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.

Future Star

On Thursday, my field hockey team had their team pictures down on the beach. I wanted Bailey to be a part of the team pictures, so we made her a uniform too. My mom made her a mini kilt out of an old kilt. My friend Jeanne turned her onsie into a jersey with "Hook 'em" on the butt. She also had her own tiny stick that she loved. All she wanted to do is to look at her stick and eat it. She was truly the cutest thing you've ever seen! The girls went nuts over her outfit. I even put her in the big team photo, so she'll be in the yearbook this year. It seems like it has come full cirlce because I was in Vista High's yearbook when I was a baby and my mom coached the pagentry girls. I even had a mini uniform too. So now my daughter is in the yearbook with my team.

Here's the best picture where you can see her uniform. She's hanging out with Michelle, who she loves. Look how cute her kilt is! I think we have a future field hockey star on our hands.

She's making what looks like a sad face in this picture, but she's just teething right now. I'm expecting a tooth to pop out any day. She is constantly feeling her gums with her tongue and makes this face for most of the day.

Here she is with the team. We probably shouldn't have given her the stick because she wouldn't look up, but it was too cute.

Here's my team jumping for joy! They're doing so well this year. Right now were ranked 4th in San Diego. Our record is 11-4. We start league this week and I plan on winning this year!

Here's a picture of the Hook 'em on her butt. It's so cute because it shows right above her kilt.She has also started to notice her feet, especially when she has shoes on. She wants to eat them. When Brian first ordered these shoes, we both thought, wow, it will be so long until she wears those. Now she's wearing them, and they're almost too small for her. She is growing every day. She'll be eight months old next Monday; time really does fly by.A couple of weekends ago, we went to this awesome baby swap meet. (FYI for any moms out there, the next one is in March and you have to come because it is such good bargain shopping) We bought this door jumpy thing for $10. I'm sure that it's been posted on some safety hazard list, but she loves it. She looks like such a big girl in it.This has been a momentous weekend for Bailey because she is actually eating real food. Last night Roxann got her to eat a jar of peas and tonight she ate a jar of carrots. I was even able to slip in a little rice cereal. She really seemed top be enjoying them too--no gagging or extreme spitting. She still loves her spoon and tries to grab it the entire time. You might also notice the extremely large bow that is on her head. I was cleaning out my closet and came across a basket that had some cards and bows from our wedding. Well, this bow just seemed too cute to pass up, so I tied it on her head. She didn't even notice it was there. Later in the night, when we were playing on the ground, Doby (our dog) came by and took it off her head because he loves big bows too.

Day by Day

If you couldn't tell by my extreme lack of posts, I'm back in school. This is our fifth week, but it feels way longer than that. I now have a true appreciation and admiration for all working moms and the day-by-day struggle and stress that they go through. I'm also totally jealous of all moms who get to stay home with their cute kids all day, but I do get to do that on the weekends, all holidays, and of course my fabulous summers! So much has gone on so here are some highlights:

1. On August 19th (the day before I had to go back to school) Bailey turned 6 months old!! At her appointment she weighed 12 pounds 12 ounces and was 2 feet tall exactly! I just love saying that she's two feet tall at the moment. We went back down to the hospital to be examined by her doctors, nurses, and therapists. They said that she was doing great. It was so awesome to go back and visit everyone at the hospital. All of the nurses remembered her and it was a huge moment for us. Lots of memories and emotions all came back at the same time.

This is nurse Laura who took care of Bailey a lot while we were still in the hospital. All of the nurses, doctors, and staff love to see the NICU alumni come back to visit. They get so excited to see how they grow. They all remembered her cute face and her beautiful eyes. We'll be back soon to visit again.

2. Bailey can now roll from her stomach to her back and her back to her stomach. She started rolling wherever she wants to last week. It's so fun to watch her. Once she's on her stomach she kind of pivots in circles to see and grab what she wants. She can sometimes scoot forward if she's really motivated. My guess is that she'll be crawling before Chrismas.

3. We've started trying (with a hugh emphasis on trying) to feed her rice cereal. She absolutely hates it! We've been trying for a few weeks, and I bet she's actually swallowed only one spoonful total. The only thing that she loves is the colorful spoon that we feed her with. Here are some pictures of her eating or attempting to eat:

Here's the only part of eating that she loves--the spoon.

See her look of utter disgust.

And that is where all of her food ends up--on her chin. She's saying, "You're kidding, right? There's no way I'm going to eat this stuff. I'd like to see you try mom!"

4. Brian's Aunt Nancy came out last week to meet Bailey. They turned into instant friends. Bailey gave Aunt Nancy and Grandma Roxann a run for their money when they watched her one day.

Here's Aunt Nancy and Bailey

Here's Roxann and Nancy giving Bailey lots of love!

5. She started getting really good at grabbing things. It looks like she's riding a roller coaster in this picture. She's got both hands gripped tightly around her bouncy chair; she's ready to go!

She can also hold her bottle for a while when she eats. She either gets distracted or too focused eating to worry about what her hands are doing. We work on it every time.

6. As always I've been having way too much fun playing dress up with Bailey. I usually have the most fun on Sundays getting her ready for church. Here are some of my favorites:

Here's a cute dress that Brittany gave to Bailey. Hi Brittany!

This is the first dress that we bought for Bailey the night that we found out we were having a girl. She looked so super cute in it!

This is the dress that Aunt Keri bought for Bailey. She has the best aunts who love to spoil her constantly with cute clothes and lots of love!

And this is my happy girl! I have so much fun with her every day. I love being Bailey's mom and watching her grow and learn.Last Friday she turned 7 months old! I can't believe how quickly the time is flying by.

Give peace a chance!

Wearing big girls shoes!

Hanging out with Aunt Toni!