Some Serious Booty Shakin'

Last week Bailey started doing an awesome new dance move--she shakes her booty. I don't know where she got it from, but the girl can definitely work it! It's really funny because the rest of her body is completely still and the look on her face is like nothing is going on. Her new move is accentuated in this video by the fact that she's only wearing a shirt and her diaper. You can see her little diaper move from side to side as she shakes it. This video is also funny because Kate was desparately trying to get our attention too by doing some really nice modern dance moves while Bailey was shaking her butt. I sense either some cousin rivalry going on or some great dance offs in the coming years. Hopefully, this video will make you laugh as much as we did.

Kyle, Sam and the kids came down this past weekend again. I think that makes it three in a row! I'm so glad they moved closer to us. On Saturday we went to a wedding while Keri and Toni watched all three kids. Look at Keri's blog to see some super cute pictures of what went on while we were out.

Christmas in July at Frankenmuth (To Michigan and Back: Part II)

On Saturday we went to the tiny town of Frankenmuth, Michigan--or little Bavaria. The whole town is really cute and looks old fashioned. We at a restaurant that had authentic Bavarian food, so Brian ordered a plate of sausage. This is Brian's favorite picture of the entire trip. This is Bailey trying to grab the sausage from Brian's plate. She was tired at this point and wanted to eat everything.

Right down the street from Frankenmuth is the world famous Bonner's Christmas store. This store is open 361 days a year and has every single Christmas item you could ever wish for. It was like a dream come true for me to be completely surrounded by Christas in July. As we walked in, I thought what a great place to work becuase you get to sing Christmas songs all year long! The store is huge and goes on forever and ever. We were in there for about an hour and we had to rush to make it from one side to the other. We thought that Bailey would fall asleep in the store, but there was so much for her to look at that she didn't even blink her eyes.

Here are the little Christmas elves that greet you as you enter the store.Photo op #1: Once Bailey realized that you just put your face in the hole of this snowman, she loved it!

Photo op #2: This is not something they advertise, but you can pick up the extremely large cookie from Mrs. Clause's cookie tray and pretend you're eating it. Just be sure that none of the little kids see you doing this because then they'll want to do it too.

While running through the store, we found Santa doing some shopping, so we took a picture. Bailey was really fascinated with him.

Outside they has this Christmas float. I don't know if it's out there year round, but we took some pictures with the float and then with Bailey on the float.

She was very curious about this little elf probably wondering why he wasn't speaking to her.

Here's a better close up of the two of them.

Later that night we went to a mini concert with Marty and Melanie. It was the lead singer from the band the Verve Pipe--Brian Vander Ark? They sang that song "The Freshmen" back in the day. He was a great singer. The house where he sang was right on a lake, so we sat outside under the stars and the fireflies and listened to the music. It was a lot of fun and I only got two mosquito bites!

To Michigan and Back: Part I

We got back on Tuesday from our first family vacation. We went out to Michigan to visit Brian's family--grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was a really nice trip, with the exception of one thing--the flight out there! I will never again take a red-eye flight across the country with a toddler (I guess that Bailey is a toddler now)! Bailey has never cried so much in her entire life as she did on the flight to Atlanta. It was 4 1/2 hours of crying, screaming, and trying to break free. We were in the last row, so no reclining seats and we had two extremely rude people in front of us. The woman actually said, "If that were my child, she'd be dead on the runway by now!" Can you believe it?! And that was even before we took off. I'm really glad that Brian didn't hear because he would have tried to kill that woman. I'm not going to talk about it any more because we did survive, but just barely.

This is a picture of Bailey on our flight from Atlanta to Detroit; see how chipper she looks! This flight wasn't full so we each got our own reclining seats. She fell fast asleep about five minutes after I took this picture.

We stayed with his cousins Marty and Melanie and their two kids Marty and Mallory. Bailey and Mallory are two days apart, so it was really fun to watch them play together. Little Marty adored Bailey and called her all week, "cute, tiny, Bailey!" We had unusually wonderful weather for this time of year and I only got two tiny mosquito bites, so I'm going to call the trip a success! Here's our trip through pictures:

Aunt Nancy picked us up from the airport on Thursday morning. After some visiting and naps, we spent the afternoon walking around Rochester. We ate lunch at Knapps, which is the best place in town. That night we drove to Marty and Melanie's house. One thing that is different from California is that everything is so far spread out. To get anywhere we had to drive at least 30 minutes, but it was really nice to be able to check everything out. Gram and Pop were nice enough to let us use their car, so we enjoyed our drives in the nice, comfy seats. Friday we spent the day adjusting to the time change and just playing with the kids around the house. At night Brian, Marty, Melanie, and I went to Detroit for a night out on the town. Thanks to Aunt Harriet, Uncle Fred, and Aunt Nancy who were on babysitting duty that night. We heard the kids gave them a run for their money, but they all survived. We ate some yummy food in Greek Town before heading to the Tigers baseball game. People in Detroit are serious about their sports teams. Everyone in the stadium was wearing some sort of Tigers gear. The Tigers won the game and we watched fireworks after. Once we found our way back to Greek Town we went to a popular bakery and ordered delicious treats. Brian then had to order a small pizza from Pizza Papalis--the best pizza place ever! We were going to eat it the next day for lunch, but we decided to make it our midnight snack on the way back home. I know it sounds like we're total pigs, but it really was delicious!

Here's the picture of our extreme pig out in the McDonald's parking lot because we had to get drinks to go with our pizza.

4th of July Fun

The 4th of July is a big holiday for my family because it's my sister Keri's birthday and we have a lot of traditions. For as long as I can remember, we've spent the day at the beach. We go down really early in the morning, stake out our territory, and try to block out other invaders throughout the day. We weren't sure what to expect this year because the 4th fell on a Saturday, but there were no fireworks at the beach. The morning crew claimed excellent shore front property on Saturday around 6:30. There wasn't the usual mad dash for the last inch of space on the beach, but it did fill up slowly throughout the day. I came down at 9:00 with Bailey with all of the gear for the day. We weren't planning on staying all day and night at the beach because of the lack of fireworks and because we didn't think that all of the babies would last that long. Well, what do we know about babies?! The kids lasted all day from 9:00-6:00! Bailey, Kate, and Owen get an A+++ for the day. They were able to play, eat, and nap enough to last the entire day at the beach.

Bailey's favorite part of the beach was the sand. There were several times during the day when I looked at her as she was rolling around in the sand. Just the thought of being completely covered in sand sounds miserable to me, but she didn't mind at all. She did eat her fair amount of sand while she was playing, but I guess that's just part of being a kid. The water was really cold, but my mom bought a little inflatable pool that we filled with water and it warmed in the sun throughout the day. Most of my day was spent playing with Bailey in the sand and constantly covering her with sunscreen. I really didn't want her to burn, so I put more sunscreen on her at least once every two hours. All of the kids made it throughout the day sunburn free!

After a good day at the beach, we went to the Pack's house for yummy food and a perfect view of the fireworks. I'd like to say that Bailey enjoyed the fireworks, but I think she was way too tired to notice what she was looking at. On our way home from the Packs, we literally drove into a fireworks show in San Marcos so we pulled over to watch. We took Bailey out to watch; her eyes were open but she was totally zoned out. It was a perfect ending to another successful 4th of July celebration.

My camera's battery died as soon as I got it out for the first picture of the day, but I took some with Sam's camera (thanks Sam!). Here are some shots of the day:

This was the first picture of the day. Notice how clean and sand-free she is.

This is a more realistic view of what she looked like for most of the day--completely covered in sand!When she wasn't rolling in the sand, she was eating a little at a time from her shovel.

Here the girls spend a little time with Grandpa in the shade. I believe this picture was right before they both went down for a nap and right before my dad gave both of them back to us!

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.