It's Officially Summer!

Today is officially my first day of summer! School's been out for almost two weeks, but I went to a seven day training at my school all last week. I have never been more ready and excited for a summer than this one. This was my tenth year of teaching, and it really pushed my limits. So I'm just starting to feel free and relaxed. The only real thing that I have left to do is field hockey camp this week and then I'm really a free woman.

To kick off our summer time fun, we went to the Del Mar Fair on Saturday. Brian and I love going to the fair. It's always the same exact thing, but just something that signifies summer to us. This year is was fun in a new way because we were able to bring Bailey. We walked around all of the booths and didn't even buy anything this time--except for some delicious cookies, fresh potato chips, and caramel apple. After looking at everything to buy, we went to the animal barns. It was perfect timing because the bunnies were on display. I have always loved looking at the bunnies, except for the white ones with devilish red eyes. Bailey loved the bunnies too; I think she loved trying to touch their rabbit food even more. We just walked around and she smiled and waved hello to each and every bunny.

Then we went to the petting zoo. Things have really changed! When I was little the animals roamed freely in the petting zoo and you could just walk right up to them. Now the animals are all in their big pens and you can pet them if they come up to the fence. Bailey absolutely loved it! At first she was a little hesitant walking around to the different stalls, but then once she got the hang of it she ran from animal to animal. She was able to pet a giant cow, some goats, a sheep, and a tiny chick. We almost had a near death experience with the tiny chick. The people working at the petting zoo had to get the chicks out for you and then we could pet them. The first time Bailey pet the tiny chick, I had to make her touch it because she didn't really notice it. The second time around, Bailey walked right up and wacked the chick in a really soft way. Bailey doesn't seem to grasp the concept of soft yet, so that was her softly petting the tiny chick. The worker girl was a little surprised and the other girl pettting the chick started laughing. I told her that we needed to go pet the animals that were big enough that she couldn't kill them.

Here's Bailey with the goats. If she wasn't petting the animals, she was trying to climb their cages.

Here's Bailey with big cow, but she's already thinking ahead to her next stop.

We let her run around there for about 20 minutes, then we headed home for the day. She was so worn out that she fell asleep on the walk out to our car, but not before a ride on dad's shoulders. Here are just some more funny photos of what Bailey's been up to:

She thinks that she can feed herself now. It makes her so happy, but it also makes a huge mess.

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We went to the beach a couple of days after my workshop training. They were very sleepy days at the beach and not too happy, but she did have her rake. This was on the way down to the beach one day.

I still dress her like my little doll on Sundays. Oh, and she's walking everywhere. No more crawling :(

When she's tired during the day and at night, you can tell her to lay down to go to bed and she does. It's really cute! She can understand a lot of things right now. You can see her thinking about what to do.

And this is my favorite--this is what she thinks of vegetables! She will eat them, but when she's done, she let's you know. Look at the determination in her little face.

Baby Dance Off

Today Kyle, Sam, Kate, and Owen drove down to stay the week at the beach. After dinner, we decided to put some music on so the kids could dance. Wow! I haven't even seen moves this hot on So You Think You Can Dance! Bailey has a new, awesome move called the twist. She's added it to her regimen of small squats, low squats, and bouncing. It was so fun to watch all three of them dance around the room. Watch the video closely to see a glimpse of Owen shoot by the camera. These days you can get Bailey to start dancing just by clapping and singing. This girl has got rhythm!

Such a Big Girl

Bailey is almost 16 months old. This is such a fun stage! She learns new things everyday; you can just see her brain thinking with everything that she does. When she's not trying to figure something out, she just like to chill and watch Yo Gabba Gabba! It's her (and Brian's) new favorite show. She usually dances the entire time (I'm still trying to get a good video of it) But doesn't she just look like a big girl? She's got her tiny barrette and her walking shoes. Here are some fun pictures of what she does:

She kind of has a love/hate relationship with her shoes. When she sees her shoes, or any shoes, she gets really excited and tries to put them on her feet. The part she loves best on her shoes is the velcro--what a fabulous invention. She loves opening and closing the velcro. Once her shoes are on, she then likes to try to take them off. If she's wearing sandals, they're usually off before we get wherever we're going in the car.

Bailey is always teething! Just when I think she'll get a little break from new teeth, another batch will start to come in. That's why she's always chewing on something--fingers, high chair, Doby's toys, shoes, etc. It's also why she's usually in a constant state of snot. The joys of being a baby--snot and teeth. Right now she has the two bottom teeth, working on the four top teeth, and I think the second set of bottom teeth are working their way in too.

She also does kind of an air raid move. She'll be crawling or walking around and then flatten out on the ground. She'll also do it if you ask her to go night night. I think she's also seeing what the floor tastes like in this picture--yum!

She also likes to try to escape or do stuff that she knows she shouldn't. She just looks back at me and gives me a little smirk, like look what I can do.

Here she's so happy that Doby came to visit her in the bath. She loves playing with Doby, but I'm not quite sure that he loves her just as much. I don't know what I'll do when she doesn't fit in the sink; it's so convenient.