her bottom lip sticking out bubba gump style and her top lip all sucked in. this picture doesn't do that cute face any justice, but you can kind of see it. i thought we were about to celebrate the appearance of another tooth, but things have calmed down a bit and there is only a bump as evidence. you know i'll keep you posted!!