For My Sista!

Keri has been bugging me for the past two weeks to post more pictures of Bailey, so this is for her! Since I've been back in school, life has been a little busy. I'm back to teaching and coaching everyday, while also fitting in Bailey time, Brian time, and some me time--so that means that there's no time left for blogging.

The Last Weekend of Summer: Labor Day Weekend

It was such a beautiful weekend; we went to the beach on Saturday and Monday. I thought it might be super crazy since it was the last weekend of the summer, but both days were perfect. It was great weather and the water was so warm, even Brian went in.

This picture is of Bailey with all of her beach toys. How many toys does one little girl need? If you're Bailey, it is exactly this many. Earlier in the summer, Bailey was always trying to take other kid's toys. Once I started bringing my mom's huge bag-o-toys, she was so happy. She would just sit in the middle of them all and smile.

This next picture, is what happens when we forget the gigantic bag of toys--we went old school on Labor Day. Bailey's toys consisted of a Big League Chew bucket, a couple of plastic cups, some cones, two measuring cups, and a random frisbee. That was basically everything that I could find in our garage. It just made me laugh because she was still just as happy.

On Saturday, Toni built her a lounging area and she loved it!

Just to prove that I did go to the beach with Bailey and not just drop her off all day :)

I just thought that this was hilarious, but Bailey didn't agree with me. She looks like an old fashioned girl wearing a swimcap.

My Little Professor:

My second day of school, Bailey had her third eye doctor appointment. I was hopeful that it would be good news, but the verdict is glasses. Our doctor said that we could wait until December, so I am. But the glasses are going to come whether I like it or not. One of the moms from my field hockey team works for a kid eye doctor, so she brought me some sample glasses so I could start to visualize what she'll look like. What do you think?

I know once we find a pair that fits her and take the stickers off, she'll be the cutest tiny professor that you've ever seen. I just think that she's already the cutest thing you've ever seen, so I'm a little sad. I'm also really worried about her keeping them on her face, but the doctor assures me that she'll be so amazed at how well she can see that she'll keep them on. She's far-sighted, so she can see everything. She'll just encounter a hard time keeping her eyes focused when she looks at things upclose--meaning without glasses, she'll have a hard time learning to read. I know that it's a good thing and for everything else that could have gone wrong with Bailey being so early, this really isn't a big deal, but it's still hard for me.

18 Months Old (now 19):

Last month we took Bailey to get pictures for her 18 month old pictures. She's now 19 months old, so that's how fast time flies! I put her in her adorable sailor dress. When we got to the studio, they had this awesome motorcycle for kids. While we waited, we let Bailey be a biker babe.

I truly can't believe how big Bailey is! I love this stage of little kids because they are learning new things everyday. She runs around and tries to repeat lots of words. Her vocabulary consists of: mama, dada, Doby, bye, hi, night night, happy, up, down, jump, lots of animal sounds, and lots of jibber-jabber. I know that any second she's going to start saying everything. It also makes me kind of sad because she's not my little baby anymore--she is a big kid! She's just begun to want to do things herself instead of coming to mom for everything. I just love her more and more everyday, even when she's grumpy and teething.

My little California Girl!

DJ B in the House!

Today Toni and I went shopping and bought Bailey something she truly could not live without--an adorable skater girl hat. She wore it around the house tonight and loved it! She kept in on while she watched and danced to Yo Gabba Gabba before she went to bed. I know that she knows when she looks super cute because she gets this look on her face, like watch what I do!

Here she's striking a pose to the music on her show.

DJ Lance Rock needs to watch his back because DJ Bailey is gearing up to take over his job on the show!

He's Real!

If we could read Bailey's mind, I'm sure she would have been thinking, "He's real! Elmo is really alive and a lot bigger than he looks on Sesame Street."

We went to Sea World last week for a few hours in the afternoon. Our first stop: Sesame Street's Bay of Play to see Elmo and Big Bird. As soon as we saw them, she was so excited! She kept reaching out and trying to grab them and would then look at me with the biggest smile on her face. It was funny because a lot of the other kids around her were squirming trying to escape and run away, but not Bailey. We came back to see Elmo again on our way out of Sea World. There was a huge group of kids that were taking a picture with Elmos, but Bailey didn't let that get in her way. She first tried to climb the fence to go get him and then she just ran up to Elmo and gave him a big hug! It was really the cutest thing I'd ever seen.

All she wanted to do with Big Bird was grab his beak, so she did.

We did go see some fish, sharks, polar bears, and penguins while we were there too. Bailey did love seeing all of the the other animals. She licked a lot of the glass clean for Sea World, so that was a bonus.
She laughed a lot in the penguin exhibit. I kept telling her to do happy feet, so she was stomping her feet the entire time. Not that she's ever seen the movie Happy Feet, but that's what I alway say when she does that.


I love this picture because you can see her reflection in the glass. I'm not sure she always knew what she was looking at through the glass, but she sure did love it.

Michigan: The Final Installment

So here's the rest of our trip to Michigan, told by pictures and short blurbs:

Sunday we went to Kim and Jesse's amazing house and had a family BBQ. All of the little kid cousins ran around the front room to burn off their food. They did stand still for a moment so I could take a picture.

Here are the two cousins--Bailey and Mallory only two days apart.

Bailey loved to eat Aunt Harriet's sparkly necklace.

Here's Bailey with Gram and Pop and a group shot.



We did quite a bit of driving, and this is what Bailey thinks about riding in a car seat for that long:

On Monday, we explored the town of Rochester. We visited Aunt Nancy at Cold Stone; I believe it was Bailey's favorite part of the trip. She mixed her own ice cream and Aunt Nancy let her eat as much as she wanted and run around the store like a crazy sugar baby!

After the ice cream, we went to a park to let Bailey burn off some of her energy. She really liked sticking her face and hands through the holes of the tunnel.

It was a great trip to finally be able to see where everyone lives and experience Michigan as a family. I especially appreciated the great weather that they ordered just for us. Our flight back was much easier than the flight there--thank goodnes!! Thanks for all of the fun and we will be back again some day to do some more exploring.

Please Say it Ain't So!!

I don't even want to write this becuase it means it's actually going to happen, but it's August already! I have officially decided that August is the worst month of the year for one awful reason: school starts :(

I really do like August, at least the first 18 days of it before I have to go back to school on the 19th. I know I won't get much pity because I have been off since the end of June, but maybe feel sorry for Bailey (because she can't hang out with her totally cool mom all day long) and Doby (because he soon will spend most of his day just sitting on his chair waiting for anyone to come play).

So I'm going to live my last almost two weeks of summer to the fullest--beach, books (maybe), more swimming lessons, scrapbooking, movies, making my quilt (that I intended to do back in July), shopping, more beach, family, fun, and just being a little lazy if I want to. Notice I'm not adding on there thoroughly cleaning my house to get ready for the year because that is definitely good summer fun. If I don't post for a while, it's not only because something won't let me upload pics to my blog (sorry about the pic-less post), but also because I'm busy having fun or being depressed.

Long live summer!!

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!