She's Bringing Sexy Back

This morning was my first dreaded day back to school after spring break. I woke up feeling sad, tired, and depressed, but my little Bailey definitely knows how to put a smile on my face. When Brian went to get Bailey this morning, he noticed that she had made a slight modification to her pajamas during the night

She's definitely bringing sexy back! She just wanted to make her pjs a little bit more modern and stylish for an almost 14 month old girl. She's growing up so quickly! I just love the look on her face--like look what I did and how funny I am. So once I saw that Bailey was in a good mood, I proceeded with the rest of my day with a smile on my face. I love my Bailey girl!!

Aside from being a fashion designer, she can also now empty her toy basket and crawl into it. It's a slightly dangerous maneuver, but as good parents we were there to video the event.

This is Bailey getting in the basket. If you get motion sickness, Brian's video taping skills may make you a little sick.

Here's the dangerous part--getting out of the basket!

Feeling the Beat

I was just sitting at the computer while Bailey crawled around the kitchen and played with everything. She's fascinated with straps, so she stood up and played with her high chair. I was checking on everybody's blog, and I went to my sister Keri's blog. Her blog has the music playlist that automatically starts playing when you enter the site. When the music started playing, Bailey started dancing to the beat. It's really funny if you watch this video about half way through I switch to a different song--"What's My Name" or something like that. About the time that the drums start beating, Bailey started doing some jazzy knee pop to go along with the music. I'm sure it's coincidental, but I'd like to think that she just has great rythym! I do apologize that I'm always so loud on the videos, but I can't help talking to Bailey, singing along, and laughing with her! Just another fun day of spring break.

A Dancing Machine

Bailey has started to dance. She does it when she gets really excited or hears music. It's mostly just a lot of bouncing and some arm waving, but every now and then she gets really creative and throws some ballet moves in there. I got a video of her doing some ballet leg lifting during a dancing session. I too am bouncing a lot so this video may cause sea sickness. It's not too exciting, but it makes me laugh.

Also check out her cute outfit that grandma bought for her. I love babies in dresses and leggings. I want to go out and buy leggings in every color, but it's kind of the end of legging season so I'm having a hard time. Maybe it's a sign that I really don't need to buy leggings in every color.

I Did Want a Clean House

Here's Brian, our fire fighting hero!

I am on week two of my fabulous spring break!! I may not always love all of the 7th graders that I teach, but I do always love the schedule of a teacher. I will always be able to enjoy the things that every child cherished--summer time, spring breaks, and Christmas vacation! I had three main goals this break:
1. hang out with Bailey every day and be a mom
2. finally finish decorating Bailey's room
3. clean my house

There are days when I can barely stand my house because it's dirty--not scary/gross dirty, but just little cluttered stuff that I don't always have time to take care of while I work. I told Brian that I was going to clean two major things a day on my break, so by the end my house would be clean. On the first day I did great because Bailey was a super napper that day--3 1/2 hours (that's a world record for her). I cleaned the downstairs bathroom--every single inch--all baseboards, and kitchen. I also put all of Bailey's clothes away and packed up her ones that didn't fit her anymore. So last Monday, I was feeling off to a good start. Tuesday wasn't as successful cleaning, but I went running with Toni and ran lots of errands with Bailey. Tuesday night was when IT happened.

We (meaning Brian) cooking a delicious recipe that I found in a magazine: chicken tortilla pie. It called for roasted tomatillos in the oven. As I was sitting on the couch I noticed that the cookie sheet was tilted up toward the top of the oven. I asked Brian about it, but he said it was normal, so Toni and I continued watching tv. One minute later, I looked back at the oven only to see a rolling fire in the oven! These were real flames, not just a little spark, but big flames. So I told Brian and he jumped into action grabbing the fire extinguisher which we luckily had close by. Flames and smoke were now streaming out of the top of the oven and smoke was quickly filling the room. Brian had the fire extinguisher and opened the oven and totally went ghost busters! Let me explain the phrase: you remember in the movie when the guys were killing the giant marshmellow guy? Well, that's what Brian looked like! He had his neutron blaster/fire extinguisher in hand and a very intense look on his face. He continued to fire his weapon until it was entirely empty. At that point smoke and fire extinguisher dust rapidly spread throughout the room. We grabbed Bailey, high chair included, and ran out to the balcony. We all could not believe what had just happened--Brian had put out a real fire! Ty also joined us on the balcony after crawling army style up the stairs because he's a Eagle Scout and knew to drop below the smoke :) We then went downstairs outside for a while to try to sort this out. When we finally came back upstairs, the house was completely covered in this thick layer of chemical dust.

Now, I am very glad that our house didn't burn down, but this threw my cleaning plan out the window. I now had to clean my entire house to rid it of this dust. Wednesday we had the carpets and couches cleaned; Thursday we had the tile cleaned because I could not figure out how to get rid of the stuff. So by Thursday afternoon, Bailey was finally able to crawl around the house again. Every spare moment since the fire has been spent cleaning things that I haven't cleaned in a really long time--top of the fridge, plate hanging racks, inside light fixtures, all cupboards cleaned and dusted. My list could go on and on! I like to quiz Brian each day he comes home to see if he can notice the obscure items that I cleaned that day. My quizzing has come to an end because I think I've finished this floor of the house--yeah!!

I don't have any fun pictures of the event, but I do have a couple of suggestions:
1. do keep a fire extinguisher in your kitchen
2. keep a small one in your kitchen
3. use fire extinguishers sparingly

Knee High Headbands

It is well known that I love dressing Bailey for church on Sundays. Thanks to Sam, I have also learned the very fine art of making headbands from knee-high pantyhoes. I try to make Bailey a headband to go with every dress. Sometimes they turn out adorable, and others are kind of a flop. The past few weeks I've been going a little crazy matching her dresses. With her apple dress, I made a navy blue with red bow. Who wears navy blue knee highs? The bigger question is who still wears knee highs? Whoever does, I thank them because they make it possible for me to totally coordinate my daughter's outfits.

With her polka dot dress I made a white band with a blue bow. These pictures show her progression of melt down after 1:00 church.

Starting out very sleepy.

Next phase is not wanting to eat, but just sit in her high chair and be sad. She's not possessed, I just don't know how to turn on the red eye on my camera.

I love this last one because this is how she used to fall asleep when she was just a tiny little thing.

A New Found Fish

Yesterday we took the kids--Bailey, Kate, and Owen--to the kid pool at Lawrence Welk Resort. I put Bailey in one of her new big girl bathing suits and she looked adorable, but I wasn't quite sure how she would react. I think I found her new favorite thing--water! I carried her, at first, around all of the water things. She had no fear and would stick her head right in the water. I was wearing my cover up dress over my bathing suit because I thought I wouldn't get wet just walking around--boy was I wrong!! Bailey would get so excited she'd kick her little legs and flail her arms in the water until I was completely soaked. When I could tell that she clearly wasn't afraid of the water, I put her down on the ground and let her go. She crawled right up to the water and loved it. She would sit right underneath the giant shower and scream (a happy scream). It was so much fun to watch her play. Once she started to get a little cold, we went into the pool because it was like a giant bathtub. She jumped right into the water without a moments hesitation. I can already tell what we're going to be doing this summer. I'm not sure how much you can teach a one year old to swim, but we're going to do it! I think she would have stayed in the pool for hours, but her diaper was filled to the max and she was a wrinkly as an old prune. Swimming diapers are the next item I added to my shopping list.

How can you resist such an adorable face? This was her pre-swim lunch of yogurt. She loves yogurt, but more than the yogurt, she loves the container.

I don't know if this truly captures her excitement, but she's screaming because she loves it; I'm screaming because she keeps soaking me with water. (Please try to ignore me)

This is how Kate and Owen spent their time--drinking the water as it would shoot up from the ground. I guess there's enough clorine to kill anything really bad? :)

Both Bailey and Kate loved swimming around in the pool.

Here's my little pink daisy after her swim. She ate almost an entire tangerine by herself; she worked up quite an appetite with all her "swimming."

What We've Been Doing

In my month hiatus from blogging, here's what's been going on in case you were wondering:

In one week, Bailey came down with pneumonia and started teething. Needless to say, it was a really fun week! I took a day off to stay home with her while she was sick. Thank goodness that Toni wasn't back in school yet because she watched her for two days. I took a picture of the trail of toys that Bailey created the day I stayed home with her. She would get one toy out, play with it for a minute, then go back to the toy basket for another one. For being a sick, teething baby, Bailey was surprisingly happy during her sick days. Luckily, she's doing great now!

She's started teething and has two bottom teeth that have broken through. Since she's started teething, her days of chewing on my chin are numbered. I know that it looks really weird, but she has always loved chewing on my chin. I don't know if she likes how it feels or that I move it up and down, but I think it's really funny--and it hurts now with her tiny teeth!I've been attempting to get Bailey to drink from a sippy cup. As you can see from this picture, they haven't been really successful attempts. She always ends up chewing on the bottom of the cups or on the handles. I have about five different kinds of cups, but she doesn't get any of them yet. Any ideas on good cups to start with?Bailey's new favorite trick is to play with the drawers. She finally discovered that they open and that there's stuff inside of them--or I should say that there used to be stuff inside of them. She loves to open them, but smashes her fingers a lot because she doesn't realize that she has to move them when she closes the drawer. In the drawer up in our bathroom, she has emptied the Q-tip box one too many times!And last, but not least, I have been playing more dress up with Bailey. My new favorite accessory is leg warmers. I know that they're meant for bigger kids to go up to their knees, but I couldn't wait that long. The leg warmers are so big that they work more like tights for Bailey. I think it's so cute that her "chunky" upper thigh hangs out at the top.

Who needs tights or pants in February, when you have striped leg warmers?