Baths....to love or to hate, that is the question

bailey has a love/hate relationship with baths. some nights, they couldn't be more fun. there's splashing to do, frogs to pull off, penguins to squeeze, dolphins to hit and rubber duckies to chew on. oh, and don't forget about the chatting, laughing and whole face encompassing grinning. these bath nights are awesome. i love them. i wish they happened every night.

then there are the bad nights. when no toy is exciting enough to momentarily stop the loud screaming. when a cute, little, wet baby head is forcefully thrusted back to further emphasize the utter disgust with this particular bath experience. you never know what's going to happen.


sometimes beloved bath friends (such as the penguin and trusted rubber duckie) are violently shoved out of the way with a scowl. sometimes the bathtub itself gets bitten. and tonight, somebody tried to bite the water (gasp). sometimes the screaming crying is so loud the neighbors hear her outside.
so, the question remains to be answered each night.

PROOF!!!!!!!!

Read 'em and weep

In case anyone was worried about bo$$

the new gates have been great for bailey boo, but we totally forgot about if or how they would affect the bo$$man (sigh, this is nothing new). bo$$'s food is kept in the laundry room, which is behind one of the gates and now that bailey is mobile, we keep the gates closed all of the time. so, what's a hungry dog to do? squeeze himself under!! it's pretty funny to watch and will keep him from gaining too much weight. so, bo$$, consider the gate your own personal pair of skinny jeans and start watching those lbs.

and you're welcome for the picture of my dog's butt. i know that's just what you came here to see.

Why I should keep my big mouth shut

me, at a faith jewelry party wednesday night: "we've been having a lot of fun together lately, mainly because bailey hasn't been sick in a long time"

bailey started showing signs of sickness three days later.

me, on the phone with my dad yesterday afternoon: "yeah, bailey has been sick, but she's still sleeping at night. it's just the naps that are a problem."

bailey woke up at 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. last night.

don't ask.

THANK YOU germy gym child care and new teeth for a lovely couple of days!

this was for the early birthday dinner my mom made for me. bailey was in great spirits!!

Want not, waste not

oh, poor bailey! her parents are so mean and so cheap that bailey's survival instincts had to kick in and she now scavenges for food.
after every meal.
from her bib.




okay, you have to admit it's pretty cute! and if you have ever witnessed a meal with bailey, then you know how much this child can eat! think of how much food you might eat and subtract maybe a bite or two. seriously, she eats a ton of food, way more than i ever thought a baby could or would eat. i have never seen her leave a morsel of food big enough to pick up on her tray, ever. what a daddy's girl! i know her poppy is very proud (since billy called to tell him)!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

bailey walked by herself tonight on purpose!!!! as in we didn't trick her into walking alone!!!! she did this three times and billy and i got to witness all three! my mom got to witness one! what a blessing to experience bailey's first true steps with billy (i was so afraid that he'd miss it and i would have to try to explain the awesomeness of it over the phone) and my mom! i'm so excited!!!!!

Playgroup awesomeness

these pictures were actually taken about 2 weeks ago and i have been trying to post them whenever i remember to (blogger has not been my friend with this particular post lately and has refused to download these pictures until this morning). bailey and i are so lucky to have such an awesome set of moms and babies to hang out with at our church's (watermark) weekly playgroup. the room we meet in is so so perfect for this age of children. the floor is padded pratically wall to wall with the kind of mat used in gymnastics and hello, there is a water trough to play in with your girls, awesome!


and there are tunnels
and slides to crawl up

and friend to ignore, i mean play with.


i met all of the moms and babies directly or indirectly through square one. have i told you about square one yet? the weekly meetings of new moms and babies led by some awesome experienced moms at our church? where you share laughter, tears, advice, funny stories, baby firsts and prayers with other clueless, sleep deprived brand new moms? it totally saved my life when bailey was tiny. you know, when i was a completely clueless and sleep deprived emotional first time mom with a baby that seemed to hate sleep and love crying. i would have lost my mind without this group of women to lean on and i cherish their friendships so much still. i realize how blessed i am to have this support group to share life with and i would be so sad, lonely and depressed without them. ahhhhh, what happened here?! this was supposed to be a fun entry and it got all serious and sentimental! well, that's what happens when you become a mom, i guess.

Why we have baby gates

Weekend at the lake

we had such a WONDERFUL, AWESOME, GLORIOUS, FUN, PERFECT weekend at the lake with our community group!!!!! patrick and joy invited all of us down to their family's lakehouse and we had a blast! although bailey was not on her best behavior during the day (remember the teeth, yeah, it's still going on) and was only happy when somebody (ahem, make that some parent, only billy and i would do most of the time) walked around the house with her, but, the child slept at night, which is all i care about!!



we celebrated 3 july and 1 august birthdays with this deluxe poker cake (billy, me, patrick, dayna)

the girls had fun hanging around, laughing, talking and oooo-ing over adorable babies (dayna, mama courtney with josh, joy)

and, what's a weekend at the lake without tons of good food?! here's joy, her enthusiatic husband patrick and billy (with a mouthful of food)enjoying some delicious burgers before our poker championship showdown.

My little bookworm

bailey has been loving her some books lately!!! as a (formerly employed) teacher, you have no idea how much this excites me!!! my child! loves books! already!! sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!

seriously, she will spend minutes (that's whole minutes people, which is a lot for a 9 1/2 month old. have yet to experience this? watch bailey, i'll be right back) by herself flipping through her books, studying the pictures and pointing to whatever is the smallest on the page.

i mean really, look at her face, she is focusing hard on the books. i know she's not smiling, but she's concentrating and obviously happy or why else would she spend so much time with her friends, the books? they are by far her favorite toys.

and i'm pretty sure she's remembering the stories because last week, she was fussing in her bath while i was trying to lay her down to rinse her hair (why, oh why, do we have to actually get clean in the bath mommy? i thought this was just watery, splashy fun time). i started reciting the words to the baby elmo story "so big" but inserting bailey's name instead of elmo and she stopped crying and just stared at me while i finished washing her hair in "so big" peace. wait, did you get that, she stopped crying!!! oh, oh, i almost forgot, it gets better! not only did she stop crying, but she also started smiling at the end!! ha!! i choose to believe that she recognized the words of the story and was impressed with how well i remembered it without the help from our friend, elmo's "so big". oh, you make me so proud my little bookworm!!!

3 of the best years of my life

today billy and i celebrate our 3 year anniversary. marrying billy was the best thing that has ever happened to me and i feel so blessed to be his wife. we have had 3 wonderful years together and i love him more and more each day (especially when i see the love billy and bailey share for each other). i can't accurately put into words the way i feel about billy (well, if i tried really hard, i probably could, but it would be all long and gushy and something for just him to read). i guess it's as simple and complex as i love him with all of my heart and i thank god every day for giving me such a supportive, loving, strong christian man.


here are the beautiful surprise flowers i received today!

Things you don't think about when you buy a house

"oooooo, i love how open the floor plan is!"
"two staircases, very cool!"
"i like those iron spindles on the stairs! very nice"

ha ha HA!!!!!
yes, i like our house a lot but is it remotely baby friendly? not a chance.


strange, but the concept of installing baby gates didn't enter my mind at all 2 1/2 years ago when we were looking at houses. i know, how foolish of me to be thinking about the square footage, the location, the storage, the inner and outer appearance of the house.
so, remember when i wrote about billy spending all afternoon trying to install baby gates at all 4 stair entrances? ummmmm, yeah, that took all 4th of july weekend to do. as in 4 days, several hours each day. why so long? well that would be the house's fault. you see, none of the places where the gates were to be installed were traditional doorways. billy had to create ways to mount secure gates. he engineered each individual gate installation and yes, he is super talented and smart. notice how there is a piece of wood attached with padded care to the banister so that no nail should ever enter the wooded beauty that is our top banister.

the gates are all secure and won't leave telltale marks (such as holes in the baseboards and/or banister and bent or chipped iron spindles) when it's time to take them down thanks to my wonderful husband!! he takes such good care of us girls!

Pretty nice little weekend

this past friday was billy's birthday and we celebrated it all weekend! since we had just had the fam over for billy and sandy's 4th of july birthday get together (and i had already made 2 cakes, an ugly brown yummy one and a pretty decorated white yummy one), i made billy some homemade snickerdoodle cookies instead of a cake this year.


friday night we had some friends over for some pei wei take-out, a little bit of bailey boo time and some catching up. we all had an awesome time! we also stayed up past midnight, which is something we normally don't do (we're old).

saturday night we had a baileysitter come over (her name is britney and bailey and i both just love her and are encouraging her to not go back to college and leave us. you know, for her best interests and all). billy and i saw the newest adam sandler movie click and really really liked it. sure, it was an adam sandler movie (and no, they didn't show all the funny parts in the previews and i laughed almost the entire time), but it did have a good serious message about the importance of family that billy and i can't stop thinking and talking about. i would recommend it! and we didn't get home until almost midnight and have been exhausted all day (remember we are old)! and, ha, did i mention that bailey boo is teething? F-U-N!
but teething and all, we've had an awesome weekend where we once again realized how blessed we are to have each other, bailey and especially bo$$. plus, just look at how adorable bailey bear is!! she for sure has her daddy's cheezy grin and i love love love it!

Toofies

ah-ha! i was right (again, i know!) two (yes TWO) new teeth have cut through in little bailey's mouth as of a couple of days ago. one on top and one on the bottom. and i am pretty sure the poor thing is working on three more on top (ahhhhhhh! do the math, that's five teeth, oh my gosh!). she's been in an awful mood lately, but we can all totally understand why. here is my failed attempt to get a picture of her new teeth (nice focus and you can't even see the new teeth at all. perfect, just what i was going for). she wails whenever i try to open her mouth and take a look inside (the picture did capture that), so i knew that trying to get a decent picture of her new toofies would be almost impossible. but i love you so much i tried and look how great this picture turned out!!! and it was the best one too.

sip on

after trying about 5 different types of sippy cups in the past 4 months or so, bailey has finally learned how to used one all by herself! this is exactly the kind of thing we get excited about around here. and yes, we are that cool!

Bo$$

poor boss (hey, remember him? that dog we used to treat like a child? who ruled the house? who used to be rewarded when he barked at the dominos commercial? oh yeah, we've still got him). he's had a rough few weeks battling infection after infection brought upon by his constant obsessive paw licking. thus, he's been sporting the lampshade. feel sorry for him if you want, but remember, he did this to himself and he has cost us a lot of money lately.



bailey and bo$$' relationship is still in the beginning stages. she notices him, but he's not all that into her unless she is strapped in the highchair, dropping precious morsels of soggy cheerios. besides mealtime, bo$$ doesn't really want to have anything to do with the bailey bear. we make him sit still next to her while she tries to point to various parts of his body, mainly his nose. i have to admit, he's a really good sport about this. now he doesn't even make a whimper when she crawls over him, smashing his paw, leg or tail with her cute chubby thighs as she hightails it across the room. even though i don't have as much time or energy (and now, sweet ca$h) to focus on the bo$$man, i do love him and am glad he is a part of this family!

Gate hate

poor billy spent his entire saturday afternoon trying to install the new baby gates we bought for the top and bottom of both stairs. unfortunately for him, billy has a date with home depot today to get some more tools in order to hopefully install the remaining three gates (i have faith in you billy, you can DO it!).

but bailey didn't seem to mind at all (although she was curious as to why her daddy was in such a grumpy mood)! she actually had fun walking back and forth using the gate.

and she's been waving a little bit the past month or so, but she will only wave to billy or me.


bailey decided that we will be attending the second church service today, so billy and i are just killing a little time while she sleeps in, hence the sunday morning blogging with the sweet sound of espn awesomeness coming in from the other room.