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.