My Favorite Song

Last week I heard a Christmas song on the radio that I had never heard before, but I automatically loved it. I've been dying ever since to hear it again. My Festivus miracle was granted tonight on my way to another midnight shopping trip to Kohls. I immediately called Brian and had him look it up to I could listen to it all day and sing to my heart's content. The melody is very catchy and of course I think I can sing it just as beautifally as they can. The song is called The Virgin's Lullaby If I did it correctly, you'll be able to listen to it too! Merry Christmas and happy singing!

Pictures of the Season

Here are some pictures from the past week or so:

Bailey has finally discovered Doby's dog food bowl. She crawls straight to it if we don't put up some sort of barricade. The funny thing is that she hasn't tried to eat it, but just move it around and out of the bowl. I'm sure that trend will change rather quickly.Every year I can't resist buying Doby a totally awesome Christmas outfit. Last year he had boots and a coat, but this year I went for the bearded hat. Doby loved it so much, that he wanted to eat it. I can't help buying an outfit like this; it bring such joy to my life. I laugh every time I look at this picture. It is a five bucks well spent!

The same morning that Bailey discovered Doby's dog food, she also claimed her first Christmas decoration. When I was putting these two snowmen on the shelf, I wasn't sure if they would last the whole season. I was right! They are at the perfect level for Bailey to grab, bash, and eat, but it's okay becuase I'm pretty sure they're indestructible.

Last week, Brian's dad came out for business and a visit. It was good to see him and fun for him to see Bailey getting so big and smart.

A First (and second) Time for Everything

So it happened this week--Bailey got sick! On Thursday as I was driving over to pick up Bailey I called Trish. She told me that she threw up, but that my sister Keri already came and got her. She said that she was just really tired, but okay. So as a first timer, I started asking Trish a million questions about what to do with a sick baby. I always ask Trish what to do with stuff with kids--she is an expert with four cute ones! Once I got to my mom's house, I felt prepared to see my sick, little baby. She was still in her car seat, just kind of chillin'. She gave me a tiny smile to say, "Hey mom." I picked her up and cuddled her. She seemed to be okay. I had been expecting this sickness to come since it had been going around my whole family--mom, sisters, cousins, brother. The good thing was that with everyone else is was a 24 hour flu. As I was sitting there talking to Bailey, she seemed to take a moment to think about things. I asked Tera if she could get me a towel because my mother's instincts told me that Bailey was about to ...yes, right as I said it, she did it. She didn't want to wait for a towel to throw up; she just let everything fly. She completely soaked herself from head to toe and she was wearing a cute, white Christmas onesie. I took her home and had a very sad and tired baby all night. She was just really mellow. I called in for a sub that night because I didn't know what she would be like; a sub on the last day before Christmas has to be very brave to cover a 7th grade class. On Friday, I woke up not knowing what I would find. Bailey had slept all night and woke up happy. She seemed okay, but I fed her a flu diet of bland food and little formula. We enjoyed our day off together and even went to take pictures with Santa.

Life went on as usual for Friday night and then most of the day today--UNTIL 9:00

We just got home from some hustle and bustle last minute shopping at the outlet mall. I had been on a search for one last present and the perfect outfit for Bailey to wear on Christmas day. Bailey was tired and hungry, so I fed her a bowl of food and then a half bottle. Thoughts of flu and puking were long gone from my head, although it was the first time that she had both food and bottle since her sickness. She ate everything happily. We were playing on the floor when she laid her head back to take a moment to think. I didn't think anything of it; I thought she was just sleepy. A few minutes later, she had an eruption to rival Mt. Saint Helen's. This time, she soaked herself and me. I was totally covered. Brian was in shock because he didn't witness the first time. I will say that it was quite amazing that that amount of liquid could come from her tiny body. Once Brian had Bailey and I slowly and carefully got up without touching too much, Bailey was back to normal--smiling and playing. I do not think that this puke was the flu, but merely some sort of gag reflex gone wild.

So now I can cross another one of those motherly experiences off of my list--puking baby.

I gave her a bath to clean her up. I also put her in her funny bunny towel. It is just like the pajamas from The Christmas Story, only in the towel form. Look how cute and clean she is:

Here's another funny picture from today:

She fell asleep while playing in her bouncy. Like any good mother, I took a picture before I got her out.

A Coronado Christmas

A holiday tradition in Brian's family is to go down to Coronado to the Hotel Del. While there we look at the gigantic and beautiful Christmas tree and just walk around. It's been a new, fun tradition for me to take part of for the past few years. I just love being able to do things down on the beach in December; it always reminds me why I live in Southern California. This year Brian, Bailey, and I had to go down early to Coronado without the rest of Brian's brothers, but it was still a fun day. Here are some pictures from Sunday:Check out Bailey's red shoes. They are so cute and Christmasy! My mom and I just couldn't resist when we saw them last week.
Bailey and Brian. She wasn't too incredibly smiley on Sunday (which was weird for her) but this is one of her almost smiling.There was a beautiful sunset on Sunday.Bailey and Grandma Roxann.
The theme for the tree this year is Victorian decorations, so they had all sorts of old fashion looking decorations. This was the "best" shot of all three of us that we got. So it looks like I'll have to keep looking for a Christmas card picture.
Like I said, Bailey was not very smiley for the pictures outside, but the one thing she did smile for was the candy in the candy store. She could have been an advertisement for the store becuase she matched in her red and black. Even the ladies that worked at the store said that she should sit in the display window. I do love this outfit that she wore!
Bailey with Roxann and Dan (and her cute red shoes)

She loved the lights on the tree. Once we get ours up, I have a feeling she'll just sit there and stare at it all night. After I teach her not to grab at it.
Here are some of her almost smiling shots.
By the end of the day, she was ready to go home. I love it when she rubs her eyes; it is such an big kid thing to do. It was another fun year at the Hotel Del. I know that Bailey will like going there every year!

The Life of a Night Owl

I've always been a major night owl. I have always had a special talent for staying up all hours of the night. At slumber parties I would usually be the last one up and always ready to go tp a house in the wee hours of the morning. My talent has not elluded me in my old age and the holiday season provides many opportunities to display it. Every time I see a commercial for a store that is open until midnight for Christmas shopping, I automatically think that I'd like to go there around midnight to shop. Now I could just go much earlier when the regular people shop, but it's so much more of an adventure when you're there fifteen minutes before the store is going to close.

The store that has been enticing me lately is Kohls, so tonight I went at 10:30. The kids--Brian and Bailey--were ready for bed and fast asleep, so off I went! I was expecting to see more moms there who only have time to shop after their kids are asleep, but I was really the only one in the store. Another benefit of this late night shopping is the very personal one-on-one help you that's available if needed. I did not need it because I did not have a specific item I was looking for, but it felt good knowing that lots of help was near by. The other advantage of late night shopping (advantage to the store) is that the customers are very sleepy and more apt to make rash purchases (two Christmas outfits for Bailey) and sign up for the Kohls credit card (I did save 20%). Overall I'd say it was a very pleasant and successful shopping excursion. And now as I get ready to go to bed, I hope to find more midnight madness deals in the next weeks to come. Happy shopping!

Baby Girl Clothes Are the Best!

When I first found out that we were having a girl, my first thoughts were to how much fun it would be to play dress up with her. Brian's first thought/fear, was what are we going to do when she's a teenager. On this one point, I think I definitely had the more positive outlook--usually it's reversed between the two of us.

My first thoughts were right--Bailey is like my little doll. The best days are on Sundays because baby girl dresses are the cutest things! There are days when she wears three outfits, just because I want to see her in everything. But Sundays are the best because to go along with her church dress, I usually make matching headbands for her to wear. I've searchd online for baby headbands, but they are way too big and way too expensive. So with some excellent advice and instructions from Sam, I began making headbands for all occasions.

Here are some of her recent Sunday outfits:

I love this outfit because I found ribbon that exactly matched the dress.She loves playing with her back pack and has this weird facisnation with straps of any kind--backpacks, car seats, high chairs, purses, etc.She looks so grown up in this outfit with her little sweater. I still sometimes have her wear a mini bow to church if I don't have enough time to make a bigger headband. My secret weapon with the mini bows is corn syrup (thanks again Sam for the insider secret). People are always amazed and shocked that I actually put that on her head. It works really well, and the bonus is that it tastes good when you have to get the bow off of her head!Here's her more casual look without the sweater.

Can you tell that I love dressing her up and taking pictures? I'm going to do it as long as she'll let me, which better be a long, long time. When I was younger I always used to dress up my sisters and take pictures of them. We have some really sweet shots of them in matching outfits and really nice make up (I'll have to work on scanning some of them to display). I guess I've always wanted to be a stylist/photographer deep down inside. Luckily, Bailey is too little to protest too much and she does have the cutest smile. I need to think of some new poses for her because sitting on our blue couch is going to be boring for every picture.

Playing Catch Up

I know that I could title every post playing catch up because I'm really not good, but I'm busy...what can I say? Bailey had lots of fun playing with her cousins last week during Thanksgiving. We had tons of exciting things going on:

We went to the beach one morning with Kate and Owen.

While the cousins played in the water and with the birds.

Bailey tried her first handful of sand...and it was delicious!

After a fun morning at the beach, we came home and Bailey got dressed up.

She was imagining what it will be like one day to have lots of hair.

While the cousins were here, Bailey started doing all sorts of trick in one week. She went from doing a funky army crawl, to crawling normally where ever she wants. She can also pull herself up to stand on anything--even if it is really low to the ground she tries to stand up. Bailey had her nine month check up and here are her stats: 27 inches tall, 17.4 pounds--both are totally normal and average if she would have been born on time. The doctor was absolutely amazed at all of the tricks she can do--crawl, stand up, rolling, etc. She doesn't even look like a tiny preemie baby anymore. I swear that she's grown and learned all sorts of tricks in the past few weeks; she is definitely making up for all of her lost time being so tiny.

She loves her feet right now and are quite the form of entertainment for her. It comes in handy when I'm changing her diaper because she can hold her feet up for me.

This is an example of what she looks like some mornings when we come to get her out of bed! We've had to lower her crib because she had no idea how close she was to falling over. She is just so happy to stand up all the time.

She also really loves to eat now! She's eating all sorts of vegetables mixed with rice cereal. Just one month ago, the smell of rice cereal would make her gag and eating vegetables had severe consequences. She has decided to grow up.

I decided that we should give her a bath in the sink, now that she can sit up on her own. We got everything prepped and ready for a fun time, but Bailey didn't want to give it a chance.

All she wanted to do was escape the entire time. It's like she was being held captive and looking for any moment when we had our guard down to make a run for it. It's a good thing that she was too slippery to stand up. I'll get her to like it because I want my babies to take baths in the sink. I remember my mom giving us baths in the sink and I always thought that was so fun. Bailey just doesn't know what's good for her yet.

The last big event that we tried to pull off with the cousins is a photo shoot. Someone gave Bailey and Kate matching dresses and we went and bought Owen a little man suit to match. We were going to get them done at JCPennys, but of course on the day of our appointment (which happened to be the day after Thanksgiving) the power went out at the store so they had to cancel. So we did the best we could with our lack of professional photography experience (I say that smiling because the people at JCPennys aren't too professional either). Here's what we came up with:

Here's Kate, Bailey, and Owen giving us their best looks. Owen looks handsome as usual and the girls are just adorable with their dresses and hair!

Kate and Owen were good smilers in this one, but Bailey isn't quite sure what to do.

I love this look on Bailey. She really works her eyebrows to their full effect. She looks likes she's trying so hard to understand what I'm telling her. She loves listening to people talk.

Here's my pretty girl with her big smile!

It was so much fun having everyone down last week. I can't wait until it happens again in a couple of weeks for Christmas. And who knows, maybe Bailey will want to chase the big kids around so much that she'll start walking. I don't think it will be that soon, but Brian is betting by the new year. That means I need to decorate for Christmas and do some major baby-proofing this week!

Fun Stuff

First, really exciting news in my life is that my field hockey team was ranked 2nd in San Diego county this week. We had a bye today so we start CIF playoffs on Monday; we also just happen to play our major cross town rivals--Vista. It's going to be a big game since we've beaten them twice already this season. So go get 'em Longhorns!!!

Here are some much belated Halloween pictures of Bailey:

She was a cow, but I think she was the littlest longhorn. I didn't actually take any pictures on Halloween because she went to bed really early and I didn't want to wake her for a photo session. So these pictures are after one of my night field hockey games. This outfit is warm enough for a night game, but she can also be our tiny mascot. My field hockey team loved it!Here I posed her with a mini pumpkin so I can say that the pictures were Halloween pictures.She is so close to just crawling all over the place. She is still doing a funky army crawl, but she does get up on all fours sometimes and takes a few crawls forward.

I could have had her been little orphan Annie in this church dress:

Brian hates it when I take her pictures wearing the matching hat, but I just can't resist.

Here's a rare shot of the two of them actually sitting still next to each other and looking at the camera:

Here is Bailey on election day. She actually voted three times, but I could only find two of her stickers by the time I took this picture. She voted with Brian in the morning before he dropped her off with Aunt Toni. She then voted with Toni in the afternoon. When I picked her up after school, then she went and voted with me too. As you can see, she really liked voting!

I had a really funny voting story from this year. I picked up Bailey and then went to vote before my night field hockey game started, so I didn't have a lot of time. When I walked up to the poll--I voted on the campus of Cal State San Marcos--there were about 30-40 people in line. I did not have time to wait in that line and get everything done that I needed to before my game. So I waited and waited for about 10 minutes. A poll worker came out the back door and was talking to another voter who was waiting in line with me. She explained that the long line was due to the fact that there were no more English ballots and they would get more in about 20 minutes. She said that if she wanted, she could vote using a ballot in another language--Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, and something else. When their conversation was finished, I went up to speak to the worker. I asked her if I could vote in another language; she said yes, so I said let's go! I asked her if everything was the same and if they would be scanned the same just to make sure. She said yes. I told her I would like to vote in Spanish; all you really needed to know was the names of the people you were voting for and si and no. So I got my ballot en espanol and voted away. I asked if they had Spanish sticker, but I was out of luck. I was in and out in a few minutes. When I came out, everyone was still standing in the line. So Viva Voting!

It Does Happen

This morning I was determined to be on time to church. So far everything was going great. I took a shower; Brian took a shower and I fed Bailey. I wanted Bailey to be clean so I was getting ready to give her a bath. I did a quick clean of the tub and started to fill it. It was going to be a quick bath because it was nearing time to leave. We were going through our normal bath routine--clean face, clean body, play with the duck, splash around. I was on to washing the hair and singing my washing the hair song. I was making lots of bubbles on Bailey's head when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I thought, "Oh, the duck must be floating around the tub." I only wish it was the duck--it was a huge turd! I immediately called for Brian to come quick. He came in the room and started to gag, but I needed his help. I had a wet, slippery Bailey, with bubbly hair, hovering over the bath water that was rapidly becoming disgusting. So we somehow had to get the turd out, rinse Bailey off, and still be on time to church. Brian pushed aside his gagging and grabbed it out of the tub with a diaper. We then proceeded to drain the tub, but off course it couldn't happen fast enough. I put Bailey on the bed covered in suds. Once the tub was empty, I held her over the tub and Brian sprayed her off with the shower head. As I was holding Bailey, she also decided to go pee on me. She was very pleased with herself and started to laugh and smile. I just decided to go with the flow and laugh too. So needless to say, we were late for church this morning. I didn't get a picture of all the action, but here's what she wore to church today:

All she wanted to do with her shoes at church is eat them, so I let her once we got home.

I always hear these funny/gross mom stories that happen, and today we were able to experience the first of many. We just need to work on Brian's gag reflexes.

A Halloweeny Weekend

This past weekend was filled with lots of fun! First on Saturday, we had Bailey's reunion at the hospital for all of the babies born in the Special Care Nursery (most commonly called the NICU in all other hospitals). We didn't really know what to expect, being our first one. I wasn't sure if it was just the babies born this year or from years past. I was honestly picturing a small pop up tent with some cookies and a mat so the babies could crawl around. Boy, was I wrong! This was a huge affair. The oldest alumni from the nursery was 12 years old! There were about 1000 people there at the event. There was lots of food, Halloween games for the kids to play, and small pig petting zoo, face painting, clowns making balloons, Dr. Zoolittle with lots of different animals to hold, a jumpy, buckets of toys for the kids, Elmo, Donald Duck, and the highlight were the llamas to ride. When Bailey is older, she is going to love this! It was so much fun to see some of her nurses and for them to see her. They all remember her (or at least act like they do). We also saw Dr. Sebald, who was Bailey's main doctor. He was there with his cute family and he definitely remembered Bailey. He came right up to her and knew her name; he is an amazing guy. We were also reunited with some of Bailey's old roommates. We saw her first roommate

Sophia. Sophia and Bailey were originally supposed to be born on the same day--April 27--but both had other plans. Sophia was born in January at 13 ounces! She is the smallest baby ever born at Kaiser. She was in the hospital for 8 months and had 7 surgeries. What a busy life she's had so far. Now she weighs 9 pounds and is smiling and grabbing at things. It was so good to see her and talk to her parents. Bailey slept for the first hour of the party and then was awake and smiling for the rest of the time.

Here's the big sign for the event. It took up one of the parking lots in the front of the hospital, so there was really no parking that day.

She was really into Donald Duck, or at least trying to grab his big, fluffy hands. Next year I think she'll probably be afraid of big, furry characters, but for now she just wants to eat them.

Here's Bailey with Dr. Sebald. His wife said that most of the babies cry when he holds them, but not Bailey. She was so happy to see him. We were all happy to see him again.

After our hospital reunion, Brian and I had our annual Halloween party at our friends Kadee and Jim's house. This year we went has hippies; mainly because I had made a hippy costume for myself last year for school. So the rest of the afternoon, my mom and I made Brian's costume. We made some sweet bellbottoms and a nice vest. The key to his outfit was his afro wig, which came with a pick. It was a fun party as usual! There house is always decorated so cute and perfect. I love going to see what new decorations she has each year. There was lots of yummy food and we played some fun games. Brian won the slow food eating contest--saltine crackers, tootsie rolls, gummy candy, soda, and bubble gum. His choice of prizes was some Halloween candy or some Chargers salt and pepper shakers. Do I even need to tell you what he picked? Of course, he picked the Chargers shakers. I don't know if Brian would be able to survive without football. It is definitely his favorite time of year.

Here's the whole group: Eric and Tami were indians (costumes totally made by Eric), Brian and I were hippies, Kadee and Jim were Hannah Montana and her dad, Liz and Brett were and outlet and an inlet (with cute new baby Elise), and Corrina and Adam were cave people.

On Sunday, after church, we went on a family outing to Bate's Nut Farm. It's kind of a local tradition to go to Bate's Nut Farm, or Nate's But Farm as we like to call it, to pick out a pumpkin. It's this huge farm with tons of pumpkins. They have two fields of the huge pumpkins; I always want to get one of those huge ones, but they're way too big and probably way more than I ever want to spend on a pumpkin. We were excited because it was Bailey's first time there. So I dressed her up in one of her many Halloween outfits. I just finished making a matching headband for her pictures. We also took Doby, so it was truly a family affair. We took Bailey out to the huge pumpkins and started shooting. I was afraid that we would get tons of pictures of the top of her head because she would just look at the colorful pumpkins and try to eat them. That was true for most of the pictures, but we were able to get a few of her looking at the camera.

This was one of the good ones. It's funny because these pumpkins were so much bigger than her. It was also funny because there was an 8 year old boy who really wanted the pumpkin that Bailey was sitting on, so he waited about ten feet away the entire time. I kept reassuring him that we weren't going to buy this pumpkin, but just use it for some pictures. He was very skeptical and just wanted to keep his eye on us, in case we tried to make a quick dash with this 30 pound pumpkin.

I like this one the best because I just propped her up in between the pumpkins and she sat there all by herself.

We then took some pictures in the ghost pumpkin area. It was funny because I just sat her down right on the dirty ground. I'm not some type of germaphobe mom, but I've just never sat her down on dirt before. I know this is the first of years of playing in the dirt. I think she kind of liked it!

Then we took some with the regular pumpkins. Most of the pictures look like this one. She was always looking around at all of the pumpkins surrounding her.

We then let her pick out a mini pumpkin to take home, but she just really wanted to eat it.

It seemed the perfect size to fit in her mouth.

Bailey also seemed the perfect size to fit in the wheelbarrow with our pumpkin picks!

I made my pick for the day!

Other news is that Bailey is almost crawling. She does this combination of an army crawl and a huge lunge with her right arm. She can't always control if she goes forward or backward, but she definitely is moving. When she sees something that she wants, she goes for it. If she doesn't get it, she gets a little frustrated. Her are some pictures of her in action:

Here's she's up and ready to go. Yes, in another Halloween outfit; she has six!

Bailey and Doby, just hanging out together on the floor. Doby loves to bring his toys to Bailey to play with. She actually, would love to play with them because she likes red things. But since his toys are covered in lots of dog slobber and dirt, mom says no.

She's up on all fours and starting to do the rocking motion. She loves this toy because it lights up.

I couldn't resist this picture of my true California girl. Where else do you wear Uggs and a mini jean skirt together? It's cold enough to wear the boots, but not that cold that you can't wear a cute skirt. I love these boots! She wears them at my night field hockey games and practices.