Green bean casserole--my contribution to Thanksgiving this year

ingredients:
4 cans of green beans, drained
1/2 cup of butter
1 minced onion
3/4 cup of grated cheddar cheese
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
4 oz can of water chestnuts
1/8 tsp tabasco
1 tsp soy sauce
3/4 cups sliced or slivered almonds
1 room full of toys
1 toddler on antibiotics
2-3 fits
15 minutes of clean up
1 ton of patience

Some pretty awesome nimnastics moves

the pain of daddy returning to work each monday morning has been eased by our beloved nimnastics. i captured a bit of the fun in the following videos:
bailey running down the super long trampoline and "jumping" into the foam pit
bailey and reece dancing last week.....love that little wiggle in reece's face :)
our first trick: the forward roll
hanging onto the rope swing
more smooth moves with reece today

Butter and Baby Butter

i don't have any pictures to go along with this post, but i just had to document and share. bailey has always enjoyed mothering her various animals and dolls. lately, i've been asking her to name them and what do i get???
apparently, bailey has a baby doll at her grandma's house named "butter" and at home, a pink pig wearing a tutu and a little gray rubber mouse, both affectionately deemed "baby butter".
what's with the fascination with butter? i had no idea but i do think it's pretty hilarious!!

She may be looking more and more like her daddy every day

but she did inherit my awesomely useful, nimble, crafty monkey toes!! bailey held this cinderella medallion (ripped off of her cinderella purse just moments earlier) between her toes for about 15 minutes on the way back from little rock. she also put the purse on her ankle and had it swinging around while she sang and danced the best you can while strapped in a carseat. you just can't teach these kind of skillz, they are merely gifts.

My boo at the zoo

bailey had her first zoo experience while we were in little rock. although she was pretty amused by the various animals, she was the most excited about these large, very plastic jack-o-lanterns they had scattered all about as a part of their boo at the zoo decorations.

my mom and i couldn't have asked for a more perfect day at the zoo with bailey. the weather was just right, not too hot, not too cold and we practically had the place to ourselves. bailey was in a cooperative mood and it was fun to share her first time at the zoo with my mom.

i realize this may look kinda gross, but bailey just loved feeding these goats!!! the zoo kindly had plenty of hand sanitizer so bailey could safely enjoy her $5 pbj lunch at the zoo cafe (totally reminded me of disney world).

here's bailey and i on the little train that i rode on as a child :)

bailey was cracking up at this one monkey we saw on our way out. it was a nice way to end our time spent at the zoo.

it's been ages since bailey has fallen this hard asleep in the car. i did everything i could to keep her awake but she was just worn out!! we'll definitely go back, but we have no need to for a while.

Bippity boppity BOO!

halloween was pretty great this year! honestly, i had no idea if bailey would even like halloween or be cooperative at all. you never know which bailey you are going to get, the shy one who won't even look up from my shoulder or the one who waves and says hi to everyone who enters the room.

the fun began after bailey's nap when she got to finish watching cinderella for the first time ever! she was completely zoned out like kids get in front of that magical box throughout the entire movie, but i could tell that she recognized some parts from her cinderella book. it was obvious that bailey felt like a beautiful princess when we put her dress, crown, gloves, bracelets and light up shoes on (and just a touch of mommy's lipgloss)!! she strutted her stuff in front of the mirror for quite a while.

after pictures with her beloved jack o lanterns, bailey practiced trick or treating at my mom's house. as soon as she realized that candy was going to be involved, she ripped those gloves and bracelets right off in order to get a better grip on the precious candy! i pretty much knew she was going to have a good time at that point and forgot completely about the power of candy. then we loaded cinderella up in her gold carriage (aka, my crv) and started our halloween adventure!
first stop was bailey's great grandparent's house where bailey was given delicious cookies lovingly baked just for her. it was a really special and sweet time. my grandma even got to show off her cute little namesake when bailey did a little trick or treating at their neighbor's house. and we got this amazing picture where both grandma and bailey were not only looking at the camera, but were actually smiling!!!! a very rare sighting!!







then we went to miss kay's house (her daughter jenny introduced billy and i!) where bailey picked several suckers for her bucket. she also got a fun light-up bracelet to wear and we all had a lot of fun visiting with miss kay and mr. david!

we actually walked down to miss mary lynn's house next. mary lynn and john were so nice to share their pizza with us all and even gave bailey a fresh peanut butter cookie!!! i grew up knowing both of these families and have the most wonderful memories of our times together. it was so much fun to get to share bailey with them and simply spend a little time together.

then it was on to grandpa (who will now be referred to as papaw since that's what bailey says and it's cute) and mimi's house. they were so excited to get to see bailey all dressed up and she entertained them with her increasing sugar high. papaw made her a pb&j (which she ate a quarter of) and let her pick all of the candy she wanted from the bucket. bailey has a lot to learn about candy. she picked the tootsie rolls and dum dums over the snickers, reeces and m&ms. i'm sure we can hold off on that lesson for now but it is pretty important.

our last stop was miss martha and mr. warren's house. feeling especially comfortable, bailey requested a tour of their home and was extra chatty. sorry we didn't get a picture, i was pretty worn out at that point.

when we got back to mom and charlie's, bailey literally ran laps around the house while singing, talking, giggling and squealing for about 20 solid minutes. she didn't even slow down for a phone call from her daddy! bailey finally crashed around 9:30 (which is fine since we fall back tomorrow night anyway) and slept in the next morning. overall, it was a fun but exhausting halloween!!!! i'm pretty sure bailey is already excited about next year.

I guess this makes me the queen

i like my face better in this one

but check out bailey's smile in this one!!!!!!! i think i was talking througha smile but oh well. you looked pretty enough for both of us, bailey bear!!!

"I hab a punkim....I carb a shack-o-lanern???"

for the past month, every time we have gone to the grocery store or target, bailey has marveled at the "biiiiiig punkims" and asked "mommy, a-bailey buy a big punkim??". although i wanted to let bailey enjoy her first pumpkin carving experience this year, i had no idea what we would do with a jack-o-lantern in an apartment. so i kept turning down her requests, telling her we would buy a big pumpkin later.

we decided to spend this week visiting family in little rock, so the weeks of patient waiting finally came to an end and bailey got to pick out her very own big pumpkin! i was so excited to see what she thought of carving a pumpkin and had visions of us both sticking our hands into the gooey pumpkin and pulling out the stringy, slimy seeds. in reality, bailey touched exactly one pumpkin seed, declared it slippery and then wouldn't have anything to do with it. she played with her grandma's fake already carved out pumpkins while i did the dirty work. bailey did have some say in the pumpkin's appearance and chose her first jack-o-lantern ever to have triangle eyes and a circle nose. i think she will be more into the whole pumpkin carving next year but we still had fun!

Mirror, mirror

with a reflection like that, who wouldn't want to look in the mirror????

again, my little girly girl!